Future Finance

Finextra and Oracle have gathered together some of the industry's top thought leaders to discuss, debate and analyse the key trends and issues within transaction banking, regulations and retail banking. This group will focus on upcoming regulations, new service offerings and industry debate shaping the new financial services landscape with regular blog posts, video interviews, webcasts debates and surveys.

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Is Bitcoin mo' money or no money?

Last month the Bank of England wrote an in-depth explanation of money, in which it explained why Bitcoin is more like a commodity - e.g. gold - than a currency. Basically it isn’t popular enough. Yet. US market regulator the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) issued its latest note of concern regarding Bitcoin in May, and US central bank the...

29 May 2014 /regulation

Retired Member 

Risk Data Aggregation and Risk Reporting

Will You Be Compliant With BCBS 239 Principles In Time? Given the phenomenal growth of the financial services industry over the past decade, resulting in a much greater demand on data provisioning, it was imperative that sizeable investments were made in risk data aggregation frameworks to support a bank’s profitable business model. The rewards o...

21 May 2014 /regulation

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Defending the indefensible

An astonishing situation has arisen in UK courts, whereby fraud cases brought by the State are being dropped as the defendants claim to be unable to find defence lawyers, following budget cuts to public legal aid. The problem is that lawyers are refusing to take on the work at reduced rates. In one case which was brought against men convicted of a...

07 May 2014 /security /regulation

Tushar Chitra Vice President, Product Strategy and Marketing at Oracle Financial Services Software

Why and How Should Banks Target Mass Affluent Customers

According to the latest Global Wealth Databook by Crédit Suisse, the mass affluent segment (comprising individuals having US$100,000 to US$1 million of investable assets), which represents about 361 million people globally, owns 42.3 % of global wealth, more than the 41% owned by HNIs (people with investable assets of US$1 million to US$30 millio...

01 May 2014

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

'Flash Boys' in a nutshell

The PR bluster around the new Michael Lewis book ‘Flash Boys’ is deliberately confusing, yet almost no-one seems to have read it. With the FBI investigating high-frequency trading (HFT), the issues that the book raises are clearly very serious. This is what you need to know. 1) HFT strategy is under the spotlight, specifically latency arbitrage. W...

16 April 2014 /regulation

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Regulators reveal budgets for surveillance and technology

Regulators have budgeted for enormous spend on surveillance technology in the year ahead. On 31 March 2014, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority revealed a 15% increase in its IT budget for 2014-2015, rising to £88.2 million from £76.4 million in 2013-2014. On 4 March 2014 the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the US derivatives ma...

16 April 2014 /regulation

Retired Member 

Going Beyond Capital Calculations and Adding Business Value

The 15th Annual OpRisk Europe Conference hosted by Operational Risk & Regulation Magazine recently took place in London. With record levels of attendees, the conference raised a number of interesting perspectives and discussion points, some of which we've shared below and would love to hear your views on. Increased Focus on the Operational Ri...

16 April 2014 /regulation

Retired Member 

Overcoming GRC Silos Through Analytics and Reporting

As I mentioned in the previous blog "When best of breed financial crime and compliance “point solutions” aren’t enough", many companies are increasingly looking to consolidate their various operational risk, compliance, audit and business continuity solutions. This is to help break the GRC silos and create a “single source of the truth” ...

16 April 2014 /regulation

Retired Member 

Smart Watch for Retail Banking, Is it time?

Wearable technology has been the talk, as the “next big thing”, since Google released the prototype of Google Glass. It has been hailed by the tech fanboy club but also been criticized on questions relating to privacy. However, even to a common observer, wearable is indeed the future. In contrast, the smart watch as a wearable has seen a quieter r...

02 April 2014 /retail

Retired Member 

Where Are The Leaks? Plumbing Tips For A Banker

The date was April 17, 1970. Everything was going like clockwork on the Apollo 13 moon mission when all of a sudden it wasn’t. Oxygen tank #2 blew up, causing tank #1 to fail as well. The command module’s normal supply of electricity, light and water was lost, and the crew were about 200,000 miles from Earth. Getting the men home safely was one of...

30 March 2014 /payments