Local custody

Despite the prevailing economic uncertainty being caused by COVID-19, CEE (Central and Eastern European) markets are in recovery mode. Societe Generale Securities Services [SGSS] looks at the main developments now underway in the CEE region, together with some of the challenges facing investors.

The financial industry is facing the biggest changes in decades. Having rapidly embraced online banking in the late 90s, the pace of digital innovation in relation to end customers has been sluggish - until now. There is a new window of opportunity to offer innovative solutions. How APIs could be the driver and enabler for the future?

Collaboration between the financial services industry and FinTech ventures continues to gain traction, opening up exciting opportunities for both. The rapid progress being made in areas such as big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning is increasingly being seen as an opportunity rather than a disruptive threat. Working in partnership enables the...

Instant payment services are being developed by payment market infrastructures (PMIs) all over the world. Banks also see real-time services from PMIs as an opportunity to develop new products. The benefits these domestic instant payments systems bring will also be felt in cross-border payments once the systems start to inter-operate.

Cyber security is top of mind for industry executives, as high-profile security breaches continue to reverberate. SWIFT’s Customer Security Programme (CSP) has mobilised its members to take decisive action. What benefits are being gained from such collaboration? In an industry where robust safeguards at one institution can be undermined by weak security at...

At regular intervals the long-term survival of the current correspondent banking model is questioned. Whilst initiatives like SWIFTgpi improve the speed, transparency and traceability of cross-border payments and non-banks offer alternative payment services, they still rely on the underlying settlement mechanism of nostro-vostro accounts held by correspondent...

By Damien Jamet, Chief of Staff and Chief Digital Officer for SGSS