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Latest Results from /payments

Report

The Reinvention of Card Payments

Responding to Innovation: Where will the impact be? Payment innovation coupled with the pandemic's digitisation drive, is spurring card issuers to reinvent themselves. With the mushrooming options for consumers and merchants, it is challenging for issuers to navigate this landscape and know, with certainty, what the future will hold. It is crucial they get it right, however, since payments for banks and non-banks alike are a key touchpoint with the customer; they are the ‘in’ to a long-lasting - and profitable - relationship.  Issuers must adapt to the increased expectations of the customers, which have shifted since the pandemic. Buying behaviour fundamentally changed once lockdowns went into effect, with in-person purchases plummeting and online sales skyrocketing.  The pandemic gave the impetus that many needed to make the switch to contactless, and limits were increased.  The contactless trend is set to continue. In Asia contactless is more likely to take off in developed markets, whereas QR codes are expected to take off in emerging markets. These trends, of course, are an acceleration of a shift that was already underway. The dwindling of cash has long been documented, along with the steady increase in electronic payments. And for issuers keeping track of the various payment forms, there is growth expected across the many types in the years to come.  Download your copy of this Finextra report, produced in association with FIS, to learn more.

1207 downloads

Report

Future-Ready Payments Solutions: Remaining competitive with reusable technology

Over fifty years ago, when the original payment pioneers built electronic funds transfer (EFT) platforms to enable card services, they had a single use in mind. Reliable and secure card payments were achieved, but the architecture was so closely bound to card transactions that it is now becoming incompatible with today’s colourful payment universe.  As mobile and contactless payments, Quick Response (QR) codes, digital currencies, Request to Pay (R2P), Real-Time Payments (RTP), Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) and peer-to-peer (P2P) payment applications take off, banks are forced to build separate in-house silos, in order to process these new payment types. Given a plethora of dedicated systems are already in place to process cash, cheque and card payments, management of these silos and ‘add-ons’ is becoming a complex undertaking. Forward-looking banks are tackling this challenge by deploying modern payments platforms that are comprised of a set of re-useable services. These have the capacity to not only consolidate numerous payment schemes onto a single platform, but they can also future-proof businesses by facilitating easy adoption of new payment types. As the payments race heats up – and banks wrestle with the emergence of new digital currencies, payment instruments, funding methods and payment types – those with the most agile, secure, and reusable platform will be rewarded with a strong competitive edge and improved margins from being able to control when, how deeply and how long to take part in any new payments venture. Download your copy of this Finextra impact study, produced in association with Diebold Nixdorf, to learn more.

788 downloads

Report

Facing up to the Future: Biometric Automation in Banking

The advantages of biometric authentication in banking over less secure passwords are now well understood. Biometric measures such as fingerprints and face verification not only help to reduce fraud and financial loss for banks and their customers, but they make transactions more convenient and faster for users. As a result, consumers the world over have become accustomed to the merits of biometrics. However, the use of biometrics is not without its challenges. The first of these is that wherever technology breaks barriers in terms of convenience and usability, so surely will fraudsters follow to find nefarious ways to breach new barriers of security.  What remains difficult for the financial services industry is the live authentication that a verified identity is indeed a real person logging on in real time. Fraudsters are structured and organised, and impersonation can take many different forms.  Banks need to be able to deliver a consistent yet flexible level of ongoing security depending on the risk profile of the transaction.  Biometric authentication can provide a consistent yet flexible experience to make online banking simple, convenient, secure and inclusive to customers.  Cloud-based services, as opposed to device-based authentication, mean attacks can be fixed faster and in an isolated fashion so as not to affect other parts of the system. They also facilitate faster and more comprehensive analysis of activity, which means any future potential attack can be addressed more quickly.  This white paper from Finextra, in association with iProov, will explore the following points and more:  The latest technologies available to banks to facilitate biometric ID verification and authentication  The perception and preferences of banking service users and the current methods and techniques banks are employing  How cloud-based biometrics can bridge the gap between now and the future of seamless and secure authentication services 

459 downloads

Report

Prepare to Choose: 4 factors Banks must assess before committing to a SaaS Provider

Most banks' digital transformation journeys are well underway, and the need to now deliver on their strategy milestones means that time is of the essence. A recent survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and Temenos found that just under two thirds of banks see new technologies as the greatest driver of change for the next four years, up from 42% from three years ago. While the momentum toward digitalisation of financial services has grown significantly during the past 18 months, financial institutions are increasingly recognising the value of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions in delivering new products and meeting customer expectations. Central banks are also increasingly showing their appetite for and recognition of the fundamental role of cloud-driven SaaS solutions in financial services. In mid-2020 the Bank of England announced its search for a technology partner to help build out its public cloud platform, while the Bundesbank recently began encouraging German banks to focus and adopt SaaS solutions enabled by cloud computing. Banks have refined their SaaS strategy beyond non-core offerings such as payroll or HR-related tools into more comprehensive, cloud-centric strategies. Covid-19 has served to accelerate adoption in core banking technology. SaaS is attractive to financial institutions looking for fast, agile solutions, because they are able to consume the required service instead of having to buy, install and maintain a suite of software independently. Rather than building in-house, financial organisations are looking specifically for resources that will speed up their attempts to innovate and scale at pace, and engender independence where suitable, all the while bolstering compliance regimes from the heart of operations throughout its entire API network. In order to have confidence that the correct SaaS provider is being selected, it is vital for banks to drill down and assess the factors which make SaaS attractive from a business perspective in the long and short term. Banks must consider whether its core offering will enable business continuity, optimise business outcomes and help the bank reach its regulatory obligations. Above all else, SaaS providers must provide certainty that their solution will not hinder or threaten business functionality in any way. This Finextra impact study, in association with Temenos, will outline four fundamental factors for banks when considering a SaaS solution, in order to position a financial institution’s business offering for success.

512 downloads

Report

Corporate Mobile Banking and the Road to Omnichannel

Innovation is picking up pace in treasury management, but development is far from the fintech revolution that has replaced outdated technologies and streamlined antiquated practices in retail banking. While there is an appetite amongst treasurers to remedy historic shortfalls, continuous improvement in operational treasury efficiency has been the biggest hurdle. International payments continue to be an expensive and burdensome process, multi-currency accounts cannot be accessed, can only be operated manually, and take weeks to open – even though very few organisations operate using a single currency. Mobile banking can alleviate these pressures by removing geographical limitations and in turn, improving efficiency and productivity. Considerable time has also passed since supply chains and banks had to ascertain how to pool cash and conduct trade across multiple nations, currencies, and continents for the first time, which is unacceptable in this real-time age of payments processing. Mobile services can remedy these issues by accelerating collection, refining reconciliation, and eliminating a significant portion of risk. Here’s how.

340 downloads

Report

SMEs Front and Centre

How business needs are driving (Instant) Payments Innovation. According to the World Bank, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and businesses account for the majority of commercial companies worldwide and are important contributors to job creation and global economic development. Contributing up to 40% of national income in emerging economies, they represent about 90% of businesses and more than 50% of employment worldwide. SMEs will play a particularly important role in the post-pandemic future as human ingenuity and the need to secure a living income will drive new enterprises forward. Technology will be a vital part of that process, with entrepreneurs looking for new ways to meet customer needs for products and services. The opportunity for financial institutions will be to harness the potential created by the growth in SMEs with modern payment rails, and providing value-added services that reflect the needs of the evolving SME segment. Rather than the current product-centric approach, financial institutions need to find ways to establish themselves at the centre of how a business operates, not just enable it to pay or be paid. As payments capabilities are commoditised, FIs’ income from providing such services is eroded over time, making it even more compelling to understand and serve their business clients’ needs. The key is to understand how very different SMEs operate, and what they expect from their FIs. SMEs increasingly are disposed to rely on software-as-a-service (SaaS) models to run their businesses, whether that’s cloud-based finance or outsourced HR and payroll services. They don’t have the large data centres, in-house experts, or technology infrastructures that large corporates invest in, but they do have the same technology needs to support their business and to use data analytics to take the uncertainty out of their financial futures. This white paper from Finextra, in association with Fiserv, will focus on the problems and challenges SMEs grapple with, and how they can operate more effectively when armed with the right toolkit. Such use cases will demonstrate the products and solutions FIs can create with the power of instant payment rails and overlay services.

524 downloads

Report

Stemming the tide of Social Engineering Scams with Behavioural Insights

Fraud and cybercrime are always on the increase, evading the latest security conventions and morphing into a different approach, following the money. In the same way, banks and financial organisations worldwide need to continuously respond and adapt. Global events create new trends and directions for fraudsters to exploit and the recent Coronavirus pandemic is no different.   Social engineering fraud has gripped the industry in the last year and in particular, phone and business email scams seem to be resulting in the highest losses; indeed, according to the US Federal Trade Commission, 77% of fraud complaints reported by consumers in the US involved contact by phone.   In the UK, it is more commonly referred to as Authorised Push Payment (APP) fraud, and while measures have been introduced, such as the Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) code and Confirmation of Payee, to protect consumers and to detect and prevent scams and illicit funds transfers, more needs to be done in the UK, and globally.   The good news is banks can access and utilise increasingly sophisticated technology and expertise to meet the fraudsters’ aptitude, analysing behaviour patterns, for example, to uncover social engineering scams. Behavioural insights can be used to inform new strategies and respond to attacks in real-time where other security controls have failed.   With large losses becoming increasingly publicised, and hence reputation brought into question, the industry must respond, and it is incumbent upon all players to collaborate and be proactive around accountability and prevention.   This research paper from Finextra, in association with BioCatch, explores the recent uptick in social engineering attacks globally, and how banks can respond using the latest technology and security measures.

223 downloads

Report

Responding to Lending Disruption

Building an ecosystem and new business models. The lending market has been ripe for disruption for some time - and now COVID-19 has exposed the laggards, brought innovators to the fore, and accelerated trends that were already in motion. The global pandemic also highlights just how important lending is – it is critical to keep the economy going - and how lenders need to be responsive in a crisis. Disrupters are making existing processes better (or revamping/replacing them altogether), creating new business models, and targeting new customer segments. In these unprecedented times, traditional lenders need to respond and future-proof their business. Maintaining the status quo is not an option. On the demand side, consumers now have higher expectations of their lenders. After months of lockdown and moving their lives online, consumers expect the same convenience from their lenders as they get with Amazon, Netflix or Zoom. The user experience should be slick, decisions quick, and delivery instant. As banks respond to the disruption in the lending market, and learn from the fintech companies that do this better, they will also have to adjust to the new normal of working remotely. All banks have had massive increases in customer queries as the effects of the pandemic have taken hold. In the UK, for example, the government introduced measures that meant individuals could take a payment holiday of up to six months on their mortgages and other personal finance products. Lenders were inundated with requests, and some found their legacy systems creaking at the seams. While some lenders have struggled, the pandemic is also providing opportunities for nimble plays. Fintech company Kabbage, for example, created a gift certificate programme to help small businesses with their cash flow to tide them over through the worst of the pandemic. Businesses can sell gift certificates through Kabbage Payments, which can be redeemed at any time, with the funds deposited in their accounts the next working day. Last year Kabbage announced a tie-up with Facebook so that businesses could get a wider audience for their certificates by listing them on the social media platform. Download your copy of this Finextra white paper, produced in association with FIS, to learn more.

604 downloads

Report

The Future of Payments 2021

The Road to Successful Digital Transformation. Every player that operates within the intricate ecosystem of financial services is at a tipping point. The pandemic deeply entrenched the digital agenda, especially for payments, and financial institutions recognise that the effects of Covid-19 are likely to have a permanent impact on the industry. Tink1 found that 74% of European banks see an increased need to enhance their digital services, and 65% believe that banks must increase their speed of innovation. This immense pressure to digitise is being played out across the globe, as regulators and industry bodies scramble to expedite timelines for the modernisation of payments systems. On top of this, technology firms and fintech startups have never been more innovative, leaping into action to capitalise on the opportunity the pandemic presented and shepherd financial services into the new digital world. Embedded finance is answering the demands of consumers, and incumbents are eager not to lose their footing by investing heavily to innovate and evolve. Open banking has taken hold in several jurisdictions, and in certain circumstances, is flourishing into the more expansive open finance. Ultimate success will depend on fundamental impediments such as incumbent banking cooperation, consent mechanisms, and concerns around privacy being managed or removed. Certainty around digital identity is predicted to bolster not only the momentum toward open finance, but to build on the capabilities required to deliver a central bank digital currency. 2020’s upheaval of brick-and-mortar retail led to the soaring uptake of e-commerce and a shift in payment trends, as contactless transactions became the norm. While the efficiencies of this new digital world have been exponential, criminal activity has naturally followed, and financial institutions are having to protect customers from sophisticated fraudsters. New forms of crypto assets further complicate the situation, especially as regulators attempt to balance the need to regulate alongside the need to foster innovation, all the while attempting to protect consumers from new forms of harm. The opportunities, however, are myriad in nature. The seemingly unquenchable appetite for the potential new technologies hold payments modernisation appears to be outpacing the historically risk-averse financial services sector. With expert views from Banking Circle, Nuvei, and Thunes, in this report, you will learn from industry leaders about the events and trends defining global payments into 2021 and beyond. The report includes insights from BNY Mellon, Citi, Deutsche Bank, ING, J.P. Morgan, Metro Bank, Nationwide Building Society, Open Banking Implementation Entity, Plaid, Rabobank, Raiffeisen Bank International, Société Générale, and SWIFT.

1436 downloads

Report

The advantage of Machine Learning in preventing fraud

Accurately identifying customer behavioural trends and proactively preventing payments fraud and other criminal activity at the outset can be done with machine learning. Ingesting tens of thousands of complex signals and analysing patterns to monitor activity is more effective than blocking transactions based on hard-coded and antiquated rules. Fraudsters can learn to circumvent these, and trusted users are put at risk, which is why embedded machine learning algorithms can be valuable. Download this Finextra impact study, in association with Sift, to learn about: Payments fraud and how machine learning is being leveraged today, Account takeover fraud, the biggest future threat to banks, and Synthetic ID fraud, the next opportunity for machine learning.

390 downloads

Report

Refreshing Payment Orchestration for a digital future

Digitising processes and services to meet the needs of customers has been a prerequisite for the payments industry, leaving acquirers, issuers, and merchants with no choice but to adapt. The changing landscape has resulted in a need to maintain growth in online activity and has increased the need for payment orchestration. Automating the management of business operations that are tied to authorising, processing and optimising payments can help to alleviate the pressure around adaptation and in turn, time to market and time to revenue. Payment orchestration is the solution.  Download this Finextra impact study, in association with WLPayments, to learn why:  Simplifying the complexity of payments is required,  Upgrading traditional payment orchestration is essential today, and  Payment orchestration platforms are the missing link for payment providers. 

419 downloads

Report

The Future of Digital Banking in the UK 2021

Why digital is paramount for innovation leaders. While emerging technology has been leveraged by banking leaders and incremental progress has been made in business-led areas, the modernisation of banking must remain as an evolving journey. To find the right approach, UK banks must ask themselves: what does the digital operating model look like to make this constant innovation sustainable? For an incumbent bank, digital transformation has become a herculean task in an age saturated with technological options, requiring traditional lenders to embrace unpredictability, maintain agility and digitise to the core, which requires support from agile fintech players. Legacy players that are in the process of migrating to the cloud are struggling with application modernisation, data centralisation and security, and as a result, banks that are born in the cloud are at an advantage. However, the cloud is not a solution in itself. From building agile platforms to meet the expectations of demanding customers, to crafting an optimised digital operating model, to instilling a strong work culture that goes beyond diversity, there are central challenges which must be addressed by banks in order to lay the foundations for a successful digital future. Banks now recognise the urgency of collaborating with the leading minds in the fintech industry, to craft and deliver the best products to their discerning customers. Download your copy of the report, in association with Backbase, to gain valuable insights from leading financial institutions and understand what will make UK banks successful into the future. The report includes insights from Atom bank, Coventry Building Society, first direct, HSBC, Investec, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, NatWest, OakNorth, Standard Chartered, Tandem Bank, and Yorkshire Building Society. Additionally, join us for a Finextra webinar with Backbase, to gain insights from an industry expert panel discussion on how a future-proof digital banking operating model can reconcile digital and personal - Engagement Banking: Orchestrating the Customer Experience

881 downloads

Report

Five Business Benefits for Analysing and Combatting Fraud

A Finextra Research Impact Study in association with Aerospike. With increased financing options at point-of-sale, card-not-present transactions, and contactless payments, comes a resultant surge in fraudulent transactions and financial crime. This increase in digital fraud has been catalysed by the recent Covid-19 pandemic-induced shift to online banking and commerce. Now more than ever, financial institutions must implement payments authentication processes to prevent the long-term risks associated with fraud, including slimming margins and reputational damage. One way financial players can stay ahead is to analyse all available historical and real-time data, and apply artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools – which encompass a range of algorithmic approaches that derive from statistical methods such as regressions and neural networks – to decipher legitimate transactions from the illegitimate. There are, however, five further business benefits to understanding customer risk profiles. Actionable insights derived from fraud profile analysis can help banks visualise each customer, not as a collection of disassociated data points, but as a mosaic, made up of different characteristics that merge to provide a comprehensive view. This can lead to complex, holistic, and predictive analysis of customers’ behaviour – generating consistent and tailored services. Download your copy of the paper below to learn more. 

218 downloads

Report

Payments Modernisation: The Cloud Imperative

This survey, conducted in early 2021, was global in scope and based on a sample of 150 banks and payment service providers.  It was aimed to quantify trends in payments modernisation, cloud and ‘as-a-service’ delivery models for account-to-account payments (corporate and retail/consumer payments). We were also interested in gauging the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on financial institutions’ own operations, and on the needs and expectations of their customers, and the adoption rate of various domestic and cross-border payment networks. The movement of money can be a complicated business. Payments modernisation has always been an imperative for banks since the inception of the modern banking system – from the introduction of cheques to the telegraphic transfer by radio or cable through to the networks of today. The trend is always towards greater speed, security and interoperability – but with that, complexity. The proliferation of payment networks covering various models for moving money domestically and internationally means financial organisations have to deal with many gateways, messaging standards, processing and settlement rules and regulations. This proliferation has led to much fragmentation and duplication of payment systems within organisations. It has also limited reachability and interoperability. Delivering on these requirements can involve system replacement, but just as often the challenge is to work around and integrate legacy systems that can’t easily be replaced, and bring them into a more modern architecture. Download your copy of this Finextra Survey Report, produced in association with Volante Technologies, to learn more.

573 downloads

Report

Adapting to a shifting Cards Landscape

Identifying opportunities for Issuers. The payment cards industry has changed dramatically in recent years, with new technologies and regulations spurring innovation and lowering the barriers to entry for issuers. Meanwhile, there has been a shift to digital payments, which has created opportunities for bank and non-bank issuers alike. Card payment volumes have been growing, and the world’s standout region is Asia Pacific. China is the star performer, and the number of cards in issue is staggering. And while digital wallets such as Alipay and WeChat Pay have pushed the growth of mobile payments in China, cards have a key role to play. Similarly, in Africa, where mobile money services like mPesa have been hugely popular, there is still a role for payment cards in the rapidly developing markets.  Cards are also in demand in other regions. In Europe, the most recent figures from the European Central Bank show an increase in the number of payment cards issued. So far, there has been a reported shift to digital payments in various markets, such as the Middle East, and even the least internet-savvy consumers have changed their spending habits and are now shopping online. In the physical world, contactless - both on smartphones and cards - has been successful in providing convenience for cardholders in stores. Additional innovations have attempted to make it even easier for customers to tap and go.  Card programmes have become increasingly cost-effective, especially for issuers who are unencumbered by legacy systems. With on-demand digital printing, for example, cards can be personalised and issuers can order a smaller print run for smaller customer segments as they are needed – such as fans of a football club – rather than committing to a large batch upfront. Download your copy of this Finextra white paper, produced in association with FIS, to learn more.  

626 downloads