Analysis


Haynes leads new venture to tackle European equities

Following a period of equity market consolidation, the time is right for a new entrant to step forward and transform the exchange business, according to Alasdair Haynes, chief executive of startup trading venue Aquis Exchange.

SEPA – Time to Make the Change

The shift to SEPA offers significant benefits to businesses – from lower bank fees on euro payments and direct debits to opportunities to streamline processes.

Cease & Desist: Ill. Gets Tough with Square and ‘Unlicensed Money Transmitters’ (March 2013)

The Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation recently released five cease and desist orders from January 2013 against six entities for unlicensed activities under the state’s Transmitters of Money Act. These six entities offer a variety of services in Illinois, including domestic and international money transfer, bill payment services and prepaid cards.  One of […]

Fed’s Interchange and Routing FAQs Throw Prepaid in a Tizzy (March 2013)

The Federal Reserve Board (Fed) quietly released changes to its FAQs on Reg. II’s restrictions on debit card interchange fees and routing. Five new FAQs were added and one existing FAQ was revised. Changes in two areas directly affect prepaid cards: the exemption for “general use prepaid cards” and the requirement for adding a second […]

Innovation nation: FinTech in the UK

As one of the world’s leading financial centres, geographically well-positioned between America and the Far East, London is very much a global city. It is perhaps unsurprising then that it also attracts businesses looking to provide financial services worldwide.

One law for the rich, another for …

for a growing number of people, wary of the debasing of currencies through quantitative easing, alternatives such as Bitcoin are becoming more popular.

The rush to Russia

Structural reforms and overhauls of financial infrastructures are intended to turn Moscow into an international financial centre, but there is still a long way to go.

Blog: NFC Still Top Dog at GSMA Mobile World Congress (March 2013)

March 2013   By Sirpa Nordlund, Mobey Forum So, where were you in the last week of February? If, like me, you work in the mobile industry, there’s a fair chance you visited Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress. Over three days, 72,000 visitors from more than 200 countries and all corners of the mobile […]

FATCA: joining the KYC dots?

FATCA compliance might not need a separate programme – it ought to be covered by the same approach as AML, RDR and KYC regulations, among others.

The risks of runaway regulation

While laudable in intention, reforms to Europe’s OTC derivatives markets may be in danger of inadvertently adding so much cost for participants that the original purpose is undermined, according to Anthony Belchambers, chief executive officer at the Futures and Options Association.

Squawker prepares algo-free equity market

Capital markets are broken because liquidity is fragmented and there is no way for the sell-side to pool its liquidity – but that will soon change, according to Christopher Gregory, co-founder and chief executive at start up trading venue Squawker.

The problem of plenty: multiple host systems in banks

Globally, there are many banks operating on multiple host systems, the result of cherry picking the best in class systems of the day to meet different needs or occasionally, merger and acquisition. Consequently, they have ended up with a legacy of disparate host or core systems, usually segmented by lines of business, such as deposits, retail loans, corporate loans, and trade finance.

Java in the cloud for financial services

Java is the most ubiquitous programming language out there, but it doesn’t work well in the cloud. One approach to overcoming the problem is featured among the Accenture-sponsored FinTech Innovation Lab London finalists.

Mixing up the pieces

The introduction of a seven-day account switching service in the autumn is meant to increase competition among UK High Street banks. Will it succeed?

Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market (February 2013)

Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market February 2013   By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC A proposed settlement agreement in the In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation—filed in 2005 on behalf of approximately 7 million merchants alleging, among other claims, that MasterCard and Visa had separately colluded […]

Data protection: the next Y2K?

Transatlantic friction over data protection isn’t exactly a new problem – the industry has been faced with pending regulations for over a decade, but the conflicting demands of European data privacy and US intelligence gathering legislation are coming together to make the issue a serious problem for banking technologists.

Ready for retail revival

Today, maximising profit is harder than ever for banks. The large retail banks have been forced to sell off branches and their investment arms are under increasing scrutiny, writes Tim FitzGerald, finance & banking sales manager, Casewise. The need to change – be it adapting to newly-imposed regulatory frameworks, to differentiating yourself from the competition and […]

Heightened banking cyber threats require clear focus

As the US Federal Reserve joins a growing list of financial institutions targeted by cyber criminals, reports of an organised campaign to recruit hackers for a large-scale malware attack, dubbed Project Blitzkrieg, has further highlighted the challenge facing the banking sector.

SEPA Uncertainty

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?

Wagner aims at m-commerce gap

Dan Wagner is pretty sure that he has an idea how the use of mobile devices will play out in the commercial world and how the relationships between banks, merchant acquirers, merchants and customers will change.

EU/US face-off over FISA on the cards

It has been clear for some time now that some of the regulations coming into force around the globe contain contradictions and inconsistencies. A large part of the work done by JWG, Banking Technology‘s  partner for our regular RegTech coverage, has been in identifying these, working out their impact on systems and processes and what issues […]

Viewpoint: A Tale of Two Gen Ys that Desire Prepaid Cards (February 2013)(2)

February 2013   By Aleia Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy & Research The slow economic recovery from the Great Recession has forced young Americans to confront a dismal financial reality marked by unprecedented student loan debt and soaring unemployment. But the financial industry cannot afford to ignore Gen Y, the generation of consumers born from 1979 […]

FCB’s Exit from Issuing Leaves Program Managers Seeking New Partners (February 2013)

February 2013   By Adam Perrotta, Assistant Editor Dozens of prepaid program managers are scrambling to find a new bank issuer with First California Bank (FCB) exiting the issuing business ahead of its acquisition by PacWest Bancorp.                                    In November, PacWest agreed to pay $231 million for FCB’s parent company, Westlake Village, Calif.-based First California Financial […]

Inside Eurograbber: the £30m mobile banking heist

In the history of bank robberies, the £30 million stolen by the Eurograbber attack in 2012 ranks as one of the all-time biggest, globally. And when you consider that this sum was stolen from more than 30,000 accounts across 30 banks in four European countries, using malware that affected both PCs and bank customers’ mobile […]

Viewpoint: A Tale of Two Gen Ys that Desire Prepaid Cards (February 2013)

By Aleia Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy & Research The slow economic recovery from the Great Recession has forced young Americans to confront a dismal financial reality marked by unprecedented student loan debt and soaring unemployment. But the financial industry cannot afford to ignore Gen Y, the generation of consumers born from 1979 to 1999. By […]

Will Dodd-Frank trade reporting prepare you for EMIR?

On February 28, most of the approximately 70 registered swap dealers will stumble across the finishing line for the remaining asset classes of the CFTC implementation of Dodd-Frank trade reporting regulations. Some may be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief.

Legal Entity Identifiers: between a “ROC” and hard decisions

As the global method of identifying entities and their ownership structures, the Legal Entity Identifier forms a central part of the G20’s crisis-prevention toolbox. After a few chaotic years of LEI debate and design, regulators are finally nearing the long anticipated starting line for use of the world’s first singular identifier.

HFT: time to talk about how?

2012 seemed like the year of regulators taking a prolonged look at computer trading – defining what it might be, its potential effects, why it may be problematic. It is still far from clear that we have answers to these fundamental questions.

Speed is not enough for exchange competition

Speed is becoming less of a competitive advantage for exchanges as regulation and the need to support long-term investors comes to the fore, according to Christian Katz, chief executive at SIX Swiss Exchange.

Securities lending: illuminating data?

Regulatory data collection tools have been refined, standardised identifiers nearly constructed and more frequent and granular reporting rolled into regulation. Now that regulators have this mass of data, what is the next step in linking it and putting it to use?

Banks: bribe customers to stay put …

Hey! Mr Retail Banker, don’t get too worried about the new UK Account Switching regulation that comes into play in September – just offer your customers some money. About 100 quid should do it.

London job market still depressed

London’s financial sector jobs market continues to be depressed, with the number of new jobs on the market down 18% on this time last year, and the number of people looking for jobs down 26%.