UK Treasury officials and senior bank representatives showed diverging views over the future of retail banking at an event hosted by Experian in London yesterday, revealing differences of opinion about how best to reform the sector.
Cover story: the securities markets are changing rapidly, and none more so than fixed income. Also in this issue: Interview: Thomas Zeeb, chief executive of Six Securities Services, on the opportunities presented by Europe’s changing post-trade infrastructure Interview: Ruth Wandhöfer, global head, regulatory & market strategy at Citi Transaction Services, on the challenges still facing […]
While the value of data has become increasingly clear to businesses in the wake of the financial crisis and subsequent regulatory and compliance initiatives across Europe, they are not yet reflecting data as a valued asset on their balance sheets.
GFT Technologies has taken an 80% stake in Italian IT consultancy Sempla for an undisclosed cash sum. It has the option to acquire the remainder of the company after five years.
Nationwide Building Society has brought in a new tool from ATM maker NCR designed to protect its customers against card-skimming, a type of fraud in which criminals steal customer data from ATMs.
The post-trade infrastructures behind the world’s securities markets face as much, if not more, regulatory driven change as the trading firms in the face of legislation such as the European Union’s European Market Infrastructure Regulation. While some of the effects will be negative, the regulators are showing a constructive approach and recognising that the infrastructure providers came out of the crisis well, says Thomas Zeeb, chief executive of Six Securities Services.
As new rules governing the central reporting of OTC derivatives take effect across the G20 nations, TriOptima, a subsidiary of broker ICAP, has said it will verify and reconcile OTC derivatives data from US post-trade utility the DTCC’s trade repository – making it the first provider to do so.
The extent to which a targeted series of acquisitions over the past few years have moved Temenos from being simply a core banking system vendor to a fully-fledged financial technology specialist became clear at its recent annual user event, this year held in Abu Dhabi.
Recent months have seen rising tensions over the seemingly insurmountable demands for collateral prompted by tough new financial regulation. With US Treasury estimates ranging as high as to $11.2 trillion in stressed market conditions, some observers are deeply concerned that the industry could be in danger of sliding into a black hole
In early 2009, soon after the global subprime fallout, the official Vatican newsletter published a rather contextual referral for Islamic banking, observing that the ‘ethical principles on which Islamic finance is based may bring banks closer to their clients and to the true spirit which should mark every financial service‘, writes Riaz Akhtar, senior consultant, […]
The latest figures from UK retailers show a significant move to debit cards and new mechanisms like PayPal as consumers shy away from cash and credit cards.
The UK retail banking sector is characterised by a continuing lack of competition and resultant limited customer churn between financial services providers. This has made it difficult even for new market entrants to gain market share from long-standing, less popular competitors, due to the inconvenience and complexity involved in switching banks.
Technology will contribute to the development of the supply chain finance market, with the growth of e-invoicing systems seen as a significant market accelerator by the majority of the banking community.
Trading and risk technology specialist Cinnober is investing in a financial IT cluster in northern Sweden, centred on the university town of Umeå and initiating a a one-year trainee programme stating in the autumn.
Banks need to cross a psychological barrier and embrace the concept of outsourcing their payments operations if they are to compete on product innovation and customer service rather than simply on cost.
The idea of sending money via email is not entirely new. This month, however, a new financial player entered this arena: Google announced that it will integrate Google Wallet into Gmail.
Millennium Information Technologies, the IT subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange has appointed John Mackay “Mack” Gill, as its new chief executive office, taking over from company founder Tony Weeresinghe, who will become non-executive chairman with a global business development role.
Saxo Bank, the multi-asset online trading and investment specialist, has launched Saxo TV, fronted by former Bloomberg TV News anchor Owen Thomas, to provide on-demand business and financial analysis.
Commerzbank is to deploy Clear2Pay’s Open Payment Framework as a central platform for end-to-end XML-processing and to interface with new technology and products. Commerzbank will implement OPF as part of a longer term strategic payments renewal project for its clients in and outside Germany. The project will be implemented in phases, with the first go-live […]
The $400 billion global remittances market is moving from cash to account-based transfer, but costs, regulations and new competitors are still the key issues.
Traditional finance is not as we once knew it. The internet has completely disrupted the financial services value chain. The banks are struggling to keep up with advancing technology. Understanding mobile, cloud computing, social media, big data and how to utilise each capability are key challenges for the banks to overcome.
Mark Buitenhek, global head of payments and cash management at ING, describes how simplification, SEPA, security and service are the principal issues facing transaction banks, along with regulation.
Across Europe many banks feel unprepared for the next phase of the ‘digital revolution’, while factors such as expensive compliance regulations, poor data management and outdated systems are constraining them from implementing new solutions
Temenos execs were surprised when a group of attractive young women started approaching delegates outside its annual user conference in Abu Dhabi this week. The delegates – existing and potential bank customers – were being tempted by the offer of cocktails in the adjacent hotel, and the prospect of helicopter rides.
Mobile banking can be more secure than online banking – but the real challenge is to move from closed circuit payments to a world in which customers of any bank can use any mobile app to send funds to any recipient, according to Hannes van Rensberg, founder and chief executive at mobile payments specialist Fundamo.
Social investment network eToro is to open up shop in the UK, having won approval from new regulator the FCA this month. Founded in 2007, eToro is a social trading network that aims to revolutionise the way retail investors and high net-worth individuals connect with the market.
It’s often been said that the financial services industry is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and in some instances this may have proved to be a safe bet. The industry is littered with systems that have grown out of cottage industry and ‘fitting square pegs into round hole, writes Paul Taylor, director global matching, Swift. However, we […]
Milan-based financial technology firm SIA is expanding its reach to New York later this year in a move that caps the latest-phase of a three-year recovery plan for the firm. The extension of SIA’s Financial Ring to New York follows that activation of a hub in Frankfurt is the third cornerstone, after Milan and London, […]
With the newly formed LEI Foundation moving forward with establishing processes for issuing and managing the Legal Entity Identifier through its Regulatory Oversight Committee and the registration of seven pre-Local Operating Units, it is worth taking a step back to understand exactly why the industry is pushing forward with the LEI and what it could achieve.
Bank has named FIS as its technology partner to provide a technology platform in a fully-hosted outsourcing deal that will run for the next four years.
In the debate about the future of UK retail banking, the role of the building society is often overlooked, but technological change is playing to their strengths.
The cost to fully upgrade the financial industry’s infrastructure to make efficient use of collateral will reach $53 billion, according to new research by Celent – but too much standardisation could do more harm than good, warns SIX Securities Services.
The whole concept of internal software development within banks and other financial institutions could soon be replaced by small ad hoc teams constructing applications using off-the-shelf apps or downloadable modules, according to Michael Harte, chief information officer at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Rabobank’s Inneke Bussemaker talks about The Brave New World of Payments session she chaired at IPS 2013, taking a critical look at the future of how payments work in a world where corporates will have to adapt to a consumer-driven agenda.
Financial institutions have owned the commercial payment space for centuries, but are now seeing a threat to their incumbency from new technologies that have opened up the industry to other business sectors. Mobile transactions in particular are shaking-up banking.
A difficult future for the banking industry, but a potentially great one for London as a financial centre, was predicted by Sir John Gieve, chairman of VocaLink and former deputy governor of the Bank of England, speaking at the opening of Swift’s Business Forum in London today. But the industry must be careful and diplomatic if it wants to have any real say in how the future is shaped.
Click here to watch this free webinar Building a business case for moving to the cloud can be challenging. Although cloud-based technology is emerging in nearly every segment of the financial services industry, many business and IT executives are wary of taking the leap. We invite you to join the experts at Banking Technology and […]
As delegates gather for the third Business Forum organised by Swift in London this week, issues on the global impact of regulation and the banking industry’s response to it are more pressing than ever Perhaps equally pertinent to the conference – the largest event Swift organises aside from the annual Sibos conference and exhibition, with […]
Dermot Turing, partner at Clifford Chance, told the IPS conference that regulators are hampering innovation by making it hard for the industry to collaborate though application of competition law. He advocates that banks – particularly from the transaction and payments world – should be educating the regulators in order to get better regulations.
Standard Chartered has enlisted Clearstream and Euroclear to make more efficient use of collateral, as tough new financial regulations drive investor fears of an impending collateral shortfall.
