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.
The number of UK mobile banking users is set to almost double from 17.8 million to 32.6 million by 2020, according to a new report commissioned by Fiserv. Online banking is still growing too, the research found.
Broker crossing networks will be heavily affected by upcoming European Commission rules on dark trading. But with 18 months to go until implementation, uncertainty still unnerves brokers and asset managers – prompting some market participants to re-examine whether they want to trade at all.
The European Commission’s MiFID II legislation is a poorly thought-out, arbitrary and unclear piece of rulemaking that will prevent traders from being able to do their job. Worse still, a lack of clarity over the final details will inflict uncertainty and cost on market participants from now until 2017, according to delegates at TradeTech Paris this week.
Banks and asset managers are being forced to learn to live in a world of greater specialisation, as unbundling of research and execution drives greater competitive pressure on costs. That is probably a good thing – but it will take the buy-side and the sell side in different directions, according to senior executives speaking at the TradeTech conference in Paris this week.
Banks and Fintech companies are locked in a war for the best technologists – and there is only so much IT and technology talent to go around …
Boat Services, the OTC trade reporting service provider owned by technology vendor Cinnober, plans to introduce a MiFID II compliance solution, offering publication services for all instrument classes. It will apply for authorisation by the FCA in the UK when Approved Publication Arrangement registration is available in 2016.
Finnish online-only bank Holvi has partnered with GBGroup, an identity intelligence specialist, as part of a drive to ensure that all its customers are verified while reducing the time this process takes. Holvi does not operate any branches, and as such relies on other methods to confirm the identity of its customers.
Russia’s NSD central securities depository has launched a joint project with Interfax information agency to coordinate their efforts for the development of a system of assessing the fair value of financial instruments. The move is part of an ongoing government reform agenda designed to turn Moscow into an international financial centre.
Last week saw the launch of the Payment Systems Regulator, the first time the UK gets a regulatory body overseeing the £75 trillion a year payments systems. Its brief is clear: to open up the UK payments infrastructure, which is currently controlled by the high street banks, make it more accessible to challenger banks and fairer for consumers. The regulator has been given strong powers by the government and has already made it clear it will fine the banks if they do not step up to the mark.
Two enhancements to the Current Account Switch Service (CASS), announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last December, have been successfully implemented by the banking industry.
The UK’s new Payment Systems Regulator looks set to shake up the way the industry is structured, with reviews of the ownership of the infrastructure and of the way that indirect access is managed through sponsoring banks.
Russian investment banking firm BCS Financial Group says using IBM Commerce to create and manage personalised marketing campaigns has increased cross sales of its online trading, brokerage, and investment strategy consulting services have increased by 20% in six months.
The European Parliament’s Payment Accounts Directive creates a right to a basic bank account, which must be enshrined in national law across Europe by September 2016. But the rules represent a challenge to banks’ ability to manage their business – one that speaks to the heart of the current regulatory debate, according to delegates at the Payments International conference in London this week.
The UK should lead the development of an EU Capital Markets Union because of its better-established markets, according to a report from a House of Lords committee published today.
The financial services industry faces a daunting task as the European Commission’s MiFID II legislation draws close to its final deadline, and grave concerns about inconsistencies in the rules and the pressures of meeting it remain.
ABN Amro Clearing will offer clearing and settlement of trades at MEFFPower, cleared by BME Clearing. The Spanish Power derivatives market is one of the top five markets in Europe and has experienced great growth in the past decade. The maturities offered by ABN Amro Clearing as swaps and futures will be: annual, quarter, months, weeks, week-ends and […]
The European Securities and Markets Association is consulting financial institutions on which messaging protocol and data formats would be best for trade reporting under MiFIR. As the timeframe for reporting comes ever closer to real-time, the consequences could be serious.
SIA, in partnership with Colt, has been awarded the contract to connect Hungarian central securities depository Keler to T2S, the new single European platform for the settlement of transactions in domestic and cross-border securities.
Tungsten Bank can now provide banking services in Germany, France and Italy following approval from the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority
Nearly two-thirds of Italians will be able to make real-time peer to peer payments using a mobile phone by this summer, according to Massimo Arrighetti, chief executive of Italian payment processor SIA. That’s not the end of SIA’s plans however, as the company focuses on an internationalisation agenda that targets 400 million European current account holders.
Lloyds Bank plans to invest £1 billion in digital banking capability over the next three years, re-investing a third of the savings it hopes to make in its drive to become ‘simpler and more efficient’.
European regulator ESMA is preparing to issue hundreds of pages of MiFID II cost-benefit analysis and Q&A material between now and July – but market participants are concerned about unresolved issues and rushed implementation as the deadline draws ever closer.
The Financial Conduct Authority plans to conduct a market study of the investment and corporate banking sector to decide if competition in the sector is working properly. It may also look into the asset management later in the year.
Poland’s Idea Bank has launched an experimental branch aimed at corporate clients. The ‘Idea Hub’ bank branch was created to test the idea that innovative bank branches can attract customers and provide a complementary service to online and mobile banking services.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Bucharest Stock Exchange are seeking to attract international investors to the Romanian stock market, following the launch of an ambitious government reform programme aimed at getting the country upgraded from frontier to emerging market status.
Dutch state-owned bank SNS is to upgrade its treasury and risk infrastructure using services from vendor SunGard. The bank wants to centralise its credit and market risk management, including initial margin and potential future exposure, in view of Basel requirements which oblige banks to adhere to higher standards of record keeping and transparency.
Customers are busy and don’t have time to deal with slow banking services and processes. Instead, they want social media banking and more sophisticated personal banking, together with benefits that are convenient to them. This was the message of speakers at the Finovate conference in London yesterday – but not everyone in the audience was convinced about the ability of new technologies to realise that vision.
Lloyds Banking Group is to allow customers to upload images of identification documents required as part on an online account opening application, removing the need to visit a branch.
Initially the new electronic identification and verification checks, which will start to be rolled out to customers from next week, will be available to customers who want to add an additional party to an existing account.
The UK’s Payments Council has selected Swift to build the country’s new central infrastructure platform in preparation for the next phase of SEPA regulation in 2016, through the provision of an automated central infrastructure platform for collection and maintenance of UK-specific SEPA routing data.
As 2015 begins to gather momentum, it looks like the end is finally in sight for PPI claims, according to the Financial Conduct Authority. Back in September, the FCA announced a further drop of 11% in complaints from the first half of 2014, continuing a downward trend that began back in 2012.
London-based Orwell Group, founded in 2005, has launched a pan-European current account called Ipagoo in the UK, France, Spain and Italy. The product aims to take on services provided by traditional banks, using open architecture software and promising consumers greater choice and less hassle.
Fear of fraud is the main factor slowing the adoption of smartphone-based payments among UK consumers, though a third believes that credit and debit card payments will no longer be the preferred method of payment in 2020.
Finland’s central securities depository Euroclear Finland has just completed the first stage of a major project to completely replace its securities processing infrastructure. The CSD says the move is part of its preparations for T2S, the European Central Bank project to harmonise Europe’s post trade infrastructure.
