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News and resources on capital markets, exchanges, trade execution and post-trade settlement.

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Expert opinions

Tej Sidhu

Tej Sidhu Chief Technology Officer at Genesis Global

AI on Guardrails: How the Right AI Controls Give Financial Institutions an Edge in Innovation

Any technology entering the financial industry must pass rigorous compliance and resilience tests, which can slow adoption. Yet, AI is rapidly finding a leading place in technology strategies across financial institutions. Multiple compelling business drivers are fueling AI testing and adoption, including competitive positioning, cost optimization ...

/ai /markets

Prakash Bhudia

Prakash Bhudia HOD – Product & Growth at Deriv

Bitcoin slips below $100K as corporate interest soars: Is $120K the next target?

Bitcoin fell slightly on Monday, cooling after a weekend rally that saw it reach a record high of $103,719 on December 4. By December 6, Bitcoin was trading at $98,658, marking a 13.53% pullback and wiping out over $1.5 billion in leveraged positions. While the dip highlights market volatility, BTC’s year-to-date (YTD) gains of 130% affirm its dom...

/markets

Paul Chambers

Paul Chambers Product Manager at Xceptor

The path to T plus 1: Why automation is crucial for the UK’s transition to faster settlement

The UK Accelerated Settlement Taskforce’s recent recommendations could mark a fundamental shift for the UK financial markets. By drawing on lessons from North America's T+1 implementation, the taskforce has highlighted that inadequate automation could lead to increased manual workflows and exception handling, creating unnecessary operational s...

/regulation /markets Capital Market Technology

Steve Round

Steve Round Co-Founder and President at SaaScada

Why balance sheet growth isn’t everything: the Net Interest Margins problem

Having a high Net Interest Margin (NIM) is the goal for banks and financial institutions as it is a key indicator of profitability. Increasing NIM is a simple calculation of net income – i.e., the money created through lending money out – compared to the interest paid out. In essence, banks must sell more lending products to be profitable while al...

/retail /markets

Tom Rowe-Jones

Tom Rowe-Jones M&A Director at LAVA Advisory Partners

Budget Busting - Rising Employer Costs and What They Mean for Mergers and Acquisitions

The recent UK budget introduced a number of changes that will have real consequences for businesses and, therefore, their M&A strategies. From the rise in National Insurance contributions to increases in the National Living Wage (NLW) and adjustments to the Employment Allowance, these new financial pressures can affect the value of a business ...

/startups /markets Innovation in Financial Services

/markets

Research

Event Report

Sustainable Finance Live – Natural Capital Finance

A Record from the Sustainable Finance Live Conference and Hackathon 2024  On 8 October 2024, Finextra Research and ResponsibleRisk held the annual Sustainable Finance Live hybrid conference and hackathon, in partnership with NayaOne.  The conference took place at Events@ No6 in London, and started off with a welcome from founder of ResponsibleRisk and contributing editor for Finextra, Richard Peers. Peers opened with an introduction outlining the themes and objectives of this year’s event: to understand natural capital risk, pricing, and trade.  The focus areas of the conference were natural capital, agriculture, supply chains, as well as regulation and reporting. The sessions also highlighted highlighting new technologies that are being used to collect nature-related data such as Earth observation and satellite reporting.  Richard Peers, contributing editor at Finextra and founder of ResponsibleRisk, moderated the conference: “What we wanted to do is to put on an event aimed at explaining the landscape of a natural capital transaction, with the associated data providers identified along the way. Ending the process in an asset management trading platform, taking into consideration all the steps that a regulated entity has to undertake, to prove to the financial industry that this can be an asset class, that is as tradable as any other.”  Download a Visual Record of the event below to discover key themes of the event’s panels, keynotes, and hackathon. We cover:  Natural capital trading from field to trade;  How nature financing can be achieved;  The role of data, economic profit, and policy for natural capital;  How to build a sustainable ecosystem using natural value;  Visions and results from the hackathon;  And more. 

51 downloads

White Paper

Beyond Tomorrow In The Capital Markets

Technology has long been transforming the capital markets industry, but the tides are changing for what is considered success. Now more than ever, firms need to prioritise operational resilience.  Technological advances are indisputably reshaping how firms in the capital markets operate, however, as the reliance on technology grows, so does the impact of glitches and outages when they occur. Take the CrowdStrike global outage, for example, which caused an estimated $1.15BN and $140M in financial losses for the banking and financial sectors respectively.  The consecutive outages expose the fragility of technical infrastructure and underscore a need for better operational resilience across the capital markets. It also reiterates the importance of preparing for the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), implementing uniform operational resilience rules for financial entities throughout Europe, and its equivalents elsewhere.  This Finextra whitepaper, produced in association with CJC, explores:  The challenges in the capital markets industry;  How institutions can address these challenges;  Ensuring future resilience by bridging the skills gap;  Real-world case studies;  And more. 

205 downloads

Future of Report

The Future of Digital Banking in Europe 2024

A Money20/20 Special Edition. In 2023, fintech investment in the EMEA region dropped to $24.5 billion, down from $49.6 billion in 2022 – a seven year low.  Macroeconomic and global political conditions are creating challenges for growth, with upcoming general elections around the world adding to the uncertainties in financial ecosystems. Despite these challenges, the outlook for European digital banking remains positive.  The region continues to lead in innovation within the financial sector. This Finextra report, a Special Edition for Money20/20 Europe, features interviews with key players in the European financial services and fintech industries. It includes insights from Vodeno, EY, J.P. Morgan, Swift, Tink, and TrueLayer, and explores the following topics that will be addressed in Amsterdam: Hyper-personalisation: Moving towards super apps  Embedded payments driving the Banking-as-a-Service revolution  Variable recurring payments: The next step in European open banking  Is Europe ready for MiCA? From Web1 to Web3, or Markets1 to Markets3  How European fintech is facing macro challenges 

972 downloads

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FinextraTV

Communify Fincentric Unifies Financial Data with Acquisition from S&P Global

John Wise, Chairman and CEO of Communify Fincentric, explains the backstory to the company's acquisition of Markit on Demand from S&P Global. Aimed at fixing the financial industry's persistent challenge of fragmented data, this strategic move unifies client and market information in a single platform, integrating over 4,000 global data feeds to enhance AI-driven insights for portfolio managers, advisors and self-directed investors. By merging these data sets, the business intends to set a new standard for the broking, wealth and asset sectors, enabling institutions to navigate complex data landscapes and drive growth in a digital world.

/markets

Long reads

Madhvi Sonia

Madhvi Sonia Head of Content at Finextra

2025 capital markets trends and Finextra’s predictions for the new year

Launching soon, Finextra’s PREDICT 2025 channel will gather insights and ideas from the industry's top thought leaders, capturing how the financial services industry will tap into technology trends in 2025 and these predictions will be shared with our 700,000 monthly readers. From November 2024 to March 2025, Finextra will be hosting video intervi...

Warren Mutch

Warren Mutch Head of Speciality Finance at Shawbrook

A guide to finance for non-bank specialist lenders

Securing capital from a speciality finance provider can accelerate the growth of a non-bank lender’s platform. Speciality finance can be a valuable tool for non-bank lenders that want to expand their franchises. Partnering with the right speciality finance lender – that can provide flexible, long-term capital and has a broad offering to support non...

Dickson Nsofor

Dickson Nsofor Chief Executive Officer at Kora

What will it take to grow and scale embedded finance in Africa?

This is an excerpt from the Future of Embedded Finance in Africa 2025 report. Embedded finance is changing the payment landscape in Africa. With it, non-financial businesses are offering specialised services to consumers across the continent. Now, there are BNPL platforms with virtual accounts customers can fund to pay for products and services. R...