Latest news headlines: Finextra Research

Carte Bleue launches pre-paid Visa gift card in France

French credit card issuer Carte Bleue is partnering with smart card vendor Axalto to roll out a personalised pre-paid gift card that can be used to pay for purchases anywhere that accepts Visa card payments.

16 December 2005

/regulation

Swift to establish MiFID working group

Financial network Swift says it is establishing a standards working group to ensure any future ISO message standards comply with the EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), which is expected to come into force in November 2007.

15 December 2005

/retail

BNP Paribas to roll out Diebold talking ATMs

French banking group BNP Paribas has contracted with US ATM manufacturer Diebold for the supply of 265 voice-enabled Opteva cash machines.

15 December 2005

/retail

Growing demand for mobile banking - BT

Around a third of UK customers want financial firms to deliver text and e-mail-based mobile banking services so they can access account information on the move, according to research published by The Henley Centre and commissioned by BT.

15 December 2005

/wholesale

Nyse axes 60 jobs

The New York Stock Exchange has cut 60 jobs as part of a cost-cutting and efficiency drive ahead of its transformation into a public company.

15 December 2005

/retail

Commonwealth Bank steps up Web banking security

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is introducing new security measures for its 2.3 million Web banking customers aimed at preventing account hacking and ID fraud.

15 December 2005

/wholesale

Macquarie launches £1.5bn hostile bid for LSE

Australia's Macquarie Bank has launched a formal 580 pence per share bid for the London Stock Exchange (LSE) - a price that the UK market operator has already dismissed as 'derisory'.

15 December 2005

/retail

Co-op adopts KXEN analytics for direct marketing

The UK's Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) is deploying predictive analytics technology from California-based Knowledge Extraction Engines (KXEN) to sharpen its direct marketing campaigns.

15 December 2005

/retail

ATMIA hails 1.5 million ATM milestone

The number of ATMs in the world is set to pass the 1.5 million mark just before Christmas, according to ATM Industry Association (ATMIA).

15 December 2005

/retail

Sainsbury's Bank grows online financial sales

UK supermarket bank Sainsbury's says the percentage of financial products sold via its Web site has more than doubled over the last two years to 40%.

14 December 2005

/retail

TextPayMe delivers P2P payments via SMS

A new PayPal-style person-to-person payment service that allows customers to send and receive funds using SMS text messages has been launched in the US.

14 December 2005

/regulation

FSA urges firms to improve disaster recovery planning

The UK's largest financial insitutions have "highly resilient" IT systems that could recover critical functions quickly after a terrorist attack or natural disaster, but firms could still be at risk because too many back-up sites are located in London, says the Financial Services Authority.

14 December 2005