Innovators’ Spotlight: Womply
San Francisco startup offers merchants a data-driven business insights platform that does the heavy lifting for them.
Analysis
Industry Views: Trends and Resolutions for 2014 (Part 1 of 2)
To kick off 2014, we asked payments industry thought leaders in the U.S. and Europe to reflect on the year that turned out not to be the “Year of NFC” and to look ahead at what will dominate prepaid and emerging payments for the next 12 months. We also asked them what the industry’s New Year’s resolutions should be.
Industry Views: Trends and Resolutions for 2014 (Part 2 of 2)
Industry thought leaders weigh in on priorities for 2014.
Executive profile: One on One with Mark Schatz, Stored Value Solutions
When he can’t sleep at 2 a.m., Mark Schatz, managing director of Stored Value Solutions, will get up and run eight miles. Akin to a phoenix, running invokes renewed clarity that supports his mission in managing one of the companies that gave birth to the closed-loop gift card industry.
Editor’s Letter: Starting Off the New Year Right
Now that you’re back in the office and once again glued to your computer screen, you’ll continue receiving the industry news, insights and analysis you’ve come to expect from Paybefore. But it won’t exactly be business as usual for Paybefore this year.
Blog: Prepaid Program Potential: 3 Steps Banks Must Take to Engage Millennials
To attract the key millennial demographic, banks must look to prepaid and mobile.
Blog: Turning Skepticism into Trust: 3 Ways to Improve Financial Services Loyalty Programs
Of any industry, the financial services sector might be the most contradictory when it comes to loyalty program effectiveness.
Life after SEPA
The impact of the Single Euro Payments Area will result in a new marketplace where bigger banks will be forced into stronger competition and smaller banks forced to cultivate their ‘local bank’ credentials.
Breaking News – CFPB: Expand CARD Act Disclosure Requirements to Include Prepaid Card Marketing Agreements
In a recent press release, the CFPB called on financial institutions to “voluntarily” disclose to the public its financial product marketing agreements made with colleges and universities.
Viewpoint: Year-End Blizzard for Canada’s FIs
As we approach year-end, the Canadian federal government has introduced three items of significance to federally regulated financial institutions (FRFIs).
LEIs and CDOs: why aren’t data professionals taking the reins?
With regulators agreeing that “higher expectations” must be met by G-SIFIs for risk data aggregation and reporting by 2016, firms are now under huge pressure to provide data strategies and implementation plans and end denial about any shortcomings.
The hardware guy: how Bank of America is building a new infrastructure
Bank of America is working with Facebook’s Open Compute project on a radical revamp of its systems. David Reilly, head of its Technology Infrastructure unit, tells Banking Technology why Software Defined.Infrastructures are the way ahead.
The gift of plug and play technology
The technology that banks offer clients can be thought of as a true gift, enabling improvements that can reduce risk, increase efficiency and ultimately put firms on a surer footing. And it is the most advanced and newest platforms which grab everyone’s attention.
Breaking News: MasterCard Sets New Payroll Card Standards Beginning in 2014 (Dec. 13, 2013)
Moving to improve and clarify payroll card industry practices, MasterCard today released new standards requiring all employers and payroll card providers involved in offering MasterCard-branded payroll cards to meet specific protocols for consumer choice and transparency
Regulatory Almanac Part 2: 10 Things to Look Out for in 2014
With new arrivals from big names including FATCA, MiFID, Dodd-Frank and the AIFMD, 2014 is set to be another eventful year in the regulatory space. So what are our Top 10 predictions?
Regulatory Almanac Part 1: Top 10 Events of 2013
With no fewer than 70,000 pages of regulation, and some record fines, 2013 will be a year to remember (or possibly to forget) for many financial services professionals
The joy of Basel III
Basel III has transformed liquidity risk management departments into glorified regulatory functions, according to a new report by analyst firm Celent. As if this good news was not enough to be getting on with, the research house also inevitably concludes that banks will have to change their risk data, models, appetite, organisational and analytics frameworks too.
Relieving the pain and expense of compliance data management
The data management aspects of compliance can run into tens of thousands of man-hours per institution, each year. Firms have to adapt and find new techniques to manage this increasing burden.
The hidden cost of corporate compliance
Former SunGard chief executive Cris Conde writes about the importance of training in firms’ governance, risk management and compliance strategies and why they should treat it as an investment.
A brave new world for CIOs?
A new role for CIOs in the banking sector was highlighted at the recent Gartner Symposium: to maintain their future relevance and position, they need to be seen as consultants in the technology space, not just providers.
Blog: Grande 140-Character Payments
If ever there was a prize for solving a first world problem, creating the ability to buy a coffee for a friend or acquaintance by sending a tweet would be Nobel- worthy. But if the goal is to keep Starbucks in the conversation around the office (and sell more coffee), this should work.
Blog: Thinking Mobile First
Consumer expectations of mobile banking and prepaid are escalating rapidly, and the industry needs to respond aggressively, and think differently. As consumers demand more from their financial services providers, putting the mobile channel first in your strategy is key.
Banks! Stop fadding about – talk to customers
Is there an industry more obsessed with fads than banking?. Maybe it’s because it is such a follow-the-leader industry. Perhaps it’s because banking is a very me-too business with few (if any) real brand distinctions. Or is it simply that senior management is so obsessed with the needs of shareholders.
Insights on the Bitcoin Brouhaha
On Nov. 27, the bitcoin was trading at a record $1,000. While some applaud its decentralized nature, others, including regulators, have become wary of its potential effects. We asked two analysts to square off with Viewpoints on the pros and cons of the volatile virtual currency.
Viewpoint: Bitcoin Challenges Us All to Keep Innovating
Bitcoin (and the tsunami that has ensued) has been characterized as the next stage in the revolution of payments—more precisely, of money.
Viewpoint: Why Bitcoin Is Going Gangbusters and Why It Matters
If Bitcoin manages to become wildly successful, it’s likely that several similar currencies will appear alongside it. The focus of hackers all across the globe will then surely turn to these anonymous stores of virtual value rather than to traditional account-based payments.
Turkey: where worlds collide
For centuries, Turkey has stood at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. While the country is leading the way in mobile banking, its infrastructure reflects a culture where minarets mix with mobile masts and ATMs compete for space with ancient monuments.
Breaking dawn: the new reality for the buy-side
Enlightened buy-side firms are facing the challenges of high-touch regulation, fragmented liquidity and ongoing cost pressures head on and developing new business models and approaches at every stage of their workflow.
Moving Money: the ATM makers’ view of the future
With the rise in mobile payments and wallets, cash is dead and so is the ATM business, right? Not according to the ATM manufacturers, who are all being remarkably sanguine.
FIS: making a mark in mobile
Financial software giant FIS is sitting in the middle of the move to mobile, with its customers serving 21 million users. Doug Brown, senior vice president, e-banking, says that’s just the beginning.
Blog: Facebook Payments: Trust Is Worth More than ‘Likes’
If Facebook can garner trust from enough of its active users to adopt Autofill by Facebook, there are billions of dollars at stake. But, no one goes to PayPal to post baby pictures. No one congratulates 12-year-olds for winning a soccer game on Amazon. Facebook wandering into payments easily could be as awkward, especially as users become more leery of how their information is shared between Facebook and its partner sites.
FSAs Could Get Bump as Treasury Loses ‘Use-or-Lose’ Rule (Nov. 20, 2013)
The No. 1 barrier to consumer adoption of flexible spending accounts (FSAs) has been removed. The U.S. Treasury and IRS on Halloween announced they were changing their stance on the so-called “use-or-lose” rule, enabling consumers for the first time to rollover up to $500 from their FSAs instead of forfeiting those funds back to their employers.
The second coming: MiFID II due for arrival
MiFID II is almost upon us. Expect it to be the topic of conversation very soon. So what do you need to know about it?
Scaling up in Asia
The burgeoning wealth of Asia represents a huge opportunity for asset managers that can scale their businesses across the region, but it will place huge strains on firms’ operations, driving them to explore a new approach to outsourcing.
Swift: capitalising on customer collaboration
Swift’s head of banking talks about how the industry co-operative plans to build services based the data flowing through its interbank messaging systems.
Keeping the customer profitable
Separating customer billing from core systems can have dramatic effects on the bottom line – a study by Boston Consulting Group at one bank found that 17% of clients were unprofitable.
Cordray: ‘Change is Coming’ to Prepaid Card Industry (Nov. 14, 2013)
Change is coming to the prepaid card industry, whether by regulation or legislation, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray promised lawmakers this week at a Senate Banking Committee hearing, but he declined to provide a timetable. “[Prepaid cards] are one of the problem areas in consumer financial protection because they’re a hole in the […]
A world of payment possibilities
As Ts are crossed and Is are dotted by financial institutions and corporates preparing for the Single Euro Payments Area some recent announcements point to the glittering world of opportunity beyond mundane SEPA compliance.
Conduct risk explained: fix the systems or pay the fines
Conduct risk is gaining teeth, and with MiFID II on the way it’s set to gain a whole load more. But there is just one problem: nobody quite agrees on what conduct risk means or where its boundaries are set.
Viewpoint: They Mean It—They Really, Really Mean It! (November 2013)
New OCC guidance reminds financial institutions that third-party oversight is where it’s at.
