BankingTech


Reshaping the future of corporate banking

Pascal Augé, head of global transaction and payment services, Société Générale speaks to Daily News at Sibos about the growing importance of transaction banking for corporate customers

ISO 20022: we’ve reached the crossroads and need to act

Last year, the ISO 20022 standard celebrated its 10th birthday, and consequently it may seem a bit odd to say that after more than a decade since its inception, the financial community really should start taking assertive action. Since 2004, the ISO 20022 standard has, thankfully, witnessed substantial adoption but it has been what could be termed an “uncontrolled adoption”. So why is action so critical now?

Looking for the best of all worlds in real-time payments

Central banks need to play a greater role in the provision of infrastructure for low value payments and existing models revised to balance risk and rewards, according to new research published by the Swift Institute.

Turkey listings advance LSE’s derivatives ambitions

The London Stock Exchange says that the launch of Turkish derivatives on its derivatives market represents part of the long-cherished goal of growing its derivatives business around the world. It also represents the exchange’s ‘open access’ policy.

The payment services market under the eye of the regulator

The UK payment services market has been under the spotlight in recent months with the introduction of a new Payment Systems Regulator created with the intention, amongst other things, of opening up the industry to new and emerging payment service providers.

Russia’s NSD introduces off-exchange settlement

Russia’s central securities depository NSD has implemented back-to-back settlement technology for off-exchange delivery-versus-payment transactions with securities denominated in Russian rubles. The bank accounts and transactions may be in rubles, US dollar, Euro and Chinese yuan.

Payment Systems Regulator names members of strategy forum

The Payment Systems Regulator, the new economic regulator for UK payment systems, today confirms the line-up of the Payments Strategy Forum it has set up to set the strategy for innovation in payment systems where the industry needs to work together.

Transform Compensation Management to Increase Results and Mitigate Risk in Banking

Mitigating risk while rewarding success has become a complex and growing concern in banking. Recent regulatory changes stemming from the financial crisis mean modern banks face regulations from several entities and multiple levels of government that require them to govern, monitor, audit, and report their incentive plans with higher levels of detail than ever before. Many organisations are now challenged to meet these internal and external compliance requirements.

Bloomberg and Traiana to automate post-trade for FX options

Post-trade processing company Bloomberg STP Solutions and post-trade and risk specialist Traiana have begun a joint effort to develop a straight-through processing infrastructure for FX options. The partners say it will help to reduce post-trade costs for market participants, which have typically remained higher than execution costs.

ATM cash usage continues to grow in UK

Figures from Link, the UK’s cash machine network, show that the number of ATMs in the UK reached 70,180 in July, passing 70,000 for the first time. ATM figures from July, show that the total amount withdrawn from cash machines in July 2015 was £11.3 billion, up 4% compared with July 2014.

ISSA sets out financial crime principles for securities

The International Securities Services Association adopted a set of compliance principles to address the “critical challenges” posed by financial crime. The new principles aim to establish “a clear global standard for the opening and maintenance of cross-border securities accounts”.

Swift selects finalists for Innotribe Startup Challenge 2015

Swift has named the 20 finalists for the 2015 Innotribe Startup Challenge finale, which will take place at Sibos in Singapore this October. The finalists include companies focused on personal finance, foreign exchange, data protection, mobile banking and e-commerce as well as social media, big data, payments and many other areas.

Italy live on T2S (at last)

Target2-Securities, the European Central Bank project to harmonise Europe’s post trade infrastructure, has finally gone live in Italy – three months after Italy’s last-minute decision to drop out of the first wave earlier this summer.

Contactless payments set to boom as limit rises to £30

More than £2.5 billion was spent in the UK using contactless cards in the first half of 2015 and this is likely to increase even more as the upper limit for contactless payments increases from £20 to £30 from today.

Hatstand aims cyber-security service at capital markets

Global capital markets specialist, Hatstand, has launched a cyber-security risk assessment service that will enable businesses to better understand the current state of their preparedness against the risk of cyber-attacks and identify any shortfalls in their existing governance programmes.

Ciber machine will convert Cobol into cloud ready code

Service provider Ciber claims to have solved one of the most expensive problems in business: upgrading legacy systems to make them secure and cloud friendly. Its new system, Ciber Momentum, converts the code from languages such as Cobol, Ada and Pascal into a more cloud-ready format.

Systems you just can’t bank on: how legacy has become a liability

Let’s be clear: banks do a very difficult job – they store the value of society expressed as money. We trust them and they can’t get it wrong, but they are nothing but people and IT. Everything they own is on computer and they don’t like to take risks with this. Consequently, IT change for banks has been slow and safe. It has been incremental: bit by bit, byte by byte.

A different banking landscape

Historically, the large banks have been Lords of the Manor, between them owning every scrap of land as far as the eye can see. However, times are changing: invaders offering services the banks cannot provide as competitively have begun to disrupt the peace and take small pockets of land for themselves. Likening the march of the fintech new entrants to a land-grab by an invading force, the disruptors began with a neglected allotment here and there, then moved to take a meadow and now some are on the verge of swallowing up villages and small towns …

Mobile to take lead in payments over the next five years

Mobile phones will take an increasingly leading role in the payments space over the next five years as a result of technologies that allow safe storage of payment details in smartphones, according to a report prepared by the Consult Hyperion on behalf of Payments UK.

Wide application for wearables in financial services industry

There has been hype around wearable technology for some time now but only now is it reaching market maturity with the introduction and subsequent adoption by consumers of smart watches and wristbands. Just as we saw with smart phones and tablets, consumer technology, in this case wearables, has the potential to have a huge impact on the business world. The implications for the financial services industry are significant

“Landmark” reached as ISO 20022 comes to international payments

International payments may soon be made using the ISO 20022 messaging standard for the first time, following the publication of the first draft of ISO 20022 payments messages by an industry association backed by Payments UK (formerly the UK Payments Council).

LCH. Clearnet expands to Spanish Equities on BATS Chi-X, Turquoise & Traiana

LCH. Clearnet is to begin offering clearing clearing services for Spanish securities executed on BATS Chi-X, Turquoise and Traiana from Monday 7 September 2015, subject to regulatory approval. The new service, which introduces interoperability for the market segment will operate under the existing Title V settlement framework until the revised dates have been published by Iberclear […]

Leveraging laaS to Enable Cost-Efficient and Competitive Branch Transformation

Digital and mobile technologies, cost reduction, compliance requirements, and the need to remain competitive, are key drivers to branch transformation – an opportunity for banks to re-think their IT operating model and to find a partner who can offer a large pool of diversified expertise around modern technologies and practices.

Wincor Nixdorf targets Brazil retail banking market

ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf is to expand its ATM business in Brazil, following a deal with Brazilian hardware company Perto. The deal comes as the BRIC market expands its retail banking infrastructure to serve the growing middle class of Brazilian society.

Cash is here to stay – for the next 300 years anyway

Reports of the death of cash have dominated the 2015 news agenda. A variety of industry developments – from the launch of Apple Pay through to a Danish proposal to end the obligation of retailers to accept cash – work together to imply that paper notes and coins could soon lose relevance. All this is underpinned by apparently irrefutable stats from the Payments Council which reveal that cashless transactions have now overtaken the use of cash in the UK

The new face of risk management

Regulations aimed at transparency across financial markets may be making things simpler for the regulators, but they are making life more complex for banks, according to Sven Ludwig, senior vice president, risk management and analytics EMEA, at SunGard.