The foreign exchange market currently finds itself under unprecedented scrutiny. Rocked by scandals over benchmark practices and investigations into the legitimacy of certain trading practices, is the asset class doing enough to get itself back on the straight and narrow?
Frank Abagnale's story of cheque forger-turned-good guy is well documented in print and on film. His career has seen him work in partnership with 41st Parameter CEO and founder Ori Eisen. They tell Jane Cooper about their work to stay one step ahead of the cyber criminals.
The Chinese government and the People’s Bank of China are yet to disclose the formal details concerning China’s International Payment Platform, but there is little doubt that the new system will fundamentally change the renminbi clearing market as well as the future of offshore renminbi hubs.
Emerging market currencies benefited handsomely from the US central bank’s huge quantitative easing programme. With that now being unwound and with China slowing, emerging currencies are now in retreat. Those from economies with weak fundamentals are especially vulnerable.
Legal battles over MasterCard and Visa’s interchange fees have raged for years in various markets around the world, but now the European Commission is pushing ahead with legislation that will cap the level of the fees, which will have major repercussions for card-issuing banks and the payments market.
With the deadline for the Single Euro Payments Area looming, there is much speculation over who is actually ready to migrate, with many small and medium-sized enterprises lagging behind and businesses of all sizes struggling to implement systems for direct debits.
A single platform for securities settlement in Europe and the continued growth of e-commerce will soon out-date the market infrastructures as they exist. Frances Faulds looks at how market infrastructures are reinventing themselves and redesigning their services to remain relevant.