In a rising market, are banking outsourcers pulling their weight?

The Quarterly Outsourcing Index recently confirmed that outside the public sector, banks and financial institutions are by far the most prodigious users of business process and technology outsourcing. In the first quarter of 2016, the industry’s contracts totaled a whopping £324 million, up 6% on the same period last year. This comes as no surprise. Despite consumer lending continuing to rise (gross mortgage borrowing, for example, is up 64% year-on-year) many banks remain in jeopardy. In April, two of the High Street’s biggest banks reported that operating losses had more than doubled since the previous year.

Commentators are quick to point the finger at past malpractice. It’s true that some big banks are facing huge FCA-imposed fines and are burdened by high volumes of customer complaints as a result. But lenders are also being impacted by other significant factors. Changes in regulation, for example, the global economic slowdown, Brexit and the Eurozone crisis and increased competition from new players entering the market. Widespread restructuring is commonplace and, in a bid to reduce cost and enable banks to refocus internal resources on generating revenues, many are outsourcing the operational upkeep of non-core operations to third parties.

UK Regulator Fosters Innovative Collaboration in Financial Services

Last month and after many weeks of planning, we supported the FCA to deliver a highly collaborative two day hackathon focused on improving access to financial services. 

You can look this up on Twitter using the hashtag #FCAsprint. To our knowledge, this was the first event of its kind by any regulator worldwide and saw big name brands come together with a shared purpose including KPMG, Visa Europe, Funding Circle, Lloyds Banking Group, the Post Office, iProov, HCL Financial Services, Fidor and the Financial Services Consumer Panel.

Robo-advisors – as revolutionary as they seem?

The rise of the robo-advisor has been well documented over the past year or so. The FCA recently announced an Advice Unit that helps firms develop robo-advisor models, and RBS has also publicised that they will be sacking hundreds of face-to-face advisors in favour of robots.

Armed by what appears to be a cheaper, more accessible service, the likes of Nutmeg and Wealthfront have not been shy in their promotion of being at the forefront of opening up obtainable investment opportunities to a wider audience.

Throwing good money after bad

Clearing house Bacs has said that it is working on a number of initiatives to boost the UK’s struggling Current Account Switch Service (CASS), following intervention by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Atom Bank: second mover advantage

It’s easy to be critical of the branch-first strategy of Metro Bank in the digital age, but listening to Anthony Thomson at the launch of Fiserv’s new Agiliti system gives one a more sympathetic perspective. The cumbersome regulatory process cost the bank millions; the payments system was jealously guarded by the existing high street banks; and the capital requirement was huge, even at a time when the industry was gasping for collateral.

Signs of life in the UK core banking market.....at last

Is the UK core banking software market finally showing signs of life? Vendors large and small are flocking back to the once dormant space as around 25 entities are waiting for approval from the country's regulator, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to launch banking operations.