IT for financial services

Interview: Dan Phelps, chief architect, Travelex

Travelex is changing the way it works by combining people, processes and technology to transform the company and by setting up a digital platform Continue Reading

Global trading infrastructure firm opens office in Ireland because of Brexit

Financial services firms are attracted to Ireland as the UK prepares to leave the EU, leading to the creation of IT jobs in the Emerald Isle Continue Reading

London Fintechs: Could Saudi Arabia be your next stage growth opportunity?

Saudi Arabia is selling itself as a fintech hub with an environment for startups to flourish, but are fintechs ready to set up there? Continue Reading

Saudi Arabia entices UK fintechs to its shores

Saudi Arabia is offering fintechs from other countries the opportunity to access its large internal market Continue Reading

Matching disaster recovery to cyber threats

While it is important to take steps to prevent cyber attacks, they can still happen. That is why disaster recovery practices are equally critical Continue Reading

Venture capitalists fears for London’s fintech future is the starkest of warnings

Fintech is nothing without VC funding and the UK risks losing a significant share Continue Reading

Cyber attackers cashing in on ‘hidden’ attack surface

Cyber attackers are cashing in on organisations’ lack of visibility into all online interactions that can involve multiple third parties, a report reveals Continue Reading

Three-quarters of consumers have interacted with artificial intelligence

Capgemini survey finds 55% of people prefer a mix of AI and humans when they interact with organisations Continue Reading

The sacking of a robot revealed the need for robot probation periods

Businesses need to give robots a probabtion period for different roles andd must be prepared to bring out the P45 Continue Reading

White-hat hackers find record number of vulnerabilities

White-hat hackers are finding more vulnerabilities than ever before, with crowdsourced security testing continuing to gain popularity, a report reveals Continue Reading

UK firms too confident about cyber security

Three-quarters of UK companies say their cyber protection is above average, and nearly half think they are a “top performer” despite the growth in data breaches Continue Reading

UK fintech industry fears Brexit-induced talent squeeze

London’s financial technology community warns of problems ahead as the reality of the UK leaving the EU unfolds Continue Reading

Hidden costs of data breaches difficult to manage, study finds

The full cost of “mega breaches” can be up to £264m, with the average UK data breach costing £2.69m, a study has revealed Continue Reading

Infosec community welcomes bank sector focus on cyber resilience

The information security community has welcomed regulators’ call on the banking industry to demonstrate their capability to respond to cyber attacks because it highlights the importance of cyber resilience for all businesses Continue Reading

Investment flows into Nordic startups from all directions

The Nordic tech startup scene is attracting funding from a variety of sources, with private equity firms, banks and traditional IT companies all keen to put money in Continue Reading

HSBC previews the banking staff of the future

The digital revolution in banking is set to create previously unknown jobs, and HSBC has outlined three of the job roles that will be created in the future Continue Reading

Banks given three months to report on how they respond to outages

UK financial services regulators get tough on banks over their ability to recover from IT outages Continue Reading

How changes in retail law could affect customer experience

New payments regulations could increase the amount of times customers will need to use two-factor authentication to make a purchase, potentially putting a strain on customer experience, according to MasterCard Continue Reading

Beware blockchain security blindspots, warns RSA

Companies need to ensure that rushed blockchain and other new technology projects are not introducing security vulnerabilities by gaining granular visibility of network activity, according to RSA Security Continue Reading

DevOps done right: Securing grassroots support for a top-down DevOps enterprise push

As more and more enterprises rush to join the DevOps movement, practitioners share details of how they secured grassroots support for their senior leadership team's top-down agile adoption mandates Continue Reading

London fintechs managed by Oracle's Brussels arm: a shock a few years ago, but not today

Not that surprising in this day and age that a large software company puts its European fintech resources in a city other than London Continue Reading

European banks need to balance fintech strategies

European Banking Authority highlights the risks of banks taking up fintech too quickly, and of ignoring it Continue Reading

UK financial services firms up tech investments to fuel new services

Driven by the need to offer new services, as well as meet industry regulations, UK financial services firms are increasing spending on IT Continue Reading

HMRC deactivates record number of fake websites

HM Revenue & Customs has removed more than 20,000 malicious websites in the past year, but warns people to stay alert to the threat from online fraudsters Continue Reading

GDPR exposes breach reporting flaws

In the month since the GDPR compliance deadline, it has become clear that many organisations are not well prepared for personal data breach notifications, says PwC’s data protection lead Continue Reading

Nationwide Building Society to fund tech startups to the tune of £50m

With an available fund of £50m, Nationwide Building Society is the latest traditional financial services provider to support tech startups Continue Reading

Cyber criminals 'infect and collect' in cryptojacking surge

Illicit cryptocurrency mining offers cyber criminals lower risk, higher efficacy and greater ease of making money, adding passive exploitation to ransomware extortion, data breach theft and fraud, a report reveals Continue Reading

Technology key to keeping staff happy

Giving employees access to the latest technologies will improve their satisfaction and increase productivity, survey shows Continue Reading

IBM early findings on disastrous TSB core banking system migration released

Report released by Treasury Committee criticises lack of rigour in preparation for core banking system migration, but TSB says report’s content is out of date Continue Reading

Lloyds Bank cuts 450 jobs to make way for digitisation roles

Lloyds Banking Group has axed 450 jobs to create 255 digital-focused roles as it adapts to changes in customer banking habits Continue Reading

Need for speed: designing a modern campus LAN

Just like datacentres before them, campus LANs are increasingly being defined by virtualisation and software-based controls. Next to this shift, the hardware also continues to improve as network owners look to keep pace with user demand Continue Reading

Banks already looking for EU-based IT staff for post-Brexit operations

UK banks already have plans to move some of their operations to the EU, with the search for EU-based IT professionals under way Continue Reading

Nine out of 10 enterprises will use robotic process automation by 2020

Robotic process automation take-up expected to reach 92% of European enterprises within two years, finds ISG survey Continue Reading

Dutch organisations must unite to fight DDoS attacks

Experts in the Netherlands call on Dutch corporations and institutions to work together to help prevent distributed denial of service attacks Continue Reading

Fintech takes headlines but Insurtech is a huge opportunity

Insurtech doesn't have the ring of Fintech but the opportunity to personalise insurance through tech is huge Continue Reading

Debit card payments surpassed cash for first time in 2017

For the first time, UK customers used debit cards to make more payments than cash in 2017, a change which has come a year earlier than expected. Continue Reading

Visa reveals 'rare' datacentre switch fault as root cause of June 2018 outage

Visa has offered a retrospective analysis of what went wrong in its datacentre during its UK-wide outage on Friday 1 June, in response to a request from the Treasury Select Committee for more detail about the downtime Continue Reading

Surface web used in private data sales

The surface web plays an integral role in the selling of personal information, a report on identify fraud has revealed Continue Reading

Young generation tempted by Amazon bank-like services

Tech firms offering banking services will be inevitable in the future as more than half of young people are tempted by such a prospect Continue Reading

Bank uses AI to select job candidates

Singapore’s DBS Bank is using artificial intelligence to automate parts of its recruitment process Continue Reading

IPsoft’s digital worker is part of a shift in human productivity

IPsoft used its annual user summit to allow customers to update themselves on the career of its cognitive digital agent Amelia Continue Reading

Cyber attack warnings highlight need to be prepared

Fresh warnings about the vulnerability of national infrastructure to cyber attacks show the need for securing and monitoring associated control systems connected to the internet Continue Reading

CW Europe: Lufthansa’s HR IT project takes off

Lufthansa says it is confident of landing a company-wide HR IT project after having to go back to the drawing board. Also in this issue, read about the ComputerWeekly/TechTarget IT Priorities survey’s findings that many European technology leaders are expecting to increase IT spending through 2018, and how a major report has reassured Swedish society that artificial intelligence will be a positive force for change despite fears of job losses. Continue Reading

Bank of England to set minimum service requirements after TSB and Visa outages

The Bank of England is planning new rules for the minimum service levels that financial service providers must offer, even during IT outages Continue Reading

Mayor Khan bids to make London the world’s smartest city

At London Tech Week, mayor Sadiq Khan launched a city-wide initiative to harness the capital’s technology talent to address London’s most pressing problems Continue Reading

Insurer Beazley meets global challenge to secure mobile workforce

Beazley has stolen a march on other London-market insurers by implementing a versatile global digital workspace with improved security Continue Reading

BT announces “unhackable” quantum-secured network

In the face of the threat that quantum computers could crack many of the encryption methods used to protect highly sensitive data, BT has developed a “quantum-secured” network Continue Reading

Coinrail cyber heist highlights need for exchange security

A cyber heist at South Korea’s Coinrail has prompted fresh calls for industry regulations to drive better cyber security at cryptocurrency exchanges Continue Reading

Thriving fintech, AI sectors give boost to UK tech funding

British technology businesses have received £5bn worth of venture capital funding since June 2016 – more than France, Germany and Sweden put together – with fintech and AI startups standing out Continue Reading

IT spending reaches 10-year high as CIOs struggle with digital technology strategy

IT leaders have seen their budgets and headcounts rise for the first time in 10 years, but face challenges implementing their digital strategies Continue Reading

Financial Conduct Authority raises questions over TSB's IT regression testing

The FCA will look at whether TSB carried out sufficient regression and user acceptance testing before migrating to a new IT platform Continue Reading

HMRC puts numerous IT projects on hold to focus on Brexit

Nearly 40 technology projects and changes are being put on the backburner because of Brexit priorities, including improving HM Revenue and Customs’ data-sharing capabilities and parts of the Maxing Tax Digital programme Continue Reading

Understanding is key to security awareness, says specialist

Only if people understand why cyber security matters will they change their behaviours as a result of awareness training, according to a human behaviour specialist and cyber security consultant Continue Reading

Big data skills shortages – and how to work around them

Businesses are finding it hard to recruit enough people with big data and analytics skills, but for CIOs there are alternative strategies to consider Continue Reading

The bumpy ride to digital transformation

In this week’s Computer Weekly, we look at the lessons to be learned from General Electric’s bumpy ride to digital transformation. We assess the use of software-defined networking in corporate IT infrastructures. And we find out how Royal Bank of Scotland approaches digital and business innovation. Read the issue now. Continue Reading

Visa blames hardware failure for UK-wide card payment system outage

Credit card payment processor moves to assure customers that last Friday afternoon’s downtime was not the work of hackers Continue Reading

Visa card payments system goes down across the UK and Ireland

Millions of businesses across the UK and Ireland are unable to accept VIsa card payments because of a "service disruption" Continue Reading

Huge rise in TSB-themed mobile phishing attacks after IT meltdown

Scammers have used bank’s IT problems as an opportunity to target its customers with mobile phishing attacks Continue Reading

Ethical hacker, 86, rises to Santander’s challenge

Elderly hacker with little computing experience was able to hack WiFi and create phishing attack Continue Reading

Security community urged to prepare for quantum computing

A top European chief information security officer is urging the security community to prepare for quantum computing to ensure their encryption processes are ready in time Continue Reading

Tier 2 visas – a challenge for the tech sector

With staff shortages already being reported in the technology sector and Brexit potentially adding to the problem, tech departments need to get their Tier 2 visa applications right Continue Reading

US issues warning about North Korean malware

US government has identified more than 85 networks compromised by two malware families believed to be North Korean in origin Continue Reading

Firms step up spending on digital tech, but struggle with strategy

Businesses and the public sector are stepping up their spending on digital technology, but many business leaders are struggling to keep pace with what it means for their business Continue Reading

GDPR puts people first, says ICO

The day of 25 May 2018 marks the biggest change to UK data protection law in a generation, with benefits for businesses and consumers, according to the UK privacy watchdog Continue Reading

Commitment is the watchword on GDPR D-Day

New rules for protecting European citizens’ personal data are now enforceable by law, and organisations are being advised to focus broadly on commitment rather than narrowly on compliance Continue Reading

New UK Data Protection Act not welcomed by all

Legislation makes the UK one of the first countries to implement the GDPR in local law, but some have criticised it as a “lost opportunity” Continue Reading

Mobile fraud up 680% since 2015, RSA reports

Fake profiles and throw-away devices are transforming social media into a cyber criminal marketplace, a fraud report reveals Continue Reading

Singapore to adopt European e-invoicing standard

The city-state is the first country outside Europe to embrace the Peppol e-invoicing standard to speed up business transactions and lower operating costs for SMEs Continue Reading

Taking the quantum leap: What is quantum technology for business?

Quantum computers are many years away, but the first applications of quantum technology will arrive in only one or two years – so businesses need to be ready Continue Reading

The UK fintech economy will create different pockets of excellence all over the country

London should not be seen as competition for fintechs in the North and they should not try to emulate London's fintech model Continue Reading

Legit tools exploited in bank heists

Cyber criminals attacking the finance and other industry sector are continuing to exploit legitimate administration tools to hide their activities, highlighting the need for threat hunting, a report reveals Continue Reading

A third of people would buy insurance from Google or Amazon

Consumers are increasingly likely to buy insurance from tech giants as the insurtech industry hits the mainstream Continue Reading

Pen testers find weaknesses in banks’ cyber security

Humans are the biggest weakness in banks’ cyber defences, but there are several others that also need attention, penetration testers have revealed Continue Reading

One-fifth of global banks think AI will boost customer experience

Economist Intelligence Unit survey shows nearly three-quarters of businesses think retail banking could be mostly automated by 2020 Continue Reading

Blockchain technology lacks enough use cases to be disruptive, says Worldpay

Worldpay's Jason Scott-Taggart says although the company is looking at blockchain, there are too few strong use cases for the technology at present Continue Reading

European cyber attacks up nearly a third in first quarter 2018

The volume of cyber attacks hitting digital transactions in Europe was up by almost a third in the first quarter of 2018 compared with same period a year ago, a report reveals Continue Reading

Morgan Stanley uses Amazon Alexa to inform customers

US investment bank Morgan Stanley is giving customers important information about the market via Amazon's voice assistant Continue Reading

Nordic banks plan major digital transformation of operations

Banks in the Nordic region are set to accelerate their spending on technology as digital services take-up accelerates Continue Reading

SMEs more worried about GDPR’s threat to reputation than fines

SMEs are more worried about the damage GDPR non compliance will do to their reputations than their wallets Continue Reading

Higher interest rates would tempt me even though TSB has just had an IT disaster

I would be tempted to move to a bank that offered higher interest rates even though it had just had an IT disaster Continue Reading

TSB refused help from Lloyds as IT meltdown began

TSB turned down an offer of help from Lloyds Banking Group as the migration of customers accounts to its new banking system went wrong Continue Reading

Santander latest traditional player to open digital bank

Santander is the latest traditional bank to follow an industry trend and develop a digital banking unit Continue Reading

Visiting a bank branch made me question my own conceptions

I had to rethink my conceptions about the future of bank branches after I visited one Continue Reading

Hacking the internet of things just got easier – it’s time to look at your security

Are you taking security for internet-connected devices seriously enough? Continue Reading

Barclays to set up biggest office outside UK in India

Bank is expanding its presence in India with plans for an office for 8,000 staff in Pune Continue Reading

CW Benelux: Rotterdam charts course to become world’s smartest port

The Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands is using internet of things and artificial intelligence technology from IBM in a bid to become the world’s smartest port. Also read how companies in the Netherlands are only partly ready for the country’s version of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and why the European Central Bank thinks cash will remain in use in the Eurozone for a very long time. Continue Reading

Equifax breach lessons not learned

Businesses are still downloading vulnerable versions of the software that was at the heart of the Equifax data breach and failing to update to safe versions, a security firm has revealed Continue Reading

NatWest fintech investments bear fruit as SME loans platform goes live

Online lending platform enables small businesses to apply for loans of up to £150,000 in 10 minutes Continue Reading

HSBC launches open banking app

In line with open banking regulation, HSBC has launched an app that enables users to see accounts from 21 different banks in one place Continue Reading

TSB offers interest rate sweetener as IT issues continue at the bank

TSB is offering customers higher interest rate to go towards making up for the problems its core banking system migration caused customers Continue Reading

Financial sector cyber-related laws are a bellwether, says Deloitte

As the regulatory landscape becomes more complex, organisations should look to the financial sector to see what else is coming, as well as focus on three key areas of GDPR compliance, according to Deloitte Continue Reading

Britons used contactless for 42% of card payments in 2017

Paymentsense survey confirms rapid growth of contactless payments, but £30 limit is preventing further dominance Continue Reading

Most CIOs not interested in “massively hyped” blockchain, finds Gartner

Despite the noise surrounding blockchain technology, not many CIOs are using it or planning to do so in the near future, finds Gartner Continue Reading

Fibre network breakthrough has implications for data security

Researchers have devised a new protocol that they claim vastly extends the range of quantum key distribution over fibre networks Continue Reading

TSB IT team could get slaughtered in May

TSB's IT project will go under the microscope as the company attempts to get to the bottom of what went wrong after massive problems. Continue Reading

Fresh blow for Facebook as court refuses stay in Max Schrems legal action

Facebook has lost a legal attempt to delay the Irish High Court from seeking answers from the European Court of Justice over the legality of EU-US data transfers Continue Reading

Outsourcing is not dead or dying – it just needs to be done properly

The collapse of Carillion and the profit warning at Capita have created a false sense of fear about the stability of the outsourcing sector Continue Reading

Ransomware still a threat to business, F-Secure warns

Ransomware attacks tapered off towards the end of 2017 after an explosion in such attacks earlier in the year, but ransomware remains a threat to big business, a report reveals Continue Reading

TSB IT crisis: Is IT governance strong enough in banking should be the question MPs ask

When MPs ask TSB what went wrong when it embarked on a core banking system migration they should look at how IT is managed Continue Reading

RBS closes branches after axing challenger bank project

Royal Bank of Scotland to close 162 branches and shed 800 jobs after deciding not to create a challenger bank – but a new digital bank may be on the way Continue Reading