There has been a rapid increase in the size and number of investments into UK fintechs with the likes of Monzo and Revolut leading the charge. Interestingly, it is not just the VC funds driving this; banks are also investing or in many cases, acquiring fintech companies outright.
It’s now pretty much universally acknowledged that the UK retail banking market is being disrupted by new, digital-first competitors – the so-called ‘direct’ banks. The narrative is that these agile upstarts are stealing customers away from incumbents by offering compelling new services and unprecedented levels of convenience.
In October 2018, S&P Global Ratings issued a stark warning pertaining to China’s mounting debt problems. According to the ratings agency, the country’s local governments may be sitting on a pile of debt worth up to 40 trillion yuan ($6 trillion).
In 2018, MPs announced a planned inquiry into several major IT failures that plagued banks with various subsequent issues within their services. A Treasury Select Committee will look at how financial services companies deal with service disruption or stop it from happening altogether.
An efficient financial sector is central to maximizing an economy’s potential by helping it to make optimal and longer-term investments. Developing countries face a chicken and egg dilemma when it comes to financing, because it is hard to have efficient financial services without companies that can make good use of funding. This article examines how practical intervention to build the capacity of financial services through professional training will boost developing countries.
An increasing number of European banks and their supervisory authorities are being drawn into money laundering allegations.According to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) the latest allegations on ‘Troika Laundromat’
The scourge of financial crime is increasing. It’s being driven by organised crime rings, fuelled with billions of compromised data records, who are systematically and methodically targeting financial services firms with sophisticated application fraud attacks that use stolen or falsified identities in an effort to obtain new accounts.
The financial crisis a decade ago exposed the considerable challenges of resolving large, globally active banks. In the United States, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – which has insured deposits and resolved failed banks since the Great Depression era – is one of the agencies leading the resolution planning effort. The chairman of the FDIC discusses the Corporation’s current bank resolution tactics in a global environment.
The hold traditional banking once exerted over consumer finances has seriously eroded in the Digital Age, with fintech presenting a formidable challenge to banking’s sovereignty. Customers are shrugging off any loyalty they may have had to their main banks and are opting for the providers with the most convenient, efficient, secure and, above all, speedy financial solutions. Can banks survive in the fintech world, and if so, how?
Belgium’s KBC has since its inception 20 years ago been committed to meeting its customers’ multiple needs, helping them realize their dreams and protecting them as they achieved them. In the process, it grew into one of Europe’s top bank-insurers, today serving 11 million customers. But that enviable success is not enough. KBC is in the midst of a Digital First metamorphosis that is pushing through the known boundaries of customer service.