Sila Provides FinTech Companies With An On-Ramp To Payments
#Sila is designed to help fintechs get access to #payments networks without going through months of regulatory approvals for money transfer licenses.
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Payments Are Moving To Real-Time Around The World, The U.S. Plays Catch-Up
The move toward real-time #payments in the U.S. has been slow because regulators have not mandated that #banks go real-time.
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Fintechna is proud partner of Paris Fintech Forum 2019
Fintechna is proud to be a partner of the 4th edition of the Paris #Fintech Forum 2019, which will be held on January 2019 29th & 30th. This 4th edition aims to bring together 2,600+ attendees over 2 days, in the heart of Paris, to exchange with 220+ CEO’s from bank, insurance, telco, regulators and of course Fintech, who will be on stage.
YOU ARE A PROMISING FINTECH? IT IS TIME TO APPLY TO JOIN US ON STAGE!
Over 150 Fintechs from all over the world, of all sectors and maturity stage will be represented in both showcases & panels.
* see conditions on Paris Fintech Forum websiteIf you want to have a chance to be selected & be on stage, have a free booth (limited availability), get listed in the Altéir Fintech Selection Book (8,000+ copies of the 2018 edition distributed all over Europe and further) and enjoy a free access to the event, please apply now by clicking here or on the button below.
Watch our 30 seconds speakership video teaserTake your chance to be on stage at the most exclusive European event on digital finance & Fintech !Feel free to contact the Paris Fintech Forum team if you have any question at [email protected]
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The brave new world of Open Banking in APAC: Malaysia
Following the rollout of #Open #Banking regulations in the UK and the launch this year of the EU’s Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), countries across the Asia-Pacific region are following suit to establish their own frameworks to enable #banks to share select customer data with third-party providers (TPPs), and TPPs to run transactions on customer accounts.
Click/tap to view larger Regulatory Developments
As in Singapore, #Malaysia’s approach to Open Banking, while less comprehensive than that of its city-state neighbour, has been to establish a non-mandatory framework and to support banking transformation with the creation of implementation teams. There are currently no timelines for implementation.
Malaysia’s central bank and principal financial services regulator, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), established a Financial Technology Enabler Group (FTEG) in June 2016 to support innovations in the sector. The FTEG is responsible for formulating and enhancing regulatory policies related to the adoption of new #technology in financial services in the country. Accordingly, in mid-2017 it launched a #Fintech Regulatory Sandbox framework to allow the testing of applicable technology, including Open Banking.
In its final quarterly bulletin of 2017 [PDF], BNM focused on open APIs and their potential impact on the country’s financial sector, promising to establish an Open API Implementation Group in early 2018. This was set up in March, with a remit to develop standards on open data, security, access rights and oversight arrangements for TPPs, and to review existing regulations covering controls on customer information.
Also in March, the BNM set up an Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework (ICTF), which promotes collaborative competition for mobile payments.
Key market initiatives, opportunities & risks
The government is prioritising the impact of new technology on the banking sector, with insurers and government agencies a secondary focus. Banks have already seen the opportunities and risks, with some acting to anticipate and benefit from the impact of the country’s vibrant fintech scene, although in the main they lack the capabilities to launch and scale open APIs.
CIMB, for instance, launched its fintech incubation programme as early as 2015, targeting and mentoring startups for their API platforms. The bank subsequently released a point-of-sale and payments platform. Standard Chartered in early 2017 launched a global developer sandbox with limited API capabilities. Later that year, Maybank also launched a developer portal equipped with 20 APIs, enabling 85 differing operations. Hong Leong Bank, meanwhile, runs a “LaunchPad” contest to develop innovations, which led to the successful launch of five applications in its first year.
Another significant development that banks in Malaysia seized on was BNM’s granting in December 2017 of an e-money license to WeChat Pay, the payments platform run by Chinese tech giant Tencent. Hong Leong Bank, Maybank, Public Bank and CIMB subsequently partnered with WeChat Pay.
Partnering with fintech innovators is one way banks in Malaysia are monetising Open Banking APIs; bank-specific POS systems have also been sold with payment-API connectivity. Predetermined pricing models—subscriptions, per-call and flat rate charges—have also been used. So far, successful open API use cases such as Maybank’s Treats Card app, on the Maybank2u platform, have been focused on retail customers.
Click/tap to view larger Several global, regional and Malaysian banks have granted developers access to their APIs via publicly available developer portals and sandboxes. Maybank, OCBC and DBS have advertised various applications and partnerships that have arisen from the use of their developer platforms. Some other banks, such as CIMB and Hong Leong, have been more selective, privately choosing which fintechs can access their APIs.
The use of developer portals and individual selection means that Malaysia has a number of siloed Open Banking use cases and products. The country’s Open Banking future will depend on how banks, fintechs and regulators develop a common framework and infrastructure that supports a cohesive ecosystem. The ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN), has been established to do exactly that.
AFIN, which is supported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the International Finance Corporation, aims to accelerate fintech innovation, digital transformation and build an Open Banking ecosystem across the region. This gives Malaysian fintechs and banks the opportunity to develop the infrastructure and capabilities with other geographies to support a regional Open Banking ecosystem.
Like Singapore, there are risks in Malaysia’s approach: without enforced compliance, the standardisation and adoption of APIs across the country could prove difficult. There is also uncertainty around when the Malaysian authorities will impose regulation.
In Malaysia as well, further opportunities will present themselves to drive retail and SME customer adoption with additional services and reduce the cost of servicing banks’ customer bases. Ecosystem platforms for real-time data sharing between banks and regulators will enable new use cases and shared revenue models—and, ultimately, enable banks to build their own TPP services using their competitors’ APIs.
This article was written in collaboration with Ewa Wojcik, Sam Waldman and Hakan Eroglu. Many thanks for their input, research and analysis.
Accenture at Sibos
We’ll be discussing Open Banking and other topics at Sibos. Come see us at our booth and join us in the conversation around enabling the digital economy. Keep up to date on all the latest from us around Sibos right here on the blog.
The post The brave new world of Open Banking in APAC: Malaysia appeared first on Accenture Banking Blog.
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The brave new world of Open Banking in APAC: Malaysia
Following the rollout of #Open #Banking regulations in the UK and the launch this year of the EU’s Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), countries across the Asia-Pacific region are following suit to establish their own frameworks to enable #banks to share select customer data with third-party providers (TPPs), and TPPs to run transactions on customer accounts.
Click/tap to view larger Regulatory Developments
As in Singapore, #Malaysia’s approach to Open Banking, while less comprehensive than that of its city-state neighbour, has been to establish a non-mandatory framework and to support banking transformation with the creation of implementation teams. There are currently no timelines for implementation.
Malaysia’s central bank and principal financial services regulator, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), established a Financial Technology Enabler Group (FTEG) in June 2016 to support innovations in the sector. The FTEG is responsible for formulating and enhancing regulatory policies related to the adoption of new #technology in financial services in the country. Accordingly, in mid-2017 it launched a #Fintech Regulatory Sandbox framework to allow the testing of applicable technology, including Open Banking.
In its final quarterly bulletin of 2017 [PDF], BNM focused on open APIs and their potential impact on the country’s financial sector, promising to establish an Open API Implementation Group in early 2018. This was set up in March, with a remit to develop standards on open data, security, access rights and oversight arrangements for TPPs, and to review existing regulations covering controls on customer information.
Also in March, the BNM set up an Interoperable Credit Transfer Framework (ICTF), which promotes collaborative competition for mobile payments.
Key market initiatives, opportunities & risks
The government is prioritising the impact of new technology on the banking sector, with insurers and government agencies a secondary focus. Banks have already seen the opportunities and risks, with some acting to anticipate and benefit from the impact of the country’s vibrant fintech scene, although in the main they lack the capabilities to launch and scale open APIs.
CIMB, for instance, launched its fintech incubation programme as early as 2015, targeting and mentoring startups for their API platforms. The bank subsequently released a point-of-sale and payments platform. Standard Chartered in early 2017 launched a global developer sandbox with limited API capabilities. Later that year, Maybank also launched a developer portal equipped with 20 APIs, enabling 85 differing operations. Hong Leong Bank, meanwhile, runs a “LaunchPad” contest to develop innovations, which led to the successful launch of five applications in its first year.
Another significant development that banks in Malaysia seized on was BNM’s granting in December 2017 of an e-money license to WeChat Pay, the payments platform run by Chinese tech giant Tencent. Hong Leong Bank, Maybank, Public Bank and CIMB subsequently partnered with WeChat Pay.
Partnering with fintech innovators is one way banks in Malaysia are monetising Open Banking APIs; bank-specific POS systems have also been sold with payment-API connectivity. Predetermined pricing models—subscriptions, per-call and flat rate charges—have also been used. So far, successful open API use cases such as Maybank’s Treats Card app, on the Maybank2u platform, have been focused on retail customers.
Click/tap to view larger Several global, regional and Malaysian banks have granted developers access to their APIs via publicly available developer portals and sandboxes. Maybank, OCBC and DBS have advertised various applications and partnerships that have arisen from the use of their developer platforms. Some other banks, such as CIMB and Hong Leong, have been more selective, privately choosing which fintechs can access their APIs.
The use of developer portals and individual selection means that Malaysia has a number of siloed Open Banking use cases and products. The country’s Open Banking future will depend on how banks, fintechs and regulators develop a common framework and infrastructure that supports a cohesive ecosystem. The ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN), has been established to do exactly that.
AFIN, which is supported by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the International Finance Corporation, aims to accelerate fintech innovation, digital transformation and build an Open Banking ecosystem across the region. This gives Malaysian fintechs and banks the opportunity to develop the infrastructure and capabilities with other geographies to support a regional Open Banking ecosystem.
Like Singapore, there are risks in Malaysia’s approach: without enforced compliance, the standardisation and adoption of APIs across the country could prove difficult. There is also uncertainty around when the Malaysian authorities will impose regulation.
In Malaysia as well, further opportunities will present themselves to drive retail and SME customer adoption with additional services and reduce the cost of servicing banks’ customer bases. Ecosystem platforms for real-time data sharing between banks and regulators will enable new use cases and shared revenue models—and, ultimately, enable banks to build their own TPP services using their competitors’ APIs.
This article was written in collaboration with Ewa Wojcik, Sam Waldman and Hakan Eroglu. Many thanks for their input, research and analysis.
Accenture at Sibos
We’ll be discussing Open Banking and other topics at Sibos. Come see us at our booth and join us in the conversation around enabling the digital economy. Keep up to date on all the latest from us around Sibos right here on the blog.
The post The brave new world of Open Banking in APAC: Malaysia appeared first on Accenture Banking Blog.
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The need for change in trade finance
The role of the bank in the #trade #finance industry has historically been to satisfy four main areas:
- facilitation of secure payment execution
- provision of finance
- management of data and information
- mitigation of risk
In today’s market all these services are available through non-bank service providers, posing a threat to the trade finance establishment.
The over-reliance on paper and manual checks means that the current processing of transactions is fraught with inefficiencies and risk, which ultimately leads to higher costs. #Banks often seek to protect their margins in traditional trade finance by passing these costs on to the corporate client, driving such clients towards open account trade that is riskier but cheaper.
This is a unique moment in our industry, when changing regulation, increased availability of emerging #technology and changing expectations from corporate clients are pushing banks to #change their business models beyond the simple digitization of current processes.
In a sector particularly vulnerable to fraud, letters of credit, standby-letters-of-credit and other trade finance instruments are used to ensure exporters are paid on time by importers. Meanwhile, banks guarantee that importers receive goods that match the terms of the letter of credit. Bank-intermediated trade provides confidence and fosters trade around the world while providing banks with a low-risk source of revenue that is capital efficient under Basel III.
However, this business is undergoing deep changes:
- Globalization of the economy has increased knowledge of international trade, helping corporates to better understand cultural and local market requirements in emerging markets. The ability of corporate clients to be self-sufficient in mitigating some of their transaction risk has fueled the shift to open account financing. Although this type of financing does not guarantee payment in the same way a letter of credit does, it is faster, cheaper and relatively frictionless in comparison to a LOC. The emergence of multiple solutions for clients is now calling for a client-centric approach.
- Digitalization tends to change corporates’ expectations. Corporate treasurers are younger than ever before, and their experiences in shopping and conducting other personal business lead them to expect the same kind of experience in their professional endeavors. They are increasingly looking for an end-to-end digital experience, encompassing communication and documents, advanced reporting and tailored product and service offers. In parallel to client experience, digitalization is a great way to improve employee experience and strengthen the bank’s compliance and risk monitoring.
- Particularly in emerging markets, there is a shortage of financing available for small to medium enterprises (SMEs); this is due to the retreat by global banks from these countries and a lack of liquidity and correspondent banking relationships for local banks. Over 60 percent of SMEs in emerging markets are rejected for financing and nearly 30 percent do not reapply according to the ICC. In the volatile and rapidly changing world of trade policy the #need to build shorter, more agile supply chains is even more pressing and the creation/participation in “marketplaces” becoming a real opportunity, in particular for SMEs.
Out of this mix of social, technological and regulatory change, next-generation trade platforms and processes are emerging. Distributed business models, which no longer rely on banks being central to the financial supply chain, mean that those institutions are looking at ways to retain their relevance to corporate clients. Traditional competitors are collaborating through consortia of ecosystem players, working for the benefit of the entire industry instead of being self-serving in their approach.
In the second part of this series, we will look at how #blockchain and other technologies are helping banks rethink and redesign their approach to trade finance.
Join me at Sibos 2018, as I moderate the “Delivering the trade environment of the future” roundtable. Register here.
The post The need for change in trade finance appeared first on Accenture Banking Blog.
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Thomson Reuters And Squirro Offer Powerful CRM For Wealth Managers and Commercial Bankers
For complex customer relationship management (CRM) #Thomson #Reuters Financial and Risk, now known as Refinitiv, has partnered with #Squirro to make better use of the multiple CRM systems that #wealth #managers and #commercial #bankers often have to rely on.
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The brave new world of Open Banking in APAC: Singapore
Following the rollout of #Open #Banking regulations in the UK and the launch this year of the EU’s Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), countries across the Asia-Pacific region are following suit to establish their own frameworks to enable #banks to share select customer data with third-party providers (TPPs), and TPPs to run transactions on customer accounts.
Click/tap image to view larger Regulatory developments
#Singapore’s approach has matured rapidly to make the city one of the leading jurisdictions for Open Banking in the region. The groundwork was done as early as 2014, under the government’s Smart Nation Singapore initiative to drive the adoption of new digital technologies, starting with open data and payments.
In November 2016 the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), in collaboration with the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS), published a comprehensive roadmap—Finance-as-a-Service: API Playbook—which, in effect, set the gold standard for regulatory advice on the topic in Asia. The playbook set out a comprehensive framework that introduced governance, implementation, use cases and design principles for application programming interfaces (APIs), together with a list of over 400 recommended APIs and over 5,600 processes for their development.
Click/tap image to view larger In May 2017 MAS, the International Finance Corporation and the ASEAN Bankers Association launched the ASEAN #Fintech Innovation Network. AFIN aims to accelerate financial sector development, boost access to finance, improve the customisability of products and reduce banking costs in the region. AFIN is scheduled to launch their Industry Sandbox, which will sit between banks and fintechs, in late 2018. This interoperable and scalable infrastructure will act as a method to standardise banking infrastructure and data while also allowing institutions to test applications.
The launch in September 2017 of the Network for Electronic Transfers (NETS) nationwide payments service, including the NETSPay eWallet, was another major milestone. Also in late 2017, the government built an API Exchange (APEX) to serve as a centralised data-sharing platform, which allows government agencies across the city to share data securely through APIs. It has also established a Financial Industry API Register, updated semi-annually, which tracks APIs by functional category as they are launched.
The approach of Singapore’s authorities to Open Banking has been characterised by a willingness to shape innovation with a comprehensive, non-mandatory regulation and governance framework; to lead by example by opening their own data for APIs, and to establish scalable data practices and a payments infrastructure that underpin innovation in the area. MAS officials have preferred not to force the issue and to approach the development of Open Banking services in an organic fashion, according to comments made in recent media interviews. There is no specific timeline mandated for compliance or adoption.
Key initiatives, opportunities & risks
The reason for the regulatory light touch is principally because banks in Singapore see the opportunities of the #technology and are already keenly pursuing them, with competition driving innovation.
DBS, for instance, launched an Innovation Plan in mid-2015 that had over 1,000 experiments in APIs, cloud computing, microservice architecture and Machine Learning. In May 2016, OCBC Bank launched the first open API developer platform in Asia, Connect2OCBC. CitiBank’s Global Developer Hub opened its first platform in Singapore in late 2016; Standard Chartered did so in early 2017, and DBS in November that year launched an API platform with more than 20 categories and 155 functions. More recently UOB announced plans to launch an open, digital-only bank.
So far these efforts have been characterised by a focus on retail opportunities, with competition driving banks to move quickly and establish large API platforms while also releasing novel products that showcase Open Banking capabilities.
Many banks in Singapore, unlike elsewhere in the region, have partnered with fintechs and developers to launch applications that use their publicly available APIs. One example is Standard Chartered’s The Good Life service, which provides its Singapore customers with an ecosystem of merchants that offer deals, alternative payment methods and reward-point options. UOB, by contrast, has been more selective: instead of launching a public developer platform, it has selected specific fintechs and launched applications that leverage their APIs.
Banks in Singapore have monetised their APIs through a combination of private partnerships with third-party platforms, predetermined pricing models (including subscriptions, per-call and flat-rate charges) and also pricing models determined by sales functions.
There are risks in Singapore’s approach: Without enforced compliance, API standardisation across the country is difficult. There is also uncertainty around when the MAS will impose regulation.
Nevertheless, further opportunities will present themselves to drive retail and SME customer adoption with additional services and reduce the cost of servicing banks’ customer bases. Ecosystem platforms for real-time data sharing between banks and regulators will enable new use cases and shared revenue models—and, ultimately, enable banks to build their own TPP services using their competitors’ APIs.
Accenture at Sibos
We’ll be discussing Open Banking and other topics at Sibos. Come see us at our booth and join us in the conversation around enabling the digital economy. Keep up to date on all the latest from us around Sibos right here on the blog.
The post The brave new world of Open Banking in APAC: Singapore appeared first on Accenture Banking Blog.
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Salesforce Expands Its Financial Services Platform
#Salesforce has expanded its #financial #services offering to support front line employees such as wealth managers and insurance agents.
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eCommerce portals: The grand B2B convergence
For decades, business-to-business (B2B) commerce has relied on a broad array of organizations, such as trading partners and third-party payment and reconciliation facilitators, to complete any given purchase of goods and services. These organizations have been stitched loosely together by postal mail, telephones, computers and email, as depicted in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Illustrative Elements of a Traditional Paper-Based Payments Transaction
Source: Accenture Payments research. Click/tap image to view larger. Historically, innovations have automated selected components of the above transaction process, but not necessarily allowed for process #convergence. For example:
- Distributed walking plastic purchasing cards automate step 3 for buyers and suppliers. However, the related transaction may still rely on completion of the other steps. As a time-saving feature, purchasing cards have been promoted as a way to avoid steps 2 and 4 above—by presenting a card for payment at the outset of step 2 when goods or services are received. Many buying organizations have, therefore, been reluctant to allow purchasing cards for transactions above a few thousand dollars (in other words, transaction limits).
- ePayables solutions (also known as virtual cards) have progressed further than purchasing cards as providers have supported directly, or through implemented integrations, automation of steps 2 through 5 above. However, the purchasing process has often been decoupled from payments, resulting in what can be a very manual and intensive supplier enablement campaign process. Furthermore, while ePayables integration for buyers can often dramatically reduce process time and cost, ePayables often present a manual payment acceptance process for suppliers—due in part to the proliferation of disparate, non-compatible ePayables solutions.
#eCommerce marketplace #portals are widely available and have been used many years for business-to-consumer transactions. Consider holiday shopping, for instance. Traditionally, one would go to a local mall or the outlets to find items for gift-giving. In recent years, many consumers have opted instead to complete some or most of their holiday shopping on the web through an eCommerce portal with access to an array of categories of new or used merchandise.
As with so many other aspects of commerce, the consumer experience is leading to greater adoption and efficiencies for buyers and suppliers conducting B2B commerce. Through various eCommerce portal alternatives, connectivity with the requisition process can be improved and all of steps 1 through 5 may be converged and automated. Critical aspects, such as trading terms and forms of payment, may be determined upfront and, thereby, automated for any given transaction. Recent announcements by various eCommerce portals have included features that facilitate buyer and supplier reporting and reconciliations.
Over time, these portals appear to be well-positioned to serve a greater portion of B2B trading activities.
Also published in the NAPCP TransAct! newsletter
The post eCommerce portals: The grand B2B convergence appeared first on Accenture Banking Blog.
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