Eight years on from the global financial crisis, and banks continue to face a growing number of challenges. Many have ceased or significantly reduced proprietary trading, with the resulting reduction in both risk and reward. This period has also seen lower risk appetite among many investors and continuing global competition which has put pressure on profit margins,
Banks should not kid themselves that they can simply appoint a ‘chief innovation officer’ and that will be enough to combat the threat posed by new technologies and the non-bank companies that are using them to steal business, warned panellists at the BBA conference in London on Thursday.
The fact that London’s financial services sector is also a hot spot for technology innovation is not news. In 2014, investment in financial technology firms grew by 136%. Earlier this year, George Osborne identified London’s financial technology sector as a particularly bright spot in the recovering economy – not surprising when you consider the transformational effect that information technology continues to have on the industry
Hasty unilateral moves by individual countries could undermine the ability of financial institutions and markets to benefit from new regulations and weaken efforts to improve financial stability, delegates at the BBA conference in London heard yesterday.
More transparency is urgently needed to restore trust in the FX industry, according to a new report by foreign exchange MTF LMAX Exchange – but to make that happen, the industry will have to collaborate.
Chrisol Correia, Head of Global Anti-Money Laundering Solutions, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
Compliance obligations are increasing for financial institutions. A utility approach to the issue is gaining favour …
It seems that at each Sibos, certainly since the financial crisis of 2008, a regulatory deadline is looming large. This year’s model is the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision’s (BCBS’) 11 principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting (BCBS 239), with which globally systemically important banks (GSIBs) must comply by 1 January 2016. However, a report on the progress of adoption reveals a lack of preparedness.
Major financial market infrastructures (FMIs) and central banks have thrown their weight behind a Swift initiative to prevent further fragmentation of the ISO 20022 messaging standard as its adoption grows by signing a charter backing principles to harmonise implementations.
T2S, Europe’s harmonised settlement platform, is live. With a series of migration waves scheduled up until full live operation in July 2017, the next few years are likely to be characterised by intense activity as market participants finalise their strategies …
The Payments Market Practice Group has endorsed the use of Swift messages for intraday liquidity reporting. The Swift message set for intraday liquidity reporting underpins a rulebook created by the Liquidity Implementation Task Force, an industry group of twenty five large clearing banks, custodian banks and global brokers, to support compliance with Basel Committee on Banking Supervision requirements.
A large part of any financial technology businesses is clearly driven by the need for banks to comply with the ever-changing regulatory requirements that affect their business. And this has brought about a frenetic period of activity and growth in this core market. These changes affect the various individual areas within financial organizations Wolters Kluwer Financial Services and others serve, including Finance (e.g. IFRS9), Risk (e.g. Basel III Liquidity, FRTB) and Regulatory Reporting (e.g. CRD IV). They also impact the way in which these processes are governed and controlled centrally
South Africa’s Nedbank has chosen Volante Technologies to help it revamp its payments message service using VolPay Foundation, which focuses on validating and processing payments. The move comes ahead of regulatory change next year, which will force all South African institutions to change the way they handle payments.
JWG, the financial services regulation specialist, has appointed Blythe Barber as managing director as part of the continuation of the company’s expansion. Barber has been hired as part of an expansion of JWG’s RegDelta regulatory change management platform.
Sometimes the least obvious changes can have a big effect, and very often those changes are in areas that might considered outside the remit of the people best placed to make them. Bank staff remuneration, for instance …
Call it immediate, instant, fast(er) or real-time, the drive to speed up payments is being discussed in almost every country. As part of that discussion Banking Technology and ACI Worldwide brought together international participants from Australia, Europe, the UK and the US review the opportunities and challenges ahead.
The majority of businesses do not have cyber security insurance, with many not even aware such protection exists – and even those that do have insurance in place may find themselves at a loss if they don’t have the correct cover. The solution may be to mandate more data sharing and raise public awareness, according to speakers at a roundtable organised by software security company Kaspersky Lab.
A bank cannot hope to compete in today’s retail banking market without a ‘digital executive team’ and banks need to reinvent their upper echelons’ if this is currently lacking, as Atom Bank and Apple Pay are merely the start of an avalanche of a new era of digital disrupters, looking to steal the lunch from traditional high street banks.
Last year, the ISO 20022 standard celebrated its 10th birthday, and consequently it may seem a bit odd to say that after more than a decade since its inception, the financial community really should start taking assertive action. Since 2004, the ISO 20022 standard has, thankfully, witnessed substantial adoption but it has been what could be termed an “uncontrolled adoption”. So why is action so critical now?
Central banks need to play a greater role in the provision of infrastructure for low value payments and existing models revised to balance risk and rewards, according to new research published by the Swift Institute.
Russia’s central securities depository NSD has implemented back-to-back settlement technology for off-exchange delivery-versus-payment transactions with securities denominated in Russian rubles. The bank accounts and transactions may be in rubles, US dollar, Euro and Chinese yuan.
Barclays has launched a cloud-based contingency payment service for corporates, which the bank says will help corporates to make payments even if they are unable to use their primary channel, for example during an internet outage. The deal comes as financial institutions and corporates increase their focus on risk mitigation.
Data breaches are getting worse with 246 million records compromised by criminal activity in the first six months of 2015, according to new figures published by digital security company Gemalto. The numbers suggest cyber-crime will remain a top priority for banks for the foreseeable future.
The International Securities Services Association adopted a set of compliance principles to address the “critical challenges” posed by financial crime. The new principles aim to establish “a clear global standard for the opening and maintenance of cross-border securities accounts”.
As the SEPA deadline has come and gone, what will be built upon its advances towards digitisation and standardisation?
BNY Mellon expects to have its SunGard InvestOne system back to normal today following testing over the weekend and the US Labor Day holiday and have caught up on the generation of net asset values for clients.
Even as they cement their recovery from the financial crisis, adherents to traditional banking models are facing a new storm as they grapple with the digital demands of the Facebook generation and heightened regulatory risks surrounding data. At the same time, they must match the customer service levels offered by the “challenger” banks if they are to avoid haemorrhaging business to their nimble and digital-focused rivals.
Equifax, the consumer and business information specialist, has launched a new service providing real-time, integrated data on companies and the individuals who own and run them.
The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures and the International Organization of Securities Commissions are seeking comment on proposals for harmonising the Unique Transaction Identifier used to be used for OTC derivatives trade reporting.
Credit Suisse is facing allegations that its dark pool Crossfinder ripped off investors by providing unfair advantages for some participants while misleading others. The incident follows a long history of nefarious activity reported in various dark pools in recent years – and exposed the bank to charges of hypocrisy from market observers.
No one involved in the UK financial services industry could have failed to notice the recent increase in level of fines issued by the UK’s City Regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority. Mary Stevens, from risk and regulatory technology company Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, analyses what the fines mean for the industry.
International payments may soon be made using the ISO 20022 messaging standard for the first time, following the publication of the first draft of ISO 20022 payments messages by an industry association backed by Payments UK (formerly the UK Payments Council).
MiFID II comes into effect in January 2017, which might seem a long way off, but you need to start preparations now if your institution is really going to benefit
The European Commission has adopted new rules that make it mandatory for certain OTC interest rate derivative contracts to be cleared through central counterparties.
Banks may need to revisit the way they handle data, in preparation of an upcoming agreement between the European Commission and the US authorities on data-sharing.
International derivatives market GMEX is due to go live on Friday after more than two years of development. Created by co-founders Hirander Misra and Vj Angelo, the new exchange has just signed Bank of America Merrill Lynch and will start by offering futures contracts backed by German derivatives giant Eurex.
The rate of mobile fraud is highest on Android devices, according to new data from cyber security company Kount, with mobile fraud also outpacing that of online and in-store fraud for the first time this year. The data also shows that average transaction amounts on iOS mobile devices are greater than those made from Android devices.
So after the protracted and ongoing rollout of SEPA, along comes further EU regulation in the guise of the second phase of the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) with further challenges to banks impacting the provision of one of the core banking services – namely payments
Connecting Governance, Finance, Risk & Compliance allows firms to govern all important issues and risks that exist at the intersection of multiple functions. Breaking silos and adopting a forward looking, holistic view of GFRC functions will be what provides financial institutions with a competitive advantage
Regulations aimed at transparency across financial markets may be making things simpler for the regulators, but they are making life more complex for banks, according to Sven Ludwig, senior vice president, risk management and analytics EMEA, at SunGard.
