Treasury Management Systems Insights

Risk management tech vendors debated pandemic-triggered market risks outlined by the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) last week, including high market volatility and liquidity challenges. “Top-line market volatility has indeed declined but remains high relative to history. In fact it would have to go down another 30 percent... read more

From time to time I find myself in front of a small asset management firm that is considering a best-of-breed investment reporting solution.   Usually the key driver for such firms (with, say, AuM of under £10bn) dipping their toes in the water is that they are beginning to scale up their investment management operations and are... read more

An AML analyst spends an average of an hour analysing a suspicious case. Each time they have to perform a series of simple, repetitive actions. Search for a given client in the database of suspects, verify if the client is not on the warning lists, check what is known about the client from the internet. In some institutions, even a dozen or so... read more

Financial transaction taxes (FTT), a levy on financial transactions such as the purchase or sale of financial instruments, have been on the radar of capital markets firms for over a decade. The 2008 global financial crisis created political pressure to ensure that the financial sector contributed fairly to the costs of the crisis. As a result,... read more

The payments industry has undergone drastic changes in the last decade, making reconciliation critical to cope with huge volume, abundant data sources and a growing number of players involved in each individual transaction.   Yet what remains unchanged is the essence – payments are still about transactions, about making sure everyone... read more

As the new generation of customers increasingly relies on tech, expectations from the services that banks offer are also expected to change – particularly as Gen-Z and millennials focus in on financial wellbeing. “Gen Z and new consumers in the marketplace want to put so much trust and faith in [artificial intelligence] (AI). We are... read more

US fintechs may seek out full purpose banking licenses as litigation continues to cloud the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC’s) fintech charter. The issuance of a banking charter to digital bank Varo this month could inspire US fintechs to reconsider their strategies, according to Michael Breslin, partner and Fintech... read more

Capital markets firms are under pressure to increase efficiency and reduce operational costs, particularly as the world deals with the pandemic. A key metric of efficiency in our industry is cost per trade – but how much are firms actively controlling it? A recent industry survey showed that 81 percent of brokers and banks think it is... read more

2020’s economic downturn has established the importance of planning around cash visibility and liquidity, according to fintech software company Serrala. “While cash is king, information is queen,” Bart Parren, senior vice president for solution transformation at Serrala, said via email. “In many cases, working capital... read more

In 2004 it was decided that the previous format of SWIFT’s message type (MT) wasn’t going to be ‘fit for purpose’ for the evolving demands of ambitious payments innovation, and so a new standard was needed. When MT was first created, payment messages didn’t have to carry a large amount of high-quality, expensive data.... read more