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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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.
A range of product and service announcements during Sibos show Swift becoming ever more tightly integrated with customer and vendor systems.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Bitcoin Foundation has retained Monica Monaco, founder and managing director of Trust EU Affairs, to assist with outreach to political leaders and policymakers in the European Union.
Apple Europe has hired Mary Carol Harris to lead the company’s mobile payments efforts in the region.
eBay Inc. announced that Dan Schulman has joined PayPal as president, effectively immediately, and he will become PayPal CEO after PayPal and eBay are separated next year into independent, publicly traded companies. eBay Inc. also announced that Devin Wenig, president of eBay Marketplaces, will become CEO of eBay in 2015.
Mercator Advisory Group has hired Richard A. Hall as head of its Commercial and Enterprise Payments Advisory Service.
In partnership with the U.S. Government, the North Carolina Secretary of State has requested that John Walsh, SightSpan CEO and president, provide counterterrorist financing training to government officials from Moldova.
Skrill, provider of online payment technologies to merchants and consumers, has appointed Christopher Russell CEO of Skrill USA Inc.
Softcard has extended its reach to the self-serve laundry business.
Noncash payments are estimated to have increased by 9.4 percent last year, reaching 366 billion transactions, according to a new report from Capgemini and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Large retailers and financial institutions aren’t the only victims of fraudsters on the prowl for payment card data.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Changing trade patterns and attempts to ‘de-dollarise’ international commerce are changing the landscape of trade finance, as new partnerships emerge.
eBay Inc.’s board of directors will separate the online auction Website from subsidiary PayPal next year, making two independent, publicly traded companies.
Technologies from Card Compliant aim to help prepaid issuers manage the regulatory and compliance challenges presented by accounting standards and escheatment requirements.
Prepaid product and technology provider InComm has partnered with Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), the retailer-led consortium that recently unveiled its new mobile payments network, CurrentC.
Minneapolis-based remote deposit capture specialist Cachet Financial Solutions has expanded its partnership with Ingo Money Inc.
