New research shows that large businesses are continuing to identify risk management and corporate governance as pressing financial priorities. To achieve true visibility into these areas, corporate treasurers need detailed insight and accurate forecasting capabilities.
UniCredit and IBM are to form a joint venture company that will offer IT infrastructure services to other financial institutions as part of a “multi-billion dollar”, 10-year agreement.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has appointed Jennifer Boussuge as head of Global Transaction Services for EMEA. Boussuge has been with the company for more than 19 years, during which time she has held a number of leadership roles, most recently as head of global sales for GTS.
RBS has hired Carole Berndt as global head of transaction services. Berndt has been EMEA head of transaction banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for the past three years. She will be based in London and report to John Owen, chief executive, International Banking, at RBS, who said: “I am delighted to welcome Carole […]
The UK Payments Council has published a ‘payments roadmap’, which sets out the steps that could help to build up a shared payments infrastructure in the UK.
India’s IndusInd Bank and Western Union have created a partnership designed to make foreign exchange and global business easier for SMEs in India.
As the first deadline for implementation of the Single Euro Payments Area approaches in February 2014, you could be forgiven for thinking that it is pretty much all over – or at least will be by October 2016, when the second deadline arrives. Don’t count on it, cautions Ruth Wandhöfer, global head, regulatory & market strategy, Citi Transaction Services.
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.
Hong Kong-based CLSA has gone live on Swift’s Global Electronic Trade Confirmation solution for the automation of allocation and confirmation processes, becoming the first Asian broker to adopt the service.
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.
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.
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.
Turkish bank Turkland has installed new core banking, CRM and treasury systems from Infosys – the first time a Turkish bank has implemented an externally developed core banking system according to the firm.
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.
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.
India’s IndusInd Bank has installed a new system from Calypso Technology that it says will help it grow its treasury activities, increase its global markets business and better manage risk.
The Belgian automated interbank retail payment system has been completely migrated to a new Clearing and Settlement Mechanism developed and operated by French payment processing specialist STET
KBC Bank has partnered with payment specialist Sentenial to offer the latter’s Origix Corporate payment management solution to the bank’s business clients.
Maurice Cleaves, Barclays, talks to Banking Technology editor David Bannister about the themes that emerged at the International Payments Summit 2013 in London.
BNP Paribas Securities Services and Swift are collaborating to enhance the bank’s collateral protection solutions for corporate, buy-side and sell-side clients. The bank has set up “Margin Project”, planning to integrate Swift’s standardised tri-party collateral messages to ensure full compliance with the upcoming regulatory requirements on OTC transaction, mitigation of counterparty risk, asset safety and […]
Swift and the Banking Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce have introduced new legal and technology standards for the new Bank Payment Obligation payment instrument. The BPO allows buyers and suppliers to secure and finance international trade transactions. It provides the benefits of a letter of credit in an automated and secured environment, and […]
Bankers can seem a little bit schizophrenic when it comes to regulation – much of the time they complain about the sheer weight of the regulatory burden they face, but at other times they talk of regulation as an opportunity. It could well be that as they have finally realised regulation – and plenty of it – is inevitable, some banks have decided to make a virtue out of it.
By the standards of the rest of the financial services sector, the payments industry has always progressed at a glacial pace. For the past 10 years, the key topic at the long-running International Payments Summit has been the Single Euro Payments Area.
As the February 2014 deadline for implementation of Single Euro Payment Area compatible instruments approaches, focus is moving from banks to corporates – and the increasingly clear picture is that few European corporates see any great benefit from adopting the standards involved.
At the beginning of March, George Osborne travelled to the English seaside town of Bournemouth to make a speech at the JP Morgan operations centre there. It wasn’t Henry V’s St Crispin’s Day speech, but it may well go down as a watershed moment in the history of the UK financial services sector. Osborne is […]
Download daily International Payment Summit 2013 reports from KPMG
Banks are not good at communicating industry change to their corporate clients, according to a panel of senior industry representatives speaking at the IPS conference in London today.
Proposed policies intended to promote competion in payments could stifle innovation and standardisation in the payments and transaction banking sectors, according to a partner in a leading law firm. Dermot Turing, partner in the international financial institutions and markets group at Clifford Chance, told delegates at the International Payments Summit in London that moves by […]
Standard Chartered has appointed Peter Burnet as its regional head of corporate finance for northeast Asia. In his new role, Burnett will cover project and export finance, mergers and acquisitions advisory, structured trade finance, financing solutions and equity capital markets.
Barclays has appointed Yera Hagopian as global head of liquidity product within its cash management team. Hagopian joins Barclays from JP Morgan where she was EMEA head of liquidity.
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.
Danish bank Ringkjøbing Landbobank has adopted a corporate actions tool from SmartStream Technologies, which it says should increase levels of automation and lead to a more efficient service for customers.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has announced a new product intended to help clients migrate to mandatory SEPA standards. Called the RBS SEPA Accelerator, the product has a feature that allows a corporate implementing the SEPA XML file format to independently initiate, monitor and amend file testing, validation and end-to-end simulation. This ensures that a corporate can self-test its SEPA readiness.
The good news is that 63% of corporate executives are “highly satisfied” with the service they get from their core banking partners; the bad news is less than half of them are confident that their banks are stable and operating securely within their risk parameters. This is making them increasingly interested in the stability of […]
SEPA solutions specialist Sentenial has completed its planned investment in the Benelux Region with the opening of a fully-supported operational office in Amsterdam and the relocation and expansion of its Brussels office.
Big banks and their large corporate clients are in the final stages of preparation for the SEPA end date of February next year, but what about the smaller clients in the non-euro countries?
US post-trade services utility the DTCC has begun client testing ISO 20022 messages for corporate actions covering distribution events.
HSBC is to pilot a foreign exchange netting system in China after getting approval from authorities there – the first foreign bank to get such approval. The programme is part of the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange’s recently launched Foreign Currency Centralised Management pilot scheme for multinational companies.
Europe’s businesses are unprepared for the arrival of the Single Euro Payments Area in February 2014, with many completely unaware of its consequences, according to new research by IT business services provider Steria.
