22 | THE BANKER | August 2014

TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS OF THE YEAR | 2014

Ausgust 2014 | THE BANKER | 23
ni ng submi ssi ons were al l abl e to
demonstrate a clear application and need
for the technology, rather than using new
technology for the sake of it. Many of the
ideas reected in the winning projects are
not new in themselves; judges felt the execu-
tion and application of technology to full a
specic need was more important.
The winning entries demonstrate the
need for banks to manage and make use of
their data, respond to regulation, address the
need for security, as well as continue to
engage with their customers.
There were more than 170 entries for the
Technology Projects of the Year awards and
they showed a vast range of the technology
projects that have been implemented in all
corners of the industry around the world.
Likewise, the winning projects came from a
range of countries, including Russia, Turkey
and Brazil.
Look out for the Transaction Banking
Awards, which will appear in the September
issue of The Banker.
WELCOME TO THE BANKERS INAUGURAL
TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS OF THE YEAR
AWARDS, which recognise innovation in
technology, replacing last years Innovation
in Technology and Transaction Banking
awards. These awards were designed to
reect the collaboration necessary to bring a
technology project to fruition and give credit
to all parties involved, whether they are a
bank, technology provider or consultant.
The winner of the award is the project itself.
Any party who worked on the project
could enter these awards, but there could be
no condentiality agreements in place that
would restrict the projects coverage in The
Banker. By establishing this as a condition of
entry, the write-ups of the winning projects
in this issue fully reflect the collaboration
that occurs between companies in imple-
menting a successful technology project.
The size of the project was not impor-
tant for entry. Instead, projects were judged
on the basis of whether they were innova-
tive, useful and transformational. The win-
Our rst Technology Projects of the Year awards focus on the teamwork
and collaboration needed to get a technology project off the ground.
The winners show that from the smallest of start-ups to the largest of
lenders, the innovative spirit is strong in the global nancial markets.
n Global
Retail payments
Back ofce
Compliance
Customer data management
Customer service
Dealing/trading
Delivery channels
Risk management
Social media
Wholesale payments
CATEGORIES
AWARDS
Ausgust 2014 | THE BANKER | 23

2014 | TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS OF THE YEAR
AWARDS
approximately 90% of the cards in Turkey.
The solution offers a single infrastruc-
ture platform to all banks where each takes
the benet of minimum technology develop-
ment cost to integrate the system, says
Soner Canko, CEO of BKM.
This project, notes Mr Canko, is a unique
example of market collaboration. In Turkey
BACK OFFICE
WINNER: CURRENT ACCOUNT
SWITCH SERVICE
Parties involved: Payments Council,
VocaLink, AIB Group (UK), Bank of
Ireland, Barclays, C Hoare & Co, Clydes-
dale Bank, Cumberland Building Society,
Danske Bank Group, Handelsbanken,
HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Metro
Bank, Nationwide Building Society, RBS
Group, Reliance Bank, Santander UK,
the Co-operative Bank, Virgin Money
Customer inertia was one of the reasons that
banks in the UK were unable to win new cus-
tomers. Closing an account and changing
the details of each transaction to go from the
new account was generally too much to bear.
Often, customers would opt to stay with
their existing bank, even if they were not
happy with its service.
An investigation by the Independent
Commission on Banking found that this iner-
tia was hindering competition in the UKs
retail banking market and so the government
instigated the current account switch service.
As our new service has addressed cus-
tomers concerns about switching, we are
starting to see more competition. Now cus-
tomers have nothing holding them back from
switching and banks have to work harder to
retain customers or attract new ones. There
are more providers and more products than
ever all of which means more choice for cus-
tomers, says Adrian Kamellard, chief execu-
tive of the UKs Payments Council.
VocaLink, which designed, built and
implemented the technology for the switch-
ing service, had to design the project to meet
the needs of the range of banks in the UK,
including the large high street banks and
smaller, niche providers. The service covers
almost all of the current accounts in the UK.
When asked why VocaLink was chosen as
the technology provider, Mr Kamellard says:
Having gone through the relevant selection
process it was clear that VocaLink possessed
the capability to design and deliver a techno-
logically advanced solution that could be
seamlessly integrated into existing bank and
scheme payment platforms and would pro-
vide customers with a world-leading switch-
ing service which is what we now have.
No longer viewed as a hassle or risky,
bank customers in the UK can switch all
their payments across to their new bank in a
process that is now much shorter.
David Yates, CEO of VocaLink, says:
BANKS HAVE TO WORK HARDER
TO RETAIN CUSTOMERS
Adrian Kamellard
IT ENABLES MONEY TRANSFER
FROM ANYWHERE TO ANYONE
AT ANYTIME Soner Canko
even though almost every bank has their
own mobile app, they are part of the BKM
Express digital wallet as well.
And an additional security feature of the
solution is that it only stores partial credit
card information. When registering, users
only enter the rst six and the last four num-
bers of their payment cards, and this infor-
mation is never shared with other parties.
Cardholders add their cards into the dig-
ital wallet and when shopping from their
mobile device, they browse for the goods, ll
their shopping cart, and at the checkout
stage they select the BKM Express payment
option. They select one of their payment
cards stored in the digital wallet to com-
plete the transaction.
The service also enables peer-to-peer pay-
ments. It enables money transfer from any-
where to anyone at anytime, says Mr Canko.
The sender needs to know only the recipi-
ents mobile phone or card number to send
money. The receiver gets the funds immedi-
ately and if the recipient is a BKM Express
member with a registered card, the money is
loaded onto the card. If they are not a mem-
ber, the recipient receives a text and can with-
draw the money from an ATM.
GLOBAL WINNER
RETAIL PAYMENTS
WINNER: BKM EXPRESS MOBILE
Parties involved: Bankalararas Kart
Merkezi (BKM), Monitise MEA, Akbank,
Bank Asya, Denizbank, Finansbank,
Garanti Bankasi, HSBC, ING Bank,
Kuveyt Trk, Sekerbank, TEB, Trkiye
Finans, Trkiye Is Bankasi, Vakifbank,
Yapi Kredi, Ziraat Bankasi
Turkeys national digital wallet has gone
mobile and now most of the countrys cards
can be used on a platform that supports
m-commerce and mobile peer-to-peer trans-
actions. BKM Express was rst launched as a
web platform and now BKM Express Mobile
is available on mobile devices.
The digital wallet removes the need for
cardholders to share their card details when
they shop online or via their mobile. This
reluctance to share card details was one of
the main hurdles to the wider adoption of
e-commerce and m-commerce, a problem
that BKM Express overcomes.
The payment platform, launched by
Bankalararas Kart Merkezi (BKM) Turkeys
interbank card centre has the participation
of the countrys major banks and covers
The Current Account Switch Service her-
alds a new epoch in banking customer ser-
vice. The service allows customers to switch
banks free of charge and within seven days.
By developing the technical infrastructure
for the new service, VocaLink has delivered a
world rst, for there is no comparable service
available anywhere.
24 | THE BANKER | August 2014

TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS OF THE YEAR | 2014
CUSTOMER DATA MANAGEMENT
WINNER: CITI FINANCIAL
INSTITUTIONS INSIGHTS
Party involved: Citi
What to do with all their data is one of the
biggest challenges that banks face, and the
Citi Financial Institutions Insights project is
an example of how to create a solution that is
useful for clients.
Citi Financial Institutions Insights is an
in-house big data solution that was developed
for use within the banks correspondent bank-
ing business to present its nancial institution
clients with payments and collection informa-
tion, as well as counterparty information.
The relationship management team in
Citis correspondent banking division in Latin
America was looking for a way to provide busi-
ness intelligence based on the data the bank
captures as part of the payment transaction
flows. The division serves the transactional
needs of financial institutions outside their
home countries. For example, Citis clients
include Latin American banks that use the
banks cash management and trade services in
the US and other markets around the world.
Driss Temsamani, Citis regional head of
business intelligence, analytics and innova-
tion for Latin America, says that the project
was a response to an ever-changing eco-
nomic environment where banks need to
rethink traditional value propositions and
explore data as the new frontier.
The team in Latin America joined forces
COMPLIANCE
WINNER: BATS CHI-X EUROPE
TRADING REPORTING
Parties involved: BATS Chi-X Europe,
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi,
Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Instinet,
JPMorgan, KCG, Liquidnet, Morgan
Stanley, UBS
BATS Chi-X Europe Trading Reporting
(BXTR) is a solution that addresses the need
for greater transparency in post-trade
reporting. Increased requirements of the
Markets in Financial Instruments Directive
seek to standardise reporting of over-the-
counter (OTC) trading. With BXTR, mem-
bers of BATS Chi-X Europe can full their
post-trade transparency obligations in real
time, with a solution that provides clean and
consistent post-trade data.
The thinking behind the project was
simple, explains Mark Hemsley, chief execu-
tive of BATS Chi-X Europe. The market and
the regulators wanted greater transparency
around off-exchange trading. We knew we
had the expertise to build a service that
would enable our customers to full those
regulatory obligations, and the relationships
to ensure the nal product t to banks and
brokers existing business processes in an
intuitive, additive way, he says.
One reason BXTR is so intuitive to use is
because it was created in collaboration with
its users, resulting in a solution that meets
their specific needs. Because BATS Chi-X
Europe had upgraded its regulatory status in
2013 from being a multilateral trading facility
to a recognised investment exchange, partici-
pants were obliged to submit high-quality
data. This meant the exchange was in a posi-
tion to demand the highest level of accuracy.
As the largest pan-European equities
exchange in terms of traded volume, it is the
logical choice of venue for participants to
report to. Another factor in BXTRs success
was that it was developed to support the
Market Model Typology initiative, which
aims to standardise post-trade data.
The BXTR project, which was imple-
mented in September 2013, went live in Octo-
ber and has seen increasing volumes reported.
In April 2014, 364bn of pan-European OTC
trades were reported to BXTR. BATS Chi-X
Europe expects that by the third quarter of
this year, more than 70% of OTC equity mar-
ket transactions will be reported to BXTR.
WERE PROUD TO BE AT THE
FRONT OF [EUROPES UNITED
CAPITAL MARKET] DRIVE
Mark Hemsley
THE LAB HAS DEVELOPED
APPLICATIONS TO UNLOCK
HIDDEN VALUE FROM DATA
Driss Temsamani
BXTR is the rst, critical step in the road
to the creation of a pan-European tape of
data on equities trading. If Europe wants to
have a united capital market, then a single
source of data is imperative. Were proud to be
at the front of that drive, says Mr Hemsley.
AWARDS
with the Citi Innovation Lab in Miami,
which has a core skill in big data and analyt-
ics. It took 12 months to develop and test the
Financial Institutions Insights application
and by February 2014 the bank started the
rst pilots of the solution. The lab has devel-
oped applications to unlock hidden value
from data, allowing clients to generate prof-
its by improving their margins around trans-
action ows, says Mr Temsamani.
The solution also has a simulator where
clients can model changes to improvements
to their pricing models, by changing their fee
structures, volumes or exceptions lists. The
solution provides a way for Citis clients to
visualise the data and present it to them in
an interactive way.
For the clients it is the rst time for them
to see such a thing, says Mr Temsamani. The
solution shows clients opportunities they have
been missing to either make or save money.
The impact of the solution has allowed
Citis nancial institution clients to make bet-
ter pricing decisions based on the data, and it
has also improved Citis relationship with its
financial institution clients. Now that this
solution has been developed and tested, the
bank has plans to roll it out globally.
26 | THE BANKER | August 2014

TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS OF THE YEAR | 2014
DEALING/TRADING
WINNER: PARFX
Parties involved: Tradition, Bank of Tokyo
Mitsubishi UFJ, Barclays, BNP Paribas,
Citi, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan, Morgan
Stanley, Nomura Securities, Royal Bank of
Canada, SEB, Socit Gnrale, Standard
Chartered, State Street, UBS
Fairness and equality are the two key
words that Roger Rutherford, the chief oper-
ating ofcer of ParFX uses to describe the
wholesale electronic trading platform. We
treat everyone equally and that cannot be
said about other platforms everyone is
charged exactly the same, he says.
Daniel Marcus, CEO of ParFX, explains
that the platform was created to nd a solu-
tion to a problem in the foreign exchange
markets where banks were frustrated at the
use of disruptive trading strategies and a
liquidity mirage, as well as an arms race
that emphasised speed rather than strategy.
A group of banks approached Tradition an
interdealer broker in over-the-counter
nancial and commodity-related products
to design and manage the platform. ParFX
was designed to overcome the frustration
that the banks had with disruptive strategies
that meant they were being picked off by
high-frequency trading firms (HFT) that
were preventing them from making the
CUSTOMER SERVICE
WINNER: TCS BANKS REAL-TIME
VOICE AUTHENTICATION SYSTEM
Parties involved: Tinkoff Credit Systems
Bank, NICE Systems
A common frustration for customers calling
their bank is the time it takes to get through
all the security questions and remembering
their personal identication numbers. Rus-
sias Tinkoff Credit Systems (TCS Bank) tack-
led this problem head-on by implementing a
solution that meant callers could be authenti-
cated by their voice alone, saving the bank
time and the customer from irritation.
As a branchless bank, it is critical for TCS
Bank to have efcient remote service chan-
nels. The bank was looking to improve the
service provided by its 1400 call-centre
employees who handle approximately 1.5
million inbound calls a month.
Asking security questions which in some
cases can be easy for impersonators to answer
was time-consuming. By using the NICE
Real-Time Voice Authentication solution,
TCS Bank was able to reduce the authentica-
tion of the bank customer to seven seconds, a
reduction of 40 seconds on average per call.
TCS Banks chief information officer,
Viacheslav Tsyganov, says that NICE Sys-
tems was chosen for this project as it is a
market leader in voice-recognition technol-
ogy and the bank already has a partnership
with the company for other solutions. It
understands us well, he says.
One element that stands out with the
implementation of this technology is that
TCS Bank customers were passively enrolled
in the scheme. TCS Banks project was the
first implementation of NICE Systems
Seamless Passive Enrolment process, which
uses historic recordings of the banks cus-
tomers so that their voiceprint is created
without any effort from the customer or the
customer service agent.
The rst stage of deployment was limited
to 70 workstations and 100 operators
between August and October 2013, which
then went live during November and Decem-
ber 2013. The project was then expanded to
the entire TCS call centre of 1000 work sta-
tions at the beginning of January 2014, with
the deployment completed in May 2014.
Mr Tsyganov explains that one of the
challenges in implementing this technology
was how the technology would be adapted to
work in the Russian language and how it
would be inuenced by local factors, such as
the telecom providers.
The response of the customers to the sys-
tem has been positive, says Mr Tsyganov,
who points out that the need for security
questions such as what is your mothers
maiden name? is now obsolete.
trades they wanted to in the public markets.
It is important to make the point that
we are not a platform who goes in and says
all HFT is bad, he says. This is about creat-
ing a level playing eld. ParFX puts intelli-
gence before speed.
Not gaining an advantage simply by
technological superiority is one of the
guiding principles of the platform. ParFX
has other principles, such as a strong
focus on transparency and that all partici-
pants should have a genuine interest to buy
and sell. The platform also responded to a
need among smaller participants for a cost-
effective solution that did not put them at a
disadvantage.
Mr Marcus explains that ParFX will be
launching to the buy side in the coming
months, and when he speaks to rms that
use HFT trading the response has been
counter-intuitive. They have all said they
love it, says Mr Marcus. They use latency
strategies because their competitors do it is
a race for zero that they do not want to be in.
Mr Rutherford says: We have yet to
meet someone who disagrees with our phi-
losophy that they would not want to play on a
fair and equal basis.
AWARDS
WE ARE NOT A PLATFORM WHO
GOES IN AND SAYS ALL HFT IS
BAD. THIS IS ABOUT CREATING
A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD
Daniel Marcus
NICE SYSTEMS UNDERSTANDS
[TCS BANK] WELL
Viacheslav Tsyganov
August 2014 | THE BANKER | 27

2014 | TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS OF THE YEAR
DELIVERY CHANNELS
WINNER: NATIVE BOLSA BIERTA
APP FOR SMARTWATCH
Party involved: CaixaBank
One of the latest trends to emerge in the use
of delivery channels is wearable technology,
and CaixaBanks Bolsa Bierta smartwatch
app falls squarely into this eld. The use of
the app on the Sony Smartwatch 2 is the rst
time a bank in Europe has launched a native
app for the smartwatch and indicates how in
the future customers could access all their
nancial services from their wrists.
Wearable devices, such as smartwatches,
represent a new communications channel
that we believe can be harnessed to improve
the way we interact with our customers, says
Benjam Puigdevall, head of electronic chan-
nels at CaixaBank. With these devices still in
the development stage, now is the time to
explore every opportunity to provide optimal
services once they become more widespread
among the general public. This is coherent
with our culture of innovation and philosophy
to provide customers with services tailored to
the new devices that emerge on the market.
The app, which can be downloaded via
Google Play or the CaixaBank app store,
enables the banks customers to track the
movement of their stocks and various indi-
ces. It displays recent price information, and
fluctuations, for the stocks and indices. It
also allows users to follow summaries of the
RISK MANAGEMENT
WINNER: VANTIVS PROTECTION OF
CARDHOLDER DATA
Parties involved: VeriFone, Vantiv
The payment industrys need to better pro-
tect cardholders data became more urgent
after some high-profile breaches where
card details were compromised, exposing
how card payments can be vulnerable to
attack by cyber criminals.
Vantiv, one of the largest payment pro-
cessors in the US, sought to nd a solution
that would better protect cardholder data.
The company processes payments for large
merchants and nancial institutions in the
US, and processed nearly 17 billion card
transactions in 2013.
The project, in collaboration with tech-
nology company VeriFone, aimed to nd a
solution where card details would be
encrypted at the point the card is swiped,
tapped or put into the merchants point-of-
sale (POS) terminal. By encrypting the
card details at this point, it removes a vul-
nerability whereby a fraudster or cyber
criminal could intercept the unencrypted
payment information as it travels away
from the merchant.
Vantiv wanted to protect cardholder
information and implemented a multi-lay-
ered approach to security using VeriFones
encryption technology, VeriShield Protect,
which is hosted in Vantivs data centres.
VeriShield Protect is unique in that it
protects data at the POS whether con-
sumers are paying with their mobile device
or credit/debit card and beyond the mer-
chant store system environment. Essen-
tially, payment information is encrypted
from the moment its collected at the POS
and remains encrypted throughout the pay-
ment cycle to and from the processor. The
data may still be stolen, but the fact that its
main indices in Spain, Europe, the US and
Asia, as well as news related to securities.
And if there is the need for more informa-
tion, the watch can link to a smartphone, via
a Bluetooth connection.
The project was developed by a team of 15
in CaixaBanks business department. They
started to design a proposal for the app when
Sony announced the launch of its Smartwatch
2 in June 2013. When the devices reached the
Spanish market in September 2013, Caixa-
Bank began to carry out tests and by February
2014 the app was launched. The bank has
now reached an agreement to work with Sam-
sung on its Gear 2 and Gear Fit devices.
Current smartwatch functionalities
remain relatively limited and they still need
to be connected to a smartphone. However,
we expect the devices to evolve rapidly and
become more widely used among our cus-
tomers, says Mr Puigdevall. Users of these
devices enjoy their simplicity and function-
ality. The devices have already proven useful
in areas such as health and sports, and we
will be monitoring their development very
closely. The next step will be to capitalise on
any advances to provide our customers with
new services tailored to these devices.
Joe Majka, chief
security ofcer,
VeriFone
AWARDS
encrypted renders it useless to the cyber
thieves. This approach defeats the memory-
parsing malware responsible for so many
recent high-profile breaches, says Joe
Majka, chief security ofcer for VeriFone.
Recent data breaches have brought
renewed focus from retailers to not only
better protect customers sensitive informa-
tion but also the brands they have spent
considerable time and resources to build.
The solution also helps merchants
comply with Payment Card Industry
(PCI) security standards and the chip tech-
nology in payment cards, known as the
EMV standard.
Mr Majka says: VeriShield Protect is a
major development considering its ability
to remove cardholder data from the mer-
chants POS, store systems and headquar-
ters protecti ng thei r brands and
customers by reducing the risk of data
breaches and payments fraud while also
simplifying PCI compliance at a time when
there is a proliferation of store-system tar-
geted malware. This technology is the per-
f e c t c ompl e me nt t o EMV c ar d
authorisation and is already in production
in Canada and the UK.
WEARABLE DEVICES REPRESENT
A NEW CHANNEL THAT WE
BELIEVE CAN BE HARNESSED
Benjam Puigdevall
28 | THE BANKER | August 2014

TECHNOLOGY PROJECTS OF THE YEAR | 2014
WHOLESALE PAYMENTS
WINNER: STRAIGHT2BANK WALLET
Party involved: Standard Chartered
Bank
Mobile money has been around for a num-
ber of years, but almost everything in this
space is retail-oriented, according to San-
jay Israni, Standard Chartered Banks
global head of product development and
client access, who adds that most mobile
money solutions have so far focused on how
an individual or a micro business can make
payments using a mobile phone.
Straight2Bank Wallet is Standard Char-
tereds solution for larger institutions look-
ing to make payments to or from mobile
wallets. The main idea behind the project,
explains Mr Israni, is nancial inclusion of
underbanked or non-banked people.
The solution enables Standard Char-
tereds clients, such as development agen-
cies, charities or corporations, to make
payments to unbanked peoples mobile wal-
lets in emerging markets. A charity might
need to pay healthcare workers, a large com-
pany might need to pay farmers, or an insur-
ance company to pay policyholders when
the recipients dont have a bank account and
cash is not a viable method. The solution
enables payments to be made from the insti-
tutions bank account to the individuals
mobile wallet and vice versa.
In 2013, Standard Chartered embarked
on creating a partner-agnostic mobile
money infrastructure that could be repli-
cated in multiple markets. The rst phase of
the project was the launch, at the end of
2013, of Straight2Bank Wallet in Kenya,
which targeted the banks corporate clients.
The bank partnered with telecommunica-
tions company Safaricom, which meant that
the banks corporate customers could make
THE SOLUTION ENABLES
PAYMENTS TO BE MADE FROM
THE INSTITUTIONS BANK
ACCOUNT TO THE INDIVIDUALS
MOBILE WALLET
SOCIAL MEDIA
WINNER: F.BANKING BRADESCO
INVESTMENTS AND CREDIT
THROUGH FACEBOOK
Parties involved: Banco Bradesco,
Facebook
Facebook banking or F.Banking has been
developed by one of Brazils largest banks as a
way for the bank to be where its customers are.
Banco Bradesco executive vice-president
Maurcio Minas explains that it is the banks
policy to use the platforms that customers
use, whatever the trend in the marketplace
may be, and have the banks services in those
channels or interfaces. The choice to use
Facebook as a channel was made as a result
of a survey of the marketplace and asking
customers about the latest trends.
Once Banco Bradesco realised that Face-
book was the biggest trend among its custom-
ers, it developed a platform where regular
banking services a simplied version of what
is available through online banking could be
available through the social network without
the customers having to leave Facebook.
The banks system has been adapted to the
new channel, but still has the same look and
feel as the other channels, such as online and
mobile. The convenience for the user is they
do not need to leave Facebook to do their
banking transactions. In between messaging a
friend or commenting on photos, the custom-
ers can carry out online transactions without
having to go to the banks own website.
Mr Minas explains that the bank opened
its application programming interface (API)
to Facebook so that the banks systems inte-
grate with the site. When a customer banks
online through the Facebook channel, they
are actually using the banks systems with
the same security processes of customer
authentication and so on but through the
presentation layer of Facebook. The banks
Maurcio Minas,
executive vice-
president, Banco
Bradesco
IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS WE
EXPECT TO REACH 2 MILLION
USERS IN [THE F.BANKING]
CHANNEL Maurcio Minas
interface is secure, says Mr Minas, and even
though the customer does not leave Face-
book, the transactions are done from the
banks systems in the same way they would
be through other channels.
More complex services, such as personal
credit and investment services, were added to
the banks existing Facebook solution last
year, adding to the range of functions offered
to the banks F.Banking customers.
Mr Minas expects the use of this channel
to grow incrementally. At the moment there
are 150,000 heavy users of F.Banking. In
the next two years we expect to reach 2 mil-
lion active users in [the F.Banking] channel
that is a realistic number based on the g-
ures we have, says Mr Minas.
AWARDS
payments to individuals from the clients
bank account to the individuals M-Pesa
mobile wallet.
The solution has been extended to Nige-
ria and the bank plans to roll it out in an
additional 10 markets in Asia and Africa.
For Standard Chartereds corporate clients,
the mobile wallet payments and collections
seamlessly integrate into the clients existing
processes, with real-time processing of
transactions and efcient client reporting
with a simple on-boarding process.
The bank aims to create a mobile money
ecosystem with telecommunications com-
panies and the existing providers of mobile
wallets, such as Kenyas M-Pesa. Mr Israni is
keen to point out that it is not a Standard
Chartered ecosystem, but rather a model of
broad engagement where Standard Char-
tered is a partner, not a leader in the project.
For now, although a number of national
mobile wallets are in operation, these are not
interoperable as there is no connectivity
between countries. That ecosystem is still
evolving, says Mr Israni. Standard Chartered
has already built the foundations for cross-
border remittances as part of the initial
launch of the mobile money ecosystem.