Industry Comment


Trading automation, regulations, and systemic risk

The financial services industry has always pursued technical supremacy. But after years of financial crisis and attempted reforms to improve the transparency and understanding of risk exposure in financial services, we seem as much in the dark as ever …

Don’t drown in over-regulation

It should be no shock that the risk for banks of being caught-out for non-compliant activity has soared in recent years in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. Banks are being monitored more closely now than ever before and it’s been difficult to escape without scrutiny or a heavy reputational impact.

Viewpoint: Why HCE is an Acronym You Need to Know

HCE moves payments credentials to the cloud, which could radically speed up mobile payments development. Analyst Sarah Grotta believes HCE also offers compelling leadership opportunities for prepaid card issuers.

Viewpoint: Jack Ma and the Discovery of Billions

Alibaba Group’s $7.5 billion empire lurks like a crocodile waiting to strike its next opportunity. What does the Chinese giant’s appetite mean for the worldwide payments industry?

MiFID II: hearing, skirmishing and planning for battle

The reason Europe calls it a regulatory ‘hearing’ is that it is an opportunity to hear views from both regulators and the market. Of course, that’s just part of the experience as many other senses are triggered when 400 people are locked in a basement for 2 days, deprived of connectivity, food and caffeine …

Entering the Banking Technology Awards – guidelines from the editor

Entries for the Banking Technology Awards 2014 have been open for a while now, but as we move into the last few weeks, this is always a time when we are flooded with questions about the process. By way of response, here are some guidelines based on my experience chairing the judging panel over the past 11 years.

Financial institutions and Cybercrime: It’s only just begun

A recent bout of high profile cyber-attacks on financial institutions across the UK, US and Canada has put the spotlight back on the importance of data security and the need to be diligent when it comes to cybersecurity within the banking industry

Banks’ cyber resilience requires ongoing review against escalating threats

The news last month (June) that the Luuuk malware had snared its first victim, an unnamed European bank, has again highlighted the magnitude of the challenge facing the banking sector. While the reported theft of €500,000 during the course of a week certainly does not break any records, the discovery of what is believed to be a variant of the feared Zeus malware, is just the latest in a line of increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks

HCE and NFC: threat or opportunity?

Mobile NFC services continued to expand in 2013 but the big question is, will this be amplified or disrupted by the introduction of host-based card emulation (HCE) into mainstream operating systems?

New legs for legacy systems

Unlike manufacturing companies, which run their operations on a single predominant ERP system supported by a few auxiliary solutions, banks have added layer upon layer of technology, ending up with an unmanageable snarl of systems and applications. Just to put things in perspective, it is estimated that on average global banks have more than 5,000 applications.

Back-office legacy still holding back banks

Setting up a bank in the UK is costly, time-consuming, heavily regulated and not easy. As a result, the dynamic, start-up culture that drives innovation in many other sectors is less prevalent within banking and financial services.

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.

T2S: Doing nothing is not an option

As the implementation of T2S approaches, there is still a gap between the readiness levels of different types of market participant, new Celent research finds. But a ‘wait and see’ approach can only take some firms so far, argues Isabelle Olivier, head of clearing and settlement EMEA at Swift

Dispelling the myths surrounding voice biometrics

With passwords continuing to attract widespread derision from consumers it seems that businesses are starting to listen to their customers and in recent weeks voice biometrics has been hitting the headlines, as the technology is set to replace the bane of so many people’s lives.

The future of digital banking: sustenance or disruption?

Banks should not be blind-sided by sustaining innovation: a large part of their digital initiatives look at delivering existing services cheaper, faster and (sometimes) better – but true disruption occurs when addressing customer needs better, faster and maybe, cheaper.

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.

Viewpoint: Optimizing the Prepaid Experience with Robust Mobile Offerings

Growth in prepaid GPR and payroll cards today exceeds that of all other noncash forms of payment, but stickiness remains a problem for issuers and program managers. Adding mobile access and other financial tools to the mix—such as check deposits with instant good funds and expedited bill pay–makes prepaid a compelling proposition for consumers and providers alike.

Payments as a Working Capital Tool

A lesson learned from the global financial crises was how critical free cash flow can be for corporates, their customers, and their suppliers. As businesses seek to unlock cash flow from day-to-day operations, savvy treasurers have discovered vendor payments as a means to extend payment terms while improving vendor health, writes Chris Bozek, Managing Director, Head of Global Trade and Supply Chain Products Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Piecing together the data scientist puzzle

Depending on who you speak to, the definition of a data scientist seems to mean different things to different people. Some see it as a glorified number crunching role, others believe the position requires someone more inquisitive to spot and respond to key trends.

Outsourcing: making oversight a forward-looking benefit

Could the establishment of an enhanced outsourcing oversight capability do more for asset managers than simply satisfy the FCA? A more mature set of oversight metrics could be used to provide foresight into how the outsourcer might perform in the future.

Blog: The Overdraft Problem Is Really a Credit Problem

Rather than spending time debating which option is worse for consumers—overdraft or payday loans—or focusing solely on reining in overdraft, we ought to shift our energies to creating new credit products that meet consumers’ needs transparently and affordably.

Risk aggregation and reporting challenges intensify for banks

The past month has been a busy one for G-SIBs – global systemically important banks – as they confront the challenges of “what full compliance looks like” in the context of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and its Principles for Effective Risk Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting.

The challenge of intraday liquidity reporting

Reporting on the management of intraday liquidity risk will start on a monthly basis from 1 January 2015 to coincide with the implementation of the liquidity coverage ratio reporting requirements. Christian Goerlach of Deutsche Bank, takes a closer look at some of the issues facing global banks.

ISO 20022: where next?

An question that continues to be asked is will the increased adoption of ISO 20022 facilitate the consolidation of payments clearing utilities and see the introduction of new services for customers? This suggests that despite the fact that ISO 20022 has been around for more than decade, confusion still exists over what it is.

The race is on: banks and regulators prepare for AML changes

The European Union and the larger international policy community have given substantial attention to anti-money laundering regimes this year, cueing both financial institutions and regulators to begin the race to implement and enforce respectively, writes Aamir Khan, general counsel and head of London office at Clutch Group.

Forget ‘mobile first’: are we heading for mobile-only banking?

The speed at which the mobile market evolves is staggering. Just as we started to look at mobile first, where banks need to align their services and strategies to cater for mobile before desktop or other traditional channels, the notion of mobile-only is now creeping to the fore.

Blog: I Want My EMV

EMV chip card technology that helps block counterfeit card fraud at the POS is coming to the U.S., and last week I was one of the first on my block to experience it.

What next for the ATM?

Given that bank customers are unlikely to increase significantly their usage of ATMs and now that opportunities to deploy large numbers of additional dispensers are limited, what does the future hold for the ATM and where does its next phase of growth lie?

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