March 5, 2013 GroupGifting.com, the developers of the eGifter Web and mobile social gifting app, debuted its integration with LinkedIn at the Prepaid Expo USA in Orlando, Fla., yesterday. The new feature enables consumers to send eGift cards to their LinkedIn Connections. “Social gifting in a business context is now a reality,” said Tyler Roye, […]
The European Central Bank has signed a deal together with the central banks of 18 countries to adopt Thomson Reuters’ Eikon desktop for trading and market data.
The imposition of a financial transaction tax in Italy on Friday has prompted condemnation from senior financial market observers, who are warning that the new rules could tip Europe into a liquidity drought that will damage banks and asset managers, punish traditional market participants and encourage a slide away from equities towards other asset classes.
While changes to the OTC derivatives world grab the headlines, trading is moving to a cross asset world, largely driven by regulation and standardisation – and after a few years of pain, firms may find that they are better off as a result.
German clearing and settlement business Clearstream has opened a new link to Russia’s CSD, the National Settlement Depository, that should allow customers based in the west to trade and settle Russian OFZ treasury bonds more easily.
The London Stock Exchange’s FTSE Group and Canadian exchange TMX have signed an agreement to combine their fixed income index business in a new joint venture, resurrecting at least part of the cooperation originally planned under the two exchanges’ failed merger back in June 2011.
A majority of consumers would prefer portable bank account numbers to make switching between banks easier, according to a new YouGov poll conducted by BT – and the reasons may surprise advocates of Banking 2.0.
Feb. 28, 2013 Discover Financial Services is taking on the likes of online banking specialists Simple and Moven with Discover Cashback Checking, introducing a mainstream debit card, to be processed on its Pulse network. Initially targeting only select Discover credit card customers by invitation, Discover’s new banking service carries no monthly fees or minimum balances […]
Feb. 28, 2013 MasterCard Worldwide pushed its global mobile payments strategy forward this week with announcements of diverse initiatives targeting new customers, including a strategic partnership with Amsterdam-based mobile network operator VimpelCom Ltd. to reach unbanked consumers in 18 countries with a “mobile money” service, as well as the card network’s first NFC launch in […]
Feb. 28, 2013 A new startup from PayPal co-founder Max Levchin is aiming to improve the process of making online purchases via mobile device—an improvement he says is a boon to customers and retailers alike. Known as Affirm, the new company is the brainchild of Levchin’s tech incubator Hard, Valuable, Fun and is launching a […]
Feb. 28, 2013 As part of a partnership established last year with The Members Group (TMG), a Des Moines, Iowa-based card processing and payment solutions provider, CO-OP Financial Services today announced it will be offering TMG’s reloadable prepaid cards to all of its client credit unions. The TMG reloadable prepaid cards are in addition to […]
Feb. 28, 2013 Customer service is in the news for the second time this week as prepaid card provider AccountNow Inc. reported that more than 90 percent of its call volume is now resolved in the automated system rather than via live agent. The increase follows AccountNow’s move to VoltDelta for customer service 18 months […]
Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market February 2013 By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC A proposed settlement agreement in the In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation—filed in 2005 on behalf of approximately 7 million merchants alleging, among other claims, that MasterCard and Visa had separately colluded […]
While most large banks in the UK offer a mobile app, some do not yet offer mobile cash withdrawal as a feature. That is likely to change soon, according to Ian Byrne, banking director UK and Ireland at ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf.
Financial services firms are being forced to become increasingly risk-focused due to the continuing pressure of regulation, according to a new survey by Thomson Reuters.
Kinshasa-based Rawbank has selected Clear2Pay’s e-Banking solution to revamp its online and customer loyalty strategy. Since its launch 10 years ago, Rawbank has become the largest bank by total deposits and total assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with a network of branches 30+ providing a local service to retail and corporate clients. Rawbank, […]
Russian broker Renaissance Capital has built a cross-margining tool for the Moscow FX and derivatives markets Micex Selt and Forts, and the London Stock Exchange’s international order book.
Orange Business Services – Trading Solutions has launched a collaboration with Bloomberg Vault that will record voice data in real time, so that brokers can better comply with regulation on record keeping.
Financial technology company SmartStream has launched a reconciliation solution designed to provide low-cost back office services.
Technology companies Verdande and ITRS have developed an early warning system designed to detect trading outages and system failures before they happen.
Payment service provider Payment Exchange has moved its Mauritius operation onto BPC Banking Technologies’ HP Integrity NonStop platform, which is designed to make it easier, faster and cheaper to launch new products.
The International Standards Organisation has finalised details of a new ISO standard that guarantee the long-term authenticity of electronic signatures.
Feb. 26, 2013 Payments industry experts eyeing the October 2015 target date for the U.S. migration to EMV card technology are contemplating plans to set up an EMV pilot in a single U.S. city to boost EMV planning and to work out the bugs in chip-card deployment. The concept, hatched by a committee within the […]
Feb. 26, 2013 European e-voucher provider paysafecard group has launched a new service it says will simplify the process of Internet shopping for its customers. The Paybefore Award-winning firm’s new system—dubbed “my paysafecard”—enables customers to combine all of their paysafecard e-vouchers into a single account. Instead of having to enter separate 16-digit PINs for each […]
Feb. 26. 2013 Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) today told attendees at a Credit Union National Association Government Affairs Conference in Washington, D.C., that federal lawmakers may revisit the debit interchange fee cap created by the Durbin Amendment this year, according to CUNA’s News Now. The publication also reports the Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said earlier […]
Feb. 26, 2013 The Payment Cards Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia hosted a workshop last week focused on customer service in the prepaid card industry. Susan Herbst-Murphy, a senior industry specialist at the PCC, says the center was eager to learn more about customer service issues in light of the Treasury’s mandate […]
Feb. 26, 2013 Oman’s largest bank said a dozen of its prepaid travel cards were compromised outside of the country. Bank Muscat will take an impairment charge of up to 15 million rials (US$39 million) as a result of the unspecified fraud—a figure representing more than 10 percent of the bank’s latest annual earnings. […]
Dutch bank ABN Amro has been fined by Nasdaq OMX Stockholm for a technology failure that led to an erroneous order entering the market.
MasterCard has announced the roll-out of a new integrated authorisation tool that straddles the card, online and mobile payments areas, while allowing merchants and digital wallet providers to integrate it with their services.
The Luxembourg Stock Exchange is cooperating with IT support company Altus to develop a market infrastructure for European investment funds, which constitute a large part of the Luxembourg economy.
US investment bank Jefferies is to use a financial extranet and data service from IPC Systems, a New Jersey-based technology specialist.
Saxo Bank has added new features to its trading app SaxoTrader, which works on iPhone and iPad and is designed to make trading more mobile.
The Qatar Exchange has introduced sponsored access and market making for the first time, in a move intended to boost liquidity and make it easier for a wider pool of investors to access the market.
Feb. 25, 2013 Aiming to speed up development of mobile payment technologies, Visa Inc. on the eve of this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona announced the Visa Ready Partner Program, a framework it hopes will make it easier for mobile device manufacturers, mobile network operators and various of their technology partners around the world […]
Feb. 25, 2013 MasterCard Inc. today unveiled MasterPass, a cloud-based service that builds on its PayPass Wallet Services by eliminating the need for consumers to enter card or shipping details with each purchase and adding new tools to enhance online, mobile and in-store shopping. MasterPass will roll out through banks in Canada and Australia beginning […]
Feb. 25, 2013 PayPal continues its diversification into brick-and-mortar payments with the announcement that it will expand its PayPal Here mobile card reader to Europe, beginning in the U.K. this summer. The European iteration of PayPal Here will differ from the version launched in the U.S. nearly a year ago in some key ways, due […]
Feb. 25, 2013 Recent research into the prepaid card-buying habits of ATM users indicates an opportunity for credit unions and banks to capture a portion of the prepaid card market by leveraging the convenience of ATMs. More than 85 percent of credit union members use ATMs and 70 percent of those ATM-using members also buy […]
Feb. 25, 2013 Shanghai-based payment card network China UnionPay (CUP) continues its efforts to develop NFC payments, signing an agreement with Dutch digital payment security provider Gemalto to build “a secure mobile NFC ecosystem.” The partnership will cover deployment issues including trusted service manager interoperability, along with technology standards and specifications, the firms said. China […]
Foreign exchange utility CLS Group has appointed Dino Kos as head of global regulatory affairs. In his new role, he will report to David Puth, chief executive at CLS from his base in New York.
New guidelines published earlier this month by European regulator ESMA could have a major impact on market making across Europe, according to Matthew Coupe, director of regulation and market structure at NICE Actimize.
