VocaLink, First Data and Accenture pitch Aussie real-time payments system

VocaLink, First Data and Accenture are planning to build a system similar to the UK's Faster Payments service in Australia, enabling consumers and businesses to transfer funds between bank accounts in near real-time.

Bank-owned VocaLink launched the UK's Faster Payments Service in May 2008, enabling Brits to make near real-time transfer of phone, Internet and standing order payment instructions.

Last year the processor sought to capitalise on the infrastructure it has developed with a global offering, Immediate Payments; signing deals with vendors Clear2Pay and Fundtech to help push the service around the world.

It has now teamed up with First Data and Accenture to target Australia, where the Reserve Bank recently carried out a strategic review of innovation in the country's payments system.

In June, two years after launching its review, the RBA laid out its conclusions, which include the objective of enabling real-time retail payments by 2016, adding that it believes that this "would best be delivered by the establishment of a real-time payments hub, rather than a web of bilateral links".

The three vendors have signed an "exclusive teaming agreement" in a bid to take advantage of this and will now seek input from key industry participants to collaboratively define, scope and develop the technical, operational and governance elements of the offering.

VocaLink says that it is already consulting with banks and other stakeholders and has received positive feedback, adding that it would not be making such a public pitch with its two partners if it was not confident. The company also says that, with its Immediate Payments system already developed, it is confident of being able to roll out a service quickly once agreements are in place.

David Yates, CEO, VocaLink, says: "Today's mobile, digital consumer is increasingly likely to require services - including payments - to be delivered reliably, securely and instantly, 24-hours-a-day,365-days-a-year. We're proud to partner with First Data and Accenture to provide the Australian public with this important and innovative service."

Extract taken from: http://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=24048

iGate Assists Financial Services Industry Preparation for LEI Compliance Mandate

iGATE Corporation, an integrated technology and operations company providing business outcomes-based solutions, has announced an initiative that supports banks and financial services institutions prepare for the legal entity identifier, or LEI, compliance mandate, a new standard for identifying all parties to financial contracts.

The international LEI compliance program is expected to be launched by March 2013 and is aimed at easing and standardizing the identification mechanism of all financial institutions thereby enabling regulators to better scrutinize global financial transactions and identify, measure and monitor emerging and systemic risks.

iGATE's proprietary reference and data rationalization (RADAR) tool provides the first defining step towards an informed data remediation, migration, redesign or rationalization program in preparation for LEI, the company said.

In preparation for the LEI implementation, financial institutions will need to take several steps, including: examine their data environments and launch remediation projects to improve data quality; address deficient data governance practices; correct inefficient client onboarding practices; aggregate, improve and integrate reference data environments; map to vendor codes; create hierarchies; validate ownership relationships; clarify roles performed; and, finally, cross reference all of their existing entity identifiers to issued LEIs and feed the LEI-enriched data to OFR systemic risk surveillance systems.

Fred Cohen, group vice president and global head of banking and financial services at iGATE, said: "LEI will have infrastructure implications throughout the institution. iGATE has developed solutions and operations that are currently empowering our clients with comprehensive data lineage to efficiently rationalize and remediate their reference, entity, liquidity risk and counterparty environments. The recent endorsement of global implementation of LEI by the G-20 has also heightened the focus on this initiative."

Extract taken from:

http://www.equities.com/news/headline-story?dt=2012-09-10&val=462906&cat=finance

Barclays Appoints New Chief Executive

Barclays has appointed Antony Jenkins to be its new chief executive.

The appointment follows the resignation of former chief executive Bob Diamond in the wake of the Libor interest rate-fixing scandal.

Mr Jenkins currently runs Barclays Retail and Business Banking and has been a member of the group's executive committee since 2009.

In a statement, Mr Jenkins said he was "very proud to have been asked to lead Barclays", where he began his career nearly 30 years ago.

But he admitted: "We have made serious mistakes in recent years and clearly failed to keep pace with our stakeholders' expectations."
Mr Jenkins takes over at a difficult time for the banking group, which has seen its reputation severely dented.

In June, it was fined £290m by UK and US regulators for manipulating Libor, an interbank lending rate which affects mortgages and loans.

Mr Jenkins will start on a basic salary of £1.1m, with a potential annual bonus worth up to 250% of his salary subject to performance.

On top of this, he may be eligible for a long-term incentive bonus worth a maximum of 400% of his salary.

Barclays chairman Marcus Agius said Mr Jenkins was chosen "because of his excellent track record transforming Barclaycard and Retail and Business Banking".

Mr Agius resigned as chairman following the Libor scandal, but agreed to stay on until a new chief executive was found.

He will be replaced by Sir David Walker.

The scandal also led to the resignations of the group's chief executive, Bob Diamond, and its chief operating officer, Jerry del Missier.
Mr Jenkins was chief executive of Barclaycard from 2006 to 2009.

Extract taken from:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19420310

The Social Recruitment Compass

The rapid integration of social media into the business world has created an enormous amount of new jobs and roles, both in this new sector and also within existing, established positions – a primary example being marketing.

Indeed, this diversity is now so wide and vast that it can be difficult to keep track of who is needed where… and to do what?

Thankfully, help is at hand, via this social recruitment compass, courtesy of Provide People. Twitter warrants a couple of strong mentions, both as a sub-sector itself, and also in the location services category. There are a few notable omissions – Pinterest, for one – and Facebook, I feel, deserves it’s own sub-sector, too, as many businesses and individuals rely on that behemoth for work, but perhaps that will come with a future update.

Extract taken from:

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/social-recruitment-compass_b27192

Big banks swing axe to slash 5,350 jobs

Three of the world’s biggest banks are preparing to shed a combined 5,350 investment bankers, as the industry struggles to adapt itself to continuing economic woes and the advent of new regulation.

Morgan Stanley is cutting a further 4,000 jobs, Deutsche Bank is set to lay off about 1,000 of its investment banking staff, equivalent to about 10 per cent of the unit’s workforce, while Citigroup is shedding 350 bankers.

Deutsche’s cuts, likely to be announced with quarterly earnings in a fortnight’s time, bring the German group more into line with European peers such as Credit Suisse, UBS and Barclays, which have taken a more aggressive stance on cost cuts over the past year.

Deutsche announced it was cutting 500 jobs last autumn, a process that the bank said a few months ago was largely complete.

The new job losses are likely to be mainly outside Germany, with most at the group’s principal investment banking bases in London and New York.

At Citi, the additional job losses, which will be focused mainly on traders, compared with a 17,000-strong securities and banking division. The US bank cut 900 jobs in December.

Credit Suisse and UBS are both pressing ahead with implementing job cuts announced late last year.

Analysts believe investment banks will remain under severe pressure to cut more costs over the coming months, as the cyclical effects of difficult trading conditions and a bleak economic outlook add to the longer-term challenges that come from tougher regulation of the industry.

“The eurozone crisis and the global macroeconomic environment have made for a cyclically weaker revenue environment,” said Kinner Lahkani, Citi analyst, pointing to a possible 10 per cent fall in the overall revenue pool across the industry in the area of fixed income, currencies and commodities.

“But the whole industry also faces structural change. The impact of over-the-counter derivatives reform, Volcker and Basel III could lead to a 15-20 per cent headwind on revenues over the next two to three years.”

So far this year, according to analysts, Morgan Stanley has implemented 1,600 lay-offs, while UBS, Credit Suisse and Barclays have all cut 1,500 staff or more.

However, on Thursday, as it unveiled weaker than expected investment banking results, Morgan Stanley said it would cut a further 7 per cent of its workforce, or more than 4,000 jobs, by the end of the year.

Goldman Sachs said it expected the sale of a hedge fund administration unit would reduce its headcount by “a couple of hundred” people and it would separately look to save about $500m a year in costs.

One Deutsche insider said its cuts were “tactical, not strategic”, suggesting there may be more to come in September when the bank’s new co-chief executives Anshu Jain and Jürgen Fitschen unveil a strategic review.

Extract taken from:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6c5382ea-d1c3-11e1-bb82-00144feabdc0.html#axzz21421Zbym

Axa Scoops Top Spot in Brokerbility Survey Once Again

The insurer scooped the highest overall satisfaction score with a rating of 80.18%.

Allianz came second in the rankings with a performance ranking of 74.87% while Aviva Bonus recorded the highest underwriting score of 77.6%.

Meanwhile, RSA improved its accounts performance by 5.4% compared to the previous survey.

Ashwin Mistry, chairman of Brokerbility said, "Our annual performance audit of insurers is a key foundation of the true partnership which exists between both parties.

"Whilst these latest findings reveal that insurers have performed well there is certainly room for improvement across all areas as we strive towards a 90% score as our minimum benchmark."

The research involved Brokerbility's seven ‘key insurer' partners, Axa, Allianz, Aviva, Chartis, NIG, RSA and Zurich.

And the survey - which is undertaken by Brokerbility members - rates insurer performance when dealing with claims, underwriting, accounts and overall satisfaction.

Extract taken from : http://tinyurl.com/buzhcfq

Barclays 'Pingit' Passes 500,000 Downloads in 4 months

Back in February, UK bank Barclays launched Pingit, a potentially game-changing app that lets users send and receive money using just their mobile phone number. And today the British bank has revealed that it has just hit 500,000 downloads of the app, less than three months after launch.

It was reported earlier this year that Pingit had sailed past 20,000 downloads in just a couple of days, which was pretty impressive given that it was open only to Barclays’ customers at the time. But when it opened its service to customer of other banks last month, it seems this may have helped boost the uptake.

There  has been lots previously written about the future of online banking, where it has been argued that Barclays blindsided the UK banking industry somewhat with the launch of Pingit. And crucially, the fact that it has opened up the service to customers of all banks could be key to its success.

By getting in there first, Pingit might become the industry standard before any of its competitors have even spluttered into their morning coffee. It’s understood that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), owner of NatWest, is looking at similar ideas, as is Lloyds Banking Group.

Antony Jenkins, chief executive of retail banking at Barclays, has previously said that Pingit would revolutionize banking, or at least live up to the scale achieved by telephone and Internet banking before it.

An indication that Barclays’ move was a masterstroke came in a frank admission by an HSBC spokesperson, who said that whilst it had no current plans to launch a rival service, it was “certainly a step forward for the banking industry.” That’s about as high-praise as you’ll ever get from one bank to another.

Extract taken from:

http://tiny.cc/m7a9fw