The pandemic had previously put a break on impending SWIFT Releases that were originally pencilled in for 2020. When those were pushed back to November 2021, that was a welcome deferment to allow financial institutions to ready themselves for the upcoming changes to Trade Finance Category 7 for Guarantees and Standby Letters of Credit.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a $390 million penalty against Capital One for “willful” anti-money-laundering (AML) failures that happened during a period between 2008-2014. For compliance operators in the space, the action was a strong signal of rigorous enforcement, and perhaps a sign of increased pressures to come.
Batteries are used in products from smartphones to electric vehicles, and there is no sign of demand diminishing, with sustainability goals influencing every market segment. Lithium-ion batteries are leading the battery industry, and investment in the space is set only to soar, driven by the march toward meeting clean-energy targets.
In Australia, it seems a while ago that pundits were hailing the country’s rebound from the pandemic. With a record 9.6-percent annual growth through June 2021, the nation was en route to a stellar recovery. Then Delta hit, and strict lockdowns cut expectations to recession-level territory. Will “Down Under” define this country’s economy?
To best serve its customers, a bank needs to know who they are and what their needs and wants are. Cognitive intelligence, which uses technologies such as artificial intelligence to form predictive models based on customer data, equips banks to provide tailored solutions that raise the bar to new heights for product and service delivery.
Corporate-banking customers have been slower than consumer-banking clients to jump on the digital bandwagon but are on it now, searching for single-source solutions to meet all their product and service needs under one digital umbrella. Both traditional and challenger banks are in the race to fulfill this quest, but which will prevail?
The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted all the economies, big or small, across the globe. Central banks everywhere have been proactively dealing with the situation and have successfully pushed a large amount of liquidity to the banks through various means. However, due to widespread uncertainty caused by the pandemic, banks are reluctant to lend, and consumers are hesitant to avail credit. This article highlights the adverse impact that surplus liquidity may have on the banks and economies if adequate demand is not created.
Has digitization put the bank branch and cash on the extinction list? Not while consumers still demand them. To prosper today and in the future, banks will need to snatch the opportunities digital transformation offers them. Digitization is not a threat but a promise for better customer service that meets consumers where they are.
In 2020, Thailand was the envy of the world for its deft handling of COVID-19. But this year, not so much, as the Delta variant surges and squashes hopes of recovery for the country’s usually buoyant tourist industry, which accounts for a large share of its economic activity. What are the realistic expectations for the Thai economy?
Who could have predicted that a health crisis would result in a banking metamorphosis, with banks adopting the digital-platform model as consumers embrace digital self-service channels? Banks need to follow a series of steps to stay ahead on the journey to an agile, data-driven future, providing services embedded in their customers’ lives.