New mobile-oriented products from SunGard and VocaLink have been released as the industry's biggest vendors respond to pressure on banks to deliver tactical innovations for customers that can be applied to back-end legacy processes and infrastructures.
UK payments processor VocaLink has inked deals with vendors Clear2Pay and Fundtech to help push its global, real-time, end-to-end Immediate Payments service to banks.
Bank-owned VocaLink launched the UK's Faster Payments Service in May 2008, which has since processed more than one billion transactions, both online and through traditional inter-bank transfers.
The company is now bidding to tap the real-time payments infrastructure it has developed for a global offering, enabling banks to provide customers with an end-to-end, inter-bank, real-time payments service.
It is aimed at both corporate and consumer customers and designed to cater for both inter-bank and low-value payments made available through multi-channel service options such as mobile and browser.
VocaLink has signed agreements with specialists Clear2Pay and Fundtech to give banks a greater choice of payment provider. The Fundtech partnership will tap the vendor's Global PAYplus services platform and target the Asia Pacific market.
Marc Terry, MD, global transaction services, VocaLink, says: "The drive towards immediacy in payments is becoming increasingly important as consumers want to make payments from anywhere, at anytime. At VocaLink we understand the need for an integrated end-to-end payments system and are extremely pleased to be working with Fundtech to accelerate the move towards global immediate payments."
Meanwhile, SunGard, another fintech big beast, has unveiled a social media-heavy integrated online and mobile banking platform called Ambit MyMoney.
The vendor says its new offering will help banks capitalise on the increasing global adoption of smartphones by creating a consistent and customisable mobile banking experience, providing seamless services to retail and business customers via the Web, handset and tablet computer.
Ambit MyMoney includes out-of-the-box integration to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and includes a feature that allows customers to 'follow' and 'like' them as well as receive updates. Meanwhile, personal financial management tools help customers share financial savings goals via social media.