Corporate & Commercial Banking


Industry bodies look to harmonise ISO 20022 real-time payment implementation

Global interoperability of real-time payments systems will require harmonisation of market practices and standards. A group of international clearing houses, banks, vendors, payments associations and other parties have proposed setting up an activity to look at how to deliver this under the aegis of the International Standards Organisation – and set an ambitious target of collating an initial variant of ISO 20022 usage guidelines for real-time payments before the summer.

ABN Amro extends Temenos relationship to private banking

ABN Amro plans to implement the Temenos WealthSuite integrated wealth management platform for its international private banking business. It will also be able to extend the use of the T24 core system to its private banking and diamond & jewellery business, giving it one platform with one operating model across multiple business lines.

Real-time payments: the next frontier

Customer driven innovation is powering change in the payments industry. Real-time Payment infrastructures (RTP) – whether they are called Faster Payments, Immediate Payments or same-day clearing – are now a reality, with many countries having implemented RTP functionality, and others actively considering the imminent roll-out of RTP projects in their domestic market.

Pan-European Instant Payment Forum kicks off in Frankfurt

The inaugural meeting of the Open Forum on Pan-European Instant Payments drew 77 representatives from 55 payment service providers, technology providers and other stakeholders to Frankfurt this week to kick off discussions about requirements and collaboration on infrastructure services to support instant payments at a pan- European level.

An industry imperative: Swift FIN to ISO 20022 migration

As international regulators demand more detail from banks on payments to individuals and companies, the first order of business is to ensure compliance with mandates. Migrating Swift MT payment formats to ISO 20022 will allow the industry to shape the transformation of payment messaging standards rather than have others shape it – but there is a need to set timelines for implementation or cede control.

Lloyds to plough £1 billion into digital banking

Lloyds Bank plans to invest £1 billion in digital banking capability over the next three years, re-investing a third of the savings it hopes to make in its drive to become ‘simpler and more efficient’.

Payments Council picks Swift for SEPA Only services

The UK’s Payments Council has selected Swift to build the country’s new central infrastructure platform in preparation for the next phase of SEPA regulation in 2016, through the provision of an automated central infrastructure platform for collection and maintenance of UK-specific SEPA routing data.

Capgemini and First Data forge payments development alliance

Technology consultancy Capgemini has formed a global alliance with First Data to develop payment software based on First Data’s VisionPlus and AccessPlus solutions. The pair say that they expect to begin delivering new solutions in the second quarter of this year.

Standard Chartered loses CIO and CRO as reorganisation bites

Jan Verplancke is stepping down as chief information officer and group head of technology and operations at Standard Chartered, as is Richard Goulding, chief risk officer. The news of their departure comes as the banks announced further restructuring, including the closure of its institutional cash equities, equity research and equity capital markets businesses as part of a strategic plan to ditch “non-core or underperforming businesses”.

The e-invoicing play for banks

The replacement of business processes based on paper documents with the exchange of information in electronic form is a highly beneficial global trend, and the competitiveness of Europe’s economic activity will benefit from this migration.

Ripple protocol integrated into risk management system from Yantra

Yantra Financial Technologies, an electronic payment systems developer, has integrated its latest system for risk scoring of payments with the Ripple real-time settlement protocol. The integration means that institutions using the Ripple protocol can analyse transactions in seconds, including what other payments the customer recently made and potential concerns regarding a specific transaction. Risk levels can be assigned to certain transactions based on pre-determined criteria.

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”.

Barclays makes another move into biometric security

Barclays plans to offer corporate banking users a new security services based on Hitachi’s Finger Vein Authentication Technology from early next year and is considering introducing it to branches for consumers.

As global commerce expands, so does payments complexity: How should banks respond?

The increased globalisation of business has opened up new challenges – and opportunities – for companies and the banks that serve them. Corporate treasurers and finance professionals face complexities in the payments arena that range from inconsistencies in local payment processing to new regulations, emerging payment clearing systems and the need to manage geopolitical risk in an ever-expanding array of countries. To address these challenges for their clients, and for themselves, global banks need to invest and innovate to make sure they have the solutions to meet business needs today and in the future.

Swift’s Chris Church: making plans for Sibos

As delegates finalise their plans to attend Sibos in Boston this month, Chris Church, chief executive Americas and global head of securities at Swift, discusses what they can expect

Europe surging ahead in RMB internationalisation

Europe now represents 10% of total Renminbi payments in value worldwide and is leading adoption beyond Asian countries, with four European countries in the top 10, excluding China and Hong Kong, according to Swift. Overall, the RMB strengthened its position as the seventh most used global payments currency and accounted for 1.57% of global payments.

Unlocking the potential of Africa

From Senegal to the Seychelles, and Botswana to Uganda, new demands and new opportunities are emerging in Africa, but there are still challenges

Nordea rolls out web-based trade finance tools

Nordic financial services group Nordea has gone live in Frankfurt and London with a web-based trade finance solution, which it says will help to strengthen its international trade finance business.

UK to launch competition investigation into retail banking

Essential parts of the UK retail banking sector lack effective competition and do not meet the needs of personal consumers or SMEs, according to government body the Competition and Markets Authority, which is now planning to launch a full investigation that could last 18 months.

The Rise of the Cyborg Financial Officer

The rise of new technologies is drastically redefining both the responsibilities of chief financial officers and the way they work, providing the ability tomake better organisational decisions with faster, accurate and more reliable data.

CLS: Supreme Court ruling removes threat to financial infrastructure

In a landmark ruling, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the intermediated settlement of financial exchanges is an abstract idea and therefore not patent-eligible. David Puth, chief executive of CLS, which won the case in question. discusses the implications of the ruling.