Outsourcing: an increasingly risky business?
More stringent restrictions on outsourcing arrangements affecting all suppliers could lead to increased costs across the board for financial services firms.
Analysis
Mixing up the pieces
The introduction of a seven-day account switching service in the autumn is meant to increase competition among UK High Street banks. Will it succeed?
Blog: Great Mobile Payment Options for SMBs? Depends Whom You Ask (February 2013)
The two specialists in an organization most likely to have strong opinions on mobile payments and the impact on the business—software developers and accountants—are unlikely to assign value the same way.
Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market (February 2013)
Blog: New Credit Card Surcharges Could Impact Prepaid Market February 2013 By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC A proposed settlement agreement in the In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation—filed in 2005 on behalf of approximately 7 million merchants alleging, among other claims, that MasterCard and Visa had separately colluded […]
Data protection: the next Y2K?
Transatlantic friction over data protection isn’t exactly a new problem – the industry has been faced with pending regulations for over a decade, but the conflicting demands of European data privacy and US intelligence gathering legislation are coming together to make the issue a serious problem for banking technologists.
Ready for retail revival
Today, maximising profit is harder than ever for banks. The large retail banks have been forced to sell off branches and their investment arms are under increasing scrutiny, writes Tim FitzGerald, finance & banking sales manager, Casewise. The need to change – be it adapting to newly-imposed regulatory frameworks, to differentiating yourself from the competition and […]
Heightened banking cyber threats require clear focus
As the US Federal Reserve joins a growing list of financial institutions targeted by cyber criminals, reports of an organised campaign to recruit hackers for a large-scale malware attack, dubbed Project Blitzkrieg, has further highlighted the challenge facing the banking sector.
SEPA Uncertainty
Big banks and their large corporate clients are in the final stages of preparation for the SEPA end date of February next year, but what about the smaller clients in the non-euro countries?
Wagner aims at m-commerce gap
Dan Wagner is pretty sure that he has an idea how the use of mobile devices will play out in the commercial world and how the relationships between banks, merchant acquirers, merchants and customers will change.
EU/US face-off over FISA on the cards
It has been clear for some time now that some of the regulations coming into force around the globe contain contradictions and inconsistencies. A large part of the work done by JWG, Banking Technology‘s partner for our regular RegTech coverage, has been in identifying these, working out their impact on systems and processes and what issues […]
Viewpoint: A Tale of Two Gen Ys that Desire Prepaid Cards (February 2013)(2)
February 2013 By Aleia Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy & Research The slow economic recovery from the Great Recession has forced young Americans to confront a dismal financial reality marked by unprecedented student loan debt and soaring unemployment. But the financial industry cannot afford to ignore Gen Y, the generation of consumers born from 1979 […]
FCB’s Exit from Issuing Leaves Program Managers Seeking New Partners (February 2013)
February 2013 By Adam Perrotta, Assistant Editor Dozens of prepaid program managers are scrambling to find a new bank issuer with First California Bank (FCB) exiting the issuing business ahead of its acquisition by PacWest Bancorp. In November, PacWest agreed to pay $231 million for FCB’s parent company, Westlake Village, Calif.-based First California Financial […]
Inside Eurograbber: the £30m mobile banking heist
In the history of bank robberies, the £30 million stolen by the Eurograbber attack in 2012 ranks as one of the all-time biggest, globally. And when you consider that this sum was stolen from more than 30,000 accounts across 30 banks in four European countries, using malware that affected both PCs and bank customers’ mobile […]
Viewpoint: A Tale of Two Gen Ys that Desire Prepaid Cards (February 2013)
By Aleia Van Dyke, Javelin Strategy & Research The slow economic recovery from the Great Recession has forced young Americans to confront a dismal financial reality marked by unprecedented student loan debt and soaring unemployment. But the financial industry cannot afford to ignore Gen Y, the generation of consumers born from 1979 to 1999. By […]
Recovery & Resolution: the operational effects of bail-in
Recovery and resolution plans have been on the minds (and to-do lists) of ops and tech departments at the world’s biggest banks ever since they were mandated by the G20 in 2011.
Will Dodd-Frank trade reporting prepare you for EMIR?
On February 28, most of the approximately 70 registered swap dealers will stumble across the finishing line for the remaining asset classes of the CFTC implementation of Dodd-Frank trade reporting regulations. Some may be forgiven for breathing a sigh of relief.
Legal Entity Identifiers: between a “ROC” and hard decisions
As the global method of identifying entities and their ownership structures, the Legal Entity Identifier forms a central part of the G20’s crisis-prevention toolbox. After a few chaotic years of LEI debate and design, regulators are finally nearing the long anticipated starting line for use of the world’s first singular identifier.
HFT: time to talk about how?
2012 seemed like the year of regulators taking a prolonged look at computer trading – defining what it might be, its potential effects, why it may be problematic. It is still far from clear that we have answers to these fundamental questions.
Securities lending: illuminating data?
Regulatory data collection tools have been refined, standardised identifiers nearly constructed and more frequent and granular reporting rolled into regulation. Now that regulators have this mass of data, what is the next step in linking it and putting it to use?
Banks: bribe customers to stay put …
Hey! Mr Retail Banker, don’t get too worried about the new UK Account Switching regulation that comes into play in September – just offer your customers some money. About 100 quid should do it.
New York techies most bullish about job prospects – but not bonuses
Technologists in financial services are the least loyal to their employers, even though they also have the worst perception of the economy and of their employment prospects.
Osborne drags UK financial system kicking and screaming into 12th Century
Just a day after Osborne vowed to drag the UK payments systems into the 21st century by, er, improving cheque clearing times, a ceremony dating back to the 12th century was getting underway in the City of London.
Customer complaints – a.k.a. customer feedback
Payment protection insurance has dominated the coverage of complaints against banks for some time now, but many observers think that it is just the beginning of a wave of grievances about to engulf the retail banking industry.
Viewpoint: 2012 Holiday Spending: Leveraging Lessons Learned for 2013 Payments Success (February 2013)
February 2013 By Krish Mantripragada, First Data The busy holiday season may be over, but the work is just beginning for many merchants. The first few months of the year are a critical time for retailers to reflect on lessons learned and plan for 2013—and beyond. According to First Data’s SpendTrend holiday reports, consumer […]
Gear changes
As the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer gets ready to announce the electrification of the banking ring-fence, we can expect a flurry of commentators telling us that the banking system is ‘not fit for purpose’.
Low frequency trading
Hats off to Rising Sum, which has built a platform that identifies investment opportunities “using the acquisition criteria favoured by Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet’s highly successful investment vehicle”.
Exchanges: time for a rebuild?
Technical problems at Nasdaq and BATS have reinforced the impression among many market observers that there may be something seriously wrong with equity market structure. Recent history reads like a catalogue of disaster for many of the world’s most prominent trading venues.
Western Union: Expanding on all fronts
As the global payments markets changes, Western Union has plans to change with it. Massimiliano Alvisini, regional director UK, Ireland & Nordics explains how and why.
The end of the world (take two)?
Earlier this month, Banking Technology suffered a post-Mayan apocalypse shock. A weighty report landed on our desks, informing us that the global economy is likely finished, and that the end of civilisation is nigh.
Banish Missed Trade Misery …
A study shows that 62% of City traders “admit to missing key investment or sell opportunities because they didn’t keep track of time zone differences”.
Customer relationships in a multichannel world
The public perception of banks has been battered in recent years, but financial institutions have been working hard to repair the damage. A key tool in their strategy has been to improve customer service in a multichannel environment.
Planning for profitability
Regulatory demands and improved profitability are fuelling a move to dynamic capital planning, but few banks have firm plans.
Seller beware
Conduct risk, which places emphasis on providers of credit to treat customers fairly, will challenge them to deliver higher standards of customer support across the whole relationship.
Washington watchdog raps regulators over Dodd-Frank rule-making
US financial services regulators have not properly evaluated the impact of rules they have proposed or introduced in implementing the Dodd-Frank Act, and should improve their co-ordination says a critical report from a congressional watchdog.
Unlocking the potential of Big Data
At the centre of the national crisis sits a banking industry tarnished in the public’s eyes by poor performance, excessive pay and the ongoing need for state support. Just where does the industry go from here and how does it start to rebuild trust?
Financial crime: compliance and failure
Banks worldwide have been struggling in the battle against financial crime. Recent high-profile examples demonstrate that the rate of anti-money laundering compliance enforcement is continuing to rise.
Flat outlook for salaries in financial services
Salaries for staff in London’s financial services sector are expected to remain flat, particularly among contract and temporary staff, according to the annual survey carried out by Morgan McKinley – but nearly a third of staff expect pay rises of 10%.
Headcount cull claims investment bankers
As job cuts continue to bite at some of the world’s largest banks and financial institutions, new figures from Bloomberg Industries reveal the scale of the cull driven by lacklustre macroeconomic performance in Europe, a declining stock market and tightening financial regulation.
Trendy techs top CIO priority lists for 2013 says Gartner study
Faced with flatlining IT budgets, global CIOs must better exploit the business potential of technology to achieve results – currently they realise only 43% of that potential says Gartner. Top of the priority list is what the research firm calls ‘digital technologies’. In this it includes mobile, analytics, Big Data, social media networking and cloud, […]
Fightin’ talk: the regulatory backlash begins …
Far from coming out of a post-crisis period of grieving and re-learning how to engage with the wider world, the financial services industry looks like it is returning to its old belligerent self.
