Strategic Originations: Capitalizing on New Market Opportunities
By Roger Ahern
This article discusses the advantages of lending decision systems that allow lenders to strategically prepare to roll out new products, services and solutions across market segments.

Full Circle: Banks Turn to BPM
By Deepak Pareek
This article explores how and why banks are embracing BPM. Deepak Pareek argues that BPM provides the ability to manage and automate tasks and decision-making in the financial sector.

Smart Payment Trends: Is EMV Changing the Game?
By Philippe David
Philippe David examines the market trends in smart payment and explores how some card issuers have leveraged their EMV migration to generate more revenue.

Personalization: The Key to Customer Loyalty?
By Guy de Torcy
Customization and personalization are not the same thing, although they are often thought to be. Guy de Torcy looks at how financial services companies can gain from personalization.

EBPP Begins to Take Hold
By Kenny Hargis
Kenny Hargis examines the evolution of electronic bill presentment and payment and considers what the future holds for this increasingly popular technology.

The Ten Pillars of Straight Through Processing
By Michael A. Lane
STP requires a standards-based architecture with built-in real-time operations, end-to-end control and visibility, reusability and exception elimination. Michael A. Lane offers ten principles to building the STP framework needed to evolve faster, more efficient and reliable processes.

The STP ‘Big Bang’
By M.G. Nithyasree Trivikram
Straight through processing (STP) is expected to transform processing and settlement standards. M.G. Nithyasree Trivikram outlines STP market drivers and challenges, the current status of STP implementation, and the application of STP in the banking sector.

Increasing Automation in Credit Derivatives
By Penny Davenport
Confirmations in credit derivatives continue to be settled manually but, argues Penny Davenport, continued growth and reduced risk in this market will depend on technological development and standardization initiatives.

Getting Smart with STP
By Jeremy Payne
Few banks have realized straight through processing’s full potential and understand how BPM can help them reap its benefits. Jeremy Payne argues the case for ‘smart’ rules-based STP.

Low Cost STP? – The Answer Lies With ASP
By Terry Drewett
ASP services are not new, but their potential for the post-trade arena has been underrated until now. They offer a strong and low cost alternative to their deployed solution cousins, thereby providing a low barrier-to-entry for those organizations trying to realize the ultimate STP dream. By Terry Drewett.

Preparing for the Pain of Basel II
By Martin Owen
In order to comply with the Basel II Accord, financial institutions will need to have a full and in-depth understanding of all possible risks and their potential impact. Martin Owen discusses the use of business process modeling and an enterprise architecture to identify and measure risk areas.

Wholesale Banking at the Crossroads
By Ross McKay
Wholesale banking has reached a crossroads, and the technology decisions that banks make today regarding their wholesale banking strategy will set the stage for whether they thrive over the long term, or merely struggle to survive. By Ross McKay.

A Dangerous Legacy For Insurance
By Jeff Leaver
Commercial pressures mean that insurance companies now have little option but to move from legacy systems to an integrated Web-based infrastructure. J2EE enables the integration of disparate systems and is an effective approach for embracing change. By Jeff Leaver.

Technology Imperatives in Insurance
By Kimberly Harris
Kimberly Harris is a research director in Gartner’s financial services industry group. Technology For Finance caught up with her recently to discuss the key technology trends in the insurance sector. Interview by Tony M. Brown, editor-in-chief, Technology For Finance.

Back Office Integration and BPM
By Ian Howells
For back office integration to become a reality, the first priority is to integrate previously independent systems and ensure a free flow of data between applications. But to truly harness the value of integration you need to look at business process management and workflow. By Dr Ian Howells.

STP in Insurance
By Maneeza Malik
Already widely adopted within the banking sector, STP is yet to make a major impact upon insurance. Maneeza Malik argues that STP must become a business imperative if the insurance industry is to remain competitive and drive down costs.

A Pre-emptive Strike: Managing Internet Security
By Nigel Beighton
With more complex threats being launched more quickly and the potential for even greater damage, it is becoming essential for financial companies to take a more proactive approach to monitoring the threat environment and managing network security. By Nigel Beighton.

Web Services in the Financial Community
By Mike Noy
Mike Noy discusses the benefits of Web services to the finance sector today and explores what firms should be doing to build a flexible service-oriented architecture.

Banking on Online Customer Service
By Pete Cruz
Regular, automated testing and monitoring of a bank's Website - at all levels of any transaction - can ensure online customers get the service they expect. By Pete Cruz.

Five Myths of Web Services
By Ian Bruce
Although Web services can solve the integration challenges of financial services companies, there are still misunderstandings about how the technology can add business value and its readiness for business-critical deployment. Ian Bruce attempts to dispel five common myths about Web services.

CRM is Dead Without ABC
By Richard Barrett
Richard Barrett examines the problems with CRM in the financial industry and illustrates the importance of using activity-based costing (ABC) to provide accurate financial data about customer profitability and business resource costs to underline CRM initiatives.

Outsourcing FX Services
By John McElwaine
John McElwaine looks at the reason to outsource foreign exchange services, and examines the critical factors to explore when choosing an outsourcing provider.

Managing Increased Risk
By Shari Shore
Shari Shore argues that the right technology – portal, reporting, business rules and business analytics - can help predict, protect against and prevent fraud in the financial sector.

IT Auditing and the FFIEC
By Jonathan Wolf
The FFIEC establishes IT auditing guidelines for the financial industry. Jonathan Wolf looks at the audit procedure and discusses the use of infrastructure integrity solutions to automate the process.

PKI – Securing Your Business
By David Shapland
With the mass adoption of the Internet as a business tool, information protection has become an area of increased importance. This is particularly the case within the finance sector due to the sensitive nature of the transactions taking place. David Shapland looks at the role of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and explains why it is the right solution for corporate security.

Process Improvement for Retail Banking
By Ali Kiran and Celal Kaplan
Originally developed to reduce manufacturing defects, Six Sigma is now being applied in non-manufacturing industries such as financial services. Ali S. Kiran and Celal Kaplan examine the use of this process improvement methodology in retail banking.

FIX For All
By Kevin Covington
If a secure, cost-effective communication infrastructure using FIX could be made available, the result would be cheaper order flow for smaller buy-side firms, and STP rates would increase. By Kevin Covington.

Confirmation Matching: Is Your System Delivering the Goods?
By James F. Black
Many banks have developed in-house confirmation matching systems, but they typically address SWIFT processing while ignoring other activities such as exceptions handling and investigations. James F. Black discusses the key factors to look for when selecting confirmation matching software for today’s dynamic business environment.

Banking on Small Business
By Ross McKay
Serving the small business market - one that is ripe and ready for financial services - will take a dedicated and centralized strategy that looks at all products and delivery channels. By Ross McKay.

Credit Risk: So Far So Good
By Mitali Kalita
Mitali Kalita takes a journey through the world of credit risk - how to manage the most significant risks, the challenges and benefits of implementing a credit risk management practice, and the evolving trend of credit risk mitigation.