Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat, Luxembourg (BCEE) has implemented SmartStream’s Corona Universal Data solution to help complete audit trails and meet US regulatory requirements. SmartStream says in order to comply with the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), banks “only have a few weeks to reconcile annual data before the legal cut off”. It says its […]
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Oct. 5 released its final rule on prepaid accounts, and the agency’s requirements, which go into effect Oct. 1, 2017, go well beyond plastic.
BGFI Bank, the Gabon-based financial services conglomerate, has chosen Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX regulatory reporting software for its French and European banking authority reporting obligations. The bank is also using the firm’s Regulatory Update Service. This service is maintained by Wolters Kluwer experts who actively monitor regulation in approximately 50 countries, “helping to ensure the solution […]
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Oct. 5 released its final rule on prepaid accounts, a move that sharply expands the definition of prepaid—to the distinct displeasure of prepaid industry players. The new rules, which take effect Oct. 1, 2017, are quite similar to what CFPB had initially proposed, with provisions tweaked in the final rule, rather than major additions or deletions.
A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit alleging payment networks colluded over fraud liability can go forward, denying the networks’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Filed in March 2016 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by two Florida retailers, the lawsuit accuses American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa of engaging in “a conspiracy” when shifting liability for transaction fraud to merchants that failed to upgrade their POS systems to accept EMV chip technology by Oct. 1, 2015.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) had an IT incident on its online system, Gabriel, for collecting and storing regulatory data from firms. Due to the “unexpected IT incident”, it was unable to implement Taxonomy 2.4.1.1, which came into effect on 1 October. Those firms who were required to comply with the Capital Requirements Directive […]
In a study conducted by the CFPB, with assistance from American Express, researchers found that offering a monetary incentive was most effective in motivating consumers to set money aside in savings accounts. The research results from the study, “Tools for Saving: Using Prepaid Accounts to Set Aside Funds,” also indicate that having a savings option reduced consumers’ use of payday loan services.
A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers has asked the CFPB to reconsider some of the agency’s proposed restrictions on short-term lenders, arguing that such loans provide much-needed access to credit for those who have few other alternatives.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and five local polytechnics have teamed up to get students up to speed for fintech jobs of the future. They have agreed to work on a framework to review and improve the polytechnics’ curricula in the next three years to prepare and equip their graduates with the skill sets […]
IBM plans to acquire Promontory Financial Group, a risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm, to boost IBM Watson’s cognitive technology. Upon close of the deal, Promontory’s employees will train Watson, which will learn by “continuously ingesting regulatory information as it is created and through interaction in real-world applications”. Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice-president, IBM […]
The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 29 agreed to hear arguments from a group of New York merchants who want the right to impose surcharges on purchases made with credit cards. The outcome of the case could have an effect on laws in 10 states that restrict such surcharges.
Within a two-day span, the CFPB ordered two companies in separate cases to pay a total of more than $12.6 million in civil penalties and refunds.
If central banks want to retain a large share of payments in central bank money, they must innovate, said Andrew Hauser, executive director for banking, payments and financial resilience, Bank of England (BOE). Speaking during the Towards a single platform for all payments session, he said BOE consultation on a refresh of its real time […]
The single euro payments area is up and running and has proved to be a catalyst for change in the payments industry. We look at the story so far.
t’s been a bad month for the payments industry in the state of New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law Sept. 26 imposing restrictions on gift cards and gift certificates sold in the state. The new law comes just weeks after the New York Department of Labor (DOL) issued a final rule regulating the use of payroll cards. The gift card law goes into effect Dec. 25, 2016, as that is 90 days from the governor’s signing.
American Express scored a major legal victory on Sept. 26 when a federal appeals court ruled that Amex had the right to restrict retailers. Specifically, Amex had wanted to prevent Amex-accepting merchants from offering shoppers financial incentives to use other card brands. In its ruling, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit New York tossed out a lower court’s decision that said language barring such “steering” in American Express’ contracts with its merchant clients violated anti-trust laws.
The CFPB has filed a federal lawsuit against a credit repair company over what the consumer protection agency called “a series of illegal advance fees” and misrepresentations of the cost and effectiveness of the company’s services.
Momentum is building behind the T2S securities settlement system as it gains critical mass. While expected benefits and outcomes have not fully materialised, the unexpected benefits have captured the imagination of the post-trade industry.
Regulation is likely to be a hot topic at Sibos, both inside and outside of conference sessions. We assesses the main regulatory themes for this year’s event.
Post-trade firms SIX Securities Services and Clearstream are partnering to potentially provide services to the Swiss and European markets. Both firms recently signed a letter of intent and are now focused on fleshing out the details that will lead to a memorandum of understanding targeted for mid-December. This signing will clear the way for a […]
One of the U.K.’s first-ever class action lawsuits is targeting Mastercard, providing a potential preview of future class actions in the country. The case stems from a 2007 finding by the European Union (EU) Commission that the network’s interchange fees were too high, in breach of EU rules.
A computer scientist appears to have broken Apple’s iPhone security by simply opening the phone and replacing the main memory chip with a cloned version. As long as the researcher kept switching the chips, it allowed an unlimited number of password attempts. The researcher said that the technique, which is known and referred to as Nand mirroring, cracked a 4-digit code in 40 hours and a 6-digit code in “hundreds of hours.”
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has proposed new regulations designed to protect against the rising threat of cybercrime targeting financial systems and consumer data. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled the plan, which would require banks, insurance companies and other financial services providers regulated by the NYDFS to establish a cybersecurity plan that meets standards set by the agency.
In a Sept. 19 ruling in a case over a cyberattacks against JPMorgan Chase and others, a federal judge became the latest to declare that bitcoin qualifies as legal tender. Manhattan District Court Judge Alison Nathan rejected an attempt by Anthony Murgio to dismiss charges that the bitcoin exchange he operated was an unlicensed money transmitting business.
A Dutch international cash management services specialist, Bank Mendes Gans (BMG), is implementing a new cash and liquidity management system, SmartStream’s Corona. It will go live in Q4 2016, managing BMG’s 500,000 transactions per month.
The full authorisation by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) covers all of AvantCredit’s credit and lending operations and includes permissions for credit broking, debt collection and debt administration.
Federal regulators are planning to tighten the screws on marketplace lenders over concerns about consumer protections and reckless lending. At a marketplace lending policy summit, U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry told lenders to expect a new regulatory framework this fall that would support “responsible innovation.”
Most people have heard of the headline-making achievements in artificial intelligence (AI); systems winning quiz shows and beating world champions in chess. These are the poster children of the discipline but there is a quieter revolution taking in shape in other areas, including regulatory compliance in financial services. Writing for Banking Technology, Mike MacDonagh, London-based […]
In a mere 15 months, approximately 5,000 financial institutions across Europe will be required to provide open access to customer, transaction and payment information via APIs. “This is a massive amount of work,” said James Whittle, director of industry policy for Payments UK, the representative body for the country’s payments industry, speaking at the EBAday […]
The Bank of England (BoE) has published a consultation paper on the next generation real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service. On the way out is the bank’s legacy 20-year old platform. The BoE is calling on the payments industry specialists to get in touch.
A new open ecosystem – where banks can enable third parties to develop mobile banking apps and cash management solutions for them – has many advantages over the previous closed world, where everybody tried to do everything themselves. The key to successful “opening up” is to provide a standard interface, such as a smart phone to a bank account, that is accessible to third parties whilst retaining the necessary control.
While it sounds like something for which you’d need to visit a doctor, Swift’s HVPS+ will likely be a talking point during the payments industry panels at this month’s Sibos. Announced in mid-August, the high-value payments system task force is an important component of Swift’s ISO 20022 harmonisation initiative. A number of central banks, market infrastructures and banks from around the world are members of the task force.
Mastercard faces a £14 billion claim ($18.6 billion) in the U.K. over interchange fees in a case filed with the country’s Competition Appeal Tribunal. The claim comes two years after the European Union labeled the interchange charged by the payment card network as unfair. European interchange caps went into effect in December of 2015.
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council has revised the “Information Security” booklet of the agency’s FFIEC Information Technology Examination Handbook.
Home Depot’s complaint asserts that Visa and Mastercard “unlawfully” fixed interchange fees at high levels.
UK-based specialist vendor Lombard Risk has launched a cloud-based collateral management platform, underpinned by its long-standing development in this space, Colline. The new solution is known as AgileCollateral.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) have signed an agreement to foster more fintech co-operation. The plan is to share information, support financial innovators, smooth out regulations, and offer more dialogue and secondments. To provide more evidence, FINMA says it is “consistently removing unnecessary regulatory hurdles” – […]
The House Financial Services Committee will meet Sept. 13 to mark up a bill that would overturn major provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act. Initially proposed in June by Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the Financial CHOICE Act would strip significant authority away from the CFPB, renaming it the Consumer Financial Opportunity Commission and tasking the agency with the dual mission of protecting consumers and ensuring competitive markets.
South Korean fintech firms plans to file a complaint with regulators over Apple’s refusal to open its API.
Allevo’s open source application, FinTP, is now SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) compliant for EximBank (Export-Import Bank of Romania). The FinTP collaboration between state-owned EximBank and Allevo started one year ago, when the bank chose to implement the solution for low-value Euro payment instructions. EximBank now takes the partnership “one step further with the implementation of […]
