For the financial services industry, digital transformation is almost simply natural evolution; the logical next phase in its development. In many ways it is already a virtual industry by definition of the services it offers. Innovation has characterised its history.

HCL Technologies (HCL), a leading global technology company, today announced that it has been selected to help drive IT transformation at the UK’s third-largest grocery retailer, Asda. The three-year application services contract will see HCL transform Asda’s IT Application Services with a new DevOps delivery model to drive data and analytics and support back-office applications through the full lifecycle of development, testing and support.

Opting for managed services for non revenue-generating activities and implementing scalable cloud computing power will be key differentiators in terms of financial services firms’ ability to compete in the digital age, according to a white paper published today by Celent, a global research, advisory, and consulting firm, and Torstone Technology, a leading provider of post-trade securities and derivatives processing.

Ant Financial launches Ant Financial Technology, a new brand supporting the growth of financial institutions, at ATEC 2018 in Hangzhou, China. 

HANGZHOU, August 20, 2018 – Ant Financial Services Group (“Ant Financial” or “the Company”) today announced that the Company would open up a full suite of technology products and services under a new brand, Ant Financial Technology, to support the growth of financial institutions by improving user experience and lowering costs. 

First Data (NYSE: FDC), a global leader in commerce-enabling technology, signed an agreement with Huifu Payment Ltd (Huifu, 01806.HK), a leading third-party payment provider in China, to offer a market-leading global eCommerce solution into China.

Cross-channel customer engagement platform, Engage Hub has been shortlisted as a finalist, for the ‘Best Use of Technology in Customer Engagement’ category for the Engage Awards 2018.

Cappitech, a leading provider of regulatory reporting and intelligence technology for the financial services industry, and Trax, a leading provider of capital market data, trade matching and regulatory reporting services, have entered into an agreement, which enables mutual customers to streamline their MiFID II transaction reporting. 

Banks need to become technology companies. This is the single most critical strategic driving force in the industry as we all approach another of those dates that sound like defining moments: 2020. Just a few months away and yet everything will have changed for banks by then. Most of it already has.

Among the many critical success factors driving change across the financial sector, some obvious ones stand firmly at the top of the 'to-do' list. Deloitte's  2018 Banking Industry Outlook observes: “For banks globally, 2018 could be a pivotal year in accelerating transformation into more strategically focussed, technologically modern, and operationally agile institutions, so that they may remain dominant in a rapidly evolving ecosystem.”

Today, digitization is omnipresent in most areas of our lives. Also the financial sector has to face the changes and developments which are brought along with the new era of an increasingly digitalizing world. Although the speed of implementation often cannot match with the ambitious expectations, there is no risk that the financial sector misses the digital transformation. To ensure that the strict regulations of the financial sector do not interrupt the digitization, a high degree of innovation is required.