FinTech


Deutsche axes 15,000 in technology and ops overhaul

Deutsche Bank is to shed 9,000 full-time staff and 6,000 external contractor jobs in its global technology and operations infrastructure as it sets out to “modernise its outdated and fragmented IT architecture” and improve control systems.

Why should banks care about ‘tech levels’?

The fact that London’s financial services sector is also a hot spot for technology innovation is not news. In 2014, investment in financial technology firms grew by 136%. Earlier this year, George Osborne identified London’s financial technology sector as a particularly bright spot in the recovering economy – not surprising when you consider the transformational effect that information technology continues to have on the industry

Mobile banking customers demand new features

One in three retail banking customers feel their mobile banking app is not as good as online banking through a browser, according to a new study by ecommerce company First Data in the UK. The figures also revealed that more than half still have yet to use a mobile banking app – suggesting that there may be both an unmet demand for more functionality in mobile apps, and a need to convince the remaining consumers of their value.

Banking Technology Awards 2015 – shortlist announced

Banks from around the world are among the candidates on the shortlist for the Banking Technology 2015 Awards, announced today, showing the continuing competitive edge regional institutions are gaining over the large international players through technology.

Will banks suffer casualties in the battle to own the customer experience?

Technology has infiltrated every facet of our lives, fundamentally changing our behaviour patterns and our expectations of what constitutes a good customer experience. The banking sector has not been immune to these changes; the industry has been forced to drastically transform its business processes and services in order to keep up with customers’ expectations. Today, customer satisfaction is judged not by the smile on the face of a cashier, but on the speed with which one can gain mobile access

Is everybody API?

Competition from financial technology companies and regulatory changes are forcing banks to adopt APIs to provide access to client information, which has many implications across the industry.

Keeping it real

Global interoperability of real-time payments systems will require harmonisation of market practices and standards.

Chips off the old blockchain

The distributed ledger is one of the hottest topics in financial services. Born out of the crypto-currency bitcoin, the blockchain concept has gone mainstream and the first area to feel the impact is likely to be payments.

Infrastructures back Swift ISO 20022 harmonisation proposals

Major financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and central banks have thrown their weight behind a Swift initiative to prevent further fragmentation of the ISO 20022 messaging standard as its adoption grows by signing a charter backing principles to harmonise implementations.

Europe’s unsettling times

T2S, Europe’s harmonised settlement platform, is live. With a series of migration waves scheduled up until full live operation in July 2017, the next few years are likely to be characterised by intense activity as market participants finalise their strategies …

Thomson Reuters opens Eikon with app studio

Thomson Reuters has launched an app studio for its Eikon financial desktop, which will allow third-party developers to create create apps that display as native applications on the Eikon screen, distributing them directly to Eikon users.

Understanding blockchain and the opportunity for financial institutions

Blockchain has the potential to further disrupt banking in the way that we know it today, transform traditional interbank and even peer-to-peer payments, open up opportunities to replace existing mechanisms for the exchange of financial information, and how customer records are stored and processed.

Fintech for corporates: partnering for success

With global investment into the fintech arena growing at an astonishing rate, it is only a matter of time before the corporate sector begins to feel its true force. Fred DiCocco, head of market management, BNY Mellon Treasury Services, discusses how banks are adapting. Fintech is triggering a monumental shift in the payments space, with […]

Technology fragmentation imposes testing burden on banks

As banks increasingly digitalise and provide mobile services to user’s mobile devices they face the double-whammy of having to test software that has to run on multiple environments and doing it in an increasingly short time-scales as continuous release development cycles become the norm.

Cobol – do banks speak our language?

With banking IT failures happening on a seemingly weekly basis, we perhaps should be examining the language they speak more closely. Most of our banks are built on systems and programmed with languages that pre-date the birth of the internet, let alone the birth of mobile banking …

Citihub and Excel IT ally for cloud data centre services

Citihub Consulting, a global IT advisory firm, has partnered with IT services specialist Excel IT to offer a combined proposition covering infrastructure strategy and architecture through to migration logistics and ongoing support.

Digitalisation will double bank IT spending in next four years

Bank IT spending in developed markets is set to double over the next four years, according to figures provided by analyst firm Gartner. The rise is driven mainly by the desire to reduce maintenance costs on legacy IT and support newer, digital technologies.

Automating incentives boosts bottom line

Sometimes the least obvious changes can have a big effect, and very often those changes are in areas that might considered outside the remit of the people best placed to make them. Bank staff remuneration, for instance …

September 2015: corporate Challenges

PULLING TOGETHER Banks are losing corporate business to alternative providers. What can they do to fight back? PREVIEW: SINGAPORE SLINGS AND ARROWS Innotribe takes centre stage at Sibos 2015 – what’s left for the traditionalists? SURVEY: LEGACY REPLACEMENT Multiple overlapping and redundant systems are holding back modernisation ROUNDTABLE: THE INTERNATIONALISATION OF IMMEDIATE PAYMENTS Call them […]

RSRCHXchange launch targets MiFID II research reforms

A new online market for buying and selling financial research has gone live in Europe. Focused on providing buy-side firms with more transparency, the new RSRCHXexchange is based in the cloud and is aimed at helping institutions comply with MiFID II research unbundling requirements.

Top-tier banks rally round R3 distributed ledger project

Nine major global investment banks have formed a partnership to explore the potential of distributed ledger technology in financial markets. The project, led by financial technology company R3, aims to create early standards for the emerging technology that will make it easier and more efficient as it grows.

The non-bank bank?  

Saxo Payments isn’t a bank, and the chief executive isn’t a banker. So how does he think he’s that’s going to help shake up international payments?

 

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.

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

Fintech ‘unconference’ comes to New York

On 15 September, fintech firms BBVA Open Talent, Consult Hyperion, NYPAY and Next Bank NYC will present keynotes and discussions as well as twenty fintech start-up demos competing as part of the BBVA Open Talent competition.

“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).

Barclays opens startup accelerator programme in London

Barclays and startup accelerator company Techstars have opened the application process for the third cohort of their Accelerator programme in London, which will give ten businesses a chance to “shape the future” of financial services, the bank has said.

Cameron backs UK fintech 2020 manifesto

Fintech association Innovate Finance has launched UK Fintech 2020, a manifesto that sets out goals for the UK to be a centre for financial services. These include calls for increased investment in fintech, efforts to attract more fintech firms and the creation of more jobs in the sector.

Digital disruption: can banks add interest to others’ ideas?

The high street bank has always been relied upon to be one of those unchanging constants in our lives. Takeovers and scandals have come and gone, but the digital revolution has slowly changed the way financial products are delivered. Today the Internet, mobile devices and financial services have now converged to change the way consumers manage their finances and the way they connect with their bank

MasterCard and Samsung prepare Samsung Pay Europe launch

Samsung is set to launch its upcoming payments service Samsung Pay in Europe within months, following a deal with MasterCard which will see Samsung Pay rolled out across the region through MasterCard’s Digital Enablement Service.

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.