Rival Systems (Rival), an award-winning provider of trading and risk management software, today announced that Lupo Holdings has selected the Rival Risk platform to manage its futures, equities and options trading business.  Lupo, which manages multiple trading groups, is using Rival Risk extensively for real-time enterprise risk management, advanced market scenario analysis and optimization of its cross-margining capabilities.

Forgotten your wallet or purse? No problem. ING in Poland customers can now pay for goods or services using only their Android smartphones following the launch this month of a ‘MasterCard on your phone’ payment service.

Available for customers with a Moje ING mobile app, the contactless service was developed in less than a year by teams from Poland, the Netherlands and Spain. It is one of the first global projects of this type to provide a service that can also be used by other ING countries.

A week before President Trump’s inauguration the CFTC approved a proposal to amend the record keeping requirements contained in Regulation 1.31. The changes were an interesting precursor to the Trump administration’s call for a review of regulation in the financial services space.  

UK economic growth held up better than expected in the six months following the Brexit vote, but this began to ease in early 2017 as inflation has risen, squeezing household spending power.

In our main scenario, we project UK growth to slow to around 1.6% in 2017 and 1.4% in 2018 due to slower consumer spending growth and the drag on business investment from Brexit-related uncertainty.

Technology is an enabler for new innovations and services making everyday life easier. In line with the view that digitalization can be used to create socially equal services for all, Tieto innovates a customer service system oriented for people with special needs. The unique project is conducted through a hackathon, together with Finland´s leading service provider for disabled people, Rinnekoti Foundation, as part of a programme highlighting Finland´s 100-year anniversary during 2017.

Digital transformation continues to disrupt traditional business models, raising doubts overthe very future of retail bank branches. Banks will need to adapt to this changing business landscape by defining, developing and testing new use cases for their proposed future business models.

The capital of Kazakhstan will host Blockchain Conference Astana on June 14 - 15, 2017. The conference organizers have chosen Astana to be the conference location for several reasons. Firstly, Kazakhstan has a great potential for development of the fintech industry. The country has shaped its course for accelerated technological modernization of the economy.

I recently was hauled up over saying that Western Union (WU) was being disrupted by FinTech.  The words that a reader took issue with are:

The high fees of Western Union and other remittance providers were fairly punishing … until FinTech came along

The 2018 implementation date for the second Payment Services Directive, or PSD2 as it’s more commonly known, is fast approaching. A growing number of conversations are currently taking place around whether this represents an opportunity for tech companies, fintech start-ups, merchants, and challenger banks to share in the success of the traditional banks.

PSD2 will require banks to provide third parties, such as those mentioned above, with access to their customers’ account information (with explicit permission), through the use of application programme interfaces (APIs).

Today Huawei showed the availability of the Infosys Finacle core banking solution on Huawei KunLun.