The outsourcing of middle and back office functions by banks and brokers is now the norm, with nearly all firms outsourcing at least part of their functions to specialist providers such as custodian banks.
A new generation of trading venues is competing their way into the European securities markets with plans to make trading more efficient. But will they bring benefit to banks and investors?
As the European Parliament adopted MiFID II/MiFIR on 15 April, the financial services industry was left wondering what exactly the new transparency regime is going to mean. Despite a curiously low EC estimate of compliance costs, at between €512 and €732 million, it is clear that MiFID II will have a large impact on the tens of thousands of firms and counterparties that will now fall under its scope.
A major new effort spearheaded by the Bank of England and the UK Treasury has been launched to shore up the cyber defences of the UK financial services industry, amid rising concerns that testing has exposed serious unaddressed weaknesses.
Turkish bank Yapi Kredi has partnered with mobile money specialist Monitise to develop branchless banking’ services in which the consumer can open an account and carry out all their transactions without the need for physical locations.
Turkey’s largest investment bank Aktif has begun using international payment services from specialist Earthport, in a move the bank says will help its corporate and retail customers to get a better deal on their cross-border payments.
Switzerland’s SIX Group is planning to set up a central trade repository or derivatives transactions together with a group of Swiss banks, in a move the company says will increase transparency and traceability of derivatives transactions. The project is based on the Swiss Financial Market infrastructure Act, a new piece of federal legislation which seeks […]
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.
Dutch bank ING has installed an enterprise data sharing solution for its fixed income traders in Amsterdam , which the bank’s head of fixed income trading likened to a “whiteboard in the sky”.
Despite falling costs, banks are continuing to charge “unjustifiable” fees that rip off retailers and consumers as they move away from cash towards debit cards and other forms of payment, according to the British Retail Consortium’s Payments Survey for 2013.
Kazakhstan’s Eurasian Bank has launched a mobile banking service which offers basic mobile banking features to Kazakh, Russian and English=speaking customers.
As Russia’s revitalised Moscow Exchange begins to command increased attention from global investment banks and hedge funds, a new direct market access service says it can unlock trading features that may not previously have been available to many international investors.
The Athens Stock Exchange has chosen a new surveillance system that it says will help it cope with new European financial regulations, including MiFID II and EMIR.
The European Securities and Markets Authority has launched a consultation on the implementation of MiFID II, the long-awaited legislation from the European Commission which was recently approved by the European Parliament. The consultation seeks to translate the principles agreed in the draft text into more technical standards which will be directly implemented across the 28 member countries of the EU.
More than two years after the UK’s FSA introduced rules on mobile call recording for financial institutions, more than half of those affected still have not rolled out a solution – leaving many at risk of enforcement action, according to a new report by analyst firm Ovum and computer telephony specialist Teleware.
ICAP has launched a swap execution facility in the UK, as part of a push to dominate both the European and the US OTC derivatives markets as they are brought under new regulation.
Swedish regional bank Swedbank is planning to roll out new ATM applications for 206 branches across the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The company will also upgrade more than 150 of its ATMs as part of a new multi-channel banking strategy.
HSBC has installed free Wi-Fi in 650 of its UK branches, bringing the bank into line with Barclays, which introduced free Wi-Fi in February 2013. Both banks signed deals with BT to provide the connectivity, which is managed by BT as a white label service.
New UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority has made a good start in its first year of life and has helped to contributed to a “sea change” in the way conduct is viewed and treated by financial institutions, according to Clive Adamson, director of supervision at the FCA.
Santander is emerging as the main beneficiary of the battle to attract UK current account holders while NatWest and HSBC are losing ground, according to the monthly TNS Current Account Switching Index data for April.
There is a danger that regulation will push financial services so far down the path of homogeneity that it hinders innovation and hurts customers, warns Robin Fieth, chief executive at the Building Societies Association.
Despite last month’s European Parliament vote, MiFID II will continue to be dogged by contentious issues and political infighting between member states ahead of the European elections on 22 May, senior financial industry observers have told Banking Technology.
Swift’s Innotribe Startup Challenge has named the five European finalists for its annual competition, which seeks to find the best new companies in financial services and bring them to compete in the final at Sibos Boston in October.
The introduction of a financial transaction tax could mean London losing a swathe of banking business to financial centres with a lighter regulatory regime, such as Hong Kong or Singapore not to mention the logistical and technical challenges for banks.
The purpose of the European Central Bank’s T2S project is ill-defined and taking so long to deliver that it is being pushed aside by other projects according to speakers at the Swift Business Forum in London.
Nearly three months after the European Commission’s 12 February deadline for trade reporting, market participants are still not ready to report their derivative trades and serious problems remain with understanding the rules.
The European Parliament has approved MiFID II, bringing to a close the political debate over the future of Europe’s trading infrastructure and ushering in a period of focus on finer technical details. The final vote will reflect a much more sensible approach than many had feared, according to Anne Plested, head of regulation change at trading technology specialist Fidessa.
Banking Group Santander has added m-commerce to its mobile banking and payment app, in a development it is claiming as the world’s first ‘superwallet’.
More than half a million UK consumers have switched their current accounts since September, according to new figures released by the UK Payments Council. The figures have been described as positive, but market observers remain cautious over whether or not they can be sustained and whether the UK authorities are doing enough to promote innovation.
Swift’s Innotribe innovation spin-out has named the European semi-finalists for its 2014 Startup Challenge, which seeks to find the most innovative start-up companies in financial services.
The European Commission’s MiFID II legislation has produced a disappointing outcome for those hoping for a consolidated tape of post-trade data, while exchanges continue to bear the brunt of participants’ anger over the price of market data.
New EU regulations on market making and dark pools could be damaging investor choice and forcing participants to make decisions that are not in their best interests.
When the requirement brought about by the German high frequency trading act to tag algorithms comes into force this month, market participants may well feel hamstrung by the complexity of the regime – and some might wonder whether this requirement goes one step too far …
Europe doesn’t need more trading venues – instead, it needs more innovation, more fairness, more competition and better enforcement, according to panellists speaking at the Trade Tech conference in Paris.
Consolidation of market infrastructure in Europe will continue, as firms choose post-trade service providers that meet their needs in terms of cost-effectiveness or value-added services. However, some of the real cost issues in Europe are still to be addressed.
Banks must take note of the way that technology is changing how customers interact with the world around them and develop products and services that address their needs rather than the banks’.
Banks should be wary of jumping the gun and assuming that SEPA implementation is a done deal. Far from being over, the task of learning to live with SEPA is just beginning.
Mobile money service M-Pesa has launched in Romania, bringing an idea hugely successful in Kenya to a European Union member state for the first time.
While transparency may be seen as a new wonder drug that will cure all the industry’s ills, it does not come without side effects, so it was refreshing to see ESMA promoting a collaborative approach with the industry in defining the details of how MiFID II and MiFIR are implemented.
UK consumers have doubled the amount of transactions they make on their mobile phones over the last year, according to new figures released by the BBA.
