The replacement of business processes based on paper documents with the exchange of information in electronic form is a highly beneficial global trend, and the competitiveness of Europe’s economic activity will benefit from this migration.
Online payments provider Optimal Payments has launched a new online checkout page, designed to help e-commerce merchants with indemnified alternative payments.
Cross-border low-value payments service provider Earthport, has opened a new payment route into China to support trade payments into the region.
Yantra Financial Technologies, an electronic payment systems developer, has integrated its latest system for risk scoring of payments with the Ripple real-time settlement protocol. The integration means that institutions using the Ripple protocol can analyse transactions in seconds, including what other payments the customer recently made and potential concerns regarding a specific transaction. Risk levels can be assigned to certain transactions based on pre-determined criteria.
RBS has confirmed that it has hired Marion King, formerly president of UK and Ireland at MasterCard, in the newly created role of director of payments in the New Year.
Corporate treasurers are increasingly looking beyond traditional of finance to a wider range of alternative funding options that support their working capital requirements, including supply chain finance, trade receivable securitisation and factoring.
While a great deal of attention has been given to Lloyds Banking Group’s retail operations as its various elements are split up, less has been given to its activities in transaction banking, where it is “one year into a three-year journey” to transform itself and its customer offerings to create“the best global transaction bank in this region”.
Farid Akhundov, chairman of the executive board of PASHA Bank, discusses how the bank is working to achieve its ambitions in corporate banking in the Caucasus region
London and Singapore are fast closing the gap on Hong Kong in the race to become centres for offshore renminbi business and capitalise on Beijing’s ambition to make the RMB a global currency.
Regulatory mandates call for the financial services industry to collaborate and rethink its data supply chain to tackle systemic risk and improve transparency. Looking at how the retail industry manages its supply chain could hold the key.
Barclays plans to offer corporate banking users a new security services based on Hitachi’s Finger Vein Authentication Technology from early next year and is considering introducing it to branches for consumers.
The increased globalisation of business has opened up new challenges – and opportunities – for companies and the banks that serve them. Corporate treasurers and finance professionals face complexities in the payments arena that range from inconsistencies in local payment processing to new regulations, emerging payment clearing systems and the need to manage geopolitical risk in an ever-expanding array of countries. To address these challenges for their clients, and for themselves, global banks need to invest and innovate to make sure they have the solutions to meet business needs today and in the future.
Corporates want easier connection to their financial institutions – is Swift the answer or do other options exist?
As delegates finalise their plans to attend Sibos in Boston this month, Chris Church, chief executive Americas and global head of securities at Swift, discusses what they can expect
Europe now represents 10% of total Renminbi payments in value worldwide and is leading adoption beyond Asian countries, with four European countries in the top 10, excluding China and Hong Kong, according to Swift. Overall, the RMB strengthened its position as the seventh most used global payments currency and accounted for 1.57% of global payments.
From Senegal to the Seychelles, and Botswana to Uganda, new demands and new opportunities are emerging in Africa, but there are still challenges
The UK Government is to examine the potential of digital currencies as positive force in the wider economy and as a means of encouraging innovation in financial services.
Nordic financial services group Nordea has gone live in Frankfurt and London with a web-based trade finance solution, which it says will help to strengthen its international trade finance business.
Essential parts of the UK retail banking sector lack effective competition and do not meet the needs of personal consumers or SMEs, according to government body the Competition and Markets Authority, which is now planning to launch a full investigation that could last 18 months.
The rise of new technologies is drastically redefining both the responsibilities of chief financial officers and the way they work, providing the ability tomake better organisational decisions with faster, accurate and more reliable data.
In a landmark ruling, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the intermediated settlement of financial exchanges is an abstract idea and therefore not patent-eligible. David Puth, chief executive of CLS, which won the case in question. discusses the implications of the ruling.
A lesson learned from the global financial crises was how critical free cash flow can be for corporates, their customers, and their suppliers. As businesses seek to unlock cash flow from day-to-day operations, savvy treasurers have discovered vendor payments as a means to extend payment terms while improving vendor health, writes Chris Bozek, Managing Director, Head of Global Trade and Supply Chain Products Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The work corporates are doing to streamline cash management processes should not end with SEPA implementation, says. Indeed, the principles and ideas underpinning SEPA can inform progress even in the most challenging markets.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has launched a new service that lets corporates manage up to 18 local Chinese bank accounts through a single global electronic banking platform.
Managing cash in stores remains a major challenge for retailers – trapped cash hinders working capital management and is unavailable for investment, debt repayment or business expansion. But new ways are being developed to manage store cash …
When the US Federal Reserve Banks asked for comments on improving the US payments system, the tech industry and merchants said “let’s go” while the incumbents said “whoa, not so fast” …
With a revolution in consumer payments happening at the point-of-sale, online and increasingly through the mobile channel, there is a need and an appetite for change across every aspect of the payments industry.
Banks don’t really understand the needs of corporates and are often so busy focusing on selling that they forget basic customer requirements, according to speakers at the IPS conference in London this week
The banking industry is complex by its nature but banks and bankers should look up from their budgets, listen to their customers, stop whining about regulations and collaborate on industry issues.
Orange Business Services and technology infrastructure provider SIA have done a deal aimed at encouraging European banks and merchants to manage more payments via mobile point of sale terminals.
BNY Mellon says a global overhaul of its payments infrastructure will position it for “a new era” in payments and fundamentally change its relationship with customers and other financial institutions internationally.
The UK’s Clearing House Automated Payments System turned 30 earlier this year. It wasn’t an anniversary marked with street parties by a grateful nation, but in its quiet way it was a significant moment, for – in common with the whole payments infrastructure – the system is going through a period of change. Phil Kenworthy, […]
A group of major international banks have agreed to jointly develop and use the centralised Know Your Customer Registry announced by Swift at the start of the year.
Ten years ago business-to-business payment options were pretty limited: cheques dominated, and organisations only had the option of 3-day BACS payments or expensive CHAPS transactions for high value, same day payments.
Senior transaction banking executives have called for a political discussion to resolve the issue of emerging market access to banking services caused by the reduction of the correspondent banking services network.
While many large organisations have already planned and delivered their SEPA compliance, smaller and mid-sized firms have woefully underprepared for the deadline. Banks and payment organisations need to be prepared for a certain amount of confusion and resistance from UK customers who may not understand the reasons for the change, and may be reluctant to put the necessary changes into effect.
Regulation is driving a structural shift away from capital markets and investment banking towards transaction banking – but even this hint of opportunity could be under threat, according to senior financial services panellists speaking at the BAFT IFSA conference in London this week.
Major global banks need to grasp social networks, cloud computing, user-generated content, personalisation, contextual information and gamification if they are to maintain a competitive edge and stay connected with customers. But they also need to ensure their innovations are transmitted thoroughly to all employees, according to panellists at the BAFT IFSA conference in London on Monday.
The European Central Bank has released statistics that it says show that migration to the Single Euro Payments Area “gathered pace strongly” in December and urged market participants not to relax in their migration efforts. Earlier this month the European Commission announced a six-month extension past the 1 February deadline by which time all payments […]
The EC proposes that banks and payment services providers will not be penalised for continuing to process legacy payments during a six-month “transition period” after the February deadline for SEPA migration.
