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.

Retired Member 

Tackling New AML-FT Risk Management Guidelines

On 15th January 2014, The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision issued a set of guidelines, "Sound management of risks related to money laundering and financing of terrorism", describing how banks should include the management of risks related to money laundering and financing of terrorism within their overall risk management framework....

04 February 2014 /regulation

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Microfinance at a crossroads

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates that microfinance has reached some 130 million people worldwide in the last 15 years. This is impressive growth, certainly, and has no doubt contributed to the improvement of indivudal and community economic circumstances in the many areas where microfinance providers operate effectively. And ...

03 February 2014 /retail

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Are QR codes at a dead-end?

I can't say I was too surprised to see that Swedbank has scrapped its QR-code payment initiative. While the scanning of a QR-code could feasibly be used to trigger any function or transaction that can be executed on a mobile device, when it comes to payments it fails to match up to the many more convenient options that are available to consumers a...

23 January 2014 /payments

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Australia to kill off credit card signatures

Well, it looks like I'll finally have to remember the PIN on my infrequently used credit card. Visa and Mastercard have got their way after lobbying regulators so come August 1, POS terminals will only accept a PIN for authorisation on credit cards issued in Australia. Considering chip cards have been ubiquitous for some time, and 55% of POS credi...

23 January 2014 /security /payments

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Shovelling is overtaking counting

Regulators say that banks have not done enough to work out who owes what to whom. A report by the senior supervisors group of the Financial Stability Board has said: “Five years after the financial crisis, firms’ progress toward consistent, timely, and accurate reporting of top counterparty exposures fails to meet both supervisory expectations and...

22 January 2014 /regulation

Retired Member 

Will the GTB landscape change in 2014?

Global transaction banking (GTB) continues to be the most profitable business for banks and has seen a steady growth across trade corridors in Asia, Europe and LATAM. But in terms of differentiation, the global transaction banking business didn’t see an extraordinary amount of innovation in 2013. Our clients, some of the world’s largest in the bus...

22 January 2014

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

Regulators strike at the core of banking and Who hit RBS?

Speaking to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on 8 January 2014, Sam Woods, director of UK regulator the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) condemned technology at UK banks as “antiquated”. He reported that the regulatory body had “discovered a number of deficiencies” at the firms and that as a consequence there was a “programme of remediat...

21 January 2014 /regulation /retail

Retired Member 

Why you should watch China's banking industry in 2014

For decades, China has been known as the imitator and not the innovator. The argument goes that the West came up with social networking, mobile payments, group-buying, etc. and China imitated it, sometimes better, sometimes worse. C2C – copy to China. R&D – rob and duplicate. There are numerous terms to describe it. After living in China for ...

16 January 2014

Elton Cane Digital product delivery at News Corp Australia

Aussie cheques are dying - but APCA throws a lifeline

Referencing the move by Barclays in the UK to introduce mobile cheque imaging in response to the reversal of banking industry plans to kill off cheques by 2018, APCA CEO Chris Hamilton recently said that type of technology could be seen in Australia in the next few years. But any vendors involved in implementing Check21 in the US last decade and...

10 January 2014 /payments /retail

Dan Barnes Writer at Information Corporation

It's my cartel and I'll cry if I want to

Research by law firm Allen & Overy indicates that 2013 was a record year for fines awarded by anti-trust regulators, totalling US$4.2 billion up 10.5% from 2012’s US$3.8 billion, across Australia, Brazil, Canada, the EU, Japan, South Africa and the US. That would have been higher, were it not for several banks ‘fessing up and assisting the aut...

09 January 2014 /regulation