Few industries have faced sterner criticism over culture and conduct than financial services. Unfortunately, the growing regulatory burden means this challenge is more complex than ever.The Libor scandal, for instance, highlighted the nuanced difference between regulatory non-compliance and poor conduct; between breaking rules and breaking the spirit of the rules. But a change could be on the cards.

Linedata (NYSE Euronext: LIN), the global solutions provider dedicated to the investment management and credit industries, has announced the introduction of Linedata Disclosure Manager, an automated compliance monitoring service.

On Monday this week the Chancellor, George Osborne, announced at the Tory Party Conference further changes to the UK pensions landscape. This follows the radical pension freedom reforms announced in the March 2014 budget. The new move to scrap the 55% ‘pension death tax’ on pension funds in drawdown could allow individuals to pass on their unused defined contribution (DC) pension to any nominated beneficiary, completely tax free.

Any change that can promote the expansion of the global economy is change for the good. Taking into account common sense, economic theory and, indeed, the very raison d’être of the World Trade Organization (WTO), such change would include a move towards freer trade in goods and services between nations. Freer trade is promoted when the costs and risks – to all parties involved - are reduced.This is a central theme of this edition of Financial IT. Many of the contributed articles focus on the technology and infrastructure governing payments – especially between corporates.

In the third of a four-part series, Markus Sander tests the latest payments innovations. This week: cashless and cardless payments.

Having equipped my phone with an NFC sticker (there are smartphone manufacturers that don’t see the need to integrate NFC into their ecosystem), I updated my six money apps, activated four mobile wallet solutions and was good to go.

Markit (Nasdaq: MRKT), a leading global diversified provider of financial information services, has announced the launch of new software and services that enable banks and other financial institutions to host and manage instant message chat rooms.

Implementation deadlines have been and gone but banks are still living in Dodd-Frank’s shadow. One of the issues is that best practice hasn’t yet been agreed: the regulators still need to clarify standards. This is leaving many fumbling around in the dark for the right route to compliance. While the regulators iron out the standards, several financial institutions have cobbled together ‘half-way house’ applications so they can tick the compliance box. Some have even resorted to Excel for a quick fix. But this can’t be a long term solution.

NASDAQ OMX (NASDAQ:NDAQ) announced that Inwido AB (short name: INWI), a Mid Cap company within the Industrials sector, has started trading of its shares on the main market of NASDAQ OMX Stockholm. Inwido is, including switches, the 18th company to list at NASDAQ OMX’s Nordic main markets in 2014 (NASDAQ OMX Stockholm; Helsinki; Copenhagen; and Iceland).

Atos, an international information technology services company, and NGDATA™, the customer experience management solutions company, has launched a Big Data omni channel solution for banks worldwide With this omni-channel management offering built on Canopy's Data Platform and underpinned by big data machine learning capacities, banks can target their customers more effectively, enhance customer loyalty and strengthen their output. Atos integrates this new solution