Is eBilling only for Internet users?

At the turn of the century, electronic billing was the new, new thing. Ten years on, it's become the norm for Internet users to receive bills via email or collect them from a website. But email and we...

Central clearing - putting a square peg in a round hole

The concept of centrally clearing all OTC derivatives - both standardized and complex derivatives - is flawed. The current regulatory expectation for institutional investors is to go through a central...

REGULATORY SPOTLIGHT: ESMA GUIDELINES ON AUTOMATED TRADING

While discussions about the final contents of MiFID 2 seem set to continue for some while yet, the European Securities and Markets Authority has anticipated some important MiFID 2 issues in a set of G...

Could a mainstream retail bank disrupt banking?

In a previous post we looked at the pressing need for retail banks to embrace customer-led innovation. Whereas innovation may have been a priority in the past, the threats banks now face from outside...

Risk-based Collections: Managing Existing Credit Lines

In Part I of my Risk-based Collections blog series, I described the differences between Judgmental and Statistical Scoring models. In part II, I will expand upon the specific uses of these models, i...

Treasury Management

Virtual Card Programs Part I: What Exactly Are They?

Corporations remain under continuous pressure to reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies. One of the easiest ways to do this is by migrating payments from check to electronic. However, I am ...

Payments strategies 2015-2020-2030

Are CCPs Increasing Risks? Part III

I've let the ball drop on blogging for the past few weeks, but have been thinking a lot about the issues. The Post Trade Forum debate on Are Clearing Houses Increasing Risk? will take place on Tuesd...

Post-Trade Forum

FX and how to lose 20 percent of your money

Time for a vacation-time bleat. I noticed yesterday that my bank had charged me £2 for a debit-card transaction – on this occasion, when I used my debit card at Heathrow to buy Swiss Francs so that I...

SME Lending: East African Banks Gearing Up for Change

A recent Business Daily Africa article “SMEs pay high penalty for poor record keeping” has summarized the results of African Development Bank Research. Financial institutions in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzani...

Financial Risk Management

Risk-based Collections: Judgmental Vs Statistical Models

Throughout the years I have worked in credit and collections, either doing credit analysis related to commercial lending decisions or identifying the elements that should be weighed when reviewing tra...

Treasury Management

Mobile payments one of the next drivers of Faster Payments

Since the limits to the Faster Payments Scheme were increased in September 2010 there has been an increase in use by the participant banks’ customers. Figures from the Payments Council for the 12 mont...

Banking Technology Goes Consumer

Customers don’t buy products, they buy benefits. But for years, technology sales bucked this marketing wisdom, as vendors pitched platform against platform, arguing their case based on functionality...