The value of all cryptocurrency transactions will more than half this year, falling from $71 billion in 2014 to just over $30 billion. The decline was attributable to the combined impact of exchange collapses, Bitcoin theft and regulatory concerns.
Britain’s banks have reliably serviced the banking needs of millions of customers for more than a hundred years; providing a safe place to store hard-earned cash, mortgages to buy dream homes, and great interest rates to accumulate savings
The mobile revolution is taking the financial services industry by storm. In less than five years it is predicted that the number of mobile phone owners using their device for banking purposes will double to over 1.75 billion. Banks cannot ignore the implications of what this means to their future business models. A mobile-first approach will be essential in leading the way.
Consumers in both developed and developing countries have embraced their mobile devices to check balances, make payments and conduct other financial activities. As a result, mobile banking has become a must-have offering for financial institutions. However, many are still working out how to go beyond the basics to add value for customers, increase engagement and maximise the return on the mobile channel investment.
With a string of client projects in flight, the immediate effects of the financial crisis weren’t a problem for Dublin-based Information Mosaic, but as projects that had run for two or more years started coming to an end, things got a little tougher. Fortunately, the company has one major shareholder that has both funds and a long-term view …
Diliger, a start-up offering research tools for buyers of capital markets services, is looking to raise £500,000 through crowdfunding using the Crowdcube site.
By facilitating payments, and clearing and settling transactions in the securities and derivatives markets, financial market infrastructures are essential nodes in a complex and ever more integrated international network of capital flows. The consequent inter-dependencies between financial market infrastructures will create new resiliency challenges
One of the trends of 2014 was its delivery of technology that we had been promised for years but had fallen short until now. Siri, Cortana and Google Now all make good on the sci-fi staple of the voice-activated computer. Virtual reality has been attempted many times, but it seems that the Oculus Rift may have finally cracked it. And biometric authentication, while often included in devices but rarely used, is now commonly used by owners of new iPhones to unlock their devices thanks to Touch ID.
A string of stinging fines in recent months has driven a renewed focus on compliance, taking it to the top of the risk agenda
For banks, a race to remain relevant is on. In the past few weeks, Lloyds Banking Group has announced its intention to double-down on digital banking, closing branches and cutting costs. In the US, BBVA Compass announced that its agreement with startup Dwolla to offer real-time payment facilities to customers makes it the first mainstream bank to open its technology platform to digital developers like Dwolla
Following its success during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping frenzy this year, alternative currency Bitcoin is gaining popularity and could be poised for major growth in 2015. But the currency still has a long way to go before it catches up with rivals such as PayPal, Visa and MasterCard.
Symphony Communications, a financial industry messaging service provider, has acquired a rival service provided by Markit, a financial data management provider. The move may bolster Symphony’s ability to rival more entrenched, expensive cloud-based chat services used by financial institutions.
While online retailers roll their Black Friday bargains over to Cyber Monday, research shows that an increasing amount of online sales are being made via smartphones and tablets, and this trend is continuing – but this does not mean smaller crowds, as consumers are also switching to ‘click & collect’ services.
Monitise plans to raise £49.2 million through extensions of its relationships with Santander, Telefónica and MasterCard. The money raised will be used to ‘support the development and accelerated roll-out of its global platform capabilities’.
As business process operations enter a new capter of accelerated transformation, technology services are not just a critical component for financial services firms – they are the business itself.
At a gala event in London last night, industry luminaries gathered for an evening of entertainment and excitement as the winners of the 2014 Banking Technology Awards and Readers’ Choice Awards were announced.
Fintech innovation gets a lot of press, but there is a lack of co-ordination. Innovate Finance’s Claire Cockerton tells David Bannister how her organisation aims to change that
Capital markets firms often have little idea how much they are spending on technology and even less control, according to a new report by Tabb Group and Thomson Reuters. The report’s authors call for greater emphasis on data, which could help to save the half a million dollars per front office employee spent on technology every year.
JP Rangaswami has been appointed as chief data officer at Deutsche Bank, a newly-created role in which he will “play a key role in standardising the bank’s processes, tools and governance around information and in supporting its digital strategy”.
The time is right for a new breed of digital-only banks to enter the market and steal away share from the established players, according to a new report by Monitise.
Banks will be judged on how well they provide mobile services and social media interaction in the coming years. Instead of being just another channel, these forms will be the first point of contact for customers, according to a new report by analyst firm Celent.
Biometric identity verification mechanisms were prominent among the raft of new product announcements at the Money20/20 event in Las Vegas, which opened this week.
Yantra Financial Technologies, an electronic payment systems developer, has integrated its latest system for risk scoring of payments with the Ripple real-time settlement protocol. The integration means that institutions using the Ripple protocol can analyse transactions in seconds, including what other payments the customer recently made and potential concerns regarding a specific transaction. Risk levels can be assigned to certain transactions based on pre-determined criteria.
The regulatory spotlight is shining on high frequency traders and dark pools, but the technological changes that have driven down trading costs for everyone will not be reversed. With market making increasingly the preserve of profit maximising algorithmic traders, there is a growing responsibility on institutions to control where their trades are going and how they are being executed. Those that do not are writing checks to HFTs with clients’ money
IFINTEC Finance Technologies Conference and Exhibition will be held on 14-16 April 2015 in Istanbul, Turkey at Istanbul Congress Center which is the biggest convention center in Turkey. IFINTEC is a dedicated conference focusing on technology solutions for finance industry. IFINTEC Conference serves a perfect platform to introduce and demonstrate platform, system, hardware, software, consultancy, […]
The social contract between the banking system and society is fundamentally broken. We deserve a financial system that we can all be proud of, one that is fairer and more sustainable than the current iteration.
While a great deal of attention has been given to Lloyds Banking Group’s retail operations as its various elements are split up, less has been given to its activities in transaction banking, where it is “one year into a three-year journey” to transform itself and its customer offerings to create“the best global transaction bank in this region”.
It is essential for banks to ensure they have the right strategies and technology in place now, if they are to retain their position as market-leading payment providers in the future, writes Saket Sharma,chief information officer, treasury services, BNY Mellon.
Banks and other financial institutions are finally spending more on growing new products in areas such as mobile and data analytics rather than maintaining legacy systems, according to a new report by Capgemini.
New York, NY– October 1, 2014 – marcus evans, the world’s largest event management group, will host the Economic Capital Modeling and Management in Insurance 2014 Forum on November 18-19, 2014 in New York, NY. As risk assessment strategies become more aligned with business objectives and regulators grow increasingly interested in that integration, risk management executives and actuarial professionals alike have been tasked with designing frameworks capable of holistically managing enterprise risk.
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Euroclear have taken the first steps towards the creation of a global collateral processing utility with the announcement that they plan to create a UK-based joint venture, DTCC-Euroclear Global Collateral.
Global financial markets are experiencing a paradigm shift as governments, regulators and participants recalibrate the processes and structures underpinning global finance. The challenge is to repair and remedy where needed, with dialogue between central banks, regulators and participants, but also to avoid creating fragmented markets or worse, unintentionally reintroducing risk.
Change is a theme at this year’s Sibos. But what type of change? A cross-section of delegates discuss what they think will be the main disruptive forces in their part of the business.
Banks from as far afield as Brazil, New Zealand and Singapore are among the candidates on the shortlist for the Banking Technology 2014 Awards, announced today, showing the continuing competitive edge regional institutions are gaining over the large international players through technology.
Enabling rapid growth and agility with creaking IT systems poses a major challenge to UK financial services companies where the IT infrastructure, as in many other industries, has evolved over time and features a wide variety of solutions.
Citi has launched a global mobile challenge that it says will help to inspire technology developers to reimagine mobile banking and payments. The bank plans to host a series of events in Miami, New York and Silicon Valley in November, after which finalists will get the chance to bring their product to market with help from Citi.
As SunGard’s first ever chief technology officer, Steven Silberstein knows a thing or two about financial technology. In a past life, he was global head of prime brokerage at Lehman Brothers. He later became chief information officer at Chi-X Global, before joining SunGard in a newly-created position two years ago.
All banks, whatever their size rely on data to make decisions. With that in mind getting that data in a timely manner and in a format that can be digested easily is critical. So why can this be so difficult? We are all used to receiving reports from our systems and even the most rudimentary examples will utilise some form of analytics, however simple. We might be getting the reports and be used to the status quo, but is your analytics platform getting the better of you?
The digital era is changing your bank rapidly. Is your mobile testing & assurance practice ready? P Venkatesh, director of the product division, and Srivatsan TT, vice president of the solutions group, at Maveric Systems discuss the issues
Despite the significant challenges faced by the UK’s banking sector over the last decade, there has been a dramatic evolution in the customer experience following the introduction of online, telephone and mobile banking. While the branch remains an important channel, especially for older customers, mobile technology is rapidly redefining how customers interact with their banks.
