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In more than two decades in banking related technology and a banker prior to that, I am strongly convinced there never was, is and will be one technology solution that is perfectly integrated to meet the requirements of a bank. Fintechs included.  That is the reality. 

The best solution to me is to allow the corporates to structure their own product at will. Corporates know betetr than banks what they need. 

Succinctly put.  For the gpi to accelerate, I believe it has to be a service offering with little or no cost. The service providers will question, what is in it for us?  It is the float that can be tactfully used.  SWIFT is up against with Ripple etc to ease the friction in cross border payments.  Open to corrections here.

It will be nice to know how each of the players in the eco system will stand to benefit in dollar terms.  Recepients of cross border payments do know that thservice providers hold back credits which is opaque while in transit and offer lame reasons for delay. In this background, what is instant? 

I am all for gpi and I am convinced given the infrastructure and credibility of SWIFT it has the potential to be the fastest to move dollar from place A to place B.

Thought provoking views. Speaking to several SMEs (small-mid corporates) the opinion is that a bank provides services, however the self service must empower (the SMEs) to structure these services without the intervention of the bank, in products or payments. 

Thanks. A very interesting perspective.  Each human exudes data. The IOT eco system includes the human race, nay includes all life and the connected machines. Digitisation has accelerated creation of data that can be mined by emerging technologies. Yes. The ability to exploit the big data will be the differentiator.  

I am suggesting two different attributes of a sample. The first being the sample has to represent the population. For accuracy two separate random samples may help. The second is the sample size itself.  The larger the better. 95% confidence is good to draw conclusions.

In my experience stratups generally have a loose knit strategy. There are a few reasons for this. The most important one being uncertainity of success. When something does not work in the market place a quick rethink of strategy becomes essential. Much is built as one trudges along. The key here is how well and quickly one can adapt to the fast changing environment, for reasons beyond ones control a peach of an idea can just evaporate. There I think Alipay and Wechat have scored very well.

A well articulated blog. 

In my view MAS is doing the right thing. The potential of AI and Analytics is immense. Prevention of misuse is more important. More so in the context of recent scandals. FEAT framework reads interesting. 

It is time BCBS too takes a closer look at the newer technologies and its omnipotence, suggest strong governance and guidelines for central banks to have global uniformity.

The eco system is further getting merged. If one were to trace the evolution,  Classic banks --> digital banks --> Fintech add ons (service / product intermediation (lending clubs etc) --> next frontier behemoths Amazon (google, apple what next?) --> Finale frontier  ???. exciting times ahead. 

In my experience, frauds with the involvement of internal people occur due to non observance of procedures or processess. 4 eyed principle is the norm in banks. In some cases 6 eyes as well. In addition financial delegation of powers defines the contours of freedom to operate. Violation is the main reason. Software solutions are fine for routine and repetitive activities. Key decisions are taken by people. 

As a systems auditor, compromises occur primarily when passwords are shared, physical and logical access controls not enforced etc. From business perspective, rotation of people across branches or across different departments is a norm. Exception reporting is a control each bank has. 

Large branches have a full time concurrent auditor. In addition audits happen regularly. Could be internal, external or by controllers. There are SLAs for rectifying adverse comments. The current auditor, always refers to the previous audit report as a start point. 

It is still a practice to record all incoming and outgoing swift messages. Hard copies are acknowledged by department heads and retained in appropriate files. The sequence numbers are tracked meticulously. The receiving bank of an authenticated message simply acts on it in good faith unless some clarification is required. That is the arrangement and accepted global practice. 

In practice trust amongst colleagues and ones ethics drives banking. It does exist in good proportion. At times a few unscruplous people do take advantage. However, negligence to observe laid down processess is no excuse. Frauds have ocurred in the past and may occur in future, the impact is a factor of the magnitude of dollar amount, its extensiveness geographically and ofcourse the number of banks. 

'Integrity' is a core principle in information system audit. If data flows through multiple systems, it must must be consistent as it was from the point of origin. The trusted way is through straight through processing or at worst with little human intervention.

Re: sys admins, they will not have transation rights.  Messaging has a maker, checker and an authoriser. The 6 eye princple model. 

The blog has significant points of interest. The digital virtual world is local and global. I mean a millenial in Europe is very similar to a millenial in Asia.  To a bank there is no window for discussion to convince a millenial why it is better than competition. If unhappy (there could be several reasons including non banking touch points) changing banks is a click away. With open banking, I suspect it will be more bank hopping will be more. It will be interesting to know if there is a study on millenial attrition rates and how often they come back.