Visa Europe says that uptake of contactless payments in Europe continues to climb with more than one billion transactions made in the last year. Visa cardholders spent €1.6 billion in March 2015 alone – a three-fold increase over the same period in 2014.
Financial systems vendor Infosys is setting aside $10 million for Irish start-ups in the wake of being selected as a strategic partner by the Allied Irish Banks financial services group. Infosys will also set up a facility in Dublin to house up to 200 staff, including some transferring from AIB.
Western Union is to install self-service kiosks in 300 of UK retailer WH Smith’s stores later this year. The kiosks allow customers to enter the details of money transfer transactions and then use the retailer’s self-checkout to pay.
EBA Clearing has published a blueprint document spelling out high-level business requirements for the pan-European instant payment infrastructure it hopes to start piloting in 2017 following consultation with a task force composed of more than 20 representatives of EBA Clearing service users.
The funds industry has successfully implemented the requirements of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive over the past year but has doubts about the use of data being gathered by regulators and question whether it is helping regulators to better spot threats and systemic risks that may impact market stability.
New payments options are springing up all over the place – except for the underlying infrastructure where current arrangement for access and governance may be a hinderance to innovation, according to the head of the UK’s Payment Systems Regulator.
The global financial crisis devastated the reputation of the UK banking industry and it is not hard to understand why public trust in banks is at a low ebb. Since 2008, there have been at least five major scandals involving one or more banks operating in the UK, writes Peter Duffy Along with the reputational damage […]
Talking used to be a positive thing. For many years, BT reminded us that it was “good to talk”; whilst in the 1980s the Midland Bank (since acquired by HSBC) promoted itself extensively as “the listening bank”. Now, there is a new breed of bank coming to the UK; one that doesn’t have branches or want a ‘physical’ interaction with its customers
Challenger UK retail bank Atom has received its licence from the Bank of England, meaning it will now be able to go ahead with plans to launch later this year. The bank will add competition to the UK retail banking sector, which until 2010 had not seen a single new entrant for 150 years.
There is a nuclear revolution going on in banking and payments with new digital challenger banks like Atom and Starling seeking to displace established banks that are themselves turning to real-time payment infrastructures to retain customers and under regulatory pressure to open up to FinTech competition from mobile players and payment service providers (PSPs). Crypto-currencies, cyber-security and other tech challenges were also addressed at the Banking Technology Forum 2015
Target2-Securities, the European Central Bank project to harmonise Europe’s post trade infrastructure, has finally gone live after nine years of preparation. Italy’s Monte Titoli was not part of the first wave.
If children trust Google more than they trust a bank, tomorrow’s customers may well hold their money with digital companies instead of traditional banks. That thought worries senior banking industry speakers speaking at the BBA conference in London on Thursday.
Tactical regulatory firefighting has distracted banks from their long-term strategic shift to an enterprise view of data. Looming issues such as the possible Brexit highlight the urgency of this task
London has been selected as the host city for Sibos 2019 following a successful bid by ExCeL London and London & Partners, the official promotional company for the city.
The London Stock Exchange has obtained approval for Hong Kong companies to become members. Previously, only companies from the European Economic Area and Israel could join.
Banking by mobile phone and tablet has become the primary way UK customers manage their finance, according to new research published by the British Bankers Association.
Regulators should not define how markets are structured when it comes to innovation and open access to clearing. Instead, it should be left up to the market to define how services are provided, according to speakers at the IDX FIA Europe conference in Europe this week.
As the European Commission’s MiFID II legislation moved towards implementation of technical standards, some of Europe’s national regulators are seriously worried that mandatory open access to CCPs may not be such a good idea. Concerns about the ability to manage risk and the ability to effectively handle data were highlighted by speakers at the IDX FIA conference in London yesterday.
Global regulators are struggling to find the balance between recognising each other’s existence and learning to harmonise and coordinate their activities, and protecting domestic national economic stability. But people who can’t accept that there will be some differences in regulation between Asia, Europe and the US are not realistic, according to Timothy Massad, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Industry association FIA Europe is calling on regulators to make changes to derivatives laws, including amendments to Basel III and MiFIR, as well as EMIR reporting obligations. The association argues that without the changes it is advocating, the viability of some of the new rules will be at risk.
Apple Pay will be available in the UK from next month, with eight of the UK’s most established banks and the major credit and debit card networks supporting it – along with Transport for London.
Demand for improved customer service and new mobile banking and payments services is driving increased hiring in financial services in the UK, with employment prospects 16 percentage points higher than a year ago, according to Manpower Group,
As consumer adoption of mobile devices and social media increases, banks can’t really rely on standard details such as income, age and geography to serve customers better than their competitors, according to a new report by payments company TSYS and software firm FICO. Instead, they may need to recognise the different kinds of customers based on how they interact with digital technology and tailor their services accordingly.
EU lawmakers reached a political consensus last week on a proposal for a new EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2). This follows several months of negotiations between European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers and marks a significant step in regulatory development within the payments market
MCO Europe, exclusive distributor of the McObject high performance database financial markets in the UK and Europe, is raising investment through Crowdcube, the UK’s largest crowdfunding site, to fund growth and expansion. McObject’s eXtremeDB Financial Edition high-performance database is used for trading and risk management by banks, fund managers, brokers and data vendors.
Pensions and payments company Equiniti has opened a new fintech innovation centre in Cardiff, which will focus on bringing together fintech tools for employee share plans, online applications for investment platforms and web and mobile applications for pension products.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s study into competition in investment and corporate banking will focus on choice, transparency, bundling and cross-subsidisation in debt and equity capital markets, mergers and acquisitions and acquisition financing. It will also consider links between competition in these primary market services and related activities such as corporate lending and broking, and ancillary services.
Leeds Building Society is to revamp its customer engagement tools through a ten-year deal with HP Enterprise Services, which will encompass a number of independent software vendors working on different parts of the business. The deal builds on the earlier deal between the two firms in 2013, which focused on the building society’s core banking platform.
Concerns over a growing skills gap and lack of future talent are the biggest worries among financial firms’ recruiters, leading to a renewed focus on graduate hiring.
UK consumers are spending more on their payment cards than ever before, with over a billion transactions in February, according to newly-released figures provided by the UK Cards Association.
UK retail bank Halifax reports that two-thirds of its customers are now using mobile to login, doubling the number of mobile banking sessions compared to a year ago.
Anti-money laundering legislation cuts through the Gordian knot of bringing cases against companies at a stroke – it doesn’t require a ‘controlling mind’. In fact, it almost demands the opposite. A UK-wide system of velocity checking would go further in combating crime and protecting Money Services Businesses.
Can the right combination of self-service device management, cash management and end-to-end transaction monitoring enable banks to embrace enterprise-wide performance awareness, and take a holistic approach to managing their multi-channel banking environments?
Financial institutions will need to maintain records, report transactions and supply reference data under the European Commission’s forthcoming MiFIR regulation. But those who expect plenty of time for implementation and no regulatory conflicts are likely to be disappointed, according to a new report by analyst firm Aite.
Visa Europe says that it will roll out its V.me by Visa in the UK this year, having secured commitment from 55% of the UK’s card issuance base, which accounts for more than 60 million card holders, and thousands of the UK’s retailers. It will now be commercially available to the majority of internet shoppers in the UK before the end of 2015.
Mobile startups are changing the way customers interact with financial services around the world. Tier one banks know this, and are keen to get a piece of the action. This week, companies from EMEA demoed at the Citi mobile challenge in London in the final stage of an annual event that takes in hundreds of financial startups around the globe.
Open APIs offer the promise of a better, more efficient and more inclusive financial services world. But delegates at the Swift Business Forum in London voiced frustration about the speed and direction of progress being made during a session on the topic.
Real time payments ‘innovation’ is in fact simply capitalising on advances that first appeared four decades ago, according to panellists at the Swift Business Forum this week. Since then, progress has been glacial in many places. So why has it taken so long to get real time payments?
New trade reporting requirements that would require banks and other capital markets participants to demonstrate best execution through data will impose massive costs and will not provide an equal level of benefit, according to senior executives speaking at the Swift Business Forum in London this week.
European banks and CSDs will be forced to change their business models under relentless pressure from Basel III, CSDR and T2S. That may involve consolidating services, as well as considering opportunities for collaboration, according to Henri Bergström, head of global post trade solutions at Nasdaq.
