RaboDirect ha sponsorizzato una interessante campagna pubblicitaria per capire la reazione degli australiani davanti alla possibilità di vedere delle banconote sugli alberi.
Le reazioni dei passanti sono state analizzate da uno psicologo e da un consulente finanziario e sono state molto diverse tra loro: qualcuno che faceva jogging ha ignorato le banconote mentre altri si sono aiutati a vicenda per poter raggiungere i rami più alti.
Commentando i risultati dell’esperimento la banca ha espresso sorpresa per l’interessa manifestato dai passanti in confronto all’attenzione che il correntista medio dedica ai fondi che annualmente giacciono inutilizzati presso le banche australiane.

[Fonte: Finextra, 25 maggio]

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Chi ha detto che le banche trascurano i Social Media e non possono essere innovative?

Dexia Bank, ha infatti lanciato nel 2009 una delle più originali iniziative nel settore finanziario: i concerti nel banner  (“Axion Banner concerts)”.

La banca Axion è già di per se un concetto innovativo, in quanto si tratta di un istituto finanziario di proprietà del gruppo Dexia separato e completamente dedicato alla cosiddetta generazione Y, cioè sulla fascia di età compresa tra i 12 ed i 25 anni.

L’idea originale di Dexia è stata quella di promuovere Axion lanciando un concorso per una band musicale che eseguisse dei brani all’interno di uno spazio fisico che ricordasse (ed avesse le stesse proporzioni) di un banner pubblicitario su internet. La cosa diventa più facile da comprendere guardando il seguente video della band Tim Van Hamel.

Le caratteristiche principali di questa campagna, realizzata insieme all’agenzia Boondoggle,  sono:

• La band vincente è stata scelta tramite un concorso online tra 25 diversi gruppi
• Ogni gruppo ha eseguito il suo pezzo in uno spazio che avesse esattamente le stesse proporzioni di un banner internet.
• I filmati in streaming sono stati distribuiti su internet e sui principali social networks, predisponendo un minisito in cui il pubblico potesse vedere il filmato e votare la band preferita
• Each performance was filmed and streamed onto popular websites or social networks
• La campagna dei Banner Concert ha utilizzato anche media più “tradizionali” come email, annunci su MTV, poster in negozi di musica, ristoranti, bar, etc.
• Il sito della campagna ha ricevuto contatti da 44.845 visitatori
• Hanno votato complessivamente 7.581 persone (la maggioranza ha preferito l’opzione  a pagamento via SMS a quella gratuita sul web)

La campagna ha ricevuto diversi premi ed è riassunta in questo video di 3 minuti.

Decisamente una iniziativa originale e da ricordare come esempio per qualsiasi settore merceologico, non solo per quello finanziario!

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Come promesso, ecco una nuova versione della presentazione Social Media per le PMI con alcuni esempi e numeri specifici per il mercato bancario.

The english version is here.

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Al momento non sono molte le istituzioni finanziarie che utilizzano i Social Media.

E’ con piacere quindi segnalare i Video virali di Monte Paschi Siena.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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E’ stato recentemente lanciato Blippy, un nuovo social media che permette di condividere automaticamente le transazioni effettuate con la carta di credito. Gli utenti del servizio, invece di scambiarsi tweets su cosa stanno facendo o pensando in quel momento, condividono pubblicamente informazioni quali l’importo della spesa, il luogo e, in qualche caso, la descrizione dell’oggetto acquistato.

L’idea a prima vista può sembrare totalmente incomprensibile ma in realtà ci sono alcuni elementi interessanti in questo social network. Infatti il servizio è mirato principalmente ad acquisire (e analizzare) informazioni dettagliate sulle transazioni più che a condividerle, consentendo così all’utente di monitorare in tempo reale se il prezzo che sta pagando per un determinato bene è appropriato.

Per approfondimenti suggerisco la lettura dell’ articolo pubblicato su cnet Blippy launches the Twitter of personal finance.

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Accenture has recently released a research study
to understand bank preparations for the PSD in the EEA. The
research was facilitated by the EBA (Euro Banking Association)
who distributed the survey to their membership, and was
conducted on-line using facilities provided by Finextra. The
survey objectives are to understand the current state of PSD
readiness and to allow banks to compare their progress against
the market.

The research was conducted during May 2009 and can be downloaded here.

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New York, Oct. 29, 2009 — American Banker and Bank Technology News, SourceMedia’s renowned publications for banking and financial services professionals, and IDC Financial Insights, an independent research services firm, today released the sixth annual FinTech 100 rankings of the top global technology providers to the financial services industry.

As the business environment within the financial services industry continues to be a challenging one, the FinTech 100 listing represents an insightful representation of where financial services companies are choosing to invest their technology dollars. Specific highlights from this year’s report include:

* Fiserv (NYSE: FISV) retains the number one spot as the largest provider of technology to the financial services industry;
* There are 41 companies on this year’s listed headquartered outside of North America;
* Representation from EMEA companies continues to be strong with 23 companies with combined revenues approaching $6 Billion;
* Three Chinese companies made list and include Hundson Technologies, Inc, Yucheng Technologies, Ltd and new this year Longtop Financial Technologies, Ltd.; and
* The number of Indian companies on the list continues to rise with 11 companies included representing combined revenue of more than $5 billion.

Vendors included in the 2009 FinTech 100 rankings are as follows:

1. Fiserv, Brookfield, Wis., USA
2. Sungard, Wayne, Penn., USA
3. Fidelity Information Services, Jacksonville, Fla., USA
4. Diebold, Incorporated, North Canton, Ohio, USA
5. NCR Corporation, Dayton, Ohio, USA
6. Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS), Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
7. First Data Corporation, Greenwood Village, Colo., USA
8. Total System Services, Inc. (TSYS), Columbus, Ga., USA
9. Lender Processing Services, Jacksonville, Fla., USA
10. Metavante Technologies, Inc., Milwaukee, Wis., USA
11. Infosys Technologies, Ltd., Bangalore, Karnataka, India
12. CA (Computer Associates), Islandia, N.Y., USA
13. Cognizant Technology Solutions, Teaneck, N.J., USA
14. DST Systems, Kansas City, Mo., USA
15. Experian Group Limited, Dublin, Ireland
16. SAS Institute, Cary, N.C., USA
17. Equifax, Atlanta, Ga., USA
18. Jack Henry and Associates, Inc., Monett, Mo., USA
19. Oberthur Card Systems S.A., Nanterre, France
20. Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., Lake Success, N.Y., USA
21. Ingenico S.A., Puteaux Cedex, France
22. FICO, Minneapolis, Minn., USA
23. Open Solutions Inc., Glastonbury, Conn., USA
24. Itautec, São Paulo, Brazil
25. EDB Business Partner ASA, Oslo, Norway
26. Temenos Group AG, Geneva, Switzerland
27. Hypercom Corporation, Scottsdale, Ariz., USA
28. ACI Worldwide, New York, N.Y., USA
29. Murex SA, Paris, France
30. Misys, London, UK
31. IPC Information Systems, Ltd., New York, N.Y., USA
32. 3i Infotech, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
33. CPM Braxis, São Paulo, Brazil
34. Syntel, Troy, Mich., USA
35. Harland Financial Solutions, Lake Mary, Fla., USA
36. SS&C Technologies, Inc., Windsor, Conn., USA
37. Mphasis Corporation (EDS), Bangalore, India
38. TransFirst Holdings, Inc., Dallas, Texas, USA
39. Polaris Software Lab Ltd., Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
40. Patni Computer Systems Ltd., Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
41. Advent Software, Inc., San Francisco, Calif., USA
42. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services, Minneapolis, Minn., USA
43. Simcorp, Copenhagen, Denmark
44. GFT Technologies AG, St. Georgen, Germany
45. Ness Technologies, Canonsburg, Penn., USA
46. Linedata Services S.A., Rueil-Malmaison, France
47. Resolve Corporation, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
48. Fidessa, London, UK
49. BancTec, Irving, Texas, USA
50. S1, Norcross, Ga., USA
51. GlobeOp Financial Services, London, UK
52. Headstrong Corporation, Fairfax, Va., USA
53. Firstsource Solutions Limited, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
54. DealerTrack Holdings, Lake Success, N.Y., USA
55. Charles River Development, Burlington, Mass., USA
56. Algorithmics, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
57. Politec, São Paulo, Brazil
58. Avaloq, Zurich, Switzerland
59. Interactive Data Corporation, Bedford, Mass., USA
60. Wall Street Systems, New York, N.Y., USA
61. Calypso Technology, San Francisco, Calif., USA
62. Longtop Financial Technologies Ltd., Beijing, China
63. Pegasystems, Cambridge, Mass., USA
64. Bravura Solutions Limited, Sydney, Australia
65. FundTech, Ltd., Jersey City, N.J., USA
66. Collabera, Morristown, N.J., USA
67. iGATE Global Solutions Limited, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
68. OpenLink, New York, N.Y., USA
69. Mastek, Mumbai, India
70. Sophis, London, UK
71. Vasco Data Security, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., USA
72. ERI Bancaire SA, Zurich,Switzerland
73. Chordiant Software, Inc., Cupertino, Calif., USA
74. Odyssey Financial Technologies, Prilly, Switzerland
75. Online Resources Corporation, Chantilly, Va., USA
76. Eagle Investment Systems LLC, West Hartford, Conn., USA
77. Viewpointe, New York, N.Y., USA
78. TAS Group, Bologna, Italy
79. Diamond Management & Technology Consultant, Chicago, Ill., USA
80. Callatay and Wouters, Brussels, Belgium
81. SmartStream, London, UK
82. Investment Technology Group, New York, N.Y., USA
83. ORC Software AB, Stockholm, Sweden
84. Goldleaf Financial Solutions, Inc., Norcross, Ga., USA
85. Nucleus Software, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
86. Wausau Financial Systems, Mosinee, Wis., USA
87. Hyland Software, Inc., Westlake, Ohio, USA
88. Actuate Corporation, San Mateo, Calif., USA
89. Hundsun Technologies Inc., Hangzhou, China
90. Viveo, Paris, France
91. Eze Castle Integration, Boston, Mass., USA
92. Panini, Bologna, Italy
93. Callidus Software, Inc., San Jose, Calif., USA
94. AurionPro Solutions, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
95. COCC, Avon, Conn., USA
96. FRS Global, Stevens-Woluwe, Belgium
97. Norkom Technologies, Dublin, Ireland
98. Yucheng Technologies Limited, Beijing, China
99. Celero Solutions Inc., Calgary, Alberta, Canada
100. Argo Data Resource Corporation, Richardson, Texas, USA

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The European Vending Association has announced the publication of its cashless position paper, which the Members of the Cashless Committee have been working on for almost 2 years.

It is a collaborative, comprehensive document that sets out the requirements needed to increase the uptake of contactless payment systems in vending machines.

Please click here to read or download the position paper.

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[Source: gtnews - 27 Oct 09]

Italy will not have fully transposed the Payment Services Directive (PSD) into law in time for 1 November launch date, according to key players in the Italian banking and payment services community at an industry event in Milan. Despite appearing to be on target according to the European Payments Council (EPC) website, the picture is “very patchy”, said Carlo Tresoldi, president of SIA-SSB, pinpointing contentious areas such as payment service provider (PSP) provisions (Title II), transparency of conditions (Title III), rights and obligations (Title IV), and final provisions (Title VI).

The delay of Italy and other national legislators in transposing the PSD is of great concern for industry players across Europe as they are suspended in limbo, to a degree, and this situation may not change in the near future. Tresoldi said that it would still take a long time for the directive to be fully adopted, adding that the EU regulators have indicated they will review the directive in 2012, with an eye to developing a PSD II the year after to fill the gaps.

Speaking to just over 500 participants at SIA-SSB’s fourth ‘Do You SEPA?’ conference entitled ‘Landing on the PSD Planet’, Tresoldi also highlighted the reality of implementing the directive heterogeneously, stating that Italy, for example, is still not clear on its national transposition path. “The current PSD implementation scenario is producing worrying forecasts in terms of the harmonisation objective,” he said.

Giampaolo Galli, director general of Confindustria, an organisation representing Italian manufacturing and services companies, agreed with Tresoldi’s points on the problems associated with differentiated national implementation. “Within the national implementation, we need to provide highly harmonised instruments because this will affect the benefits for corporates,” he said, adding that the main concern in Italy is that the industry will lose some its payments system functionality by moving to a European standard.

Issues plaguing the implementation of the single euro payments area (SEPA) schemes identified at last year’s event have continued this year, such as the lack of an end date for legacy instruments and the lag in public administration uptake. Implementing a ‘mini-SEPA’ is seen as a significant risk, particularly with a lack of effective commitment from the national governments, corporate and consumers, according to Tresoldi.

Franco Passacantando, managing director central banking, markets and payments system area, Bank of Italy, said that SEPA’s problems lie in the fact that the advantages have not yet materialised, mainly due to the lack of mass adoption. “The SEPA Credit Transfer scheme has only 4-5% uptake, which is far away from the 20% objective to be reached by December 2010,” he said. He also highlighted the slowness of public administrations to take up SEPA instruments, and added that the co-operation around common infrastructure was still very low.

“SEPA is no longer reversible, but we should be aware that it will take more time and cost more than originally thought,” he warned.

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[Source: gtnews - Fred Bär, VocaLink - 06 Oct 2009]

The introduction of the single euro payments area (SEPA) is transforming the face of the European payments landscape. It will improve the efficiency of cross-border payments by turning fragmented national markets for euro payments into a single domestic area. It brings standardisation, opportunities for cost reduction and encourages competition, all of which means that the customer should ultimately benefit. But why can’t the principles of SEPA extend beyond Europe? The world’s economy isn’t limited to Europe alone.

We need to harmonise payment processing to help achieve this goal. Interoperability plays a key role and much progress has already been made. Since 2006, the European Automated Clearing House Association (EACHA) has worked to establish an interoperability framework. Furthermore, the International Payments Framework (IPF) was set up to support the growing requirement for efficient processing of low-value cross-border payments on a global scale. Its aim is standardising the technical operating model for interoperability of clearing and settlement mechanisms (CSMs), facilitating reach between infrastructures carrying out payment processing, clearing and settlement. In three to five years, it is expected to enable members to offer clients payments to new countries and/or currencies in a low-cost and efficient manner, eliminating the complexities in international non-urgent payments. This is a significant step towards addressing the issue of international cross-border payments.

However, the group is not alone in striving for this goal. Earlier this year, the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) commenced work to create international standards for e-payments schemes. This signals the first move towards globalising interoperability of payment infrastructures. The development will initially focus on the delivery of a new International Automated clearing house (ACH) Transaction (IAT) rule. The organisation’s goal is to link all participating schemes so that a consumer in one country using online banking can seamlessly make a purchase from an online merchant located in a different country. Interoperability provides a huge opportunity for online merchants by providing access to a global online customer base across participating schemes.

So what are the benefits of interoperability? And how do the benefits move us towards a true standard?

One Big, Happy Family

Banks and payment processors will benefit from the seamless payment processing environment that global interoperability creates. Operationally, it promotes the opportunity for straight-through processing (STP), supporting the principles of SEPA beyond the European marketplace. It could facilitate the removal of unnecessary boundaries enabling banks to choose from a wide range of processors, thereby encouraging competition in the payment processing market. Greater competition results in lower costs, which will further enhance services leading to benefits for the customer. Furthermore, there will be no need for proprietary interfaces with CSMs for payment service providers, as they can easily link up to CSMs or other payment service providers at a comparatively low cost.

Additionally, under the EACHA framework, settlement, credit and liquidity risk will be mitigated through the ‘settlement before output’ model. The model guarantees the payments by ensuring messages are only ever forwarded to the bank of the receiving CSM once settlement has been successfully completed.

All these benefits will ultimately reach the customer, but interoperability can offer a direct benefit to the end consumer. If a cross-border interoperability model is implemented, money can be transferred more quickly, more cost-effectively and without the need to connect to multiple CSMs. This model represents an opportunity to support not only the worldwide financial community but also recipients of international remittances. These are usually family members of foreign workers and the beneficiaries are often dependant on the funds to cover day-to-day living expenses, providing a cushion against emergencies or as funding for small investments. However, transaction fees incurred through bilateral relationships expose a direct expense to the remitter/beneficiary, which is currently expensive compared to the often low incomes of migrant workers and the relatively small amounts sent.

There are markets that are uncompetitive or have regulatory barriers to the provision of remittance services. As a direct result, higher-risk alternative international remittance providers are often used to avoid these high fees. Some remitters revert to unregulated or even illegal cash-based channels and the financial streams disappear in the grey and black economy. Moreover, underdevelopment of a domestic financial infrastructure, particularly in receiving countries, may mean that transferring funds to the access points is slow and unreliable. In some cases, non-cash payment services may only be available in urban locations. Mobile payments service providers are actively entering this space in Latin America and Africa.

An important aspect of the infrastructure is correspondent banking, widely used for cross-border transfers of funds, which can be expensive for low-value payments such as remittances. The opportunity to leverage and enhance interoperability of global payment system infrastructures gives rise to the potential to increase the efficiency of remittance services. Ultimately, this not only aids the customers remitting payments but also reduces the cost of their transfers. This gives banks the opportunity to improve their customer service and increase loyalty while competing with international remittance providers, some of which are looking to enter into the banking world.

Finally, interoperability can support the reduction of fees associated with cross-border ATM withdrawals. At present, the majority of foreign visitors wishing to withdraw money from an ATM can only use dual-currency credit cards, which carry high withdrawal fees. However, in 2007, the Euro Alliance of Payments Schemes (EAPS) was formed to unite the networks of independent domestic card schemes (LINK, ZKA, SIBS, Euro 6000, Eufiserv and Consorzio Bancomat). The scheme, which supports SEPA standards, enables European banks to deliver a standard card payment experience direct to cardholders and retailers alike. This reaches right across Europe, at the lowest cost for all participants achieved through interoperability.

Card interoperability, beyond SEPA, is also taking shape. In 2008, China Union Pay signed an interoperability agreement with LINK to enable their customers to withdraw from any LINK ATM.

One Language for All

While interoperability has numerous benefits for banks, their customers and payment providers, there are also challenges to consider. To ensure consistency of communication formats, the introduction of ISO 20022 enabled standardised the communication for interoperability between financial institutions, their market infrastructures and end-user communities. In the long term, there needs to be a common format for all. For now, however, there are still major obstacles to be overcome in the implementation of a standardised communication format. Nevertheless, the fact that businesses are increasingly automating manual processes as they evolve might help achieve this aim, since it makes it possible for banks to implement XML rather than continue with the outdated MT formats. Ultimately, standardisation of these formats will reduce the complexity and costs of corporate-to-bank communication while increasing the STP rate, not just within SEPA but also beyond Europe. These standards are also helping to achieve a shorter turnaround and delivery time for payments, which is supporting the Payment Services Directive (PSD) requirements in Europe.

What’s more, the large number of clearing houses which payment processors must connect to, as well as bilateral agreements between banks, add time and costs to the transaction cycle. Moving forward, banks should be looking at a direct connection to a CSM to complete the transaction cycle. The CSM infrastructure can also be re-used to support bilateral arrangements. In this way, banks will be able to cut their fees and reduce the risk of payments being delayed or failing, which will ultimately benefit the customer.

The Future is Now

Market demand for efficient payments processing on a global level is on the increase. To future-proof services and support banks in offering the services that their customers want and need, payment providers must leverage the opportunity that interoperability offers.

While SEPA has introduced a new payments landscape, it is time to start looking beyond the borders of Europe, extending interoperability, and introduce a new approach to payments that promotes efficiency and reduces costs for banks and their customers. The industry has already taken its first steps towards achieving this goal. It must, however, continue to work collaboratively in order to create a truly efficient, interoperable infrastructure beyond SEPA.

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