Interview: Ben Brabyn, Level39 – high rise
In the beating business heart of London, Banking Technology met Ben Brabyn, head of tech hub Level39, for an exclusive interview on Brexit, rivalry and how success isn’t a zero-sum game.
Analysis
Connecting Brands and Consumers through Alternative and Mobile Payments
Recent research from Blackhawk Network reveals that mobile and contactless payment options can help brands to engage with consumers by driving traffic and incremental sales, reducing shopping cart abandonment and supporting customer acquisition.
Digital currency: the future or the biggest flop?
From Bitcoins to even newer (and lesser known, but rising) forms of currency, will this level the playing field for people in the future, or is this all just a sham that will die down? As things get digitised, what do we need to know about digital currencies, and does this mark the demise of traditional forms of currencies?
On the Fintech Frontline: Three Key Areas Driving Payments Forward
For any organization regularly processing card-not-present (CNP) payments, boarding the fintech bandwagon is a must. There are three key fintech developments—APIs, regtech and cybersecurity strategies—you need to embrace (or face disruption).
House Passes CRA Repeal of Arbitration Rule
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on July 25 in favor of HJR 111 to repeal the CFPB’s final rule on arbitration agreements. The vote was 231-190, but the companion resolution in the Senate may be on the back burner for a while as the Senate focuses on budget and health care battles.
Open letter to EU decision makers on PSD2 RTS – figo
This open letter from German fintech figo is not about the usual pros and cons of this debate, but intends to provide the European Council with actual solutions, i.e. smart trade-off ideas that could mean an end to the everlasting screen scraping debate and eventually the RTS process.
Bold statement four: statements from around the bleeding edge of innovation
Welcome back to these pages – and the almost final installation of a series that was started some months ago, talking about some of the grand sweeping statements that we hear, and make.
U.S. House to Vote on Arbitration Rule Repeal Tomorrow
As promised, Congressional Republicans have introduced joint Congressional Review Act resolutions to repeal the CFPB’s recently finalized rule on arbitration agreements. The House is expected to vote July 25 on its version of the resolution (HJR 111), which Rep. Keith J. Rothfus (R-Penn.) introduced in the House on July 20 with 33 co-sponsors.
Analysis: regtech in the US – the state we are in
Subas Roy, chairman of the newly launched International Regtech Association (IRTA), provides an insight into the state of regtech in the US and further opportunities.
An Ant Can Teach A Big Lesson To U.S. FIs
Ant Financial created the world’s largest money market fund in four years by enabling mobile wallet users to move money to the fund simply within the mobile app. The program’s meteoric rise shows that consumers are willing to adopt financial services from new players and the mobile device can supercharge that consumer shift of assets if incumbents don’t react quickly enough.
Mastercard Triumphs against £14 Billion Collective Action Lawsuit
Mastercard can breathe a sigh of relief as the £14 billion (US$18.15 billion) lawsuit—a collective action over card charges that were passed on to shoppers—has been stopped by the U.K.’s Competition Appeals Tribunal.
Compliance Titans: Jim Schafer, FIS
An early interest in credit cards hooked Jim Schafer on payments. Since then, his work has taken him across the globe in roles as diverse as programming and human resources. But it’s his current role as senior compliance director of FIS Payments that has led him to be named one of Paybefore’s Compliance Titans.
Lessons from the GDPR compliance journey of a large financial services organisation
In preparation for GDPR compliance, a global financial services organisation embarked on a journey to assess its core information processing environments with the objective of identifying opportunities to strengthen its privacy data protection programs. This article focuses on the technology challenges, approach, and lessons learned for the centralised testing environment.
U.K. Bans Surcharging, Load Fees Could Be at Risk
The U.K.’s HM Treasury is banning surcharges on credit and debit card payments. For prepaid card providers, the new rules put significant fee income related to card-loading at risk, according to Polymath Consulting.
More human than human: banking’s AI future is all in the voice
Aditya Challa of IMImobile takes a look at some current and future applications of artificial intelligence (AI) for customer experience in the financial and banking sector, as well as the challenges that still need to be overcome. Beyond the current race to build chatbots, he predicts that voice-driven AI services will ultimately become the main […]
Find Innovation in a Sandbox, Not in a Lab
For financial institutions lacking the deep pockets of the biggest competitors, investing their limited resources to develop disruptive payments solutions isn’t a viable option. Stated simply, you can never outspend the big guys. What you really need is a more effective weapon to level the playing field.
Behavioural black magic
In 1957 the US market researcher James Vicary claimed he could get moviegoers to “drink Coca-Cola” and “eat popcorn” by flashing messages onscreen for such a short time that viewers were unaware they had seen them. The term “subliminal advertising” was coined to describe this unnerving practice and it was subsequently banned in many countries.
Congressional Republicans Look to Dismantle CFPB’s Arbitration Rule
It didn’t take long for Congressional Republicans to pounce on the CFPB’s final rule on arbitration agreements, which the agency released on July 10. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling said he would support use of the Congressional Review Act to dismantle the rule, while Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.) already has drafted a CRA resolution and is working with Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (Idaho) to introduce it “soon.”
Tap into Consumer Habits to Create Sticky Prepaid Products
Designing products with staying power starts with understanding consumers and then adapting uses cases to solve their problems.
Bold statement three: statements from around the bleeding edge of innovation
Hello all and apologies it’s taken a little while to get to the third instalment of the series about “pet peeve statements”. For those who are new, I am talking about those bold, declaratory statements that puff up the chest and make people feel awfully progressive and far sighted – and as I have said before, all sound and fury, signifying stormy waters ahead!
OCC Report Highlights Strategic Risks from Fintech, Operational Risk from Third Parties
The OCC’s latest risk report for banks highlights competitive pressure from fintech companies, loosening of credit underwriting standards, operational risks associated with third-party service providers, and compliance risks around Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and AML monitoring.
Interview: Nelson Holzner, AEVI – imagination will take you everywhere
Nelson Holzner, newly appointed CEO of AEVI, talks to Banking Technology about the importance of innovation and simplification, and addressing real-life problems with working solutions. “Do more” is AEVI’s motto.
CFPB Issues Final Arbitration Rule
It’s difficult to say just yet who the ultimate victors will be in the battle over arbitration—trial lawyers, consumers, the financial services industry, Congressional Republicans or the CFPB—but the bureau fired the latest salvo by issuing its final rule on arbitration agreements on July 10. The move comes despite warnings from House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) that doing so could result in contempt proceedings.
How Trump Can Really Reduce Compliance Burdens for U.S. Firms
If President Trump wants to make America great again, there are a few important ways he could bolster the fintech industry and help consumers—from supporting more uniform MSB licensing to reining in UDAAP.
Top five questions about using quantum-safe security in financial transactions
A wide range of technology-driven sectors will be affected by the advent of universal quantum computing many experts say will happen by 2026, but the financial industry has particular reason to be concerned.
Analysis: outsourcing to the cloud – EBA’s recommendations
The European Banking Authority (EBA) recently opened a consultation on its draft recommendations for financial institutions outsourcing to cloud service providers across all cloud-related domains including infrastructure, platform and software as a service.
Regtech: features that make data work harder and smarter
There is far more to regtech than regulatory technology, or at least there can and should be. Regtech, as it is coming to be understood, must be something qualitatively different from what it’s replacing and not just a faster and better version of the same thing.
Fed Payments Study: Noncash Payments Soar amid Check Decline
Consumers wrote nearly two-thirds fewer checks per household in 2015 than in 2000, while total noncash payments per household, which includes checks, card payments and electronic transfers via ACH, expanded almost 95 percent, according to additional results released June 30 from the “2016 Federal Reserve Payments Study.” While the numbers are encouraging to those facilitating electronic payments, prepaid providers have some work to do to gain market share.
Compliance Titans: Jeff Ross, Green Dot Corp.
Nearly a decade after jumping from the public to the private sector, Green Dot’s Jeff Ross remains as enthused as ever by the new challenges and complexities he faces every day as compliance head for one of the biggest players in an industry with a constantly shifting regulatory landscape and technology that’s advancing at a breakneck pace.
SEC Files Fraud Charges in Bitcoin, Office Space Scams
A U.K. citizen living in New York is facing fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in relation to two bogus investment schemes. Renwick Haddow allegedly reaped millions of dollars from investors in his supposed bitcoin platform Bitcoin Store Inc. and in Bar Works Inc., which offers office space in renovated restaurants and bars.
CRS: the end of tax evasion?
Tax evasion and tax fraud have been affecting governments finances all over the world over the decades. It occurs within a country and across countries. Thus, a single country cannot solve the problem on its own. Countries need to work more together and internationally to combat the problem home and abroad.
P2P Is Gaining Steam, but Security Concerns Remain
Consumers prefer to use P2P payments for retail purchases, paying back relatives and friends, and settling bills—but not so much for contributing to group gifts or paying housing costs, according to a new report from NerdWallet. It also found that that while only 35 percent of U.S. consumers use such P2P products as Venmo, PayPal and Square Cash, 63 percent are interested in the payment technology.
Six Key Themes from Money20/20 Europe
After a frantic few days in Copenhagen for Money20/20 Europe, Paul Butterworth, strategic marketing director at Trustonic, used the time during his flight home to digest the discussions and presentations and come up with the key takeaways from the fintech event.
CFPB Snapshot: California Leads Nation in Complaints to Agency
The CFPB receives more than 20,000 complaints every month, according to Director Richard Cordray, and the bureau’s latest installment of its Monthly Complaint Report highlights consumer complaints at the state level. As of June 1, the CFPB has received more than 1.2 million complaints across the country since it began accepting them in 2011. The top three states with the most complaints are California, Florida and Texas with 159,158, 111,559 and 93,472 complaints, respectively.
CFPB Clamps down on Credit Repair Companies, Leadership
The CFPB on June 27 filed two complaints and proposed final judgments in federal court against four California-based credit repair companies and three individuals for “misleading consumers and charging illegal fees.”
Money20/20 Europe: PSD2 Creates More Questions than Answers
On June 26, artificial intelligence captured the imagination of some at Money20/20 in Copenhagen. But during the June 27 sessions on the second day, it was like I had stepped back in time to November 2016, reported Deputy Editor Antony Peyton. Last year, at the Payments International conference in London, PSD2 left some in the payments industry confused as to where the risks and opportunities lie.
Study: Americans Uneasy about Finances Provide Opportunity for Financial Service Providers
One-fourth of Americans say they have too much debt, with 96 percent of them reporting they are financially stressed, according to a survey by the Center for Financial Services Innovation to gauge Americans’ financial well-being. While those statistics are bleak, they should signal an opportunity for banks, credit unions, fintechs and other companies to provide products, services and guidance to improve consumers’ financial stability, according to Jennifer Tescher, founder and CEO of CFSI.
The rise of Islamic fintech, global opportunities for Bahrain
In its recent survey of the Islamic finance industry, S&P estimated that the sector’s total assets have now reached just over $2 trillion. Given that the modern version of Islamic finance is only decades old, this represents exceptional growth over a comparatively short period of time.
Analysis: MiFID II – the new transparency regime
Having been a fixture on the regulatory agenda for years, the go-live date for MiFID II is now rapidly approaching. On 3 January 2018, the second iteration of Europe’s Market in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation will bring in sweeping changes to the financial markets on topics such as product governance and suitability, transaction reporting, commodities position limits and transparency.
U.K. Regulator Calls for More Competition in Payments
The U.K. needs more competition in its retail payments infrastructure. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the country’s Payment Systems Regulator.
