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 ...

10 Key Benefits of XML Payments for Corporates 3

XML payments are increasingly becoming – if not already – THE global standard format for corporate to bank payments. There are many reasons for the growing XML adoption rates and in this post i thought i would explain 10 of the key benefits of XML payments. XML Payments – A Quick Introduction Regular readers of ...

11 Insights From the JP Morgan Annual Letter by Jamie Dimon

There has been quite a bit of coverage of the JP Morgan CEO (Jamie Dimon) Letter to Shareholders in the press this last week. The exchanges between Jamie Dimon and Bernie Sanders have received quite a bit of attention. Couple that with all of the disruption that there is within, and coming up in, banking ...

Business Email Compromise Scams Are Increasing! 3

Last week the FBI published a warning of the dramatic increases in business email compromise scams. In this post i will share what a business email compromise scam looks like and details from the latest FBI press release. What is a Business Email Compromise Scam? In short, it is a low tech way of exploiting ...

SWIFT, Hackers, Casinos and a Billion Dollar Bank Job 5

SWIFT is increasingly targeting the corporate market as a highl secure and reliable corporate to bank connectivity solution. SWIFT has some clear benefits, but it aint a magic bullet. The incredible cyber theft last month will leave many SWIFT customers (banks and corporates) worried about similar copy-cat type thefts via the super secure SWIFT network. ...

The Top Payments News Stories in March, 2016

The payments news stories in March 2016 were all about fintech! All of the banks seemed to get into an accelerator or innovation lab somewhere or other. And while fintech investment in 2015 reached an all time peak, some interesting regional and industry themes are highlighted in the KPMG and CB Insights report. Mobile Payments ...

12 Payments Trends from Payments UK Worth Reading 1

Over the weekend i was reading the Payments UK World Class Payments report highlighting payments trends that are shaping how consumers around the world make payments. The report focuses on different payment methods in the UK and provides some interesting statistical comparisons with payment systems and payment processes around the world. The report puts the ...