As their customers have become increasingly reliant on online and mobile services in the past few years, banks have undergone massive transformation. The ongoing quest to offer better experiences for today’s digital-first consumers has forced banks to transition into software businesses as much as they are financial services providers. However, a transformation of such magnitude has introduced new challenges, which have seen the banks blighted by increasingly frequent IT failures.

Services in real time are already part of the customers’ everyday life – financial institutions also follow this trend. Česká spořitelna, the biggest commercial bank in the Czech Republic, is a company of the Viennese Erste Group Bank AG and, since autumn 2019, provides real-time payments for its customers. For this purpose, valantic’s Real Time Payment Engine has been implemented. For more than 20 years, the technology company develops software for payment, investment banking and transaction management.

FIS™(NYSE: FIS) announced today that Opel Bank in Germany has chosen its next-generation core banking system, FIS Modern Banking Platform, to power its online bank. Opel Bank is the first European-based bank to choose the new platform since its introduction in January.

Standard Chartered today announced business targets for supporting its clients as they transition to a low- carbon economy as part of the Bank’s sustainability aspirations. By the end of 2024, the Bank commits to:

 The Emerging Payments Association Asia (EPAA), the leading pan-Asian payments association in Asia, has released a ground-breaking research report on Open Banking in APAC, outlining challenges, opportunities and recommended approaches for Asia-Pacific’s financial sector. The report was presented to ABAC (APEC Business Advisory Committee) in Sydney on February 14, 2020 to assist with APEC Interoperability policy. 

Rapyd, a global B2B Fintech as a Service provider, today announced a new agreement with Visa (NYSE:V) that will help Rapyd expand its worldwide business operations.

ING Group (“ING”), the global financial institution with a strong European base, has partnered with Tradeteq to distribute its commodity trade finance exposures to non-bank institutional investors.

Tradeteq operates the trade finance industry’s first electronic trading platform, which allows banks to package their exposures into standardised, investable notes for non-bank institutional investors.

Today five°degrees, a global banking technology company, announces the appointment of Wilco Jiskoot as Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

 Yooz, the intelligent P2P automation software provider, today announced the expansion of its global strategic partnership with Sage Intacct, the leading accounting software, in the UK. The new partnership will increase the business value of companies’ Finance and Accounts departments by providing better visibility into payables at any time and make more informed decisions with real-time data.

The advent of the open banking era and continued emergence of fintech has forced customer experience up the banking agenda. According to McKinsey, of the 50 largest global banks, three in four have now pledged themselves to some form of customer experience transformation.