ATM? No mate, it's a cutting edge work of art

If you've ever been to Trafalgar Square in London then you'll know about the fourth plinth. It's never had a permanent statue on it and in recent years has been temporary home to all manner of fantast...

Whatever...

What if banks were really fined based on income?

Thanks to Ian Wigman for this gem from WIRED magazine. A man in Switzerland was recently fined a record $290,000 for driving 85 mph in a 50 mph limit. (It was less before he pleaded his case!) The ...

Financial Risk Management

Payment Screening in the Cloud

This week RBS found the spotlight in an unenviable way when it was fined GBP 5.6M by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for insufficient controls over payments screening processes. According to n...

Can we tolerate tolerance of SEPA?

I was musing the other day, as you do in the dog days of summer, on the difference between tolerance and toleration. And the difference, I found, is more than just nominal. ‘Tolerance’ can be defined ...

So what do the emerging regulations imply for your customer?

The tightening of banking regulation is one of the biggest side effects of the last financial crisis. While central banks and other regulators are seeing to it that their subjects stick to the letter ...

Innovation in Financial Services

Victims of financial crime. Could you be next?

Did you know that according to a recent report from Javelin there’s a one in ten chance that money will be fraudulently withdrawn from your bank account? Face it. That means you have a good chance of ...

AML in Asia-Pacific: addressing the quandary

Money laundering in APAC is a continued problem, largely as a result of organised criminal activity, such as drug manufacturing, prostitution and trafficking. Until recently, controls and legal provis...

McKinsey say 90 percent of cost reduction programs fail

According to McKinsey: many cost-reduction programs are "illusory, short lived, and at times damaging to long-term value creation". Their research concludes that only 10% of cost reduction ...

Banking Architecture

The 8.9m FSA fine breaks new ground in AML enforcement

To date, most large fines for AML or sanctions violations have been accompanied by a juicy real story of Mexican drug traffickers, Russian mobsters, crooked politicians, terrorist supporters or rogue ...

Client suitability: wealth management best practice

There is no doubt that regulation has been a hot topic across the financial services sector ever since the downturn. This year the FSA has raised the bar even higher for investment managers in the ret...

FX efficiencies - go with a different flow

Average daily FX volumes are expected to rise from US$2.9 trillion in early 2009 to US$4 trillion this year, according to analyst house, Celent. With this increase we can also expect a significant inc...

SEPA: The Future is Integration Management

It’s not quite so fashionable to talk about SEPA these days. After all – aren’t we all wishing the rules and solutions were are all defined and implemented? But there’s still a fundamental challenge t...