EU Open Banking rules could backfire for Cash Management Sweeps

Published on 12 January 2019

The EU’s second Payment Services Directive, with live date January 2018, has had as a main objective to foster the emergence of non-bank intermediaries called Third Party Providers or “TPPs”.

The purposes of a TPP’s offering would be to:

Create a single view for the customer of the balances on payment accounts […]

Marketplace volatility requires reviews of Key Performance Indicators of Liquidity Management

Published on 6 January 2019

Financial markets have been seeing increased volatility lately, and one does not have to look as far as Bitcoin to see it:

Seasoned corporate bonds have suffered an extended rout;Financial regulators have raised concerns about “zombie” companies – those that can just afford their debt service at very low rates of interest, […]

Banks club together to apply IT solutions to Trade Finance issues

Published on 28 December 2018

There is a lot of movement in the Trade Finance space around moving the business into the digital era. This blog is an overview of the most significant moving parts.

We have the International Chamber of Commerce process, in which a very large number of banks are involved. The ICC Banking Commission […]

Phase 2 of Project Carlton on UK payments landscape: submerged by paper mountain

Published on 11 December 2018

The last update we gave was that the sponsor of Project Carlton had signed off on the initial research and endorsed its sharing for validation with five or six interested parties.

We did that, got very favourable responses, and have then:

presented aspects of the research at industry events;
used the research […]

Bank of England fears for UK financial stability in the face of the Italian banking crisis. Unicredit needs €35 billion more capital

Published on 7 December 2018

The Bank of England recently woke up and issued its Financial Stability Report and Stress Test results – November 2018. In it the Bank warned that a “further deterioration in Italy’s financial outlook could result in material spillovers to the euro area and the UK” .

In its more detailed comments the […]

Request to Pay: challenges for the Treasurers of Creditors, but bonanza for the Treasurers of Debtors

Published on 20 November 2018

“Request to Pay” or “RtP” is a new service planned for the UK by Pay.uk (formerly known as New Payment System Operator), and is likely to be adopted in some form within the Single Euro Payments Area as well.

The basic concept is that an invoice for regular utility supplies – like […]

EUObserver publishes our article “US steps in to clean up Cyprus”

Published on 19 November 2018

The EUObserver published an abridged version of our article that appeared earlier in “Lawyer Monthly”, about how the USA has had to apply mounting pressure on Cyprus to interdict the operation of the “Cyprus business model”.

You can download the EUObserver version here

This business model is the interaction of several factors:

the […]

Our response to the PSR consultation on their Contingent Reimbursement Model draft code, aimed at Authorised Push Payments Fraud

Published on 16 November 2018

We have sent a response to the Payment Systems Regulator on their consultation regarding the Contingent Reimbursement Model draft code.

This is about reimbursing victims of Authorised Push Payments Fraud – or not.

You can download our response here

This is one of the worst documents we have come across in a very long […]

Presentation to Vendorcom Special Interest Group on Faster Payments about Authorised Push Payments Fraud

Published on 14 November 2018

We made a presentation on 8th November to Vendorcom’s Special Interest Group on Faster Payments about the vulnerability that fraudsters exploit in the Faster Payments system which enables Authorised Push Payments Fraud, and how none of the New Payments Architecture, Confirmation of Payee, or the Contingent Reimbursement Model will resolve it.

You […]

Presentation to London Association of Foreign Banks Operations conference on Payment Services Directive 2

Published on 12 November 2018

We made a presentation on 8th November 2018 to the Operations conference of the London Association of Foreign Banks on PSD2, focusing on:

Conduct-of-Business rules
eBanking security, the EBA Regulatory Technical Standards, the interconnection with Open Banking, and how ASPSPs should accommodate Third-Party Providers
the obligation of credit institutions to provide […]