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.
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.
By Joseph DeSetto, Emerging Payments Blogger In every technology shift, users are confronted with interfaces that were designed for the previous generation. For example, early PCs rendered graphics of Rolodexes, clocks and other analog desk accoutrements. In this tradition, users of today’s smartphones often are presented with a shopping experience that was designed for the […]
By Ginger Schmeltzer, Fiserv For years we’ve been debating why mobile payments haven’t taken off faster. Debaters point out issues with the number of players in the value chain, business model challenges, competing technologies, lack of a compelling value proposition, security concerns and more. All of these points are valid: Business models are all over […]
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.
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phase of the ‘digital revolution’, while factors such as expensive compliance regulations, poor data management and outdated systems are constraining them from implementing new solutions
By Joseph DeSetto, Full Sail University Near field communication, or NFC, is a technology that, on the surface, has tremendous potential. The Japanese vending machine experience of paying for your favorite flavor of sugar water without taking coins from your wallet has been an image of the future for several years now. But for […]
By Joe DeSetto, Emerging Payments Blogger Great design is often highly subjective and can be maddening for executive decision makers. Steve Jobs’ well-known response to his engineers trying to find a solution he would accept was: “I’ll know it when I see it.” Design, and the delightful products and experiences that result, is an art […]
By John Grund, First Annapolis Consulting Safeway’s decision to IPO a minority stake of Blackhawk Network is yet another milestone in the evolution of the prepaid industry, given Blackhawk’s unique distribution role in the broader value chain. Green Dot and NetSpend serve as bell weathers for the market value of program managers in the prepaid […]
By David Parker, Polymath Consulting Recently we saw the announcement by Nakumatt in Kenya—think Tesco in the U.K., Walmart in the United States—that it will convert all of its 1 million loyalty cards to prepaid MasterCard cards. Polymath Consulting worked with Diamond Trust Bank (DTB), one of the two issuing banks selected by Nakumatt, and […]
The developed world, especially here in the United States, has a very specific idea of what mobile means, and mobile payments in particular. There are certain technologies that spring to mind as acceptably cutting edge and worth attention, such as apps, QR codes, Square, Apple Passbook and Google Wallet. These technologies are now and ahead […]
By Cynthia Merritt, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta It’s no secret that cross-border travel has involved a lot more restrictions since 9-11. Declaration of assets and physical inspection of luggage and other items are expected, as well as tedious and unpleasant, aspects of a vacation or business trip. That could change soon and not for […]
By Joe DeSetto, Emerging Payments Blogger In the acclaimed television series Mad Men, an average copywriter named Harry Crane invents a role as his agency’s new Head of Television. In this fictional retro world, the old guard that runs the agency in the early 1960s has no idea of the importance of this new broadcast […]
By David Parker, Polymath Consulting The last several months have seen two very interesting pieces of M&A activity in Europe. First, we saw Wright Express’ take over CorporatePay. CorporatePay was a “pure play” program manager specializing in the corporate-loaded sector and, in particular, virtual prepaid cards used by the travel sector for supplier payments. For […]
By Joe DeSetto, Emerging Payments Blogger Siri, Apple’s voice assist for iOS devices, already is a steering wheel button on some newer model cars. BMW has an option listed next to the premium leather seating called BMW Apps. Fords now include Sync, a Microsoft technology, and released the Ford Developer Program and a new open […]
By David Parker, Polymath Consulting Are we reaching market saturation for consumer-loaded prepaid programs in the U.K.? Our latest industry research suggests the answer may be “yes.” Polymath has published The Prepaid Report since 2007, tracking the number and types of consumer-loaded prepaid cards programs in the U.K. Our latest report makes interesting reading because […]
By Joseph DeSetto, Emerging Payments Blogger It wasn’t long ago that mobile payments apps for the current generation of smartphones were difficult and time consuming for even experienced programmers to create. Much like the early days of e-commerce, standard ways of protecting user data, providing a consistent interface and user experience that would be trusted, […]
By Joseph DeSetto, Emerging Payments Blogger A continuous stream of posts with witty comments or pop culture references is nothing new online after years of Facebook, Twitter and various other social services. But when the same type of feed appears in social commerce app Venmo—available online and on a mobile device near you—the effect is […]
By Hunny Huria, Visa At times I’m amazed how social media has changed our lives and continues to have potential to impact it more. There are innumerable people who start the day by checking their Facebook accounts. As of December 2012, Facebook had more than half a billion daily active users, and 9 million apps […]
By Nick Holland, Javelin Strategy & Research I bought a new laptop the other day. I won’t bore you with the details of its specifications, but suffice to say, as a professional nerd, I get pretty excited about these things. In fact, I got so excited that I actually bought it as an impulse purchase […]
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.
Retail banking is changing through many external forces. The on-going global financial crisis has impacted the regulation surrounding the banking industry, but there are other factors changing the environment banks find themselves operating in.
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 […]
By Jai Holtz, Sears Financial Services (Member of MCX) There’s no denying that years of hype around mobile payments is beginning to translate into real interest and action from retailers, but the trend has a lot less to do with the actual act of paying than is widely assumed. There are numerous benefits to being […]
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.
News that two Argentine climbers are planning mobile banking exploits on the slopes of the world’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest in the Himalayas, reveals the lengths to which banks will go to gain publicity for mobile payments technology.
Good news for those with a need for real-time financial market data at their salty fingertips while making crossing the world’s oceans: Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg services have both been benchmarked aboard ship in a proper offshore passage. Brighton-based Beacon Electronic Trading Solutions stress-tested the Thomson Reuters Eikon and Bloomberg Anywhere products on board the […]
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.
Protect your transactions! Protect your login! Protect your mobile channel! Protect your end users! A layered security architecture is now standard for most organisations. The problem, however, with many of today’s layered security solutions is that they do not correlate information between the various layers (security risks, suspicious events, fraud indicators etc.) and thus fail to see the big picture.
At first glance, the Basel Committee’s new Principles for stronger banking risk governance appear to represent another huge change management challenge for global institutions.
There were signs of spring Financial service jobs in London showed growth in the first quarter of the year, but March ended with a month-on-month drop.
As a rule of thumb, the fastest adopters of new technology are pornographers and criminals (two sets that often overlap). So it should come as no surprise that the latest thing to worry security specialists is 3-D printing. You’ll have seen the stories in the papers about how you can create real working guns with […]
A journalist, a politician and a banker walk into a bar … sounds like the beginning of a joke, doesn’t it? Feel free to submit a punchline: personally, I’m starting to think that it would be a very sour joke. With banker-bashing now an established national pastime, the press having spectacularly fouled their own nest […]
The announcement earlier this week by Transport for London that Londoners have paid for more than 700,000 bus fares using their contactless bank cards since the option for contactless payment was introduced three months ago is proof that contactless payment is finally here, says Bernhard Lachenmeier, head of products and marketing at SIX Payment Services. So why does it feel like this isn’t the case?
Fed Staff Interpretation of Reg. II Creates Precarious Limbo for Debit and Prepaid By Marilyn Bochicchio, CEO, and Brad Fauss, EVP and General Counsel, Brightwell Payments It’s April 3, two days past the effective date for the Durbin Amendment exclusivity routing rules for prepaid. And, many prepaid (and, likely, debit) executives in the United States […]
Asset finance has had a lower profile than other types of loan. But the overall squeeze on lending and higher business loan rejection rates have led to an increased demand for leasing arrangements by SMEs. As a result, asset finance is now the third most common source of finance for businesses.
By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC In the initial installment of this article, we addressed how trends in EMV will impact the prepaid sector. But developments in near field communication (NFC) merit an equally close watch, as they, too, should have bearing on the prepaid market and how it plays out moving forward. Let’s start […]
By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC In the initial installment of this article, we addressed how trends in EMV will impact the prepaid sector. But developments in near field communication (NFC) merit an equally close watch, as they, too, should have bearing on the prepaid market and how it plays out moving forward. Let’s start […]
They were never going to be happy in Switzerland about the US FATCA legislation that will be used to hunt down people avoiding US taxes, but it’s a surprise to hear that some Swiss burghers are feeling sorry for a group of US citizens who have become part of the fabric of society there.
In today’s multi-channel age, banks cannot afford to focus all their efforts on a single digital strategy any more than solely on the branch experience – the winners will be those that can see beyond channel-specific efforts and provide a truly integrated offering.
