BankingTech


Nasdaq extends blockchain innovation with Estonian shareholders

Estonia’s e-Residency platform will use a blockchain-based e-voting service to allow shareholders of companies listed on Nasdaq’s Tallinn Stock Exchange, to vote in shareholder meetings. The country’s e-Residency platform is an electronic identity system used by both Estonian residents and those with business interests in the country to access government services through e-Residency digital authentication. The program […]

Hyperledger gains 11 major finance players in blockchain initiative

The Linux Foundation, a non-profit organisation geared to promoting open source technology has announced 30 members from across the finance and technology industries have joined its new Hyperledger Project. Hyperledger is an open source project intended to advance blockchain digital technology for recording and verifying transactions. The founding members of the initiative represent a diverse […]

US and Europe break derivatives rules impasse

A common approach to the rules governing central counterparties (CCPs), the key infrastructure for reducing counterparty risk in derivatives trading, have been agreed between Europe and the US. The European Commission (EC) intends to adopt an equivalence decision with respect to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) requirements for US CCPs which will allow the European Securities […]

Goldman Sachs new electronic market-making unit for FICC

Goldman Sachs has launched a new FICC Systematic Market Making (SMM) unit. SMM will consolidate its e-trading assets and capabilities across FICC. The move was reported in an internal memo as reflecting changes in market structure and client needs. The memo, signed by several executives including group chief information officer Martin Chavez, says, “Our ability to […]

MiFID II delayed

The European Commission has put markets out of their suffering by finally confirming a one year extension to the entry into application of the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MiFID II. The extension has been made to overcome technical implementation challenges faced by both regulators and market participants. The new deadline is 3 […]

FIS predicts 3-4% growth for 2016

FIS, the financial services technology provider which acquired SunGard at the end of 2015, has predicted organic revenue growth of between 3% and 4% in 2016. It reports that 2015 revenue grew by 3% over 2014 to reach US$6.6 billion. “The resilience of our business model characterised by highly recurring revenues and operational efficiencies allowed us […]

Markit buys syndicated loan tech from JP Morgan

Markit has acquired systems integration software developed by JP Morgan. The provider of financial information services will make the software available to buy- and sell-side institutions seeking to integrate with major systems used in the syndicated loan market, including agent servicing platforms and Markit’s trade settlement services. Facilitating systems integration is an important step toward […]

Challenger bank Tandem pick Fiserv for core

Tandem Bank has selected the Agiliti technology platform from core system provider Fiserv. The bank received its banking license on 30 November 2015, and is expected to launch later in the year. Focussing on creating what it calls a ‘good bank’ with a heavy emphasis on the needs and behaviours of its customers, it will […]

T2S takes one step forward amidst backwards steps

The European Central Bank has selected connectivity provider SIA, in partnership with telco Colt, for its connection to TARGET2-Securities (T2S), the delayed centralised European platform for the settlement of domestic and cross-border securities transactions. The European Central Bank is expected to migrate to SIA and Colt’s value-added network infrastructure in June 2016. The two companies will also provide the ECB with a message processing […]

ESMA to tackle trade repository data quality in 2016

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published its 2016 supervisory priorities for credit rating agencies (CRAs) and trade repositories (TRs). The regulatory authority reports seeing a number of changes in the CRA and TR industries during 2015, with new applicants for registration in both sectors, and current authorised entities seeking to develop their […]

Visa Developer opens up payments technology

Visa Developer, will offer software application developers will open access to Visa’a payments technology, products and services. The new Visa Developer platform is designed to help financial institutions, merchants, and technology companies meet the demands of consumers and merchants, who increasingly rely on connected devices to shop, pay and get paid. At launch, the new […]

Cashless payments plateau is stats mirage: Deutsche Bank

European Central Bank (ECB) figures appear to show that cashless payments transaction volumes in 2014 remained flat at 68 billion payments. However, Deutsche Bank analyst Heike Mai, who specialises in payments and shadow banking, has published a report that corrects this conclusion. Entitled ‘Payments in the euro area: Are they stagnating? – No!’ the report […]

Fifth Third Bank fingerprints iPhone banking

Fifth Third Bank is introducing Touch ID biometric capabilities to its mobile banking app for the iPhone. Touch ID allows fingerprint authentication for enabled devices, letting customers log into their Fifth Third app with their fingers or thumbs instead of a password. The Bank’s fast mobile app allows people to check balances, transfer funds and […]

AllianceBernstein tracking fixed-income execution with Interactive Data

Investment manager AllianceBernstein is working with Interactive Data, to help evaluate its trade execution quality and perform transaction cost analysis (TCA).  The work will be done across various mutual funds and separately managed portfolios using Interactive Data’s Best Execution (Best Ex) service. The service leverages its Continuous Evaluated Fixed-Income Pricing to run TCA for fixed-income […]

Memory muscle

An in-memory DBMS with its roots in embedded systems for the defence and aerospace sectors is setting records for manipulating financial data. Chief executive Steve Graves told Banking Technology how it works.

Euroclear and Oliver Wyman in blockchain unity call

Central securities depositary Euroclear and consultancy Oliver Wyman have issued a report on the use of blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins Bitcoin transactions, in capital markets. The firms arguing that major existing players will have to work with newcomers to create a framework that operates between firms and under regulatory obligations. Blockchain and […]

Online lenders succeed in capital raising

Two online lending platforms – Spotcap and Credibly – have separately raised a total of £71.8 million in capital facilities, lending support to the sector’s prospects in the eyes of investors. Berlin-based, online lending platform Spotcap has raised €31.5 million (£23.8 million) in new funding led by international private equity firm, Finstar Financial Group, with participation from […]

Deutsche Bank delivers ERP integration for Bosch in China

Deutsche Bank has implemented an electronic enterprise resource planning (ERP) integration solution for Bosch’s foreign currency and renminbi (RMB) cross-border payments in China. Headquartered in Germany, Bosch is a global supplier of technology and services. The company’s operations are divided into four business sectors – automotive technology, industrial technology, consumer goods, as well as energy […]

Payments UK simplifies cross-border SEPA payments into UK

Payments UK has developed a directory to offer UK institutions some of the benefits of SEPA despite the regulation not applying within the country until October. From 1 February, Eurozone banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) can process Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payments using only a customer’s IBAN (International Bank Account Number). Previously customers were […]

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 […]

RHB Investment Bank live with Fidessa across Asia

Malaysia headquartered RHB Investment Bank (RHB) has implemented Fidessa as its trading platform across Asia. The system, managed by Fidessa throughout the region, provides algorithmic trading across all member markets, ‘intelligent’ indications of interest (IOIs) and a centralised order management system (OMS) with integrated middle-office to support RHB’s regional business. The ability to on-board a […]

Trader voice – the last bastion of the old world

The largest vendors in the trader voice market are now in a similar position to IBM in the late 1990s: their solutions are proprietary, expensive to maintain, and lacking true open integration …

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 […]

Rudi Collin named head of Digital Transformation at BNP Paribas

BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) has announced that it has appointed Rudi Collin as Head of Digital Transformation for CIB. Previously Collin was head of Electronic Business and Markets for the Global Markets business and prior to this, was chief operating officer for the fixed income division of the bank. In his new role, […]

Nasdaq sees tech revenues climb

Market operator Nasdaq has seen revenues from its technology sales increase, with its Technology Solutions division, which makes up 27% of total net revenues reach $146 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, up from $4 million from the fourth quarter of 2014. The exchange’s Market Technology unit, which accounts for 13% of total net revenues, […]

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 […]

AppDynamics selected by UBS as bank goes digital

Global investment and private bank, UBS, has signed an agreement to expand its use of the AppDynamics Application Intelligence Platform across its critical applications to supports its digital transformation initiatives. “Using AppDynamics we have been able to improve the speed at which we identified and remediated application issues, as well as avoid incidents in the […]

LSEG’s GATElab low-latency risk gate to India’s NSE

Financial software provider GATElab, part of London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), has launched an ultra-low-latency service risk gateway to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). The solution is designed to enables users to send orders to the NSE equity derivatives segment in less than 30 microseconds, if all the pre-trade risk checks are met. […]

DTCC: Blockchain is “once-in-a-generation opportunity”

In a new whitepaper, the US post-trade infrastructure provider Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has voiced its belief that the financial services industry “has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine and modernise its infrastructure” by employing blockchain in a coordinated manner. Blockchain is the transaction model used to transfer ownership of crypto-currency bitcoin. It was developed […]

RAI Stone Analytics adopted by Americana Community Bank

Americana Community Bank (ACB) is working with RAI Stone Group, the provider of the RAI Stone Analytics platform to supports its small-to-medium business (SMB) teams, which focus on organisations employing between one and 100 people. “Using this service is adding significant, measurable return-on-investment (ROI) that might have happened over time, sure. But we didn’t see […]

‘Smart’ CRM sees investment from HSBC

Cognitive computing specialist CustomerMatrix, a co-founder of forum Cognitive Computing Consortium, has closed US$10.5 million in Series-B funding. The investment, one in a series of investments in artificial intelligence-like technologies in 2016, was led by HSBC, with participation from Aster Capital, and existing investors Newfund and True Global Ventures. CustomerMatrix, which offers a predictive engine called […]

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.

‘Modular’ financial services set to benefit consumers

Financial services are becoming “modular”, with digital distribution platforms, new product providers, alternative sources of capital and a growth in outsourcing likely to reshape the industry, according to a new report by global management consultancy Oliver Wyman.

2016: An EMEA regulatory view

If 2015 was all about how the financial sector continued its post 2008 crisis transformation, 2016 looks set to promise even more developments in the same vein across the EMEA region. The ongoing change continues to be remarkable in its depth and scope impacting financial institutions and technology firms like Wolters Kluwer Financial Services who exist to enable banks and others to navigate risk and regulatory complexity

Liquidnet launches EMEA block trading algos

Buy-side block trading venue Liquidnet has released a set of EMEA trading algorithms, which it says will help market participants to find liquidity ahead of the European Commission’s upcoming MiFID II legislation, which introduces important changes for dark pools.

Banco Santander selects ATM monitoring service

Banco Santander is to begin using services provided by ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf to support its Mexican subsidiary. The services cover monitoring, maintenance and troubleshooting.