By Lori Breitzke, E&S Consulting LLC In the initial installment of this article, we addressed how trends in EMV will impact the prepaid sector. But developments in near field communication (NFC) merit an equally close watch, as they, too, should have bearing on the prepaid market and how it plays out moving forward. Let’s start […]
They were never going to be happy in Switzerland about the US FATCA legislation that will be used to hunt down people avoiding US taxes, but it’s a surprise to hear that some Swiss burghers are feeling sorry for a group of US citizens who have become part of the fabric of society there.
In today’s multi-channel age, banks cannot afford to focus all their efforts on a single digital strategy any more than solely on the branch experience – the winners will be those that can see beyond channel-specific efforts and provide a truly integrated offering.
Following a period of equity market consolidation, the time is right for a new entrant to step forward and transform the exchange business, according to Alasdair Haynes, chief executive of startup trading venue Aquis Exchange.
The Illinois Department of Financial & Professional Regulation recently released five cease and desist orders from January 2013 against six entities for unlicensed activities under the state’s Transmitters of Money Act. These six entities offer a variety of services in Illinois, including domestic and international money transfer, bill payment services and prepaid cards. One of […]
The Federal Reserve Board (Fed) quietly released changes to its FAQs on Reg. II’s restrictions on debit card interchange fees and routing. Five new FAQs were added and one existing FAQ was revised. Changes in two areas directly affect prepaid cards: the exemption for “general use prepaid cards” and the requirement for adding a second […]
for a growing number of people, wary of the debasing of currencies through quantitative easing, alternatives such as Bitcoin are becoming more popular.
March 2013 By Sirpa Nordlund, Mobey Forum So, where were you in the last week of February? If, like me, you work in the mobile industry, there’s a fair chance you visited Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress. Over three days, 72,000 visitors from more than 200 countries and all corners of the mobile […]
FATCA compliance might not need a separate programme – it ought to be covered by the same approach as AML, RDR and KYC regulations, among others.
While laudable in intention, reforms to Europe’s OTC derivatives markets may be in danger of inadvertently adding so much cost for participants that the original purpose is undermined, according to Anthony Belchambers, chief executive officer at the Futures and Options Association.
Rising to the challenge of reconnecting with customers, rebuilding trust and renewing the banking experience, banks are starting to explore digital technologies and solutions.
The Basel Committee is planning to start checking on firms’ risk data aggregation plans from early 2013 but awareness surrounding the issues remains low.
With the January 2014 deadline looming on the horizon, financial organisations are realising that fast action is needed, and needed now, in order to be able to meet the first FATCA deadline for new account on-boarding.
Capital markets are broken because liquidity is fragmented and there is no way for the sell-side to pool its liquidity – but that will soon change, according to Christopher Gregory, co-founder and chief executive at start up trading venue Squawker.
Globally, there are many banks operating on multiple host systems, the result of cherry picking the best in class systems of the day to meet different needs or occasionally, merger and acquisition. Consequently, they have ended up with a legacy of disparate host or core systems, usually segmented by lines of business, such as deposits, retail loans, corporate loans, and trade finance.
Java is the most ubiquitous programming language out there, but it doesn’t work well in the cloud. One approach to overcoming the problem is featured among the Accenture-sponsored FinTech Innovation Lab London finalists.
More stringent restrictions on outsourcing arrangements affecting all suppliers could lead to increased costs across the board for financial services firms.
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?
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 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 […]
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.
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 […]
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.
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?
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
