The global financial crisis devastated the reputation of the UK banking industry and it is not hard to understand why public trust in banks is at a low ebb. Since 2008, there have been at least five major scandals involving one or more banks operating in the UK, writes Peter Duffy Along with the reputational damage […]
Talking used to be a positive thing. For many years, BT reminded us that it was “good to talk”; whilst in the 1980s the Midland Bank (since acquired by HSBC) promoted itself extensively as “the listening bank”. Now, there is a new breed of bank coming to the UK; one that doesn’t have branches or want a ‘physical’ interaction with its customers
Challenger UK retail bank Atom has received its licence from the Bank of England, meaning it will now be able to go ahead with plans to launch later this year. The bank will add competition to the UK retail banking sector, which until 2010 had not seen a single new entrant for 150 years.
There is a nuclear revolution going on in banking and payments with new digital challenger banks like Atom and Starling seeking to displace established banks that are themselves turning to real-time payment infrastructures to retain customers and under regulatory pressure to open up to FinTech competition from mobile players and payment service providers (PSPs). Crypto-currencies, cyber-security and other tech challenges were also addressed at the Banking Technology Forum 2015
If children trust Google more than they trust a bank, tomorrow’s customers may well hold their money with digital companies instead of traditional banks. That thought worries senior banking industry speakers speaking at the BBA conference in London on Thursday.
Tactical regulatory firefighting has distracted banks from their long-term strategic shift to an enterprise view of data. Looming issues such as the possible Brexit highlight the urgency of this task
London has been selected as the host city for Sibos 2019 following a successful bid by ExCeL London and London & Partners, the official promotional company for the city.
The London Stock Exchange has obtained approval for Hong Kong companies to become members. Previously, only companies from the European Economic Area and Israel could join.
Banking by mobile phone and tablet has become the primary way UK customers manage their finance, according to new research published by the British Bankers Association.
Apple Pay will be available in the UK from next month, with eight of the UK’s most established banks and the major credit and debit card networks supporting it – along with Transport for London.
Demand for improved customer service and new mobile banking and payments services is driving increased hiring in financial services in the UK, with employment prospects 16 percentage points higher than a year ago, according to Manpower Group,
As consumer adoption of mobile devices and social media increases, banks can’t really rely on standard details such as income, age and geography to serve customers better than their competitors, according to a new report by payments company TSYS and software firm FICO. Instead, they may need to recognise the different kinds of customers based on how they interact with digital technology and tailor their services accordingly.
MCO Europe, exclusive distributor of the McObject high performance database financial markets in the UK and Europe, is raising investment through Crowdcube, the UK’s largest crowdfunding site, to fund growth and expansion. McObject’s eXtremeDB Financial Edition high-performance database is used for trading and risk management by banks, fund managers, brokers and data vendors.
Pensions and payments company Equiniti has opened a new fintech innovation centre in Cardiff, which will focus on bringing together fintech tools for employee share plans, online applications for investment platforms and web and mobile applications for pension products.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority’s study into competition in investment and corporate banking will focus on choice, transparency, bundling and cross-subsidisation in debt and equity capital markets, mergers and acquisitions and acquisition financing. It will also consider links between competition in these primary market services and related activities such as corporate lending and broking, and ancillary services.
Leeds Building Society is to revamp its customer engagement tools through a ten-year deal with HP Enterprise Services, which will encompass a number of independent software vendors working on different parts of the business. The deal builds on the earlier deal between the two firms in 2013, which focused on the building society’s core banking platform.
Concerns over a growing skills gap and lack of future talent are the biggest worries among financial firms’ recruiters, leading to a renewed focus on graduate hiring.
UK consumers are spending more on their payment cards than ever before, with over a billion transactions in February, according to newly-released figures provided by the UK Cards Association.
UK retail bank Halifax reports that two-thirds of its customers are now using mobile to login, doubling the number of mobile banking sessions compared to a year ago.
Anti-money laundering legislation cuts through the Gordian knot of bringing cases against companies at a stroke – it doesn’t require a ‘controlling mind’. In fact, it almost demands the opposite. A UK-wide system of velocity checking would go further in combating crime and protecting Money Services Businesses.
Visa Europe says that it will roll out its V.me by Visa in the UK this year, having secured commitment from 55% of the UK’s card issuance base, which accounts for more than 60 million card holders, and thousands of the UK’s retailers. It will now be commercially available to the majority of internet shoppers in the UK before the end of 2015.
Mobile startups are changing the way customers interact with financial services around the world. Tier one banks know this, and are keen to get a piece of the action. This week, companies from EMEA demoed at the Citi mobile challenge in London in the final stage of an annual event that takes in hundreds of financial startups around the globe.
Open APIs offer the promise of a better, more efficient and more inclusive financial services world. But delegates at the Swift Business Forum in London voiced frustration about the speed and direction of progress being made during a session on the topic.
Real time payments ‘innovation’ is in fact simply capitalising on advances that first appeared four decades ago, according to panellists at the Swift Business Forum this week. Since then, progress has been glacial in many places. So why has it taken so long to get real time payments?
The number of UK mobile banking users is set to almost double from 17.8 million to 32.6 million by 2020, according to a new report commissioned by Fiserv. Online banking is still growing too, the research found.
Banks and Fintech companies are locked in a war for the best technologists – and there is only so much IT and technology talent to go around …
Last week saw the launch of the Payment Systems Regulator, the first time the UK gets a regulatory body overseeing the £75 trillion a year payments systems. Its brief is clear: to open up the UK payments infrastructure, which is currently controlled by the high street banks, make it more accessible to challenger banks and fairer for consumers. The regulator has been given strong powers by the government and has already made it clear it will fine the banks if they do not step up to the mark.
Two enhancements to the Current Account Switch Service (CASS), announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement last December, have been successfully implemented by the banking industry.
The UK’s new Payment Systems Regulator looks set to shake up the way the industry is structured, with reviews of the ownership of the infrastructure and of the way that indirect access is managed through sponsoring banks.
Lloyds Bank plans to invest £1 billion in digital banking capability over the next three years, re-investing a third of the savings it hopes to make in its drive to become ‘simpler and more efficient’.
The Financial Conduct Authority plans to conduct a market study of the investment and corporate banking sector to decide if competition in the sector is working properly. It may also look into the asset management later in the year.
Customers are busy and don’t have time to deal with slow banking services and processes. Instead, they want social media banking and more sophisticated personal banking, together with benefits that are convenient to them. This was the message of speakers at the Finovate conference in London yesterday – but not everyone in the audience was convinced about the ability of new technologies to realise that vision.
Lloyds Banking Group is to allow customers to upload images of identification documents required as part on an online account opening application, removing the need to visit a branch.
Initially the new electronic identification and verification checks, which will start to be rolled out to customers from next week, will be available to customers who want to add an additional party to an existing account.
The UK’s Payments Council has selected Swift to build the country’s new central infrastructure platform in preparation for the next phase of SEPA regulation in 2016, through the provision of an automated central infrastructure platform for collection and maintenance of UK-specific SEPA routing data.
As 2015 begins to gather momentum, it looks like the end is finally in sight for PPI claims, according to the Financial Conduct Authority. Back in September, the FCA announced a further drop of 11% in complaints from the first half of 2014, continuing a downward trend that began back in 2012.
Fear of fraud is the main factor slowing the adoption of smartphone-based payments among UK consumers, though a third believes that credit and debit card payments will no longer be the preferred method of payment in 2020.
Remember those Microsoft adverts that touted ‘I am a PC’, showing everyday people as happy PC users? What if everyday people could do the same for their finances and say, ‘I am a bank’? What would that bank look like and what services would it offer to meet customer aspirations?
Several of the UK’s major banking brands are losing customers to rivals such as Spanish bank Santander and building society Nationwide, according to figures released by the UK Payments Council – while competitor bank Nationwide continues to add customers.
RBS’ global transaction services business is exploring collaboration with a number of startup companies as a way of combining its own services with the innovation provided by smaller companies, through API agreements. The move comes as banks around the globe increasingly seek to bring products to market faster and reap the rewards of innovation.
The global financial crisis triggered an avalanche of fierce criticism for the financial industry, the repercussions of which are still being felt. In its wake industry bodies around the world introduced stringent regulations that require in-depth auditing to achieve compliance and complete corporate accountability.
