Finance made social
The social contract between the banking system and society is fundamentally broken. We deserve a financial system that we can all be proud of, one that is fairer and more sustainable than the current iteration.
BankingTech
Starting over: Lloyds Banking Group’s transaction banking ambitions
While a great deal of attention has been given to Lloyds Banking Group’s retail operations as its various elements are split up, less has been given to its activities in transaction banking, where it is “one year into a three-year journey” to transform itself and its customer offerings to create“the best global transaction bank in this region”.
Gearing up for the future of payments
It is essential for banks to ensure they have the right strategies and technology in place now, if they are to retain their position as market-leading payment providers in the future, writes Saket Sharma,chief information officer, treasury services, BNY Mellon.
Financial institutions ramp up IT innovation
Banks and other financial institutions are finally spending more on growing new products in areas such as mobile and data analytics rather than maintaining legacy systems, according to a new report by Capgemini.
Another financial crisis highly likely, say Sibos delegates
There is a high risk of another financial crisis within the next 15-20 years, according to a poll of Sibos delegates yesterday. Those attending the regulatory reform session voted 74 per cent to 26 per cent that another financial crisis within that period was a high risk.
DCPs look beyond T2S cost savings to user benefits
Direct connectivity to the Target2-Securities settlement platform will give participants the opportunity to build new business models, access new markets more easily and deliver new services to clients, said a white paper, Taking the Direct Route to T2S: the industry view, released this week by Swift. Ten representatives of organisations that have decided to become directly connected parties (DCPs) were interviewed by Swift about their decisions to become DCPs and their plans for T2S participation.
Banks defend their payments turf
The launch of Apple Pay, the re-launch of PayPal as a separate company and the move to allow mobile operators to add payment for goods to phone bills across Europe are all threatening the hegemony of banks. But is it going to be as disruptive as many outside the banking world hope?
Bitcoin needs infrastructure
Besides mounting enthusiasm for Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, momentum is gathering to develop the infrastructure needed to turn what some see as a technology into a universally accepted currency.
Mobile becomes a sales platform
With attention increasingly focusing on mobile payments and mobile banking, Fiserv is urging banks to look more closely at how to use mobile to not only deliver services to customers, but also as an up- and cross-selling channel.
Microsoft fights cyber crime with pilot project
Microsoft has begun a joint pilot project with the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (FS-Isac) to tackle financially-motivated cyber crime attacks, which are estimated to cost $100 billion a year in the US alone.
Swift opts for more vendor and bank integration
A range of product and service announcements during Sibos show Swift becoming ever more tightly integrated with customer and vendor systems.
Building a transformation vision
This year marks the tenth anniversary of World Payments Report. In this extract from the report, which was launched at Sibos this week, the impact of innovation on payments is examined.
What’s not to like?
The rise of Facebook has been one of the most striking cultural phenomena of the past decade. In January 2007 the site had around 25 million users. But by July 2014, Facebook had reached 2.2 billion users; a number equivalent to one out of every three people on this planet. Meanwhile, Twitter had emerged as the platform of business and news, with 500 million posts ‘tweeted’ daily by its 271 million active users.
Limiting collateral damage
A lack of available collateral to meet demand has become a global problem, with various models being deployed to ensure financial institutions meet the changing regulatory requirements.
Onboarding challenges can be overcome
Increased sanctions, tighter anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) controls, plus client demands for a quicker, better all-round service in the cloud and the move to shared service platforms present client onboarding challenges to banks. But there are also opportunities, said Karen Braithwaite, BNY Mellon’s global head of client service, treasury services.
Alternative realities
The debut of SAP’s Financial Services Network at Sibos last year led many to see it as a threat to Swift’s plans for corporate connectivity.
Enhancing Economic Capital Model Design and Data Validation to Achieve a Risk Informed Capital Management Practice
New York, NY– October 1, 2014 – marcus evans, the world’s largest event management group, will host the Economic Capital Modeling and Management in Insurance 2014 Forum on November 18-19, 2014 in New York, NY. As risk assessment strategies become more aligned with business objectives and regulators grow increasingly interested in that integration, risk management executives and actuarial professionals alike have been tasked with designing frameworks capable of holistically managing enterprise risk.
DTCC-Euroclear move on global collateral processing
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Euroclear have taken the first steps towards the creation of a global collateral processing utility with the announcement that they plan to create a UK-based joint venture, DTCC-Euroclear Global Collateral.
Cool it on compliance, says HSBC
While banks want to root out fraudulent activity as much as governments do they “need to take the temperature down”, said Bob Werner, global head of financial crime compliance and group general manager at HSBC. Speaking at a panel session on trends in financial crime compliance, Werner said: “Every time something goes wrong we don’t need the scalp of a regulator or the scalp of a banker.”
New epoch for finance as trade unbundles …
Rising political tensions and the increasing use of sanctions are making companies think twice about relying on long global supply chains, said John Calverley, head of economic research at Standard Chartered. Firms may decide that rather than hedging their bets with production, they will keep it closer to home, he said during a roundtable session yesterday.
… and financial warfare is unleashed
The threat of banks de-risking and exiting regions and businesses in fear of sanctions-related fines is upon us, said Juan Zarate, the ex-deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism to US President George W Bush. Zarate was speaking at a Standard Chartered session yesterday morning about his new book, Treasury Wars: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare.
‘Pernicious disease’ of cyber war escalates
While the average bank heist averages $6000, a cyber-thief can make off with millions. Last year 552 million identities were breached, while every call about a compromised credit card costs a bank $4.
A call to pragmatic action
In a recently published white paper on intraday liquidity reporting*, Swift urges financial institutions to initiate programs now to address serious challenges with regard to data availability, centralisation, aggregation and interpretation in meeting Basel Committee guidelines. Greater industry collaboration will also help to accelerate moves towards cost effective and sustainable models and solutions.
Outsource your way to happiness, urges SunGard
Banks can reduce the headaches associated with cost pressure, tough new regulation, legacy business complexity and changing customer demands by outsourcing non-core areas of business. That is the idea behind two new corporate actions products launched by financial technology vendor SunGard.
Technology consumerisation will soon drive wholesale innovation
The consumerisation of technology is driving the development of new services in wholesale banking as much as it is in retail, as customers demand real-time access through mobile channels.
SGSS launches Global Broker-Dealer services
Societe Generale Securities Services (SGSS) has launched Global Broker-Dealer Services, an outsourcing solution aimed at institutional brokers, mid-tier banks and broker dealers. The fully integrated global service includes middle-office services, back-office processing and post-trade services.
Power to the people
The growth of peer to peer lending demonstrates that there is an alternative to the traditional lending model of banks. But can crowd funders ever replace the incumbents and do they enjoy long-run advantages or face being co-opted?
The shifting sands of commerce
Changing trade patterns and attempts to ‘de-dollarise’ international commerce are changing the landscape of trade finance, as new partnerships emerge.
Across the spectrum: ISO 20022 perspectives
The original concept of the ISO 20022 was to create a repository of data used in financial messaging to communicate business information of any type – and to be able to add any types of data that might arise in the future. There has been a lot of focus on the use of the standard in payments and securities messaging roles, this has obscured its current and potential use in other areas.
Work as one to rise above geopolitics, industry urged
The financial industry must work with regulators, market infrastructures and among itself to address the major issues it faces says Jamie Forese, co-president of Citi and chief executive of Citi Institutional Clients Group, during the opening plenary address at Sibos in Boston: “Perhaps the most important issue on which we must work together is encouraging regulators to build a coherent, consistent and unified regime of global financial regulation. We can’t build it ourselves; our role must be as advocates and as advocates we need to speak with one clear and consistent voice.”
Collaboration and utilities key to FMI success
Collaboration between international financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and the development of industry utilities will be a key factor in removing systemic risk and reducing costs for industry participants.
T2S competition is an opportunity, says Benito
The competition that will be introduced by the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) Target2-Securities (T2S) project among CSDs is an “opportunity” said Jesús Benito, chief executive at Iberclear. In simplifying the post-trade infrastructure of Europe, T2S is prompting new competitive forces, market entrants, challenges and even creating new words.
Regulation overkill won’t prevent another crisis
More than two-thirds of delegates who attended the Demystifying Regulators and Regulation session yesterday said they had to file reports with six or more regulatory agencies and of those, a third report to north of 11 agencies.
Reports focus on global payments growth
Growth is returning to the payments industry and new market entrants are poised to take a share of that growth away from banks, according to a clutch of payments-focused white papers released at Sibos today.
Misys launches tool to integrate corporate to bank relationships
Misys has launched the Misys FusionBanking Corporate FrontOffice, which it said integrates the corporate to bank relationship more fully. It provides banks with a tool that can aid client onboarding and functionality while enabling end use treasury customers to get commercial lending data, trade finance and payment information – and prices – out of their bank much more easily.
Banks have a role to play in crypto currencies
When a new payment system such as Bitcoin arises it tends to be successful “in areas where a need is not being met”, Gottfried Leibbrandt, Swift chief executive told delegates yesterday. He said his fascination with Bitcoin – “both a currency and an innovation” – had not changed in the past 12 months.
Big data is getting bigger, say delegates
Data loads at financial institutions are expected to increase significantly, according to a poll of delegates attending yesterday’s technology forum session on big data.
