Finextra Research: Latest fintech news, analysis, interviews, features and opinion by industry experts

Report

The Future of Payments 2020

The Race Against Time for Payments Transformation. In the age of instant payments and with the first Request to Pay services to go live in 2020, the financial services industry needs to prepare for the impact on the European payments landscape and understand how the growth of digital payments technologies will affect the sector. This report looks at how real-time fraud can be addressed - when KYC remains a challenge – and whether initiatives such as TIBER-EU has the potential to strengthen the resilience of the financial system against cybercrime. The requirements for corporate liquidity management are shifting in the age of instant payments, making way for a more collaborative model to dominate. However, with the availability of mobile devices, payments service providers must prioritise providing their customers a slick customer experience. In parallel to this, financial players must understand the challenges of managing risk in an instant world, which is a paradox that correspondent banking faces. This is where adaptable payments architecture and a smooth standards migration can help banks focus on strategy, rather than the day-to-day processes. Problems with operational efficiency can be overcome with leveraging APIs, but a question is posed when considering whether banks are ready for this technology to be customer-facing and if they would allow account access to third parties. Finextra’s The Future of Payments report will explore how new business models, new operating models and new forms of collaboration are the catalyst for the 2020 payments ecosystem, which in turn, will help banks and payments providers to establish a clear strategy for the future. Organisations interviewed in this report: Bank of England, BNP Paribas, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Erste Group Bank AG, EY, ING, JPMorgan, Santander, SEB, Standard Chartered, SWIFT. Download your copy of the report below now to find out more.

24 November 2020 570 downloads

Report

Accelerating Enterprise-Wide Innovation with Cloud Migration and Data Governance

A Finextra Research Impact Study in Association with Collibra and Amazon Web Services (AWS). In today's environment, data is produced and consumed at a rapid pace. However, the way it is currently being stored, accessed, and processed is inefficient. Migration to the cloud promises to change this reality for financial institutions, but there are several obstacles tied to digital transformation that must be addressed in the process. The exponential increase in data generation is set to continue in the coming years, especially as the adoption of mobile technology rises. The risk and opportunity introduced by big data to the financial services industry are unparalleled. As the most data-intensive sector in the global economy, the ability of financial institutions to obtain, process, and analyse their complex data assets – structured or unstructured – is becoming fundamental to market success and remaining competitive. Moving data to the cloud with a partner such as Collibra establishes a governance foundation for banks as ungoverned data lakes can quickly become data swamps. Data intelligence vendors can provide a platform that helps banks gain a unified view of data assets to unlock their true value. These technology companies can help improve trust in data to strengthen analytics and hasten time to insight through machine learning powered features such as automatic data classification, guided stewardship, and auto-discovery functions. Cloud migration and services such as those offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) should be at the centre of banks’ digital transformation, but challenges around lack of executive alignment, technical skillsets, and data lake experience must be overcome in order to become masters of their data. Download your copy of the Impact Study below to learn more.

20 November 2020 309 downloads

Report

Digital Transformation Accelerated

A Sibos 2020 Report produced by Finextra in association with Intel. As the global coronavirus pandemic pushed the annual Sibos event into virtual mode for the first time in 2020, it’s not surprising that everyone was keen to talk about how this has changed things in the key areas that the industry gathers to review at this time of year- technology, digitisation, innovation and the future of finance. There was broad consensus that COVID-19 has led to two years’ worth of digital transformation in just two months, as the lockdowns kicked in at the end of March. Financial institutions were affected internally, with a major emptying-out of financial centres and distribution of their IT estates amid rigorous oversight of new workflows, security practices and productivity. But they also had to react to the new expectations and behaviours of retail customers in lockdown and corporates who have themselves had to embrace remote and hybrid working for their financial and supply chain management. As the situation demanded- and continues to demand- flexibility, and economic fears push cost and efficiency to the fore, change resistors within financial services organisations, corporate customers and regulators alike have been forced to become change adopters. 2020 has been far from a positive year for many. But if financial industry and technology people are looking for a silver lining, it could be found in the results of this forced digital transformation. It will be interesting to see how much can be achieved through this accelerated change by this time next year. Download the full report below to find out more.

06 November 2020 710 downloads

Report

Payments Transformation: Immediate, Intelligent and Inclusive

The Finextra Annual Payments Survey Report 2020 in association with Fiserv. The pandemic has changed how we think about payments and the way people move and manage money. Not surprisingly, you see its influence in our payment trends this year. This year's Payments Industry Survey shows a change in focus, from the implementation of large infrastructure changes, such as instant payment systems, ISO 20022 adoption and open banking, to an emphasis on how those changes can drive value for payment users. The payment experience has become the focal point. Understanding how financial institutions can improve the services they deliver is central to the current direction of the payment industry. While COVID-19 has added impetus, the customer-centric, payment-user-first trend has been gaining prominence. Financial institutions are moving the discussion on from the provision of instant payments to focus on how they can bring value to the payment users as they interact. While the move to instant (real time) payments was a key trend identified in previous Fiserv payments surveys, as they become a reality, the attention is moving towards how they can be utilised to address the evolving needs of payment users and support payment users who traditionally use nonelectronic forms of payment. This year, the survey focused on two areas: The role that overlay services have in addressing the needs of payment users. Inclusion of all payment users in electronic payments. Download the report of the results from the recent Finextra Annual Payments Survey 2020, by Finextra & Fiserv, below to learn more.

04 November 2020 1139 downloads

Report

The Future of Fintech 2020

Disrupt, reset, re-launch. The fintech industry has evolved from competing and collaborating with banks and has now entered a new era of partnerships, with those at the forefront of digital transformation prioritising technology and legacy participants working with new financial players. In addition to this, traditional financial institutions are partnering with challenger banks to provide refined products and services that attest to putting the customer first. However, questions have been raised about how an alliance with a neobank would be preferable to a merger or an acquisition. The concept of a ‘challenger bank’ will also be examined in this report, and why, after years of development and progress, it has become difficult to differentiate between the vast number of neobanks in the industry because their offerings are vastly similar. Finextra’s The Future of Fintech 2020 report will explore how banks have embraced innovation and what benefits have emerged from establishing technology initiatives, partnering with neobanks and investing in fintech firms. Further, the report explores what and how the industry should behave in the face of a crisis and how to bounce back stronger than ever. We will also consider whether customers would benefit from financial institutions merging all their services onto one application as the digital age welcomes the platform ecosystem, which has seen success in Asia and is being gradually implemented in Europe and the US. Download your copy of the report now.

03 September 2020 958 downloads

Report

A Panorama of the Changing Banking Landscape in EMEA

Fintech players have proved that mass-market growth is achievable and are now providing other financial service entrants with a blueprint of how to scale exponentially. What sets the newer banks apart from incumbent providers is that they adapt their offering to meet the needs of their users. There is no universal formula for success that can work across all business models, and across the entire EMEA region. The most common way of generating revenue is charging customers, which would work well in a startup model as these organisations are unencumbered by legacy infrastructure and cost structures. However, untrusting customers want more than an improved customer experience, and companies need to establish revenue sources that can be diversified over time. Additionally, banks must give their customers a reason to bank with them. This research paper by Finextra, in association with Mambu, gathers the views of several experts from Bain Capital, Barclays, Citi, EY, OakNorth, Santander InnoVentures, SEB, Starling Bank and Tink on how to build a bank in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Download the full report below to find out more.

30 April 2020 1186 downloads

Report

How to Adopt SWIFT gpi by the 2020 Deadline - Build, Buy, Outsource or Collaborate?

The need for speed, certainty, and seamless integration in cross-border payments is becoming increasingly apparent. SWIFT’s Global Payment Initiative, more commonly known as gpi, is fast becoming the standard for global funds transfers. The need for speed, certainty, and seamless integration in cross-border payments is driven by user expectations of instant services, the digitalisation of traditional payment services, and the streamlining of financial supply chains by banks and corporates. For SWIFT’s community, payment confirmations represent the next piece in the puzzle in the path towards creating a seamless, cross-border payments experience for every financial institution and corporate member, and each of their customers. Financial institutions must position and prepare themselves to adopt the requirement on schedule or run the risk of sending non-compliant cross-border payments - if such transactions can be sent at all. For firms seeking to keep pace with the cross-border payments evolution, banks and corporates alike are faced with the challenge of identifying and adopting an effective strategy to adopt SWIFT gpi. The question firms must answer, as they juggle the real-world pressures of cost, competition and cumbersome legacy systems, is whether it is best to build, buy, outsource or collaborate. Find out more by downloading your copy below.

08 April 2020 693 downloads

Report

Underpinning Innovation with Real-Time Payments

Real-Time Payments growth is just the beginning. Real-time payments systems are proliferating around the world, with higher values and volumes together with greater cross-border connectivity. The industry is tasked with designing and creating the market infrastructure that supports this growth, and is increasingly turning to hybrid multicloud deployments to deliver a new wave of innovation that can take place within all manner of systems, from fraud detection through to liquidity management and accounting software. Increased collaboration and global standards underpin the upward trajectory of digital transformation in a rapidly changing financial ecosystem. Download the full white paper below to find out more.

31 March 2020 902 downloads

Report

The Information Advantage: Driving Opportunities and Mitigating Risk in a Hyper-Connected World

What's next for business in this world of digital services and data? Collaboration, interoperability and a trusted network in which to operate came to the fore as the key factors to support business growth and financial services transformation during a recent roundtable, held under Chatham House Rule. The roundtable was hosted by Finextra, in association with OpenText, and brought together payments and industry stakeholders to discuss the pertinent issues and drivers around digital and operational transformation. The themes have percolated and resonated in follow-up discussions since. Delegates discussed the pressing challenges as well as opportunities, and how to solve them in order to improve the landscape for commerce. Download the full report to find out more.

09 March 2020 417 downloads

Report

The Future of Banking is Open

The open banking dialogue has at last moved on from compliance concerns and turned to what opportunities, as well as challenges, exist for banks. 2019 could be the year that open banking takes hold but only if banks are able to deliver value-added, premium services via application programming interfaces (APIs). These tools are still in their early stages of development but through robust testing, more standardisation, intelligent use of data and partnerships, banks can develop services that both enhance the user experience and generate new sources of revenue. Banks should be looking at what valuable services they can actually charge for, what services go beyond data capture and money movement and involve new lines of revenue – from online FX wallets to digital banking. They should also look at areas such as corporate banking that are ripe for disruption given that the current dashboard services on offer are typically basic and static. Download this new whitepaper from Finextra, in association with Token, as we explore the shift towards ‘premium’ API-driven banking culture, what drivers and challenges are shaping the developments, and what the new wave of open banking products and services might look like.

29 July 2019 1192 downloads

Report

Clearing and Settlement: The new battleground for payments innovation

There is significant innovation and competition afoot in the world of payments initiation, driven by consumers and corporates on the demand side, and traditional banks, fintechs and challengers on the supply side. This is mirrored by what can reasonably be called a revolution in the world of clearing and settlement. Real-time / instant payments, blockchain and distributed ledger, new solutions to the old problems of cross-border correspondent banking, and many other initiatives all have the potential to transform how payments are processed, cleared and settled. Financial institutions therefore need to find ways to provide compelling business services based on new methods of payment initiation and novel customer experiences, while keeping pace with the multiplicity of back-end clearing and settlement options – all while managing costs, staying ahead of compliance, and growing market share.

12 November 2018 951 downloads

Report

Digital Revolution in Treasury

Corporate treasurers are becoming more strategic within their organisations, with a focus on digital channels and advanced offerings from their partners that help them add greater value to their organisations’ business success. For corporate treasuries there remains a gap between the digital and real-time nature of financial services that retail customers expect, and the operational reality of corporate banking. Fragmentation, manual and slow movement of funds, batch processes and difficulty in scaling operations remain key problems. However, as instant payments infrastructures become more prominent in an increasing number of countries and payment limits increase, there is a greater potential for change. Combined with the regulatory standardisation of open banking APIs, and the possibilities offered by Virtual Account Management (VAM), the potential for real-time treasury is becoming increasingly attainable. Banks should not become complacent in their role as a trusted partner and provider to corporate treasuries. Indeed, treasurers no longer see banks as their sole trusted advisor. As their needs have evolved, treasurers have become more open to working with service providers outside the banking community. This is driven by treasurers’ increasing interest in automated processes and self-service execution. Rising technological capabilities delivered by fintechs, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors and Treasury Management Systems (TMS) are unsettling the status quo. Download this new paper by Finextra in association with Tieto as we explore what options are available to corporate treasuries and what banks need to do in order to address the rapidly evolving requirement of treasuries.

24 October 2018 736 downloads

Report

Payments Transformation: Jostling for Position in the New Digital Landscape

The world is moving ever faster. The willingness of consumers and businesses to tolerate any delay or inconvenience is rapidly approaching zero. Fintechs are entering the market at record pace with a focus on taking profits from any inefficient market. The banking industry is starting to move. From the rapid rise of instant payments to SWIFT gpi, banks are forming a competitive response to these market forces gaining market and mind-share. Download our fourth annual research paper by Finextra in association with Fiserv on the state of the payments market and the competitive challenges and pressures. It focuses on the challenges banks face in building intelligent experiences for their corporate and retail clients to meet their increasing expectation of speed, seamlessness and security. The survey sets out the various aspects of banks transitioning to meet the opportunities and challenges of the ‘faster / instant’ world; the market context (new competitors, new regulations, operation and technologies) with which the banks are contending, the key issues around instant payments and building the business case to support the investment required. This information is supplemented by a look at what’s happening with blockchain and distributed ledger technology. The research was undertaken in September 2018 and is based on a survey of over 100 financial services professionals from around the world.

24 October 2018 1521 downloads