“Sometimes it takes a crisis” – SWIFT CEO on Cyber Security 3

You may have guessed by now that i am pretty interested in SWIFT, and was particularly keen to hear what the SWIFT CEO (Gottfried Leibbrandt) would cover in a speech he gave to a Financial Services Conference in Brussels yesterday. Following the revelations from the recent SWIFT related hacks there was a greater degree of ...

29 Epic Identity Tweets From the ID2020 Summit in New York

Okay, so i didnt know anything about ID2020 until Friday night. I was browsing Twitter and one of my go-to people, Chris Skinner,  tweeted “I believe i can fly”. The picture reminded me of the St. Michael statue outside of Coventry Cathedral – which is just outside of my home town. Before too long i realised ...

A News Bulletin Overview of the SWIFT Related Hacks 6

By now most people are aware of the reports of a second third SWIFT related hack. I was reading about the various reactions to the hacks and it is pretty alarming stuff. The Vietnam hack involves a SWIFT Service Bureau which for many corporates is a scary prospect, because many of them are also using SWIFT ...

11 Things You Need To Know About SEPA Instant Payments 6

Everyone wants everything instantly! Consumers are increasingly accustomed to instant payments through various mobile offerings, and there is a similar ‘instant’ expectation for non-mobile payments. In Europe that means SEPA Payments, hence the emergence of SEPA Inst Payments, or more officially the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer Scheme. Instant payments are clearly the flavour of the ...

What Can Fintech Start Ups Learn From Leicester City FC?

Leicester City Football Club are the English Premier League Champions! The Leicester City story has been described by some commentators as one of the greatest sporting achievements ever. Leicester City’s Premier League triumph has already been well documented and to put it into context the odds at the start of the season were 5000-1 to ...

The Best Tweets from Africa’s largest Fintech Event

Last week there was a major fintech event in Africa – Dot Finance Africa. I heard about the fintech conference through various tweets, and was intrigued. Africa is a hot bed of innovation, the region is free from the clutches of legacy and is seemingly ready and willing to embrace new technology. Banks, payment service providers, mobile ...

My Notes from the SWIFT Business Forum in London

Along with 1300 people last week, i visited the SWIFT Business Forum in London – it was a great day with a number of well informed panel discussions and insights into the hot topics dominating the industry. My main focus was of course payments. There are plenty of overviews from the various sessions at the SWIFT ...

The Top Payments News Stories in April, 2016

Payments news stories in April 2016 were dominated by the usual themes – fintech, mobile payments and blockchain technology. And of course, cyber-security continued to concern all players, particularly as details of the SWIFT based cyber-attack at Bangladesh Bank were unveiled. Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and AliPay continue their global deployments and interestingly this month ...

7 Step Guide to Covering Up SWIFT Payment Fraud 1

In the post SWIFT, Hackers, Casinos and a Billion Dollar Bank Job i gave an overview of what happened and some of the lessons learnt from the Bangladesh Bank heist in February 2016. Interestingly BAE Systems released technical details around how they think the hackers managed to cover their tracks. The Two bytes to $951m is ...

11 Kick-Ass Tweets From the SWIFT Business Forum London

Yesterday i attended the SWIFT Business Forum, at Tobacco Dock, in London. It was a gloriously sunny day but really hectic with lots of really interesting sessions and discussions around SWIFT, fintech, blockchain, payments and even a ‘lively’ debate on Brexit. In fact there were so many parallel sessions that you had to make some ...