Single European Payments Area - SEPA for Corporates

The Benefits of SEPA According to PWC 2

Jul

23

2015

PWC were assigned by the European Commission DG Internal Market & Services to analyse the benefits and opportunities presented by SEPA once ‘fully embraced’. The report released last year in January 2014, provides us with some interesting insights into the opportunities and benefits of SEPA. Some aspects of the report are very technical and theoretical, but ...

Eurozone Crisis – Should Greece Stay Or Should Greece Go? 1

Jun

23

2015

As 30th June deadline looms another round of Eurozone crisis talks continue in a bid to resolve the Greek debt conundrum, I wanted to understand for myself the key arguments for and against Greece staying in the Eurozone. The implications of a Greek Exit or Grexit are absolutely huge, and of course SEPA is just ...

SEPA Timeline – The Past, Present and Future… 3

May

27

2015

With 1st February 2016 SEPA deadline ahead of us, I thought it would be worthwhile taking stock – via a SEPA timeline – of where we’re at, where we’ve come from and where we’re going on this SEPA journey. Getting to the point we’re at right now has taken over 15 years, a couple of SEPA deadlines, lots ...

5 SEPA Preparation Tasks You Need To Do TODAY

May

18

2015

A couple of months have passed since the post SEPA Deadline: 1st February 2016 – The Countdown Begins. Many of us are busy with other projects, and as a result putting back the SEPA preparation that needs to happen in order to ensure readiness for February 2016. In this post, I am going to make 5 ...

4 SEPA File Format Checks That Are Being Ignored… 1

May

11

2015

Having gone live with various SEPA file formats last year, we’re starting to see some complacency by those involved in SEPA implementations. After all, last year many of us were managing multiple SEPA payments and SEPA direct debit deployments across Europe – so doing one here and there at this time should be easy, right? Well – ...

FinTech in the UK: Becoming A World Leader in 10 Steps 6

Mar

18

2015

Today has been a busy day in the UK, we have had the last Budget (2015) before the upcoming May 2015 General Election and a couple of key government reports. The first report published by HM Treasury – Bank for the 21st Century: driving competition and choice, sets out the UK governments plans to increase competition ...

Fun Facts About 10 European Brands

Mar

9

2015

Over the weekend I was reading about European brands and came across some really interesting articles such as the Top 10 Most Powerful European Brands, The Best Brands in Europe and What are the top 20 retail brands in Europe?. They’re really interesting articles and well worth a read. The compiled lists of European brands vary according ...

SEPA Deadline: 1st February 2016 – The Countdown Begins 9

Feb

27

2015

When all hands were on deck for the original SEPA deadline, talk of February 2016 felt like an age away. Yet here we are in February 2015 and the countdown to the next SEPA deadline is less than a year away. The EPC post SEPA Compliance in the Euro Area: Get Ready for February 2016. ...

5 Reasons Why Disruption Is a Myth… 7

Feb

24

2015

Disruption, disruption, disruption…. Almost every conference you attend, magazine and website you read, or speaker will mention disruption. It sounds great, but is the world around us truly being disrupted – Really? Disruption sounds cool – everyone wants to be a disruptor and change the world (for the better!!), but is it ‘disruption’ in the true ...

Data Breaches in 2014, 8 Things Worth Knowing 2

Feb

12

2015

I have been focusing recently on payments security and cyber security and lo behold today Gemalto Released Findings of 2014 Breach Level Index. Gemalto have gathered information from various public sources to form a Breach Level Index (BLI, originally developed by SafeNet). It is a fascinating index, and well worth a look. The interactive Breach Database ...