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.
Analysis
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.
Cameron’s EU speech: a battle of wills
UK Prime Minister David Cameron gave a speech earlier this week in which he promised to hold a referendum on UK membership of the EU by 2018, if he is re-elected. The speech reflects pressures not just in the Conservative party, but fundamental differences in Europe as a whole over how to approach financial markets and the wider economy.
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.
The African banking evolution: High-Street banking on your doorstep
Mobile phones may have revolutionised the way of life of the African population, but when it comes to mobile banking there are a variety of technologies circulating which each provide precise services and levels of connectivity and functionality, writes Simon Pont, chief executive of ECR Retail Systems.
The irresistible rise of digital banking
The banking industry, integral to our commercial and personal lives, has always evolved with the times to embrace new challenges and consumer attitudes. Technology plays an obvious and increasingly important role in this evolution.
Boots on the Ground (January 2013)
January 2013 Experts on five markets—Brazil, France, Italy, Middle East and Russia—discuss how prepaid is developing where they’re doing business, as providers and consultants. By Loraine DeBonis, Editor-in-Chief Paybefore: How widely has prepaid been adopted in Brazil beyond the meal voucher market? Neissan Monadjem: The food voucher programs along with the mobile prepaid “card” vertical represent 80 […]
Electronic Banking? Meet the man who wrote the book(s) …
Leaving no stone unturned in our mission to bring you information and data on banking systems from all corners of the globe, it is with some excitement that we pass on news from the learned journal Decision Support Systems.
IT pros willing to back the bankers
The finance sector has been plagued with bad press over the past five years, with little respite for those in the industry, but despite the issues faced by the sector, 59% of IT jobseekers would still consider entering the industry, writes Richard Nott, website director at CWJobs.co.uk.
Internet fraud: follow the money
While the internet has provided inumerable benefits, it has also been the field for new types of fraud and rights infringements. If the financing used by people who illegally upload or otherwise exploit content were cut off, might it be possible to combat the spread of their activities?
Viewpoint: Time to Prepare for Your CFPB Exam (January 2013)
January 2013 By Jeremy T. Rosenblum and Stefanie H. Jackman, Ballard Spahr LLP The sky is not falling—at least yet. The ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to supervise smaller banks (less than $10 billion in assets) and other companies providing prepaid cards to consumers is currently limited. For participants in the […]
Leading with remittances – a new retail banking segment
The remit of the World Bank and the Gates Foundation is to focus on flows of money to developing economies, so much of the publicity is about those and as a result, much of what we understand about remittances is about those markets. And they are not to be underestimated.
Algorithms create new highs (and lows) at Barclays
As we’re broadly in agreement with the view of a character in Carla Lane’s 1970s sit-com The Liver Birds that opera is “just Italians arguing to music”, we’d best pass on this news with as little critical comment as possible. Following the success of oddball opera subjects – Nixon in China, Jerry Springer: The Opera […]
Industry Views: What Will 2013 Bring for Prepaid and Emerging Payments? (January 2013)
January 2013 We wanted to start the year off with some perspective from industry thought leaders across the globe to find out what will shape prepaid and emerging payments in the new year. We asked several executives from a variety of companies as well as a few analysts to share their thoughts about what the […]
Companies to Watch: Cardfree (January 2013)
San Francisco-based startup Cardfree is taking a merchant-centric approach to mobile wallets, leveraging a leadership team that has worked on mobile programs for some big-name retailers.
The Hottest Payments Topics of 2012 (January 2013)
January 2013 By Bill Grabarek, Senior Editor If anyone thought last year couldn’t compare with the events of 2011, they quickly were proved wrong as 2012 turned out to be every bit as transformational. In the U.S. market, we saw a fledgling federal watchdog agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), go from crawling […]
Investment in innovation is still key
Despite conflicting priorities and the sluggish economic climate, 2012 saw banks increase their investment in innovation. In fact, a survey conducted in the latter half of the year showed that 76% of banks have increased their investment in innovation from the previous year, writes Mohit Joshi of Infosys. The global study of 300 bankers also […]
Letter from the Editor: Happy Holidays from Paybefore (December 2012)
December 2012 It’s been an exciting year for prepaid and emerging payments. We’ve seen intriguing, unexpected partnerships (Starbucks and Square, PayPal and Discover), a steady stream of new mobile entrants attracting investors and, in the past few months, prepaid card launches in the Middle East, Russia and Africa. We expect 2013 to bring even […]
Brokers face grim prospects for 2013
Brokers are being forced to consider novel approaches to doing business – including outsourcing of areas that have been previously seen as core – as they struggle to work out viable economic models for their products and services.
In ‘War against Cash,’ MasterCard Takes Fight to Brazil with New Mobile Service (December 2012)
December 2012 By Adam Perrotta, Assistant Editor When MasterCard and global mobile carrier Telefónica joined forces to bring mobile financial services to 12 South American countries in early 2011, Richard Hartzell, president, Latin American and the Caribbean, MasterCard, said the initiative would help arm the card network with “the right artillery to strengthen our […]
The ART of risk management
Since the 2007 global financial crisis there has been a lot of debate on potential changes across the banking services industry and the potential consequences. Recent market surveys suggest that surprisingly little progress has been made in risk and compliance management and some lack of clarity as to what to do next. Reacting to regulatory change is one thing, but the real goal is to build clarity and confidence that banks are doing the right thing in the right way at the right time
On board the enterprise
Like Apple under Steve Jobs, Bloomberg has a long-held reputation for being a ‘closed’ sort of company, reluctant to compromise its products or its ways of working.
Homage to Catalonia
Back in May, I chaired the 2012 Future of Mobile Banking conference held in London, writes Karl Rieder, delivery manager, GFT. At the event, I expressed my disappointment with the state of mobile banking (and with my own bank, in particular).
Mobile security: a moving target …
Mobile and NFC payment technologies have been on the rise in recent years. But with many merchants and retail outlets still reluctant to invest in the new technologies, and with the rise of fraud in existing solutions, industry participants are divided over how and whether the technology will ever gain widespread acceptance in developed markets.
Executive Profile: One on One with Rick Fletcher, SVS
An avid but long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan, Rick Fletcher knows the meaning of passion and persistence—two qualities that have served him well on his path to professional success.
