Trends in Financial Services

A community to discuss the future of financial services and any other interesting trends, strategies, ideas, views.

Retired Member 

What next for Brexit?

Despite all the rhetoric the referendum was a recommendation not a legal fact. The PM, cabinet and Parliament can ignore the result and vote to remain in the EU if they so wish. The likelihood that there will be a second referendum is non-existent because the referendum process is a consultative one not as I said before, a legal one, why would you ...

27 June 2016 /payments /regulation

Ainsley Ward Vice President, Payments Solutions at CGI

Technodazzle

I was reading an article a few days ago on the plateau of ebook reader sales and the slow retreat back to paper (here), and of course this lead my thoughts back to our own industry – particularly the nonsensical cheque lobbyists. However, does this harking back to a bygone era of paper banking reveal a bad case of Technodazzle in our industry? Tec...

06 June 2016 /payments

Retired Member 

Want to know a secret about the referendum?

Before I answer, let me ask you if you’ve noticed like me that the European Commission has gone very quiet about the referendum. Cameron has stepped up the rhetoric but is not putting anything new on the table just countering Brexit arguments and Osborne – has he gone on holiday? Brexit have toned back their more salacious arguments and the prom...

31 May 2016 /payments /regulation

Retired Member 

Branches - what is their place in the omni-channel world

Recently I read a fascinating article on Bank branches key to fending off digital challengers in Finextra. The article talks about how the business of branch banking and customer behavior are changing due to digital channels. Global trends show that branches are no longer just for simple transactions like cash deposits and withdrawals. They are ...

18 May 2016 /retail

Retired Member 

Fraud ain’t what it used to be

Between the time this blog was published and you reading it, new fraud schemes will have emerged. Indeed, with the ever increasing number of, and methods for, payment transactions and the new supporting technologies, not least mobile and internet banking, the new opportunities for fraudsters are increasing. Banks are realising that the trends in p...

18 May 2016 /payments

Retired Member 

You’ve been quiet recently - are you dormant, deceased or just gone away?

My previous post https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/12517/beware-the-financial-crime-bite-of-the-back-book talked about the dangers lurking in a firm’s back book of existing customers and how to find and address them. A key part of this exercise is to understand the data that describes a customer, and hence understand whether they are a risk, a...

09 May 2016 /regulation

Retired Member 

Brexit made simple

Don't worry I'm not going to berate you to leave or stay. I'm more interested in how politicians have positioned the issues for us to discuss and the confusion they have caused. What I've tried to do is simplify the arguments. To me Brexit is about three things: Trade Immigration Political Union Of these I think that political union is the mor...

26 April 2016 /regulation /inclusion

Retired Member 

Beware the financial crime bite of the back book

When people start looking for solutions to financial crime, regulation and compliance there is a natural tendency to start with new customers, known as the ‘front book’. These new customers already expect to have to go through some onboarding processes, and are typically coming in at a manageable volume. They seem to offer a natural starting poi...

26 April 2016 /regulation

Retired Member 

PSR - Access to markets update

In January I wrote that the PSR was one of the things to watch in this year, and I’ve been surprised by the amount of pace they have made in such a short time through their excellent forum. There has been a round of workshops throughout January and I was privileged to chair a sub-group that looked at the access processes used by industry participan...

03 March 2016 /payments

Retired Member 

10 Secrets to managing remote teams

The secret to successfully managing remote teams is in recognizing that it’s more a leadership role than a manager one. Too often I find that managers try to manage remote teams as if they were locally based and it doesn’t work. Remote teams need to have more attention and more support than locally based teams. You have to compensate for the lack...

02 March 2016 /payments