Viewpoint: Bitcoin Challenges Us All to Keep Innovating
Bitcoin (and the tsunami that has ensued) has been characterized as the next stage in the revolution of payments—more precisely, of money.
Industry Comment
Viewpoint: Why Bitcoin Is Going Gangbusters and Why It Matters
If Bitcoin manages to become wildly successful, it’s likely that several similar currencies will appear alongside it. The focus of hackers all across the globe will then surely turn to these anonymous stores of virtual value rather than to traditional account-based payments.
Breaking dawn: the new reality for the buy-side
Enlightened buy-side firms are facing the challenges of high-touch regulation, fragmented liquidity and ongoing cost pressures head on and developing new business models and approaches at every stage of their workflow.
Blog: Facebook Payments: Trust Is Worth More than ‘Likes’
If Facebook can garner trust from enough of its active users to adopt Autofill by Facebook, there are billions of dollars at stake. But, no one goes to PayPal to post baby pictures. No one congratulates 12-year-olds for winning a soccer game on Amazon. Facebook wandering into payments easily could be as awkward, especially as users become more leery of how their information is shared between Facebook and its partner sites.
Scaling up in Asia
The burgeoning wealth of Asia represents a huge opportunity for asset managers that can scale their businesses across the region, but it will place huge strains on firms’ operations, driving them to explore a new approach to outsourcing.
A world of payment possibilities
As Ts are crossed and Is are dotted by financial institutions and corporates preparing for the Single Euro Payments Area some recent announcements point to the glittering world of opportunity beyond mundane SEPA compliance.
Viewpoint: They Mean It—They Really, Really Mean It! (November 2013)
New OCC guidance reminds financial institutions that third-party oversight is where it’s at.
Banks “turning away business” because of regulations says Aite
Compliance concerns are causing nearly one-third of banks to turn away business, according to a new report from Aite Group.
Innovation and opportunity in the banking sector
The chaos of the crisis did not spark renewed interest in innovation: no ideas of note were created within banks and surprisingly few people left their jobs to launch start-ups – the innovation gap in the financial sector has been largely filled by the growth of the fintech start-up sector.
Blog: The $800MM Braintree Acquisition and PayPal’s Pursuit of the Emerging Digital Marketplace (November 2013)
PayPal’s pending acquisition of Braintree will broaden its scope of innovative digital commerce solutions, support its developer platform overhaul and bring P2P competitor Venmo into the fold.
Viewpoint: HSAs Build Long-Term Wealth with Tax-Favored Savings (November 2013)
Issuers or program managers that focus marketing efforts on the savings that can be achieved through HSAs could increase account take-up and improve the profitability for those accounts at the same time.
Commodity trading analytics: exploiting a new set of options
Commodity traders are rapidly adopting new analytics tools to help, testing how a combination of powerful cloud-based processing systems and increasingly sophisticated analytics tools can boost their bottom line.
T2S: time to seize the day
To prepare for the overhaul to settlement in Europe, financial institutions need to face up to T2S and work closely with their settlement service providers to ensure that they maximise the business benefits. It’s time to seize the opportunities presented by the T2S initiative.
Viewpoint: The EC Payments Package: Will It Create a More Integrated and Efficient European Payments Market? (October 2013)
Clear and effective legislation could result in a beneficial change for business. An unclear and ineffective one would result in another obstacle to a “further integrated and efficient European payments market,” which the commission has set as the first objective the Payments Package should achieve.
Looking to China’s Skipped Generation
China’s miraculous economic catch up since reform and opening up has created an unprecedented generation of consumers. The way this generation has adopted the on-line world in China is very different from that in the West.
Banks rush to bolster compliance
Firms like JP Morgan and HSBC have taken major measures to improve internal controls so that they can comply with new and changing regulations. It won’t end there.
Russian telco links Europe to Asia with high-speed fibre
Russian telecoms carrier MegaFon has announced the commercial launch of an 8,700 kilometre long terrestrial fibre optic trunk connecting Europe and Asia. The DREAM – Diverse Route for European and Asian Markets – link extends from Frankfurt-am-Main to the Kazakhstan-China border, through Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, and was created by MegaFon in cooperation […]
Viewpoint: Let’s Make a Deal (October 2013)
Although retailers traditionally had balked at offering discounted gift cards, many are shifting strategies to keep up with consumer demand and are increasing overall sales.
The Financial Services Circus
An ex-Coca Cola chief executive was once quoted talking to staff about the work-life balance – juggling careers, family, health, friends and spirit. In the financial services industry today, work life itself is quite a balancing act.
Blog: Security vs. Convenience: The Online Payments Conundrum
Online commerce has begun to approach saturation in Western markets, while fraud, competition and a more demanding consumer base are squeezing online payments providers.
Blog: Money2020 Opens Door to Payments’ Future (October 2013)
The second annual Money2020 in Las Vegas earlier this month had a vibe unlike payment conferences of the past, and not just because of the acrobats roaming around during networking sessions.
Blog: Mobile App Permissions: Scaring Users and Haunting Developers?
Please let me use your camera. Do you mind if I browse through your contacts so I know all your family and friends, and can call or text each at my discretion? To the uninitiated, these eerie questions read like a disturbed love note from a stalker. But these are common permissions requests for many mobile apps. Could they scare off users?
Final hurdle: rising to the operational challenge of transaction taxes
One may speculate that with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party having secured a quite remarkable third term in office, the last in a long line of potential hurdles for the advocates of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) in Europe has been overcome
Mobile payments – the tipping point
There comes a tipping point when market readiness, social behaviour and technology combine to create a sudden, ubiquitous change of behaviour. For mobile payments the tipping point may have arrived – but will there be a dominant solution?
Viewpoint: Payroll: Proof of Prepaid Power in Numbers
A group of like-minded companies came together this summer to address the recent melee in payroll cards. The work is far from over, but their activity points to the power of pooling resources and relationships for real progress and impact.
Cross-channel banking: beyond the app
Understanding and embracing cross-channel communication behaviours will become increasingly critical to success in the banking industry, writes Steve Dille, SVP of global marketing at Maryland USA based communications firm Message Systems.
Maybe next time …
What do Monty Python star Michael Palin, a municipal cemetery, the rock band Def Leppard and a long-running debate in the press room at Sibos have in common? The answer is Sheffield, Palin’s home town, which has for some years now been an also ran in the choice of the next venue for Swift’s annual travelling circus.
The challenges of paying Asia faster
Slowly but steadily, financial institutions and their corporate clients are beginning to talk about growth again. Markets are gradually shifting from a purely defensive position; the Fed has spoken about tapering its quantitative easing programme; and many companies are putting expansion back on the agenda in response, writes Greg Murray.
Intelligent changes to lending: winning back consumers’ hearts
Following yet another revelation that UK banks have been mis-selling financial products to their customers, this time for identity theft and credit card protection insurance, the need for high street lenders to prove that they are changing their lending behaviour has never been so great.
Blog: Don’t Listen to Consumers on Mobile Wallets … Yet
A new survey suggests most consumers don’t want mobile wallets, but many were skeptical about the Internet, at first.
Blog: The Case for Staying Confident about NFC (October 2013)
Once again, NFC is in the news for more of what didn’t happen than for what did. Despite the rumors that Apple would put NFC in its new security-minded iPhone 5S, the annual iPhone new model release announcement came and went without a mention of NFC.
Re-inventing banking: geospatial adoption drives “New World” business models
Loyalty is key to business success – and banks that can bring data and technology to bear to achieve it stand to gain the most, writes Sameet Gupte, senior vice president and managing director for Europe at IT consulting and outsourcing company Virtusa Corporation.
Omnichannel: the new normal for retail banks
With customers expecting consistent service across all channels, banks must step up to the plate and streamline their processes when it comes to customer interaction. Using the omnichannel approach, they’ll also reap the rewards of better customer intelligence and a clear idea of how best to spend precious budgets.
Bricks or clicks? The choice isn’t yours
The challenging ongoing economic climate and the resulting shrinking markets have created an environment of greatly increased competition. In order to deal with the pressures of recession, retail banks are increasingly being forced into a strategic transformation of business structure, culture and practice. How they interact with customers is a prime focus during these transformations, writes Mike Davies, Regional Vice President Sales EMEA North at GMC Software Technology.
Life beyond legacy: exploring the options
The payment industry has never seen so much change or opportunity. It continues to be reshaped by shifts in the economic landscape, new technologies and customer needs and this is set to continue.
Viewpoint: Hiring and Retention Tips from a Payments Recruiter (September 2013)
The scoop on the hottest jobs in prepaid. Plus, how to attract (and keep) the best talent.
Blog: Will Prepaid Change the Way China Shops? (August 2013)
By Shoney Yuan, Ceridian Stored Value Solutions (SVS) Take a stroll down any street in one of China’s big cities and it’s hard not to feel excited about the business potential this vast nation offers. Sophisticated marketing and innovative advertising compete for your attention as a consumer. There is much to buy—from groceries, to household […]
From collateral to liquidity management: the importance of a Golden Repository
A fragmented data architecture can threaten a financial institution’s ability to keep track of its assets. All too often, front office systems are separated into individual asset classes and lines of business, making the integration of the transaction flows from these systems very difficult.
Regulation: a torrent of trouble for wealth management
Regulation is a key driver of change on IT strategies across the wealth management sector, and brings huge challenges, especially for smaller players: predictions are that the cost of compliance may rise by a further 16% by 2015.
Viewpoint: Our Role in Helping People Manage Their Money Successfully (August 2013)
It’s time for the prepaid industry to once again innovate by embracing next-generation processing technology and creating new tools that help people improve their financial behavior.
