Blogs

The Catalyst for Change Billed as a game changer by most in the industry, Open Banking witnessed a managed roll out in the UK in April 2018, paving the way for customers to experience enhanced banking services through a variety of authorised providers. The Competition and Markets Authority ushered in Open Banking with the aim to […]

The digital banking space has always been a hotbed of tech innovation, with almost every new tool putting customer comfort and convenience at its core. And why not? After all, the customer is king. Wait. Scratch that. The New Age business idiom has changed – now, the customer is a comrade. Smart financial institutions are […]

We have come a long way from the first commercial use of Oculus Rift VR headset 0f 2013. Yet, most people associate the technology of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) with the realm of gaming. However, many industries including marketing, healthcare, real-estate are accepting the immense potential of VR to improve their business. […]

At UK Fintech Week 2019, Secure Chorus brought to the stage a powerhouse of thought leaders in the field of post-quantum cryptography from UK government, industry and academia. The speakers discussed the quantum threats considered to be the next undefended frontier of cybersecurity and the significance of the problem for the finance industry. Quantum-related technologies […]

The business of payments – and payments technology – has transformed. In the pre-internet age, banks made money primarily from lending and deposits, supported by batch mainframe systems, with payments a minor sideshow. As electronic payments volumes started to take off in the early dot-com era, banks began to treat payments as a distinct business, […]

Data is widely acknowledged to be one of the business’ most valuable assets. Yet even data can depreciate in value. Like currency itself, it is always changing and evolving with new types appearing. Just as the financial industry has witnessed the rise of alternative and cryptocurrencies, businesses are trading on a recent boom of new […]

Digitalise or die. It may not be such an overstatement considering the current state of the banking industry. Banks have been getting on the digital bandwagon for over a decade now. However, with the ever-evolving technology and the fintech start-up revolution, the role of digital technology has changed from a good-to-have to a must-have. Last […]

During the height of the crypto boom, everybody from Paris Hilton to the Venezuelan government seemed to be either setting up or promoting ICOs as token values skyrocketed. Even ICOs that were blatant jokes like the Useless Ethereum Token reportedly raised $200,000. Those days are over. The crypto winter has given the blockchain sector the […]

From the major European banks scaling back their trading units to the world’s largest investment managers slashing research spend by 40% – consolidation seems to be very much the theme of 2019. By Daniel Carpenter, Head of Regulation at Meritsoft Regardless of whether you sit on the sell or buy-side, here are four cost centres that […]

Kevin Day, CEO of HPD Software, a provider of technology that facilitates banks’ ability to provide asset-based finance, outlines the technologies banks should be considering to ensure that they are able to attract and retain the fastest growing SMEs as clients. They should embrace automation, offering integrated invoice finance platforms, upgrading mobile banking applications, introducing […]

Research firm IDC is predicting banks worldwide will spend more than $4bn on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 2018. If we factor in PwC’s Sizing the Prize report to understand the broader trend for global business, it seems AI could add a further $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. Undoubtedly AI will lead to a significant change […]

Successful compliance and risk management programmes within financial institutions depend on effective Know Your Customer (KYC) processes yet most have found these processes to be increasingly onerous, both in terms of time and cost.  This is further complicated by an ever-changing and progressively stringent regulatory landscape. As a result, consortiums of banks, governments and vendors […]

Danish encryption specialist Sepior, founded in 2014, was started on the back of ground-breaking encryption projects and the support of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme. In discussion with IBS Intelligence it revealed that it has lots more surprises up its Fairisle jumper Sepior’s big break came with the EU’s Horizon 2020 initiative, an irony not […]

Uncertainty around Brexit continues, but practical preparations have begun – many banks are now well in the throes of duplicating or moving systems and business processes from London to other financial hubs. Extricating processes isn’t going to be an easy task. There are two aspects to this separation process – formal IT supported enterprise systems […]

Accenture has completed its acquisition of Italian banking technology service provider, SEC Servizi Spa from the Intesa Sanpaolo Group. Accenture now has 80.8% ownership in SEC Servizi and will also be acquiring the remaining interests held by other shareholders. Established in 1972, SEC Servizi is a consortium formed by Italian banks to provide IT services and […]

Julian Saunders, CEO and founder of personal data governance company PORT.im, discusses how alleged breaches of GDPR by Facebook and Twitter may just be the beginning Cast your mind back to early 2018. The world was alive with the sound of GDPR commentary. In the run-up to the May compliance deadline, everything was up for […]

Online banking is fast becoming the norm and brings with it many benefits. However, it is not without risk. How can firms ensure that customers are being best served by these new ways of transacting? Digital banking has many benefits. For customers, they can instantly manage their finances from any location using an ‘always-on’ service. […]

In June, Visa started rejecting one in 10 financial transactions across the U.K. and Europe – a problem lasting 10 hours and affecting 1.7 million cardholders. Even in an IT environment designed to support 24,000 transactions per second, a hardware failure crashed the system. The incident was a wake-up call for an industry reluctant to […]

The world of banking today is like a race car on the grid preparing for the inevitable green light. There is a lot of noise before the ‘go’ signal; from the vehicles revving their engines, pundits in commentary boxes speculating on the race outcome, and spectators cheering on favourites from the grandstands. When the chequered flag drops and the race begins, a plume of dust and smoke is left behind as the vehicles speed off across the track. The winner is yet to be […]

If you have an electronic invoice system that just about meets the needs of the accounts team, but operates in complete isolation from the rest of the company, is that a system that provides much value? It might do — if you’re doing business in the 1990s. Since then, a plethora of electronic invoicing systems […]

Personal identification numbers (PINs) are everywhere. These numeric versions of the password have been at the heart of data security for decades, but time moves on and it is becoming evident that the PIN is no longer fit for purpose. It is too insecure and is leaving consumers exposed to fraud.  Why bin the PIN? […]

Does anyone long for a return to more benign economic times? A time when a rise in the base rate simply led to immediate benefits for savers. Well, get prepared for a continued long wait, as last week’s decision from the Bank of England’s (BofE) signals anything but a move to more conventional times. In […]

In the last few years, we have seen the frequency and severity of third-party cyberattacks against global financial institutions continue to increase. One of the biggest reported attacks against financial organisations occurred in early 2016 when $81 million was taken from accounts at Bangladesh Bank. Unknown hackers used SWIFT credentials of Bangladesh Central Bank employees […]

For years, cybersecurity was considered a “check-the-box” discussion during the merger and acquisition (M&A) process. It was almost always examined to ensure there weren’t any glaring issues or major red flags—but due to limited time resources, or the ability to parse out qualitative responses during M&A from real performance, there wasn’t a great deal of […]