Swift and the Banking Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce have introduced new legal and technology standards for the new Bank Payment Obligation payment instrument. The BPO allows buyers and suppliers to secure and finance international trade transactions. It provides the benefits of a letter of credit in an automated and secured environment, and […]
UBS has appointed Oliver Bussmann as group chief information officer, replacing Michele Trogni, who is retiring after 25 years at the bank, the last four of which she spend as head of group technology. Bussman will take up the post at the beginning of June.
The emergence of alternative payments providers such as PayPal and the growth of mobile payments systems such as M-Pesa should be seen as a major opportunity for banks, not a threat, according to Ron van Wezel, global head of emerging payment streams at Deutsche Bank.
As tough new rules requiring the collateralisation of OTC derivatives take hold in Europe and the US, Citi has retooled its OpenInvestor investment services to include segregated collateral custody accounts – a move the bank says will help mitigate counterparty risk and improve collateral efficiency.
Bank of America has launched a new ATM service that will allow users to have a video conversation with a human teller at the machine.
Technology company NCR has introduced contactless ATMs in Poland that allow customers to withdraw cash without inserting a card, through a joint project with MasterCard and ING Bank Slaski.
Dutch bank ING has appointed Ron van Kemenade as its new CIO. Van Kemenade has 20 years of experience in the financial services and online sectors. Previously CIO of ING in the Netherlands, the promotion will see him CIO for the entire ING Bank. Van Kemenade joined ING in 2003 as Internet manager at Postbank […]
Standard Chartered has appointed Peter Burnet as its regional head of corporate finance for northeast Asia. In his new role, Burnett will cover project and export finance, mergers and acquisitions advisory, structured trade finance, financing solutions and equity capital markets.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has launched a service aimed at helping smaller banks to cope with Dodd-Frank rules for US cross-border trades.
Asset finance has had a lower profile than other types of loan. But the overall squeeze on lending and higher business loan rejection rates have led to an increased demand for leasing arrangements by SMEs. As a result, asset finance is now the third most common source of finance for businesses.
In future, the possibility of a bank failure will be accepted as a normal market process, and barriers to entry for new start-ups, including a removal of capital requirement obstacles, will be removed, the Financial Services Authority and the Bank of England have confirmed.
Barclays has appointed Shaygan Kheradpir to the new role of chief operations and technology officer.He will join the executive committee of Barclays and report directly to group chief executive Antony Jenkins.
Bank of America has introduced a new credit card that rewards customers with up to £100 annually for responsibly managing their monthly credit card payments.
Spanish bank Banco Santander has signed a deal with iZettle, a fledgling Swedish payments specialist that focuses on ‘social’ payments. The two companies plan to distribute mini chip-card readers to customers, so that they can accept card payments with smartphones and tablets.
Barclays has appointed Nicki Thomson as head of business services for corporate banking. In her new role, Thomson will lead a team of relationship directors tasked with providing lending and banking support to the business services sector.
Banks may have a poor reputation with the public, but the majority of people in the UK would be more likely to adopt mobile payment services if they are provided by a bank.
Germany’s Commerzbank has adopted a visual transaction signing tool from British security firm Cronto for its online banking customers, designed to protect against Trojan malware.
HSBC and Barclays have begun trading Singapore-listed stocks on the London Stock Exchange, using the LSE’s newly-created international board.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has launched a treasury management reporting tool, CashPro Accelerate, in Asia Pacific.
Payment protection insurance has dominated the coverage of complaints against banks for some time now, but many observers think that it is just the beginning of a wave of grievances about to engulf the retail banking industry.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is seeking to attract long-term investors who have become disillusioned with equity markets. Its new trading system, Instinct Natural, is a crossing network that is clearly geared towards customers that want to trade in blocks. But market participants have expressed concerns about its potential to meet the needs of long-term investors.
Citi has introduced a new kind of ATM designed to help customers do virtually all their banking without visiting a branch.
Lloyds Banking Group is to cut 940 more jobs, the latest in a series of savage headcount culls at major financial institutions. Separate announcements earlier this week confirmed 200 human resources jobs would be axed, and a further 175 cuts made in the Halifax branch network.
HSBC is to pilot a foreign exchange netting system in China after getting approval from authorities there – the first foreign bank to get such approval. The programme is part of the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange’s recently launched Foreign Currency Centralised Management pilot scheme for multinational companies.
Citi has established a set of alliances with Clearstream and Euroclear Bank that it says will transform the way broker-dealers manage their collateral, freeing up precious resources as onerous new regulations in the US and Europe burden banks with tougher collateral requirements.
RBS and NatWest have launched a free online business supplier community called BizCrowd, which is designed to encourage collaboration between British SMEs.
JP Morgan has begun rollout of its new multi-asset class trading platform, JP Morgan Markets, which the firm says will make it easier for clients to bring together different elements such as research and analytics and convert them into successful trades.
BNY Mellon is planning to open a new issuer central securities depository that it claims will offer market participants more efficient post-trade services.
As we’re broadly in agreement with the view of a character in Carla Lane’s 1970s sit-com The Liver Birds that opera is “just Italians arguing to music”, we’d best pass on this news with as little critical comment as possible. Following the success of oddball opera subjects – Nixon in China, Jerry Springer: The Opera […]
Asset managers should take five simple steps to counter the effect of rising collateral requirements for OTC derivatives, according to a joint study by BNY Mellon and Rule Financial.
Barclays has appointed former FSA chief executive Hector Sants as head of compliance and government and regulatory relations.
The Financial Services Authority has instructed HSBC to set-up a board-level committee with a mandate to oversee matters relating to anti-money laundering, sanctions, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.
BNP Paribas Securities Services is planning to offer a post-trade service for banks and brokers that want to take advantage of the new cross-trade deal between the London Stock Exchange and the Singapore Exchange.
