The UK Faster Payments experience is providing some guidance for the US Federal Reserve’s efforts to move beyond its slow ACH system, but it should take a different approach, according to a speaker at the Nacha Payments 2015 conference in New Orleans this week.
More than 300 organisations have applied to participate in the US Federal Reserve’s task force for faster payments, Sean Rodriguez, senior vice president for industry relations at the Chicago Fed, said yesterday at the Nacha conference in New Orleans.
Royal Bank of Canada has made the first cross-border Renminbi payment on Canada’s new RMB Trading Hub through the hub’s designated clearing bank, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China (Canada).
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has published a set of derivatives trading principles, which are part of an effort to get regulators around the world to harmonise their efforts at derivatives market standardisation. The principles include a call for greater flexibility on US swap execution facilities.
New Canadian exchange Aequitas NEO has gone live for the first time, using the MillenniumIT trading platform built by the London Stock Exchange’s Sri Lanka-based subsidiary.
Swift has hired David Lefferts as managing director, market initiatives for the Americas. Lefferts joins Swift after eight years at Markit, where he held product development, cross-product strategy, and senior business development roles over his eight year tenure.
A new US bond trading venue with a mission to help electronify fixed income markets for investors using experience gained in the equity markets is preparing to launch in the US this quarter. Called OpenBondX, the venue was Created by former Lime Brokerage chief executive Alistair Brown and former colleagues, OpenBondX is an ‘all to all’ system open to the buy-side and the sell-side.
Like opening Pandora’s box, the emergence of swap execution facilities in US derivatives markets has brought unexpected consequences and problems as well as benefits. In some cases, asset managers are actively looking to avoid trading on the new platforms and even turning to other asset classes, according to a new report by OpenLink.
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission Commissioner J. Christopher Giancarlo has condemned the CFTC’s implementation of swaps trading regulation reforms, describing its approach as highly over-engineered, disproportionately modelled on the US futures market and biased against both human discretion and technological innovation.
Banks in North America are ramping up IT spending on retail banking services and digital channels this year, with total IT spend expected to reach $64.8 billion by 2016, according to a new report by analyst firm Celent. The figures represent a 4.5% increase this year, as financial institutions increasingly turn to external software provider and specialists to bolster their abilities.
With so much attention on FATCA in recent times, the financial services industry could be forgiven for seeing it as the most obtrusive regulation ever imposed. This view will soon change. Once the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) comes into force, financial institutions will have far greater challenges to overcome.
US-based Webster Bank has introduced fingerprint authentication, using Apple’s Touch ID technology. The move comes as financial institutions increasingly seek to use biometrics as a tool to improve security.
US exchange BATS Global Markets is calling for an 80% reduction in access fees to the US stock market’s most liquid securities, on grounds that nearly a billion dollars in fees could be slashed without adversely affecting the market. In an open letter to the industry, the exchange also rejected what it calls a “grand compromise” on exchange fees and called for greater transparency and the avoidance of anti-competitive rules.
Digital and alternative currencies, including Bitcoin, can now be used for transactions in California, following the implementation of bill AB129 on 1 January 2015. The new bill is a step forward for cryptocurrencies which have faced tough opposition and scrutiny from global regulators. However, serious doubts about the safety of digital currencies have been voiced by banks.
The mega-chain goes mobile with many partners and a mobile app of its own with two key ingredients—convenience and loyalty.
The US is finally adopting EMV after an eventful 12 months in which barriers have been overcome. Merchant reluctance is diminishing, good progress is being made, and the ‘EMV train’ is now picking up speed, according to a new report by analyst firm Celent.
As the US moves to adopt EMV chip and PIN cards and mobile payments, authentication is becoming a serious concern, particularly for customer not present transactions – evidenced by the number of Money20/20 exhibitors focusing on the topic in contrast to the blockchain focus of much of last year’s event.
Online payments provider Optimal Payments has launched a new online checkout page, designed to help e-commerce merchants with indemnified alternative payments.
ATM maker Diebold has unveiled a new concept banking platform with four “experience zones” at the Money2020 conference in Las Vegas. The concept aims to demonstrate how banks can combine convenience, security and self-service with a low cost ‘footprint’.
Banks need to stop trying to exploit customers and start actually helping people, according to Brett King, chief executive at Moven. Instead of getting people to max out their credit card, a progressive bank should use smartphones and Big Data to help the consumer with the little things.
CPI Card Group launches a mobile platform that enables NFC payments using the secure element or host card emulation. The Littleton, Colo.-based card manufacturer also announced its first EMV prepaid cards in Canada.
Softcard announced a deal with QSR giant McDonald’s that adds 14,000 more U.S. locations to the mobile wallet’s acceptance network.
A new exchange is planning to begin trading in March, with a platform focused on long-term investors and issuers. Chief executive Jos Schmitt says the new venue has some unusual features which should help keep unwanted high-frequency traders at bay.
Financial market participants have criticised plans for the New York Stock Exchange to begin monitoring itself through its non-profit division, NYSE Regulation, describing the move as a “retrograde step” that will never work in practice. NYSE is currently monitored by FINRA, an independent organisation.
The US Federal Reserve Banks have begun planning for a faster payments system in the US, following research that found US consumers favoured such a system and would be willing to pay more for it.
Comerica Bank, the incumbent issuer of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Direct Express prepaid debit card program to distribute benefits to Social Security recipients, will continue in that role under a new five-year agreement, according to a blog post published today on the department’s Website.
Regulators in the US and Europe are stepping up investigations into dark pool activity, market abuse and manipulation of financial benchmarks following a spate of damaging incidents in recent months. Tougher regulatory oversight could have a significant impact on all three areas, according to a new report by financial services technology provider SunGard.
Deutsche Bank has poached Scott Marcar, previously at RBS, to head up its IT infrastructure as the bank prepares to ramp up competition against its rivals.
Regulators in Europe and the US are struggling to get to grips with trades that appear to be travelling back in time. Led by the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, new efforts are underway to synchronise time, with the help of atomic clocks.
Trading rules in the US are giving dark pools an unfair advantage over exchanges and could be damaging liquidity, according to a new report by the Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre.
Mobile payments provider LoopPay has secured funding from global payments firm Visa as it pioneers a technology that capitalises on the installed base of magnetic stripe-reader point-of-sale systems rather than NFC, which is the current favourite in mobile payment circles.
Commissioner Scott O’Malia of the US Commodity and Futures Trading Commission has called for continuing international co-operation on market surveillance and warned that current oversight mechanisms are flawed in terms of the data they collect and the way that they analyse it.
Canadian ‘challenger’ exchange Aequitas, which plans to favour long-term investors by discouraging HFT, has chosen a trading engine and several other tools from MillenniumIT, the Sri Lanka-based technology company owned by the London stock Exchange.
Pre-trade risk and post-trade processing specialist Traiana has launched a new version of its CreditLink tool for credit derivatives, which it says will help buy-side firms to trade on swap execution facilities.
ICAP has launched a swap execution facility in the UK, as part of a push to dominate both the European and the US OTC derivatives markets as they are brought under new regulation.
US clearing body the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is pushing a move to shorten the settlement cycle for the US markets to T+2, claiming support from industry bodies and firms including JP Morgan.
One of the central characters featured in Michael Lewis’ controversial book Flash Boys, has added fuel to the fire of debate over high frequency trading by claiming that in a market with less HFT, average order sizes would get larger and long-term investors would benefit.
When the US Federal Reserve Banks asked for comments on improving the US payments system, the tech industry and merchants said “let’s go” while the incumbents said “whoa, not so fast” …
Perseus Telecom has launched what it claims is the first ‘trans-Atlantic’ microwave route between New York and Frankfurt, for use by banks, market makers, proprietary trading firms and other market participants.
BNP Paribas Securities Services has launched a reporting tool for investment banks, which it says will help them cope with tough new financial regulations by better monitoring their intraday liquidity.
