Forget FinTechs, here come RegTechs!

You’ve just familiarised yourself with FinTech. Now it’s time to take a look at the innovation that rocked London 2016 FinTech Week: RegTech. The ambition: to manage all regulatory aspects, from the determination of ratios to risk mapping and KYC management.

These new players aim to address the following challenges:

What can lenders learn from the motor finance sector?

In April, the Bank of England reported that growth in unsecured borrowing, including personal loans, had returned to rates not seen since the financial crisis. With market confidence renewed, lenders are now looking for best practices that can help them make the most of the rising market. Enhancing the customer experience is a good starting point; removing ‘points of friction’ can significantly reduce application drop outs. It’s also something that the motor finance industry is really starting to nail.

Despite economic doubts and stricter compliance requirements, the sector has continued to demonstrate enviable growth. In October 2015, car sales had been rising consecutively for 43 months and, after a brief pause (for new plates to be issued), sales picked up again, and at a faster rate than before. In March 2016, the new car market surged by 5.3%, making it the highest grossing month since 1999. Given that roughly 80% of all new vehicles are bought with finance it’s little wonder that the Finance & Leasing Association (FLA) reported an 11% increase in motor finance lending in Q1 2016.

IFRS 9: The road to intelligent implementation

As the 2018 deadline approaches, the implementation of accounting standard IFRS 9 is revealing itself to be a transformational event instead of just one more item on a crowded to-do list. 

Banks are, accordingly, starting to understand that they will require system architectures and solutions that embody the models they are striving for internally – ones that seamlessly integrate multiple functions, create areas of common ground and feature the efficiency and flexibility to embrace the many changes yet to come. Here Jeroen Van Doorsselaere, vice president, Risk and Finance, at Wolters Kluwer, provides IBS with his thoughts on how to intelligently approach implementation.

GFRC: Bringing critical functions together

Post-mortems of the financial crisis concluded that certain practices had infected banks with a near-fatal case of myopia. Each segment, or silo, within an organisation – whether a business or product line, geographic jurisdiction or category of risk – was the master of its own limited domain; no one was clearly and unambiguously responsible for assessing the big picture as far as risk and performance were concerned. A holistic approach to Governance, Finance, Risk and Compliance (GFRC), can help banks looking to combat antiquated organisational structures and technology, adapt to the new regulatory landscape.

Foremost among the responses to the financial crisis was Basel III, the governance guidelines proposed in 2010 by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, revised and expanded since then and in the process of being implemented worldwide. Beyond Basel III, institutions must contend with European Union initiatives, including the latest iteration of the Capital Requirements Directive (CRD IV); the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), for investment services; the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), covering derivative instruments, etc. Firms are also implementing principles revised by the International Accounting Standards.

BCBS 239 compliance: A catalyst for effective change

It’s the end of May 2016 and as the BCBS 239 deadline is now five months overdue, banks are still asking what approach towards compliance will prove to be the most effective. Some banks have taken a methodical and timely ‘check-the-box’ approach whilst some have viewed the regulation as an opportunity to thoroughly strengthen their underlying governance, architecture and data quality.

To first understand the logic behind both strategies, it’s worth revisiting what the regulation is and how it came to be. Back in January 2013, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision published the BCBS 239 principles for effective risk data aggregation and risk reporting, in response to the lessons learned during the 2007 global financial crisis.

UK retail banking in need of transformation

After a two-year investigation the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published provisional recommendations to improve retail banking in the UK. It’s a sector that deserves attention but once again a golden opportunity to perform a radical overhaul of the existing market has been shunned in favour of a more modest set of anticipated outcomes. 

A vision of the future - and it has to be near term if you want to compete

Immediately following the 2008 crash we should have been at the peak of regulatory change. Indeed, there were some very rapid responses, such as the 2009/2010 UK liquidity regime.  The mountain of reform needed was far greater than initially understood, ranging from structural change to Basel III.

As a result of the size of the change needed, it has been slower. Bank business model changes have arisen as a result of the redefinition of capital, the meaning of high quality and, of course liquidity. In addition, the amount of capital reserves and liquidity have increased.  But now that Basel III is largely in place, is the avalanche over? 

Bringing the rulebook into the 21st century: what is the General Data Protection Regulation and why is it important?

Regulatory bodies are often lambasted for their failure to keep pace with the rapid rate of technology change. The way that businesses are regulated to share, use and store customers’ personal data is an area that has long been under scrutiny.

The existing regulation of personal data management dates back to 1995, a time before the majority of financial services providers had digital relationships with their personal and business customers. Indeed, only one in ten adults used the internet.

Today, mobile and internet banking is being used for transactions worth nearly £1 billion a day in the UK alone, according to the BBA and EY. This step change in how personal data is used in the banking industry demonstrates the industry-wide drivers behind a new approach to data protection.

Payments Knowledge Forum: the inside track

@TFL

This year's Payments Knowledge Forum (PKF) in London kicked off with the theme that we are moving towards an ever more virtual world. David Smith, Wincor Nixdorf, opened the event with the statement that people are constantly on the move and expect their services to move effortlessly with them.

So how can the payments industry live up to this expectation?

Sibos: day two round-up

@Swift

Day two of Sibos continued the theme of collaboration, with more focus on standards, market infrastructures and new technologies under the spotlight.

Sibos: day one round-up

@Swift

Sibos 2014 kicked off in Boston with the focus inevitably on regulation, standards and the build-up to the much anticipated plenary which revealed Swift's pricing strategy.

Have European banks given up on core banking system replacements?

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Despite the emergence of new technology and increasing competition, it seems the replacement of core banking systems is not on the agenda for European banks. Instead, banks are investing in niche IT projects to not only maintain their existing systems, but to introduce incremental changes, which can provide a quick return on investment (ROI) and meet their business and consumer needs.

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.