The European Central Bank is to create a Euro Retail Payments Board to replace the Single Euro Payments Area Council and “help foster the development of an integrated, innovative and competitive market for retail payments in euro in the European Union”.
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.
IntercontinentalExchange has revealed further details of its plans for Liffe, following its acquisition of NYSE Euronext in November.
Germany’s Commerzbank has just signed up to Regis-TR, the European trade repository owned by German CSD Clearstream and Spanish CSD Iberclear, as part of the bank’s drive to ready itself for the EMIR legislation on OTC derivatives reporting.
Italian CSD Monte Titoli will connect to T2S via Colt and SIA, rather than via Swift, as the two companies vie for business ahead of the June 2015 go live date.
European equities clearing houses EMCF and EuroCCP have completed their merger transaction and chosen a new name for the merged company, following the final approval by Dutch central bank De Nederlandsche to the group’s shareholder organisations the DTCC and BATS Chi-X Europe.
As Europe’s post-trade infrastructure is subjected to increasing levels of regulation, CSDs will be forced to change their business models to stay alive, custodians will be forced to seek alliances to find economies of scale, and brokers will have to outsource parts of their mid and back office processes to stay in the game, according to analyst firm Celent.
Euroclear UK and Ireland is planning to shorten its settlement cycle to T+2 from October next year, bringing its operations into line with clearing in Germany and Russia, which already operate T+2.
European equity market Turquoise has reported a drastic increase in dark trading volumes following the relaunch of its ‘dark’ pool Uncross service. Banking Technology spoke to Robert Barnes, new chief executive at Turquoise, to find out why.
Fintech vendor Volante Technologies has launched its T2S Accelerator, which is designed to help financial services firms to prepare for the T2S settlement platform.
Regulators should consider carefully the implications of their actions, and not be too hasty to censure or restrict trading activity on dark pools, according to a report released by analyst firm Celent this week. The findings have been supported by senior financial services executives at Fidessa, who have called for investor choice to be maintained.
Finland’s Aktia Bank has begun staff training on a new Temenos T24 core banking system that it plans to start implementing next year with an expected go-live date in 2015
Credit Agricole CIB has signed an outsourcing deal with Genpact, in which the technology firm will help the bank by providing its IT development and maintenance, production support, infrastructure management and user support in the US.
BATS Chi-X Europe has begun its pan-European listings business with the start of trading in two exchange-traded funds. The firm’s strategy is to focus on ETFs, where it believes it has found an opportunity to cut away at costs.
Market participants need to be sure they understand how their collateral is being handled. They also need to make sure they are ready for EMIR, according to financial executives at the Mondo Visione Exchange Forum this week.
Bulgaria’s DSK Bank has launched a mobile savings application called DSK Gameo, which is designed to encourage customers to save by making banking more fun, while helping the bank better understand its user-base.
Global funds network Calastone has signed up Austrian private bank Semper Constantia to take up its order routing services.
The European Commission has rejected a request from the European Securities and Markets Authority to delay the reporting of exchange traded derivatives, with the effect that all derivatives trades will have to be reported to registered trade repositories from 12 February next year.
French operator group Orange has formed a strategic partnership with payment provider Visa to accelerate awareness and everyday usage of contactless payment technology in France. The operator has also launched a mobile prepayment solution called Orange Cash in the country.
Data specialists Volante have launched their SEPA Accelerator, a tool designed to help companies comply with the upcoming Single Euro Payments Area, which takes effect on 1 February 2014.
Andrea Galeazzi, director of network services at Italian payments and technology infrastructure company SIA, has taken up a new role as chairman at Italian telecoms firm Emmecom. The move is part of SIA’s acquisition of the smaller firm, which took place in July and forms a key part of its European expansion plans.
Pan-European clearing houses EMCF and EuroCCP have received approval from the UK consumer authority the Office of Fair Trading to go ahead with their planned merger, announced in July.
Banco Itaú Suisse, the Swiss business of Latin American bank Itaú Unibanco, has chosen a private banking business system from software vendor ERI as part of a drive to make the Swiss unit a central hub for the Group’s European private banking business.
Swift has completed network acceptance testing for its connectivity service for T2S, the EU project to reform Europe’s post-trade infrastructure.
Sell-side only block trading network Squawker has completed its pan-European rollout, connecting 70 sell-side firms to the new venue, which promises ‘algorithm-free’ trading in 13 European countries.
Spanish operator group Telefónica has teamed with local bank CaixaBank to set up a company offering consumer financing for mobile handsets and devices.
The public is ready to adopt mobile payments in many aspects of their lives, but service providers need to have a defined role in the ecosystem and an understanding of how they interact with other players and the consumer.
Polish IT specialist Comarch has launched a mobile business banking solution aimed at banks that want to give corporates, SMEs and micro business customers a mobile offering.
BATS Chi-X Europe’s upcoming move into the European listings space will help bring a much-needed reduction in costs that could help to make the European ETFs market stronger, according to Mark Hemsley, chief executive at BATS Chi-X Europe.
Senior financial industry executives have expressed disappointment at the failure of the US and European securities regulators to realise a deal over derivatives reforms and swap execution facilities, the new category of US execution venues brought in under the Dodd-Frank Act.
The European Commission has expressed concerns that the US government shutdown is preventing a deal between the EU and US regulator, just as new swaps rules come into force for firms based both inside and outside the US.
European commercial bank UniCredit has chosen payment processing company First Data Corporation to help it pursue its mobile payments plans.
Less than one in ten UK consumers has used a mobile wallet, despite the widespread availability of the technology, a new study has found.
Eurex clearing, the post-trade arm of Germany’s Eurex derivatives exchange, is to act as the clearing house for new securities borrowing and lending venue SL-x Trading Europe when it launches in Q4 this year.
EBA Clearing has signed five financial institutions, 11 European service providers and two corporates for its MyBank E-Mandate pilot, which will begin in October and will test the firm’s solution for Sepa core direct debits for reliability, security and usability.
Momentum is building behind the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) Target2-Securities (T2S) settlement platform. With the ECB confirming the platform will be delivered on time, further proof of the industry’s confidence in the initiative has come via a series of announcements regarding connectivity to T2S.
For those involved in European payments, the final months of this year are likely to be characterised by a frenzy of activity as the deadline for migration to single euro payments area instruments looms.
Germany’s Boerse Stuttgart has chosen Nasdaq OMX to provide it with a new trading engine, which it says will decrease latency and increase throughput for members on the exchange. The Stuttgart exchange is focused on corporate bonds and investment funds for private investors, and has an average volume of €370 million per day. The exchange […]
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Germany’s DAB bank has chosen a new data distribution tool called Diffusion from vendor Push Technology, which it says will help it to deliver real time data to customers. DAB Bank is an internet bank and direct broker. Founded in 1994 and based in Munich, the bank calls itself Germany’s first discount broker. The bank […]
