Sibos 2014: what to expect in Boston

With one month to go until thousands of delegates converge on Boston for the annual Sibos event, we give you the run-down on what trends and topics to expect during the conference. 

Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank: a match made in haste

I was delighted to talk recently to Philippos Leandrou, manager of IT services at Bank of Cyprus, about the project which finished earlier this year to merge Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank.

This merger was dictated by the EU as part of a bail-out which ‘crushed’ Cyprus. Except in the case where the EU willed it, the merger would surely have been disallowed otherwise, since it leaves Cyprus with effectively one bank. The terms of the bail-out saw all deposits over €100,000 in Laiki Bank and Bank of Cyprus used by the government to contribute to the bail-out.

Are banks slow in taking on the cloud?

© Neuro, Commons Wikimedia

Of late, there has been a lot of hype around why banks remain sluggish in adopting the cloud. As we all know, the banking services industry as a whole is often accused of being slow to implement innovative technology, with around 75 per cent of banks in Europe, for instance, using outdated core banking systems.

In part, concerns over security have created a barrier to the deployment of cloud technologies. These include the lack of visibility into the service provider security measures, the potential for unauthorised third party access to data, plus the lack of control over where data is stored.

Are real-time payments in the US a realistic prospect?

There has been a lot of coverage of real-time payments projects around the globe in the IBS Journal over the last few months, and it was certainly one of the key themes of the EBA Day conference in Helsinki in June. Europe looks like it is getting its act together in this respect, especially with SEPA now in the rear-view mirror and ISO 20022 gaining prominence, whilst the likes of the UK and Sweden have been ahead of the curve.

All that matters is not getting fined

Spending all your time firefighting

A common question we at IBS ask is, why do banks continually plump for older core systems?

Why do so many other banks focus on the time-honoured activities of patching up their existing software rather than tearing it all out and starting afresh?

There are a number of reasons for this, and they are well enough rehearsed.

Old systems, older systems, even older systems

Zions HQ, Salt Lake City © Ricardo630

I’ve been immersed in the US core banking systems market for the last few weeks as we are working on a new report, to help banks to navigate the many offerings that are available here. The task has taken me around the three mainstream heavyweights (FIS, Fiserv, Jack Henry & Associates), the few mid-tier players that remain (CSI, D+H, IBT), and the smaller players, including the couple of would-be new entrants. A key consideration, of course, is the extent to which these might finally be challenged by the non-US core system vendors.