Blockchain and distributed technology have been hot topics at Sibos this year, with a raft of announcements from banks and fintechs alike. One of the areas identified as of most promise is trade finance – an area of banking that is rife with paper-based processes.
Standard Chartered Bank has entered into a One Belt One Road (Obor) strategic alliance with China Merchants Bank (CMB) to accelerate the Belt and Road initiative and help promote economic growth and regional cooperation for countries along the Road. Obor is a development strategy and framework that focuses on connectivity and cooperation among countries, primarily […]
Innotribe’s Industry Challenge – the results of which have been just unveiled – was all about blockchain and disruptive technologies. Three star-ups won the challenge to introduce blockchain to the securities sector: SmartContract, Rise and Coin Sciences.
The single euro payments area is up and running and has proved to be a catalyst for change in the payments industry. We look at the story so far.
Artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t new but the rise of mobile and cloud computing, combined with big data and cheap computing power, is driving a resurgence. Convergent technologies mean AI is finding new uses in financial services.
It’s a fintech double as Equiniti has developed a digital banking platform and launched a mobile biometric authentication and identity lifecycle solution.
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, transaction banking was considered a reliable source of income for global banking groups. But nearly a decade on, multiple factors are putting pressure on transaction banks’ revenues. This year’s World Payments Report suggests banks increase their investments in digital solutions to offer more compelling propositions to their corporate treasury clients.
Credit Union Australia (CUA) can now onboard a customer in two minutes, including ID verification, offer generation and account generation to the core. The underpinning solution is provided by a domestic fintech start-up, Cloudcase Software Solutions.
In early June, Reuters disclosed that the US Federal Reserve had detected more that 50 cyber security breaches from 2011 through 2015. It should be noted that this may only represent a small fraction of the Fed’s total exposure during this period. It turns out that, unlike the Washington-based Board of Governors, the 12 privately […]
Axion Swiss Bank, a private bank focusing on asset management and consultancy, is migrating its technology to Avaloq’s BPO centre, Avaloq Sourcing Switzerland. On the way out is ERI’s Olympic core banking system.
Canada is one of many countries around the world striving to make payments fast, frictionless and data rich. The country’s approach to payments system modernisation is rooted in collaboration and research, with an eye to the international experience and a deep dive into the needs and capabilities of the Canadian market, including an investigation into blockchain and cryptocurrencies.
Delegates attending yesterday’s Making real time successful in the Eurozone session at Sibos 2016 heard that the key to success for banks will be to initially focus on their own domestic payments markets – which still constitute the vast majority of their payments.
Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has gone live with new cash and liquidity reporting software, SmartStream Technologies’ Corona. The bank has taken “a proactive approach to Basel III” – being the first in the region to do so, said the vendor. The new centralised solution will help to monitor and manage cash positions on an intraday basis, throughout the RBI group.
Top pics and captions from Swift’s Sibos 2016 conference in Geneva! A compilation from day 2.
ACI Worldwide and Vocalink have joined forces “to offer a complete end-to-end immediate payments solution to launch a domestic or regional immediate payments network”. The partnership will combine Vocalink’s Immediate Payments System (IPS) offering for central payment infrastructures and ACI’s UP Immediate Payments solution for banks and financial institutions.
Swift has committed to help its members combat the cyber threat “in challenging times”, delegates heard during yesterday’s opening plenary session. Security will be a feature every day of the conference because “the cyber threat is here to stay”, said Swift chief executive, Gottfried Leibbrandt.
The payments industry faces a perfect storm with immediate, open and context-based changes emanating from new technology, regulation and infrastructures set to “transform the landscape”.
The opportunity for traditional banking processes to be transformed that is presented by innovative financial technology (fintech) developers is at risk of being squandered in many cases because of cultural differences between large inflexible enterprise culture and the enthusiastic approach of the start-up developer world.
Banif Bank in Malta has selected the Pelican Transaction Banking platform. The solution will provide end to end automation of both Swift and single euro payments area payments, including integration with over the counter instructions, Banif’s internet banking system and back office.
The European Central Bank has outlined its plans to consolidate the Target2 and Target2Securities (T2S) platforms, introduce a new European-wide instant payments platform by November 2017 and develop a new collateral management system. The Eurosystem’s “Vision 2020” plans were outlined by Yves Mersch, a member of the executive board at the ECB, at Sibos 2016.
Udayan Goyal’s vision for the future of money revolves around seamless, instant micropayments being made continuously between autonomous apps and services all triggered by thoughts and actions of humans as they go about their daily lives.
A FinTech Technical Advisory Group has been established by the International Standards Organisation (ISO) TC68 Financial Services Committee. ISO has also just recently approved a new blockchain committee.
Italy’s TAS Group and targit GmbH Austria have signed a deal to collaborate on bringing a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model for liquidity risk management and reporting within reach of tier two and three banks throughout Central and Eastern Europe, including Austria and Germany.
A central securities depositories (CSDs) consortium has been founded to help emerging market CSDs investigate and take advantage of new technologies such as blockchain. Led by Russia’s CSD, National Settlement Depository (NSD) and South Africa’s Strate, the consortium will initially focus on working with CSDs in Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia.
Digital innovation has the potential to radically transform the payments arena, through solutions that enhance end-to-end speed, efficiency, transparency, security and cost effectiveness. Anthony Brady, global head of business strategy and market solutions, treasury services at BNY Mellon, discusses how banks are being spurred to drive forward new technology initiatives – with collaboration at their core – to deliver an enriched global real-time payments experience to clients.
Read our first Daily News at Sibos edition of the Sibos 2016 conference in Geneva – all the latest news and analysis from Swift’s premier event of the year.
Join the consortium. PayCommerce, an open cross-border payments network, has launched an instant cross-border payment, clearing and integrated settlement programme for global banks.
Start-up Form3 Financial Cloud will offer payment and core banking solutions through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery model. These are the Dovetail payments system and a new core banking system recently launched by Thought Machine.
Malaysia-based payments solutions provider Finexus is building a new real-time gross settlement (RTGS) platform for banks in Asia Pacific. It has partnered with Volante Technologies, which will provide the MT to MX message transition, via its flagship Volante Designer product.
Momentum is building behind the T2S securities settlement system as it gains critical mass. While expected benefits and outcomes have not fully materialised, the unexpected benefits have captured the imagination of the post-trade industry.
Payments software vendor Dovetail is one of the very few independent fintech beacons in the industry, having not fallen into the hands of a large tech conglomerate. The company pioneered the concept of a “payment services hub” – before analysts coined the term – and has maintained double digit growth over the last decade. So what’s next? Banking Technology talks to Martin Coen, Dovetail’s CEO.
Regulation is likely to be a hot topic at Sibos, both inside and outside of conference sessions. We assesses the main regulatory themes for this year’s event.
The threat of cybercrime shows no sign of diminishing any time soon, but to what extent can market infrastructures and financial institutions protect themselves against hacking attacks?
Custodians are being urged to adopt a standardised utility model for the management of standing settlement instructions (SSIs) to resolve ongoing challenges such as high costs and risks for buy-side firms.
The tectonic plates of the banking sector are shifting faster than ever. High street banks are under stress from the massive competitive threats generated by their leaner, technology-driven fintech rivals and challenger banks. These fintech companies are finding success simply by being more efficient or by taking advantage of emerging and highly effective technologies such […]
The UK’s existing Faster Payments scheme could be consigned to the slow lane as researchers at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) claim to have demonstrated blockchain supporting a new banking industry clearing system. In a ten-page technical paper, “Proving Ethereum for the clearing use case”, RBS’s innovation engineering team says it has created a clearing […]
Nordic payments firm Nets has successfully IPO-ed on Nasdaq Copenhagen Exchange the tune of DKK 30 billion ($4.5 billion).
Overly manicured beard. Check. Clothes that betray blatant narcissism. Check. Holier than thou attitude. Check. Welcome to the world of hipsters as HSBC is looking for office space in trendy tech-focused London neighbourhoods. According to Bloomberg, the bank is seeking to “bolster its fintech capabilities” and has hired real estate broker CBRE Group to find […]
National Australia Bank (NAB) says it has successfully transferred AU$10 ($7.6) – using Ripple’s blockchain tech – from Australia to Canada. It took ten seconds to process.
Allied Irish Banks (AIB) is believed to be in the market for new digital banking software. Banking Technology understands a number of vendors have done their demos for the bank, Infosys with its Finacle digital banking platform among them.
