New UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority has made a good start in its first year of life and has helped to contributed to a “sea change” in the way conduct is viewed and treated by financial institutions, according to Clive Adamson, director of supervision at the FCA.
Santander is emerging as the main beneficiary of the battle to attract UK current account holders while NatWest and HSBC are losing ground, according to the monthly TNS Current Account Switching Index data for April.
As contactless and mobile payment methods continue to grow, building societies and other financial institutions need to avoid being complacent about new technology, according to senior delegates speaking at the BSA annual conference in Manchester this week.
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.
There is a danger that regulation will push financial services so far down the path of homogeneity that it hinders innovation and hurts customers, warns Robin Fieth, chief executive at the Building Societies Association.
Swift’s Innotribe Startup Challenge has named the five European finalists for its annual competition, which seeks to find the best new companies in financial services and bring them to compete in the final at Sibos Boston in October.
The introduction of a financial transaction tax could mean London losing a swathe of banking business to financial centres with a lighter regulatory regime, such as Hong Kong or Singapore not to mention the logistical and technical challenges for banks.
In one of the highest-profile tech hire in recent years, Barclays has poached Commonwealth Bank’s Michael Harte as chief operations and technology officer, filling the gap left by the surprise departure of Shaygan Kheradpir last autumn.
Commercial Bank of Qatar has implemented a new tool from Experian into its credit risk team, which it says will help it to automate customer scoring and decision making on loans and credit cards.
South Africa’s Johannesburg Stock Exchange has begun a massive overhaul of its clearing and trading systems, which will see its siloed clearing platforms replaced by a single engine from vendor Cinnober and its derivatives market shifted onto the London Stock Exchange’s MilleniumExchange platform.
The purpose of the European Central Bank’s T2S project is ill-defined and taking so long to deliver that it is being pushed aside by other projects according to speakers at the Swift Business Forum in London.
Nearly three months after the European Commission’s 12 February deadline for trade reporting, market participants are still not ready to report their derivative trades and serious problems remain with understanding the rules.
US clearing body the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is pushing a move to shorten the settlement cycle for the US markets to T+2, claiming support from industry bodies and firms including JP Morgan.
Banking Group Santander has added m-commerce to its mobile banking and payment app, in a development it is claiming as the world’s first ‘superwallet’.
More than half a million UK consumers have switched their current accounts since September, according to new figures released by the UK Payments Council. The figures have been described as positive, but market observers remain cautious over whether or not they can be sustained and whether the UK authorities are doing enough to promote innovation.
Global regulatory pressure and the shift to real-time processing are causing banks and major financial institutions to rethink how they handle reconciliation, according to a new report by financial research house Aite.
Broker ICAP will use high-frequency trading infrastructure from specialist Perseus Telecom as it seeks to expand its coverage across Brazil and Latin America. ICAP is already active in the region, where it connects to São Paulo and Mexico City. The Perseus LiquidPath service provides connectivity, hosting, consulting, and real time monitoring, and includes HFT services […]
Swift’s Innotribe innovation spin-out has named the European semi-finalists for its 2014 Startup Challenge, which seeks to find the most innovative start-up companies in financial services.
One of the central characters featured in Michael Lewis’ controversial book Flash Boys, has added fuel to the fire of debate over high frequency trading by claiming that in a market with less HFT, average order sizes would get larger and long-term investors would benefit.
When the requirement brought about by the German high frequency trading act to tag algorithms comes into force this month, market participants may well feel hamstrung by the complexity of the regime – and some might wonder whether this requirement goes one step too far …
Trading firms are still struggling with the Dodd-Frank requirement for certain swaps to be traded on registered Swap Execution Facilities. According to a survey conducted by trading communications vendor IPC Systems, 60% of survey respondents said the industry as a whole was behind on meeting the deadlines on SEF trading, though only 39% said their […]
Standards consortium BIAN has released a new version of its industry standard framework containing more than 180 business scenarios including back-office, trade finance and sales.
Despite the high profile media scandals surrounding the demise of the Mt Gox exchange and the Silk Road trading website, Bitcoin is evolving rapidly and will soon present a better, more stable and accountable alternative to the fiat currencies most of us trust and use every day, according to Mark Lamb, chief executive of London-based Bitcoin exchange Coinfloor.
Consolidation of market infrastructure in Europe will continue, as firms choose post-trade service providers that meet their needs in terms of cost-effectiveness or value-added services. However, some of the real cost issues in Europe are still to be addressed.
Despite the deep controversy created by Michael Lewis’ expose of HFT Flash Boys, global equity markets are not broken, according to a senior capital markets panel at Trade Tech Paris 2014.
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 …
Balázs Vinnai, now with Misys, talks about changing banking and payments technology needs.
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” …
Intraday liquidity reporting becomes mandatory next January. It might just provide an opportunity to reassess the way banks approach risk.
Banks must take note of the way that technology is changing how customers interact with the world around them and develop products and services that address their needs rather than the banks’.
Banks should be wary of jumping the gun and assuming that SEPA implementation is a done deal. Far from being over, the task of learning to live with SEPA is just beginning.
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.
FX trading service EBS has launched Watch EBS, a new mobile app that is designed to show users the global spot FX market in as close to real time as possible.
What is the latest technological snag affecting high-speed trading performance? In a word, jitter – a major risk, particularly when carrying out arbitrage.
While transparency may be seen as a new wonder drug that will cure all the industry’s ills, it does not come without side effects, so it was refreshing to see ESMA promoting a collaborative approach with the industry in defining the details of how MiFID II and MiFIR are implemented.
UK consumers have doubled the amount of transactions they make on their mobile phones over the last year, according to new figures released by the BBA.
In this supplement we share our experiences of implementing real-time payments systems and take an in-depth look at the success of Faster Payments in the UK. We also examine the challenges and benefits that real-time payments can deliver to banks and consumers as well as the advantages real-time technology can bring to government and businesses to support the wider economy and society as a whole.
