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, […]
RBS has confirmed that it has hired Marion King, formerly president of UK and Ireland at MasterCard, in the newly created role of director of payments in the New Year.
Banks in Italy and beyond must find new ways to connect with consumers, or risk going out of business. But how to achieve a successful transformation exercised the minds of senior bank representatives at the SIA Expo in Milan this week.
As banks develop new retail styles, they face new security challenges as the changing use of space in-store means surveillance and alarm systems must evolve in tandem.
Italian payment processing specialist SIA has released a new P2P payments service that allows users to send and receive funds on their smartphone using their phone contacts. Called Jiffy, the app has been welcomed by Italian retail banks – but SIA’s ambitious plan calls for the service to be rolled out to 400 million European current account holders.
Corporate treasurers are increasingly looking beyond traditional of finance to a wider range of alternative funding options that support their working capital requirements, including supply chain finance, trade receivable securitisation and factoring.
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.
The European Commission has introduced new rules designed to encourage investment and trigger liquidity – including the use of “high quality” securitisation. The move has been welcomed cautiously by experts, despite the controversial role of securitisation in the financial crisis.
CaixaBank, one of Spain’s largest banks, has moved into the wearable payment technology space with the launch of an NFC-enabled wristband capable of making contactless payments. Security vendor Gemalto has supplied its Optelio Contactless MiniTag, which links the wristband to the user’s existing payment card.
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.
The introduction of T+2 settlement in 27 European markets this week could be having some interesting indirect effects on securities trading – including an increase in securities lending, and uncertainty over the status of OTC trades, according to senior financial market observers.
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.
Financial market participants have criticised plans for the New York Stock Exchange to begin monitoring itself through its non-profit division, NYSE Regulation, describing the move as a “retrograde step” that will never work in practice. NYSE is currently monitored by FINRA, an independent organisation.
Banks and brokers in Europe are bracing themselves for ‘double witching day’ on Wednesday, in which two days’ worth of trades are expected to settle on a single day, as 25 European nations move to T+2 settlement for the first time.
UK financial services firms are increasing their spending on IT but may still not be doing enough to fend off competition, according to the latest survey of the sector from the Confederation of British Industry and PwC.
There is a high risk of another financial crisis within the next 15-20 years, according to a poll of Sibos delegates yesterday. Those attending the regulatory reform session voted 74 per cent to 26 per cent that another financial crisis within that period was a high risk.
Direct connectivity to the Target2-Securities settlement platform will give participants the opportunity to build new business models, access new markets more easily and deliver new services to clients, said a white paper, Taking the Direct Route to T2S: the industry view, released this week by Swift. Ten representatives of organisations that have decided to become directly connected parties (DCPs) were interviewed by Swift about their decisions to become DCPs and their plans for T2S participation.
The launch of Apple Pay, the re-launch of PayPal as a separate company and the move to allow mobile operators to add payment for goods to phone bills across Europe are all threatening the hegemony of banks. But is it going to be as disruptive as many outside the banking world hope?
Besides mounting enthusiasm for Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, momentum is gathering to develop the infrastructure needed to turn what some see as a technology into a universally accepted currency.
With attention increasingly focusing on mobile payments and mobile banking, Fiserv is urging banks to look more closely at how to use mobile to not only deliver services to customers, but also as an up- and cross-selling channel.
The rise of an emerging middle class in Africa is transforming the continent as a group of 11 African nations power past the $1 trillion GDP mark. With tens of millions expected to rise out of poverty in the next decade, it is also providing compelling new opportunities for banks, according to Standard Bank of South Africa.
Microsoft has begun a joint pilot project with the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (FS-Isac) to tackle financially-motivated cyber crime attacks, which are estimated to cost $100 billion a year in the US alone.
A range of product and service announcements during Sibos show Swift becoming ever more tightly integrated with customer and vendor systems.
Warsaw-based Polish central securities depository (CSD), KDPW, has launched a negotiated securities lending and borrowing system in co-operation with KDPW CCP, the country’s central clearing counterparty. The system is designed to prevent or eliminate suspension of settlement of transactions and ensure the return of securities loaned in the automatic lending system.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of World Payments Report. In this extract from the report, which was launched at Sibos this week, the impact of innovation on payments is examined.
The rise of Facebook has been one of the most striking cultural phenomena of the past decade. In January 2007 the site had around 25 million users. But by July 2014, Facebook had reached 2.2 billion users; a number equivalent to one out of every three people on this planet. Meanwhile, Twitter had emerged as the platform of business and news, with 500 million posts ‘tweeted’ daily by its 271 million active users.
A lack of available collateral to meet demand has become a global problem, with various models being deployed to ensure financial institutions meet the changing regulatory requirements.
Increased sanctions, tighter anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) controls, plus client demands for a quicker, better all-round service in the cloud and the move to shared service platforms present client onboarding challenges to banks. But there are also opportunities, said Karen Braithwaite, BNY Mellon’s global head of client service, treasury services.
The debut of SAP’s Financial Services Network at Sibos last year led many to see it as a threat to Swift’s plans for corporate connectivity.
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.
While banks want to root out fraudulent activity as much as governments do they “need to take the temperature down”, said Bob Werner, global head of financial crime compliance and group general manager at HSBC. Speaking at a panel session on trends in financial crime compliance, Werner said: “Every time something goes wrong we don’t need the scalp of a regulator or the scalp of a banker.”
Argentina’s Banco Macro will use the Mambu cloud as the basis for a new business unit, which will offer loans to micro-enterprises and small businesses. The aim is to provide a lifeline to areas that have historically lacked access to financial services.
Rising political tensions and the increasing use of sanctions are making companies think twice about relying on long global supply chains, said John Calverley, head of economic research at Standard Chartered. Firms may decide that rather than hedging their bets with production, they will keep it closer to home, he said during a roundtable session yesterday.
The threat of banks de-risking and exiting regions and businesses in fear of sanctions-related fines is upon us, said Juan Zarate, the ex-deputy national security advisor for combating terrorism to US President George W Bush. Zarate was speaking at a Standard Chartered session yesterday morning about his new book, Treasury Wars: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare.
While the average bank heist averages $6000, a cyber-thief can make off with millions. Last year 552 million identities were breached, while every call about a compromised credit card costs a bank $4.
In a recently published white paper on intraday liquidity reporting*, Swift urges financial institutions to initiate programs now to address serious challenges with regard to data availability, centralisation, aggregation and interpretation in meeting Basel Committee guidelines. Greater industry collaboration will also help to accelerate moves towards cost effective and sustainable models and solutions.
Banks can reduce the headaches associated with cost pressure, tough new regulation, legacy business complexity and changing customer demands by outsourcing non-core areas of business. That is the idea behind two new corporate actions products launched by financial technology vendor SunGard.
