While the consultation continues on how the EU might achieve a harmonised infrastructure for cross-border transactions, Frances Maguire finds that another highly charged debate is going on: should ICSDs and CSDs compete with global custodian and agent banks?When is a bank, not a bank? When it’s an international central securities depository (ICSD). At present, both Europe’s ICSDs, Euroclear and Clearstream, are banks, and despite moves by Euroclear to restructure its banking and its depositories into separate entities, and the European Commission’s accusation that Clearstream is abusing its “dominant supplier position”, the fact still remains that both ICSDs offer “bank accounts” to their securities customers that do not pay interest.
Parveen Bansal talks to Mr Andreas Treichl, CEO of Erste Bank, to learn how and why the bank spread its wings across central Europe. Founded in Austria in 1819 by a Catholic priest to help devout people save money for difficult times, Erste Bank today is home to the savings of around 12 million customers across central Europe. “When we went public in 1997, we set several targets, one of which was to become the leading retail banking service provider in the region,” says CEO Andreas Treichl. The bank is already benefiting from the unusual decision in 1990 to focus on retail banking in central Europe.
Tim Jones, CEO of Simpay, talks to Parveen Bansal about the future direction of the payments industry and the power of technology to shake up accepted ways of doing things.The payments world has evolved in a complicated way, says Tim Jones, chief executive officer of global mobile payments scheme Simpay. This state of affairs – due to “all manner of reasons” – has led to the current way in which the world’s payment systems operate, which he describes as “complicated, and by no means optimal”.
Central banks in the new EU member states are at different levels of technological advancement, with some even ahead of their western counterparts. Michael Imeson reports.The European Union gained 10 more countries last month, and with them 10 more central banks. For anyone doing business with central banks, the EU is a bountiful hunting ground, now with 26 such institutions – one for each country, plus the European Central Bank.