SWIFT today releases a new paper on the evolution of the European payments landscape. While change is underway in wholesale and retail payments across the world, in Europe, the Eurosystem has set a clear path for financial market infrastructure renewal. This, along with regulations such as the Second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), is driving a period of radical payments transformation across Europe.

The paper examines the drivers for change in the payments sector, both global and European levels, and outlines the challenges and opportunities for incumbents in a market that is undergoing the most extensive transformation ever: 

∙ Digitisation is driving expectations for fast, frictionless and borderless payments that are embedded in transaction chains and eco-systems, whether for retail purchases or business transactions 

∙ Technology, which is offering opportunities for innovation and efficiency is also enabling competitors – fintechs, global retail giants, card networks and digital start-up banks – to challenge incumbent providers and existing business models

∙ Regulators are intervening to foster competition, protect consumer rights and promote payments efficiency and innovation, for example, by requiring banks to open customer data to third party providers for account information and payment services (open banking)

Alain Raes, Chief Executive EMEA and Asia Pacific at SWIFT, said: “The financial industry is going through a period of profound change. In this evolving landscape, market infrastructures and financial institutions are having to renew their infrastructure and reshape their business models to meet customer expectations and capitalise on new opportunities. We are committed to supporting our community through this transformation as a trusted partner.”

With the arrival of the second Payment Services Directive, open banking in Europe is being driven by the regulatory agenda, making it possible for fintechs and other innovators to offer new products and services to a wide market. The rise of instant payments is also well underway, with many domestic initiatives either live or in the process of implementation; EBA CLEARING’s pan-European RT1 service is already live, while the Eurosystem’s pan-European TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) set to go live in November 2018.

Payments market infrastructures are redesigning and renewing, allowing for greater operational and collateral/liquidity efficiency, and supporting innovation. The global adoption of the ISO 20022 standard is progressing rapidly, with TARGET2 set to migrate in 2021, and EBA CLEARING’s EURO1 and cross-border payments on SWIFT set to migrate in the same timeframe.

All of these changes – new levels of competition, major technology innovation and an unprecedented re-shaping of long-accepted payment products, relationships and timescales – put a great amount of pressure on banks. At once they need to reinvent themselves and find new ways of doing business, even while making the most of their considerable assets: customer bases and data; risk management capabilities; balance sheet strength; industry knowledge and trust. 

The paper outlines some of the choices that financial institutions face and features contributions from five major banks on how they see the future. In a companion paper, also available on swift.com, SWIFT sets out how it is evolving its portfolio of products and services to support customers through the changes happening in the payments landscape.

Form3, the cloud technology provider of Payments-as-a-Service for banks and regulated fintechs, today announced that fintech focused LHV Bank has selected Form3 to provide a fully managed service connecting the bank directly to the UK Faster Payments infrastructure. LHV will join the scheme as a Directly Connected Participant (Member) in 2019.

LHV is Estonia’s largest homegrown banking group, the second-largest pension provider in the Baltics and is recognised as one of Europe’s leading banks in the field of innovative technology and customer experience. The bank secured FCA approval to open a branch in London in March 2018 to expand its services to new clients and its existing UK customer base of over thirty financial institutions and fintechs, including Coinbase and TransferWise. 

Complementing its direct membership of the Euro Payments System and participation in the Euro Instant Payments System working group, LHV will now use Form3’s cloud-native payments service to connect to the UK Faster Payments scheme, enabling LHV’s customers to send and receive sterling payments in real-time.

LHV is focusing on providing a direct link between the latest generation fintech services and the UK’s national banking infrastructure.  For this, LHV has decided to open its own accounts at the Bank of England, ahead of becoming a Directly Connected Participant in the UK Faster Payments Scheme. This coveted status will allow LHV to compete with the established players and most disruptive challenger banks alike to deliver the very best user experience to its customers.

Form3: “In recent years, LHV has become a leading provider of banking services to the Fintech sector in Europe. We are delighted that Form3 is contributing to them achieving a similar position in the UK. Through our own innovative approach to delivering cloud-native payments technology as a managed service accessed through a single API, Form3 is helping LHV to eliminate much of the cost and complexity that has, until now, prevented such healthy competition”.

Andres Kitter, Head of LHV UK branch and member of LHV Bank management board, said: “Having celebrated the opening of our London Branch earlier this year, partnering with Form3 enables us to focus on what really matters - delivering the very best possible experience for our customers.  Form3’s depth of expertise and approach to simplifying payments complements our own technology strategy, enabling us to deploy new products in the shortest possible time, with the least amount of business and technical risk.”

Profile Software, an international financial solutions provider, announced today that it has been shortlisted at the WealthBriefing GCC Region Awards 2018 under the categories “Front Office Solution”, “Portfolio Management”, “Onboarding” and “Innovative Fintech Solution”. These distinctions highlight Profile’s commitment to delivering truly innovative and client-centric Wealth Management platforms that help firms accelerate their operations, comply with regulations and deliver outstanding personalised customer experience.

During this year Axia, the front-to-back omni-channel Digital Wealth Management and Robo Advisory solution has been enhanced with new functionality for Robo Αdvisory, compliance i.e. MiFID II and GDPR, while being available in Cloud and SaaS environment. The in-built modern Robo Advisory solution supports complete automation to target new market segments with ease, allowing the implementation of a hybrid service model, as well. The platform provides flexibility, powerful reporting and integration, delivering a common and unique user experience (UX/CX).

ClearView Financial Media’s Chief Executive, and Publisher of WealthBriefing, Stephen Harris, was first to extend his congratulations to the shortlisted firms. He commented: “The firms who have been shortlisted in these awards are all worthy competitors, and I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations. These awards are judged on the basis of entrants’ responses to a number of specific questions, which had to be answered focusing on the client experience. These awards will recognise the very best operators in the private client industry, with ‘independence’, ‘integrity’ and ‘genuine insight’ the watchwords of the judging process - such that the awards truly reflect excellence in wealth management.

Winners will be announced at a gala awards dinner, which will be held at the Palace Downtown, in Dubai, on 7 November 2018. More information is available here.

Ingenico, the global leader in seamless payment, has today announced a partnership with European payments company, Trustly, that will enable customers in Europe to make secure online transactions directly from their bank account.

The collaboration will see Ingenico expand its range of online payment solutions and enhance its position in 26 European countries, with online banking payment method now integrated into Ingenico’s payment platform. 

Ingenico’s merchants can now get paid by their customers through a quick, seamless and secure bank transfer, receiving real-time confirmation after the checkout process has been completed. Merchants will also benefit from Trustly’s unique refund functionality. This removes administrative complexity for merchants while allowing consumers to get fast refunds, helping cut chargeback rates.

Nick Tubb, VP Commercial Affairs at Ingenico said: “Our relationship with Trustly represents a powerful opportunity for merchants using Ingenico’s platform, allowing ecommerce customers to make payments directly from their bank account, using the banking authentication they already know and trust. As Trustly covers more than 3,300+ banks across Europe, it also means we can significantly improve our merchant proposition, particularly in geographies where online banking is the preferred payment method, such as Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany. ”

Oscar Berglund, CEO of Trustly, said: “We’re delighted to partner with Ingenico. Thanks to the quality and international reach of their merchant offering, thousands of leading online merchants will now enjoy seamless access to Trustly’s online banking payments. Our technology will enable Ingenico’s merchants to offer consumers a user-friendly and simple online banking solution, removing common issues such as typographical errors in the account details, as well as under and over-payments that erode merchants’ margins and frustrate customers.”

According to Trustly, 93 per cent of European citizens use their bank accounts as their primary funding source. Meanwhile, 44 per cent of all Europeans with access to a bank account regularly use internet banking – a figure that is rising significantly every year as digital innovation and access accelerates. By partnering, Ingenico and Trustly aim to enable customers to pay in a secure, convenient way that suits them, helping merchants to boost conversion and encourage repeat business.

Tieto is reinforcing its commitment to advancing ethical and responsible artificial intelligence (AI). Today, Tieto announced that it is introducing AI ethics guidelines and certification for its employees, as well as opening new positions for AI ethics and transparency engineers and AI trainers. These steps are part of a sustained drive to promote ethical AI product and service development across the company.

AI ethics guidelines
Tieto develops enterprise AI platforms and AI products for many industries and is committed to the responsible and ethical development and use of AI. The new ethics guidelines will serve as a foundation for all Tieto employees who develop or use AI in any capacity. The principles, consistent with the company’s Code of Conduct, are likely to evolve as AI advances. The guidelines launched today are as follows: 

• Responsibility: Committed to harness AI for good, for the planet and humankind.
• Human rights: Ensuring the freedom and liberty of people to serve the social good.  
• Fairness & equality: Unbiased, fair and inclusive AI fostering diversity and equality among people.
• Safety & security: AI systems are built to prevent misuse and reduce the risk of being compromised. 
• Transparency: Striving towards AI that can be explained and explain itself.  

AI ethics certification
For employees working with AI, Tieto is also trialling an internal ethics certification. AI will have a profound impact on many aspects of our lives. Today, AI is applied in everything from self-driving cars and visa applications to medical diagnosis and financial advice, including instances where life and fortunes might be at stake. Thousands of Tieto employees have completed internal AI courses in 2018 to improve their knowledge of AI, and this certification takes it a step further, ensuring that those working closely with AI solutions follow ethics guidelines.

New AI ethics positions
Tieto will also establish new roles focusing on ethical values embedded within AI. These include AI ethics and transparency engineers and AI trainers to teach ethics to Tieto AI solutions. These specialists focus on transparency, accountability, safety and fairness of AI solutions. Tieto is one of the first companies to recruit for these new types of roles to ensure sustainable and responsible utilization of AI across its businesses. 

“As the world sees extraordinary advances in artificial intelligence, it is imperative that we address the ethics concerns that arise with this technology. By ingraining AI ethics principles and certification in our daily operations, we believe we can contribute to a more sustainable future, and ensure we build responsible AI that supports humanity. Companies developing AI have an important role to play in shaping AI ethics and we need to listen to all sections of society to ensure the highest standards and benefits,” says Dr. Christian Guttmann, Vice President, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at Tieto.

Last week, banking, retail and gaming professionals attended the UK’s largest payments event, PayExpo 2018, at its new central venue close to London’s start-up community.

As well as offering a series of debates, networking opportunities and conference sessions – including a new gaming programme in partnership withICE London – attendees exclusively previewed new products and services from Curve and Starling Bank.

On day one, Shachar Bialick, founder and CEO of Curve, confirmed the return of American Express to the all-in-one mobile wallet, as well as giving a sneak peek of its forthcoming metal card. Benefits of the new gadget include: £50m medical coverage, worldwide travel insurance, and connections with premium retailers.

Furthermore on day two, Anne Boden, CEO of Starling Bank, revealed it will be bringing white label banking services to the UK, enabling other organisations to offer retail banking and make payments.

Anne, who was named winner of PayExpo’s Payments Power 10 (joined by Chief Platform Officer, Megan Caywood, in fourth place), explained: 

“The transformation in the payments sector that Starling Bank is helping to drive is built on the latest technology and will unlock huge potential for businesses to trade internationally, unburdened by excessive costs and delays. It is a testament to the whole team at Starling that Megan and I have been featured in this year’s Payments Power 10.”

Other industry influencers who made the list include: Suresh Vaghjiani, CEO and founder of Tribe Payments; Flavia Alzetta, CEO of Contis Group; Robert Morgan, Head of Sales and Partnerships – Mobile Payments at Barclays; and Andrea Dunlop, CEO Merchant Acquiring Europe of Paysafe Group.

From those making huge strides to the next big names, PayExpo also supports the newcomers to the industry, giving them a chance to show off innovations and attract investment. This year’s Minicorn Club featured the likes of Swappt, Fast Pay, Konsentus, Splitty Pay, and Money Zebra – some up-and-coming fintechs to look out for over the next 12 months.

Meanwhile, four promising entrepreneurs took to the stage for the Payments Dragons’ Den to raise awareness of their business and compete for insight from the Dragons for the next 12 months as well as a £10,000 digital media package from PaymentEye and Bobsguide .

The judging panel of industry experts – including Lebo Gunguluza from South Africa’s Dragons’ Den – reviewed the elevator pitches of gaming platform, True Name; SaaS start-up, AlephPay; and disbursement platform, Repay Solutions; and plug-and-play KYC solution, ID-Pal.

Thanks to the strides it has made since its inception, ID-Pal came away with the win and a year’s worth of expert support to help their business growth.

Keep an eye out for PayExpo 2019 . Whether you’re new to the game or a long-term player, here’s how to get involved next year: Register here, apply to speaker here, and find out about sponsorship here.

iSignthis Ltd (“the Company”) is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Probanx Information Systems Ltd (“Probanx”) has completed integration with Wanfuteng Bank (www.wanfutengbank.com).

Wanfuteng Bank, headquartered in Hong Kong and operating in Vanuatu, is now integrated with the Probanx CorePlus platform. 

The CorePlus integration including the following features;

• eBanking with Strong Customer Authentication,

• Mobile Banking,

• Loans and Mortgages,

• Standing Orders, • Deposits,

• Fixed Assets Management,

•SMS And Email Notification,

• Language support for English, French and Simplified Chinese, from a selection of 10 languages.

• Portfolio Management,

• IBAN Validation API,

• API for Payment Services Directive 2 ‘open banking’ support,

• ATM POS API,

• Swift/SEPA Integration,

• Teller Cash Management

Wanfuteng joins Novum Bank (MT, www.novumbankgroup.com ), Societe Generale (CY, www.sgcyprus.com ), HFCL (Seychelles), AN-other EMI (UK, www.an-other.co.uk ), Frux Private Bank (ES, www.fruxprivatebank.com ) and Luxburg Carolath FBS Bank (CH, www.luxburgcarolath.group) as a customer of Probanx.