The bank will implement DigitalAccess from Fiserv, an end-to-end solution hosted in a cloud environment, to support all online and mobile applications, infrastructure, and services offered by Bank of Sydney.

Bank of Sydney chose Fiserv in a competitive process to replace its current digital banking platform. The new offering allows Bank of Sydney to provide its customers with improved, reliable and secure digital banking experiences via online or mobile channels. The bank will be able to deliver new features and functionality to customers more quickly, improving their ability to access banking services when and where they choose. In addition, DigitalAccess easily integrates with the bank’s core account processing platform, Signature® from Fiserv.

“Our customers are increasingly tech-savvy, globally connected and mobile. They want efficient and convenient ways to bank at their fingertips,” said Miltos Michaelas, CEO, Bank of Sydney. “We selected Fiserv because they are a proven technology provider and offered a flexible solution that can grow with us. With this upgrade, we can more easily offer our customers the banking products and services they need to help them reach their financial goals.” 

To implement DigitalAccess, Bank of Sydney will utilise Managed Services from Fiserv. This service provides a team from Fiserv with expertise in IT projects, analysis and testing of systems and process, and employee training. The Fiserv team works directly with the bank's business and IT teams to prioritise and sequence key deliverables and utilises a dynamic working model to achieve key deliverables based on business needs. By relying on the proficiency of global subject matter experts from Fiserv, the bank can save time and reduce cost.

“Consumers and businesses expect to be able to manage their finances at their convenience and through the device of their choosing,” said Robert Liong, managing director, Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, Fiserv. “With a continued focus on their digital banking services, Bank of Sydney is delivering speed, ease and convenience to its customers through solutions designed to fit their daily lives.”

In addition to offering financial service providers speedy onboarding and identity assurance using a number of digital identity schemes, Signicat now also offers Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) using the end-user’s smart device.

Upcoming PSD2 legislation will demand that many transactions over €30 must be authorized with at least two-factor authentication. MobileID will put financial services providers ahead of this legislation, not only by offering multi-factor authentication, but offering it in a way that is convenient to consumers and will not result in abandonment.

MobileID works by turning a consumer smart device into a security credential. The device becomes the ‘something you have’ factor for authentication, while a PIN code becomes the ‘something you know’ and biometric data such as fingerprints can be used as a third ‘something you are’ factor. 

MobileID allows banks and other financial service providers to offer multi-factor authentication without the need to provision additional hardware or demand that customers copy and paste a one-time password from an SMS or a separate application. Instead MobileID harnesses smart device capabilities, including the latest biometrics, to deliver simple but secure access to digital channels.

“A speedy onboarding and application experience is a must for financial services providers who don’t want to lose 40% of their potential customers at this stage,” said Gunnar Nordseth, CEO, Signicat. “Keeping these customers means giving them the best experience possible when accessing services and authorizing transactions - MobileID gives customers that simple experience while meeting PSD2 requirements way ahead of these regulations being adopted.”

MobileID’s features include:
• Device agnostic, with support for both the latest iOS and Android devices 
• The ability to add existing and future device-based authentication technologies
• Device and user intelligence, including geolocation, for risk-based authentication
• An offline mode so the smart device can be used to authenticate without a data connection
• Defenses against jailbroken devices and debugging attempts

An overwhelming 65% of respondents believed increasing regulation, such as MiFID II and FinfraG, would have the biggest impact on their business.

It is however evident, that traders do not believe their current or future block trades will be effected by the increase in regulation. Of those surveyed, 44% said recent regulatory changes would not push them to trade in larger block sizes - a significant amount compared to the 8% that said it would and compared with the 35% who were undecided.

Traders seem to be taking advantage of the lack of a volume cap ahead of MiFID II’s implementation with 17% trading more actively and increasing the interaction with block sized liquidity. Ahead of the introduction of volume caps in MiFID II, over a third of respondents were undecided on whether the changes will affect the way they trade. An equal number of respondents expected no change to their trading behaviour.

Despite this uncertainty, traders remained confident with regards to growth in the block trading sector, with 18% of respondents expecting the greater than 50% growth in the market and a further 30% of respondents expecting growth between 0-50%. Only 9% of respondents expected a decline in growth, with the remaining 43% of respondents expecting the market to remain stable.

When asked if the UK was more accepting of non-display pool trading than other countries, and therefore the best market place for it, 15% thought that this was the case and 45% stated it was too early to tell.

There are also evidently concerns surrounding key macro level themes. A significant 15% of respondents felt that rising interest rates would have the biggest impact on their firm, whilst Brexit, the global influence of the Chinese economy and competition made up 20% of future concerns to traders. This is very much echoed in the 52% of respondents who predicted their companies would begin to shrink their workforce over the next three years, with only 15% expecting workforces to grow.

Pedro Coelho, Executive Chairman of BNI Europa said: “The bank is extremely committed to supporting SMEs in the European space. Our partnerships with Raize and MarketInvoice are just some of the initiatives the bank is promoting with fintech businesses and more are likely to follow. I believe it is inevitable that banks will have to work more collaboratively with fintech businesses going forward.” 
José Rego, Chief Executive Officer and cofounder of RAIZE said: “The deal between RAIZE and BNI Europa is the first of its kind in Portugal, and shows renewed interest from investors in Portuguese businesses.”

“We are seeing very interesting growth rates in the Portuguese market - a market most people thought was too risk-averse and unsophisticated. In fact, at the pace we’re growing, we expect 25% of SMEs in Portugal to be financed by investors in 5 to 10 years’ time,” José Rego said.

The formation of PayNet is aligned with Bank Negara Malaysia’s efforts to ensure Malaysia’s payments infrastructures are competitive, efficient, open and innovative to accelerate the nation’s migration to electronic payments (e-payments) and to meet the existing and future needs of the economy. PayNet will be jointly owned by BNM and the financial industry.

“The merged entity will assume a key role in enhancing Malaysia’s growth potential through the provision of world-class payment systems that are competitive, efficient, open and innovative. As a shared utility, PayNet will operate with a public interest objective to support and develop safe, reliable and efficient payment systems in Malaysia”, said Governor, Muhammad bin Ibrahim. 

The merger will increase synergies and efficiencies through coordinated strategies for the development of shared payment infrastructures under a single entity that will improve the cost-effectiveness, inclusiveness and the value proposition of e-payment services in Malaysia. To facilitate network expansion and drive innovation in payment services, PayNet will enable open and fair access to its payment infrastructures to both banks and eligible non-bank entities. In the immediate term, infrastructure projects that will be spearheaded by PayNet include the establishment of a national addressing database to facilitate payments to recipients using their mobile phone numbers or National Registration Identity Card (NRIC) numbers. PayNet will also promote the acceptance of MyDebit cards as a low-cost alternative for merchants to lessen the need for cash in retail transactions.

"The merger comes at an opportune time when it is increasingly crucial for the country to avoid duplication and consequently make the right investment decisions to help prepare the domestic financial sector for what might come next. In this respect, we envisage that PayNet will facilitate innovation and technological improvements in payment infrastructures for the benefit of the various market participants in the financial sector, while preserving the need for stability and security", added Datuk Abdul Farid Alias, the Chairman of MEPS.

PayNet will operate the nation’s key payment systems previously operated by MyClear and MEPS. These include the Real Time Electronic Transfer of Funds and Securities System (RENTAS) that facilitates the transfer and settlement of high-value interbank payments and securities transactions, and various retail payment and clearing systems, including the Shared ATM Network, Interbank GIRO (IBG), Instant Transfer, JomPAY, Financial Process Exchange (FPX), Direct Debit, domestic debit card network (MyDebit) and the cheque clearing system.

The Launchpad Accelerator targets growth-stage companies and invites them to their headquarters in Mountain View for work-shops and networking with the Silicon Valley eco-system. A 2-week leadership bootcamp in July is followed by 6 months of mentorship and support designed to help scale businesses. Names of all companies accepted into the programme were announced in a post on the Google Developers Blog. 

JUMO CEO and Founder Andrew Watkins-Ball said, “We are solving a really important problem and it’s exciting when someone like Google takes notice.” 

The Launchpad Accelerator, which opened to African countries (Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria) for the first time this year, selects the best emerging market startups via a rigorous application process. In addition to the bootcamp, $50,000 equity-free funding and support and $100,000 worth of Google products, JUMO will benefit from the opportunity to work closely with Google for 6 months. 

Using behavioural data from mobile usage, JUMO is tackling inequality in relation to access to financial services head on. The company, which launched in 2015, partners with large digital footprint holders such as mobile network operators to deliver a new generation of financial services to customers who need instant access to working capital, savings and other financial services. 

JUMO is present in all the leading mobile money markets in Sub-Saharan Africa including Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana with operations support in Cape Town. The company is commencing operations in Asia in Q3 of this year.

Grecoff joined Cinnober in 2012 after being Head of Sales, Client Services in the Asia Pacific area for SMARTS. Prior to joining SMARTS, Michael was Manager Surveillance at the Canadian Regulator, Autorité des marchés financiers a department he was mandated to pioneer.

In his time at Cinnober, Grecoff was responsible for some marquee deals such as the sale of surveillance technology to NYSE Group's exchanges, the sale of a surveillance system to Javelin SEF (today part of CBOE) and Clear Markets SEF.

“I have dedicated a large part of my career to protecting the integrity of financial markets. I learned on paper tickets and blotters. Today we must rely on systems, and compliance teams must rely on the system’s developers. The trust level between tech and compliance users is at an all-time low. My plan is to bring the same integrity to software as I have to the markets under my watch in the past. Founding DAHU Technologies represents the culmination of a lifetime experience in regulation and market surveillance," said Grecoff. "DAHU is an effective market surveillance solution for trading venues, banks and brokers. It has low cost of ownership and implementation. Above all, it works."

DAHU Technologies is headquartered in London with sales representation in New York. It is also the first surveillance technology firm to be founded by an ex-regulator. The DAHU management team shares experience in Reg Tech, big data, high frequency trading, analytics and gaming technology. The principals have worked with tier 1 market places, self-regulated organizations, national regulators and global banks.