Payments


Rob Binns to join Misys as chief financial officer

Financial software provider Misys has appointed Rob Binns as its chief financial officer. Binns joins Misys from HP where he was head of treasury and investor relations. He joined Hewlett-Packard in 2007 from Mercury Interactive and has held a number of senior finance positions in the company including VP Software Field Operations and VP Investor […]

Emprise Bank picks FIS as core banking provider

Emprise Bank, based in Kansas in the US, has selected FIS as its new core banking provider. The bank, which has $1 billion in assets and 37 branches, selected FIS on the basis of its need for high levels of support, and capacity to provide a single platform that would integrate a set of technologies. That in turn allowed […]

HSBC hit by denial-of-service attack

The online retail services of HSBC have been brought down in a distributed-denial-of-service attack according to the bank. Online services were inaccessible to clients, the second online service problem the bank’s customers have faced this month, following a two-day outage earlier in January that the bank reported was not caused by a cyber-attack. Concern about […]

Ripple joint-venture with SBI brings distributed ledger to Asia

Distributed ledger technology provider Ripple and Japanese financial services firm SBI Holdings have announced the creation of a joint partnership, which will expand Ripple into the Asian market. Ripple, which focuses on the using blockchain-like technology for payments, is based predominantly in San Francisco with presences in New York, London and Sydney. SBI is a US$28 […]

Viewpoint: Leaders, Learners and Laggards

I talk with a lot of banking leaders who describe their approach to innovation as being a “fast follower. My typical retort is that they are half-right—most of them are definitely followers, but there usually isn’t anything fast about their approach.

Viewpoint: Mobile Wallet Myth-Busting Starts Now

For those of us in prepaid, combating misrepresentation of our products in the media is nothing new. A recent news story claiming banks are leaving customers on the hook for fraud if they use a mobile wallet shows there’s plenty of work to do for new payment methods.

Bank of England considering digital ledger for RTGS in 2017

Britain’s payment settlement system for the pound sterling is to be redesigned and rebuilt, Minouche Shafik, deputy governor for Markets & Banking at the Bank of England (BoE) has said in a speech given at the BoE to senior figure in the UK payments business. The twenty-year old Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), which settles […]

TSYS Makes $2.35 Billion Merchant Service Play (Jan. 27, 2016)

TSYS continued its push to expand its role in the payments value chain with a big move in the merchant services space, reaching a definitive agreement to acquire merchant solutions provider TransFirst for $2.35 billion from current owner Vista Equity Partners.

TSYS seeks growth bump with $2.35 billion Transfirst acquisition

Payments provider TSYS is predicting high single-figure growth following its acquisition of merchant solutions provider Transfirst in a $2.35 billion all-cash transaction. The deal, announced as TSYS reports its full-year 2015 results, will create a firm with that TSYS claims will be the third largest integrated payments provider in the US – according to a […]

NAB Pay rolls out on Android smart phones

NAB has launched its new mobile payment service NAB Pay, designed to enable customers to use their mobile phone to make purchases, without the need for a physical card. Customers with a compatible Android mobile device and a NAB Visa Debit Card have been able to start using NAB Pay from 25 January, available as […]

Report: Fraudsters’ Test Runs Surged in Q4 2015

Cybercriminals could be ramping up their attacks on financial services providers, according to a new study. The fourth quarter of 2015 saw a tenfold increase in “bot attacks”—essentially test attacks meant to gauge the security of targeted systems—according to the report by ThreatMatrix, a San Jose, Calif., cybersecurity company.

Electronic payment volumes and security fears rocket

A survey of more than 3,700 IT security practitioners from more than a dozen major industry sectors found 54% of those firms surveyed had a security or data breach involving payment data, on average four times in past two years.​ The research, independently conducted by the Ponemon Institute on behalf of digital security firm Gemalto, also […]

Tyrie: Reform banks’ IT to protect the public

Andrew Tyrie, Member of Parliament and chairman of the UK’s Treasury Select Committee has issued a public letter to the head of the UK’s financial regulators arguing that three reforms are needed, without which ”the public will remain more exposed than necessary to the risk of bank failure.” Sent to Andrew Bailey, deputy governor for […]

FTC: Big Data Practices Could Violate Federal Laws (Jan. 25, 2016)

Big data has proven to be a useful tool for retailers and financial services providers seeking to identify customer habits and preferences—but federal regulators are warning that certain uses of consumer information may potentially violate consumer protection laws.

Swift payments innovation initiative gains ground as 45 banks sign up

A total of 45 banks including Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank and many others have signed up to a new payments innovation initiative headed by Swift, which is due to launch early next year. Announced in December, the initiative aims to dramatically improve the customer experience in correspondent banking by increasing the speed, transparency and predictability of cross-border payments.

Banks face new wave of disruption warns report

Following years of mistrust and rivalries, the time has come to reimagine the payments relationships between banks, retailers and fintech firms, according to a joint report from analyst firm Celent and payments systems company ACI Worldwide.

Viewpoint: 5 Banking Trends for 2016

Financial institutions are undergoing a seismic transformation. Digital technology is reshaping what consumers want from their banks and the way they conduct transactions. Let’s take a look at the top five banking trends for 2016.

PrePaid Ventures Buys KEEPS America (Jan. 13, 2016)

PrePaid Ventures, the company behind the Visa-branded NexisCard prepaid program, has bought KEEPS America, which provides prepaid cards for lawsuit, workers’ compensation and Social Security settlement awards.

Canadian Mint Selects nanoPay to Bring Digital Currency to a Widespread Audience (Jan. 12, 2016)

Toronto-based fintech startup nanoPay is taking Canada another step toward delivering digital currency on a mass scale. Following a selection process of software developers charged with creating payment apps for the MintChip digital currency created by the Royal Canadian Mint, nanoPay today announced it has acquired all MintChip assets and was chosen to further expand MintChip acceptance.