Bank of Cyprus UK has selected Lombard Risk’s new AgileReporter for automated regulatory reporting to replace Hitec Labs’ PolicyHub. The bank says it wanted to “improve” on its existing solution which required a number of supplementary manual processes to deliver its reports. Andrew Michaelides, CFO of Bank of Cyprus UK, says: “As complex regulatory requirements […]
Santander says it has become the “first” bank in the UK to launch voice banking technology. The solution is provided by Nuance Communications. However, last month HSBC announced it was launching voice recognition and touch security services in the UK, which will be available to 15 million banking customers. This project is also being carried […]
Swiftref, Swift’s global reference data utility, has delivered the IBAN/BIC reference platform for the UK community under the guidance of Payments UK. The project was initiated in early 2015, with Swift commissioned to design and build the platform. Swift says this new Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) International Bank Account Number (IBAN) Only (Sepaio) central […]
QTS, a UK-based digital banking systems provider, has gone bust. Based on Companies House data (the UK’s registrar of companies), QTS’s accounts are long overdue and it has entered liquidation. Yesterday (21 March), Companies House announced an “extraordinary resolution to wind up on 26 February 2016” and the appointment of a voluntary liquidator. Calls and […]
High street banks in the UK will need to replace or upgrade thousands of cash machines at a cost of £45 million because they cannot grip the new “slippery” plastic notes, according to Bloomberg. Polymer notes are to be brought into circulation this year by the Bank of England, and the banknotes stay cleaner, are […]
ICAP, a UK-based financial services firm, says its post trade risk and information (PTRI) division has completed a proof of technology test case for blockchain. Jenny Knott, CEO of ICAP’s PTRI division, says it has demonstrated one of the “first real world applications of distributed ledger technology that has the ability to significantly transform the […]
A UK-based challenger bank, Mondo, has partnered with Thames Card Technology for debit card production and personalisation. Beta test cards will be issued to consumers this year. Mondo, which positions itself as a “mobile first” bank, will be offering a contactless debit card paired with a mobile banking app to its customers. The mobile app’s […]
It was a sense of déjà vu at TSAM (The Summit for Asset Management) 2016 in London yesterday (15 March), as the industry still says it is facing a “tsunami of regulation”. The event brought around 300 delegates, vendors and speakers to London’s Lancaster Hotel. All there to network, and discuss trends and issues in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
UK building society Nationwide has signed BT to provide the network infrastructure for its digital transformation strategy, as part of a six-year deal between the two firms.
If 2015 is to be remembered as the year regulators challenged boards to demonstrate their strong governance over their risk management, 2016 promises something just as important. In fact, 2016 will arguably be a truly momentous year in the world of non-financial risk as it could well become the year that risk governance silos are finally dismantled
Six out of 10 chief financial officers from mid-market and large corporate firms in the UK say they would like to see the same flexible payments technology in their business’ finances as they enjoy in their personal finances, according to a survey by HSBC.
Financial institutions are increasingly switching their investment towards smaller, shorter, cheaper technology projects rather than large initiatives, according to the results of a new survey published by technology and PR consultancy CCgroup. The results also suggest that uptake of cloud services is rising as cost pressure push firms to lower costs.
Digital technology is on the verge of transforming banking, in a similar way that Spotify has completely changed the music industry and Netflix has revolutionised broadcast entertainment
Employment prospects in the UK finance and banking sector in the New Year are the brightest in the past three years as high profile data breaches, such as those at TalkTalk and Sony, create a surge in demand for cyber-security experts.
If the global payments industry were to be designed from scratch, nobody would design the system which we have today. Yet distributed ledger technology has the potential to bring about dramatic change– if it can overcome the unanswered questions over to what extent the industry should collaborate or compete and whether there will be one model or many different ones, according to speakers and delegates at the European Payments Regulation conference in London on Wednesday.
Quick business successes can be built on the UK’s payment system that will play a key role in encouraging the efforts required to ensure that it achieves the “world class” status the industry is aiming for.
One in five UK consumers (21%) have had personal details stolen and their bank accounts used to buy goods and services as a result of a cyber security breach, according to new research from business advisory firm Deloitte.
