A UK-based challenger bank, Atom Bank, has added another system to its bulging IT set-up. This is WDS Virtual Agent, which will answer customer queries from an AI bot within the bank’s mobile app. The solution is supplied by WDS, a subsidiary of Xerox. The vendor says it will “give the customers the power to […]
Croatia-based banking software developer, ABBA, has gained a new taker of its flagship core banking system, NovaDoba. This is a local bank, Banka Kovanica d.d. Varaždin. The agreement was signed in early March, “following months of negotiations”, says the vendor. The work on data migration and the implementation of the new solution has already begun. […]
The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) is pushing for more competition in the supply of indirect access to payment systems. In its interim report “Market review into the supply of indirect access to payment systems”, the PSR says work to open up access is “generating increasingly positive results” but wants more. It adds: “Although there […]
BBVA is upgrading its ATM network with Wincor Nixdorf’s CINEO cash recycling systems to enable banknotes deposited by customers to be reused for cash withdrawals. The Spanish bank says that until now, ATMs had two different slots for cash deposits and cash withdrawals although cash from the deposits slot could not be used for cash […]
The Payment Services Directive (PSD) legislation was adopted in 2007 with the objective of making cross-border payments across the EU as easy, efficient and secure as “national” payments within a member state. With the arrival of PSD2, the trend of digital innovation in payment will accelerate, states Antony Bream, UK managing director at Crealogix. The original Directive […]
A long-standing regulatory reporting software vendor, Lombard Risk, is undergoing a shake-up, with new identity, website and product offering unveiled. This follows on from the recent management overhaul, including the arrival of new CEO, Alastair Brown (he moved from RBS) and new global head of product, Tina Wilkinson (she moved from FIS/Sungard), and the resignation […]
AnaCap Financial Partners, a private equity firm based in the UK, has acquired non-performing loans (NPLs) of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and GE Capital Real Estate in Italy. It is also understood to be crystallising a strategy to launch a new digital bank in the UK. The acquisitive PE firm has gained over €2 […]
Vermilion Software, a UK-based supplier of client reporting and communications software, has completed a project at Jyske Bank in Denmark. Jyske Bank, which holds the third largest market share in Denmark and specialises in private banking, embarked on the IT revamp last summer. On the way out was the in-house built system. Jacob Jensen, head […]
Bottomline Technologies has launched a new payments gateway solution, Direct FPS Service. The company says the service aims to help challenger banks gain access to the UK payments market, as well as enable any organisation wishing to make “quick” payments to their customers or suppliers. It works under the New Access Model, designed to allow […]
As established banks migrate to a digital era, new entrants in the German market are threatening to seize the moment. “We see a change in society; in the way that smart phone adoption feeds back into the way we run our business,” says Andreas Vollmer, chief IT architect of Commerzbank. “It is not just about […]
Kevin Mountford, CEO of PBF Solutions, examines the key steps that new entrants to the UK banking sector need to take to attract customers and drive deposits. Challenging is one thing, but gaining a firm foothold in the UK banking sector is another, especially as the number of new entrants grows. From 2013 to mid-2015, the […]
British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB) is looking to modernise its core software. It is believed the bank has settled for a new platform – Temenos’ T24. BACB is a London-based wholesale bank that specialises in trade finance and treasury services to Africa and the Middle East. The bank has been in the system selection mode […]
The European Commission’s upcoming PSD II legislation will bring big changes to the payments landscape in Europe. Banking Technology talks to Jerry Norton, VP of financial services at CGI, to find out more. In October, the European Parliament gave its approval to the level one text of the Payment Services Directive II, which aims to further the […]
The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) says banks should sell their stake in the nation’s payments infrastructure, VocaLink, to “help increase innovation and competition”. The PSR has published its provisional findings of its market review into the ownership and competitiveness of the infrastructure that supports the payments systems; Bacs, Faster Payments System (FPS) and LINK. […]
Bank Leumi (UK), based in London and part of the Bank Leumi Group, is replacing its existing corporate online banking system with Infosys’ Finacle e-banking solution. It will be interfaced to the bank’s long-standing core banking system, Misys’ Midas. The bank wants a system to “offer new products, provide additional functionality, and future-proof capabilities as well […]
Nationwide Building Society has chosen Tech Mahindra, an Indian IT services company, to provide network and infrastructure services in a five-year partnership agreement. The building society’s ambition is to connect its UK retail operations, comprising around 700 branches to more than 15 million customers. It also plans new services in its branches, such as Nationwide […]
UK-based Cyber Security Partners (CSP) has launched a new real-time, data-driven, cyber threat detection platform, Zero. CSP says Zero offers companies (including banks and other financial institutions) protection from the threats of email phishing and malware. Stuart Robb, CEO and founder of Cyber Security Partners, says: “While much of the focus on phishing prevention is […]
HSBC is launching voice recognition and touch security services in the UK, which will be available to 15 million banking customers. Customers of First Direct, a division of HSBC, will be offered the biometric recognition system over the next few weeks, followed by HSBC’s in the summer. HSBC is not the first to do this […]
London-based start-up Curve has launched a physical payment card that can combine an unlimited number of bank cards into one place, and has Apple Pay in its sights. The Curve card is built on the MasterCard network, but with a nod to the non-physical it is supported by a mobile app. Shachar Bialick, CEO and […]
UK-based Open Banking Working Group (OBWG) is recommending the creation of an Open Banking Standard API to improve the sharing of banking data – and wants to roll out the framework over the next five years. In its latest report, the OBWG – a collective of banking, open data and fintech professionals convened in 2015 […]
MKB Bank in Hungary is migrating its core banking system to Oracle Flexcube deployed on Oracle Exadata Servers.
The European Commission has put markets out of their suffering by finally confirming a one year extension to the entry into application of the revised Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MiFID II. The extension has been made to overcome technical implementation challenges faced by both regulators and market participants. The new deadline is 3 […]
Visa is introducing a new service to help Visa issuers empower consumers to monitor and control how, where, and when their Visa credit, debit, and prepaid accounts can be used. It provides real-time visibility and control over their accounts so consumers can take immediate action to protect themselves from security threats and fraud. Visa Consumer […]
Tandem Bank has selected the Agiliti technology platform from core system provider Fiserv. The bank received its banking license on 30 November 2015, and is expected to launch later in the year. Focussing on creating what it calls a ‘good bank’ with a heavy emphasis on the needs and behaviours of its customers, it will […]
ABN AMRO is offering ‘webcare’ via Snapchat, the self-deleting message and picture service, which has 1 million Dutch users. Jeroen van de Ven, ABN AMRO Social Media Manager: ‘If a specific target audience opts for a new channel in such large numbers, we as a bank have to adapt, in an accessible way that fits […]
The European Commission (EC) has presented an action plan to fight the financing of terrorism, including targeted amendments to the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD) that was implemented in May 2015. These include an amendment to include a list of all compulsory checks financial institutions should carry out on financial flows from countries having strategic […]
Central securities depositary Euroclear and consultancy Oliver Wyman have issued a report on the use of blockchain, the distributed ledger technology that underpins Bitcoin transactions, in capital markets. The firms arguing that major existing players will have to work with newcomers to create a framework that operates between firms and under regulatory obligations. Blockchain and […]
Two online lending platforms – Spotcap and Credibly – have separately raised a total of £71.8 million in capital facilities, lending support to the sector’s prospects in the eyes of investors. Berlin-based, online lending platform Spotcap has raised €31.5 million (£23.8 million) in new funding led by international private equity firm, Finstar Financial Group, with participation from […]
Payments UK has developed a directory to offer UK institutions some of the benefits of SEPA despite the regulation not applying within the country until October. From 1 February, Eurozone banks and Payment Service Providers (PSPs) can process Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) payments using only a customer’s IBAN (International Bank Account Number). Previously customers were […]
The online retail services of HSBC have been brought down in a distributed-denial-of-service attack according to the bank. Online services were inaccessible to clients, the second online service problem the bank’s customers have faced this month, following a two-day outage earlier in January that the bank reported was not caused by a cyber-attack. Concern about […]
BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) has announced that it has appointed Rudi Collin as Head of Digital Transformation for CIB. Previously Collin was head of Electronic Business and Markets for the Global Markets business and prior to this, was chief operating officer for the fixed income division of the bank. In his new role, […]
Britain’s payment settlement system for the pound sterling is to be redesigned and rebuilt, Minouche Shafik, deputy governor for Markets & Banking at the Bank of England (BoE) has said in a speech given at the BoE to senior figure in the UK payments business. The twenty-year old Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS), which settles […]
Global investment and private bank, UBS, has signed an agreement to expand its use of the AppDynamics Application Intelligence Platform across its critical applications to supports its digital transformation initiatives. “Using AppDynamics we have been able to improve the speed at which we identified and remediated application issues, as well as avoid incidents in the […]
Financial software provider GATElab, part of London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), has launched an ultra-low-latency service risk gateway to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE). The solution is designed to enables users to send orders to the NSE equity derivatives segment in less than 30 microseconds, if all the pre-trade risk checks are met. […]
In a new whitepaper, the US post-trade infrastructure provider Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has voiced its belief that the financial services industry “has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine and modernise its infrastructure” by employing blockchain in a coordinated manner. Blockchain is the transaction model used to transfer ownership of crypto-currency bitcoin. It was developed […]
Andrew Tyrie, Member of Parliament and chairman of the UK’s Treasury Select Committee has issued a public letter to the head of the UK’s financial regulators arguing that three reforms are needed, without which ”the public will remain more exposed than necessary to the risk of bank failure.” Sent to Andrew Bailey, deputy governor for […]
If 2015 was all about how the financial sector continued its post 2008 crisis transformation, 2016 looks set to promise even more developments in the same vein across the EMEA region. The ongoing change continues to be remarkable in its depth and scope impacting financial institutions and technology firms like Wolters Kluwer Financial Services who exist to enable banks and others to navigate risk and regulatory complexity
Buy-side block trading venue Liquidnet has released a set of EMEA trading algorithms, which it says will help market participants to find liquidity ahead of the European Commission’s upcoming MiFID II legislation, which introduces important changes for dark pools.
CaixaBank is launching imaginBank, Spain’s first mobile-only bank providing banking services exclusively through mobile apps and social networks.
The European Union’s initiative to create a Capital Markets Union in Europe is currently stuck in a quagmire of political debate. That shouldn’t discourage politicians and regulators from taking the necessary steps as soon as possible, according to a new report by the International Capital Markets Association.
