Finance

Hackers Keep Hitting Financial Services Despite Hefty Cyber Spend

hafiz cakep 14 hours ago

Rod Holmes, vCISO, The Crypsis Group.

Financial services organizations consistently outspend most of their vertical sector peers in cybersecurity staff, tools and associated investments, but the cyber hits just keep coming. According to our recent report, the financial services industry received the highest number of business email compromise (BEC) attacks in 2019 and the second-most cyber incidents across all types, following the healthcare sector.

For years, financial services has led the pack in cybersecurity spending. In 2015, for example, a Homeland Security Research study concluded the U.S. financial services cybersecurity market was the largest and fastest-growing nongovernmental market in cybersecurity.

In 2019, financial services companies dedicated between 6% and 14% of their annual IT budgets to cybersecurity (an average of 10%), according to a Deloitte study. (Current recommendations are between 4% and 10%; however, most companies fall short). In light of increasing Covid-19-related threats, these institutions plan to

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People are ditching in-person financial services for apps | Technology

hafiz cakep 2 days ago

“People are trying digital finance for the first time,” Perret said. “It’s going from an attitude where people think, ‘I do my banking in person,’ or, ‘I do financial services in person,’ to an attitude of thinking, ‘I could use these digital services.’ Breaking that zero-to-one gap, that’s the biggest gap.”

What’s next for fintech?

While the growing demand for fintech is promising for the industry, concerns about data privacy and cybersecurity could be a hurdle for further growth.

In a recent survey by international law firm Goodwin of more than 700 global business leaders about fintech trends, nearly half ranked cybersecurity as the largest threat to the adoption of digital financial services. There are also issues like possible tech glitches as users are trying to make crucial transactions, as happened to several online brokerages on the day that Apple and Tesla stock started trading at newly split prices last

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Regions Bank Announces Special Financial Services in Areas Impacted by Hurricane Sally

hafiz cakep 3 days ago

Fee waivers, deferred payments and additional offers available to support storm recovery.

Regions Bank on Friday announced a series of financial services that are available to help people and businesses in portions of Alabama, Florida and Mississippi that were impacted by Hurricane Sally1. Options include payment extensions, the waiving of certain fees, interest rate discounts and additional offers.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200918005051/en/

Special services announced by Regions Bank are designed to help people and businesses along the Gulf Coast. (Photo: Business Wire)

“Regions Bank has been part of the Gulf Coast and our inland communities for many years, and we will be here in the days, weeks and months to come as storm recovery moves forward,” said John Turner, President and CEO of Regions Financial Corp. “These financial services are designed to make the recovery easier, and we encourage all customers

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Blockchain Will Make Financial Services More Available, Secure, And Fair

hafiz cakep 4 days ago

One of the hallmarks of 2020 is that global economies are seeing lots of instability, and this is true at every level of society. For individuals, there may be more options available, but this hasn’t necessarily translated into more people being able to access banking services. In some regions, great ideas like micro-lending have taken off, and this has helped. But globally, as we move away from standard Monday-Friday, 9-5 jobs, millions of people are turning to non-traditional forms of work. For many of these independent workers, the result has been that personal finance is getting even further away. 

At a global level, we’re still seeing huge numbers of underserved people. Even in developed nations, the gulf between banked vs. unbanked can be deep: in the US, as many as one quarter of all households are unbanked or underbanked, without easy access to savings, credit, or loans. There are also

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Abaka launches Chatbot as a Service solution for financial firms

hafiz cakep 5 days ago

  • baka debuted a conversational chatbot product for financial firms to integrate into their digital channels, complementing its existing AI applications.
  • The move will be especially useful for smaller players’ digital transformations.

The off-the-shelf offering enables financial advisors, wealth managers, retail banks, insurers, and retirement providers to integrate an AI chatbot, Finextra reports. Launched in 2015, Abaka is a technology platform that provides AI solutions to financial firms of all sizes, and it has offices in the UK, France, Singapore, and the US.

Reported benefits of using AI interactions for global banking and insurance customers

Abaka launches Chatbot as a Service solution for financial firms.

Business Insider Intelligence


Abaka’s chatbot promises to boost financial firms’ client engagement and satisfaction, and complements its existing products.

  • Financial firms are keen to use chatbots to improve customer interactions, but they face implementation challenges. Forty-nine percent of global consumers say that AI interactions in insurance and banking provide better security and privacy around personal data than humans
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SS&C Launches Accredited Financial Services Education Library

hafiz cakep 6 days ago

WINDSOR, Conn., Sept. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — SS&C Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: SSNC) today announced it has released a new online education product for financial professionals. SS&C’s GAMMA is a digital library of online courses optimized for remote learning by financial industry professionals. The product provides seamless access to hundreds of online courses across more than 30 financial topics, from accounting and finance basics to portfolio management and software skills.

The library of innovative, interactive online courses is accredited with various industry associations and organizations to support key industry certifications and designations, including:

  • CPA®: National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) CPE credits for Certified Professional Accountants®
  • CIMA®, CIMC®, CPWA®, RMA®: Investment and Wealth Institute (IWI) CPE credits for Certified Investment Management Analysts®, Certified Investment Management Consultants®, Certified Private Wealth Advisors® and Retirement
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ServiceNow launches latest Now Platform, telecom and financial services workflows

hafiz cakep 7 days ago

ServiceNow launched a new version of its Now Platform, code-named Paris, with editions for telecommunications and financial services as well as workflows for business continuity, hardware asset management and legal services delivery.

The company, which is gunning to be the “platform of platforms” to automate enterprise workflows, has seen strong growth due to digital transformation as well as management of COVID-19 back-to-work plans. Also: ServiceNow launches four-app suite to manage the move back to the office

“The 21st century enterprise is different. It has to be nimble, intelligent and drive employer and customer loyalty,” said ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “And it has to be self-funding with time to value in weeks to months.”

McDermott’s argument is that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed weak links and silos in enterprise value chains. For instance, companies can’t be agile when they have a bunch of systems that specialize in one task, say sales,

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Financial services sector increases digital ad spending amid pandemic

hafiz cakep 1 week ago

  • Insider Intelligence publishes thousands of research reports, charts, and forecasts on the Media, Advertising, and Marketing industry. You can learn more about becoming a client here.
  • The following is a preview of the US Financial Services Digital Ad Spending 2020 report.

Despite this year’s decline in total ad spending in the US, the financial services industry will increase its digital ad outlays.

Top strategic initiatives for US financial services executives once the coronavirus pandemic is over

Digital ad spending in the US financial services industry will increase in 2020.

eMarketer


The pandemic has prompted many consumers to reassess their personal finances and change how they bank, leading the industry to continue spending on digital ads. We expect digital ad spending in the US financial services industry will increase 9.7% in 2020, to reach $19.62 billion.

Consumer banks have closed a significant number of branches, temporarily or even permanently, because of the pandemic. Without a physical location to visit, many consumers have shifted to online

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Johnson Service Group PLC’s (LON:JSG) Stock Has Shown Weakness Lately But Financial Prospects Look Decent: Is The Market Wrong?

hafiz cakep 1 week ago

It is hard to get excited after looking at Johnson Service Group’s (LON:JSG) recent performance, when its stock has declined 6.1% over the past three months. But if you pay close attention, you might find that its key financial indicators look quite decent, which could mean that the stock could potentially rise in the long-term given how markets usually reward more resilient long-term fundamentals. Specifically, we decided to study Johnson Service Group’s ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. In other words, it is a profitability ratio which measures the rate of return on the capital provided by the company’s shareholders.

View our latest analysis for Johnson Service Group

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on

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Council Post: 5G In Financial Services: Evolution, Not Revolution

hafiz cakep 1 week ago

CTO and SVP of NetScout, Service Provider – Leads technology strategy for product and service solutions.

With proper implementation, 5G will accelerate the evolution of modern financial services, permuting tasks as routine as obtaining credit information to next-generation edge- and cloud-computing operations, AI, and much more. It is the bridge to the mobile-centric business model that is the banking industry’s future.

“Evolution” is the operative word as 5G builds on existing progress in both telecommunications and banking. Regarding the former, 5G is backward compatible, meaning 5G phones “are capable of functioning on earlier-generation networks outside of 5G coverage areas,” according to the FCC. This means that mobile providers can “maintain their 4G networks as they invest in 5G deployment.”

As to the latter, many financial innovations are already deemphasizing “brick and mortar” banking. The need has only increased during the coronavirus pandemic. A more significant number of financial

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