Lloyds Bank to use Workday software to help select staff for redundancy
Lloyds Banking Group will monitor its Workday HR software to help it identify the lowest-performing staff, who could be cut as part of its latest cull, according to the union. A Financial Times report stated that the UK banking…
Number of UK banks reporting AI-driven productivity improvements doubles
The number of UK banks reporting productivity gains from artificial intelligence (AI) has doubled as projects move from pilots to production. According to Lloyds Banking Group’s latest Financial institutions sentiment survey, 59% of surveyed firms reported AI-driven productivity gains…
Open banking take-up grows by a third
The use of open banking services in the UK has increased by a third in the past 12 months as it becomes “part of everyday life”, according to an industry authority. There were over 15 million users of open…
Scottish Widows completes migration of millions of accounts to TCS platform
Scottish Widows has moved 3.8 million customer accounts and pension data from multiple legacy systems to a cloud-based platform from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). It worked with the Indian supplier’s subsidiary Diligentia on the migration to the TCS BaNCS…
Meet the IT leader In Lebanon who became an IT entrepreneur
Asked for his advice as to whether it’s a smart idea to switch from being an IT leader to running your own company, Nassib Chamoun has some advice for potential poachers turned gamekeepers. “If you’re looking for stability, my recommendation…
Interview: Simon Goodyear, chief information and technology officer, Redwood Bank
As a youngster, Simon Goodyear believed there was nothing that couldn’t be solved with technology, and he is now applying this belief to his role at Redwood Bank. Goodyear, who heads up IT at the business bank, tells Computer…
Santander will make AI training mandatory for all staff in 2026
Banco Santander will introduce a mandatory artificial intelligence (AI) training programme for all its staff next year, as part of its plan to make the technology part of its DNA. The Spanish bank is accelerating its use of AI…
UK state-owned bank goes cloud-native
The UK’s National Savings and Investments (NS&I) bank is replacing its legacy core banking system as part of a wider digital transformation project. The legacy platform, which has been provided through an outsourcing contract with Atos since 1999, will…
Interview: Kirsty Roth, chief operations and technology officer, Thomson Reuters
“Technology people just look at the problem differently,” says Kirsty Roth, chief operations and technology officer at Thomson Reuters. “They think about how the business can use technology to solve the problem versus traditional management techniques.” That’s why she’s…
Investing in diverse business could boost UK equity market
More investment in businesses led by women and ethnic minorities could increase the UK equity market by 13%, according to research. Government-led initiative Investing in Women Code found that though its signatories are making progress when it comes to…
Monzo’s £21m fine highlights banks’ cyber security failures
Monzo’s recent £21m fine over customer verification failures highlights the cyber security and privacy shortcomings of popular personal finance apps and the importance of good cyber hygiene, experts have said. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently determined that,…
UK loses second spot in global fintech to UAE
The UAE has leapfrogged the UK in the latest fintech market rankings, following a $2bn investment by Abu Dhabi’s MGX in cryptocurrency exchange Binance. This is the first time the UK has lost second spot, and comes at a…
The Bank of England’s quiet ‘Big Bang’
The Bank of England has completed the replacement of the UK financial system’s “beating heart”, and is making good progress in its goal of providing “silent operations”. Its replacement of the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system, which processes £800bn…
Travelex replacing its software spine as part of cloud migration
Travelex is replacing multiple legacy core supply chain systems with an off-the-shelf alternative, as it seeks to complete its transition to the cloud. Meanwhile, as part of its wider transformation, its in-house software development teams work with technologies such as…
Technology fuels successful FCA fight against unauthorised financial services
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has shut down 1,600 websites and 50 finance apps through the use of data and technology, as well as collaboration with big tech firms. With fintech increasing the availability of financial products and unauthorised…
Irish bank rolls out AI tools to 10,000 staff
AIB is embedding artificial intelligence (AI) into business tools throughout the bank for 10,000 staff to free up their time for higher value work. As well as using AI in conjunction with Microsoft tools such as Outlook, Word, Excel,…
Zopa to embed into Manchester’s tech ecosystem
Zopa will tap into the tech ecosystem in Manchester through a regional office that could eventually house 500 staff. The announcement comes days after the launch of the challenger bank’s current account, known as Biscuit. Zopa currently has around…
TSB faces another risky IT migration as Santander eyes UK bank
Santander’s proposed acquisition of TSB would require customer accounts to be migrated from the in-house developed system of its current owner to that of its acquirer, just a few years after the dust settled on what was one of…
Digital workers at US bank to get their own email accounts
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents at the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) have company logins, and will soon have access to their own email accounts. According to The Wall Street Journal, the firm’s IT boss said that “digital workers”,…
ING Bank transforming operations through agentic AI
ING Bank is currently amid multiple projects to improve its operations through the use of agentic artificial intelligence (AI). Projects around using the technology in transaction monitoring, customer due diligence and mortgage generation are already in early production or…
Interview: Developing a CIO strategy for artificial intelligence
When Chris Loake joined Hiscox in November 2023 as the company’s group information officer, the insurance firm had already begun on a journey to pilot using the artificial intelligence (AI) in Microsoft Copilot (M365 Copilot). “We’ve been a big…
Next phase of fintech reflected in strong financials, says World Economic Forum
Fintechs are growing customer bases at a lower rate, but profits and revenues are strong as the industry becomes sustainable, according to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report. In the second edition of The future of global fintech: From…
UBS employee data leaked after cyber attack on supplier
The details of about 130,000 UBS staff were leaked after a cyber attack on a procurement service provider used by the Swiss banking giant. A private bank in Switzerland, known as Pictet, was also affected by the cyber attack…
Scattered Spider widens web to target insurance sector
Insurance companies are warned to be on their guard against a spreading campaign of network intrusions orchestrated by the Scattered Spider cyber crime collective after evidence emerged that the teenaged hacking gang has hit multiple insurance companies in the…
West Brom Building Society project to meet customers’ digital demands
West Brom Building Society is embarking on a three-stage project to build the digital capabilities its customers want. The organisation, which offers mortgages and savings products to about 500,000 people, will retain its 34 branches, but said customers are…
UK finance regulator tie-up with Nvidia allows firms to experiment with AI
The UK’s financial services regulator has teamed up with Nvidia to provide an environment to enable finance firms to test out artificial intelligence (AI) safely. In what the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) describes as a Supercharged Sandbox, firms will…
Third-party security weaknesses threaten Europe’s big banks
Almost all (96%) of Europe’s largest financial services organisations have been affected by a security breach at a third-party organisation, research has found. This was 25% higher than when the same survey was carried out two years ago, according…
Barclays rolls out Microsoft Copilot to 100,000 employees as AI adoption gathers pace
Barclays has signed an agreement with public cloud giant Microsoft that will see the latter’s generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tool Copilot rolled out to 100,000 of the bank’s employees globally. The banking giant plans to integrate Microsoft 365 Copilot…
Citigroup cuts thousands of staff at China-based tech centres
Citigroup is “streamlining” tech support operations in China as part of a global restructure, with 3,500 roles set to go. The finance giant said some of the jobs will be moved, with one commentator suggesting it could join other…
Australia’s CommBank completes migration of data to AWS in AI drive
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) plans to accelerate the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into its business after completing a year-long migration of its data platform to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Its data platform will be integrated with…
NCSC sets out how to build cyber safe cultures
Security leaders accustomed to the time-worn cliché of being the guy in IT whose job it is to say no can from today avail themselves of new National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) guidance on creating effective cyber security cultures…
Interview: Pega’s ‘Blueprint’ for breaking the curse of legacy IT
Businesses are losing out twice by having to support old IT systems that they cannot afford to turn off because they perform business-critical functions. Companies have to pay to keep computer systems running well beyond their natural life, which…
Fintech growth three times that of finance sector as a whole
The global fintech sector saw its revenues increase three times that of the finance sector as a whole in 2024, as it enters a new “era of maturity”. Despite reduced investment in fintech firms, the businesses are maturing and…
Tech adaptability helps Zopa unwrap current account and test generative AI
Zopa Bank will make its current account widely available by the end of this year, signalling a major milestone in the company’s journey from peer-to-peer (P2P) lending to banking. Beginning life as a P2P lender in 2005, Zopa launched…
Remote purchase fraud surges 14%, says banking industry
The UK economy lost £1.17bn to payment fraud in 2024, with a steep increase in unauthorised remote purchases. Remote purchase fraud, which sees criminals use stolen card details to make unauthorised purchases online, over the phone or through mail…
Maturing UK fintechs increase tech and cyber security hiring
The UK’s financial technology sector, or fintech as it is widely known, will see a 32% increase in professional hiring this year, with cyber security and technology roles the most in demand. As the fintech sector matures, and companies…
Lloyds and Nationwide to use UK finance sector LLM
Lloyds Banking Group and Nationwide Building Society are set to roll out a generative AI (GenAI) tool that has been specifically designed for the UK finance sector. The tool, known as FinLLM, was developed in the UK by Aveni…
HMRC begins escape from Fujitsu’s grip through £500m contract
HMRC has begun the process of breaking away from its heavy reliance on Fujitsu for IT services, with a tender worth £500m designed to exit the supplier’s services. In the clearest sign that HMRC is ready to break away from…
Strong fintech security posture at risk via third-party weak links
Financial technology (fintech) companies have a strong security posture but are at risk from third-party weaknesses, according to analysis. In its latest report, SecurityScorecard stated that the fintech sector ranked highest of all sectors studied when it came to…
Capital One pushes out data tokenisation
The software arm of Capital One has expanded the availability of a tool that enables IT departments to improve their data security using data tokenisation. The business-to-business software division of the financial services company has made its Databolt data…
How close is quantum computing to commercial reality?
Quantum computing may still be regarded by many IT leaders as a very niche technology, but broader business use cases may be just a few years away. While only a handful of companies have machines with logical qubits today,…
Italian bank signs 10-year deal with Google Cloud
UniCredit has signed a 10-year agreement with Google Cloud to “accelerate” its digital transformation by tapping into the supplier’s cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics capabilities. UniCredit will migrate “large sections” of its “application landscape”, including legacy systems,…
Nordic countries plan offline payment system for disaster backup
Countries in the Nordic region are planning offline backups to digital payments in the event of losing internet connectivity. According to a Reuters report, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Estonia have made plans following unexplained damage being caused to…
Fintech summit reveals what’s next for sector
This year’s Innovate Finance Global Summit (IFGS) event comes with the backdrop of turmoil caused by Donald Trump’s return as US president, with uncertainty for fintech and other businesses with close ties to the US. Fintech is valued as…
Artificial intelligence roles the ‘only safe jobs in banking’
Artificial intelligence (AI)-related roles could be the only “safe jobs” in the banking sector as financial organisations “relentlessly” press on with AI-led transformation. In its latest AI talent report, banking industry benchmarking firm Evident revealed the biggest AI recruitment…
FCA wants ‘safe place’ for finance firms to test artificial intelligence
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) plans to offer a service where companies under its watch can test out artificial intelligence (AI) tools before they go live. Firms are currently being slowed down in their development and deployment of AI…
Interview: Daniele Tonella, CTO, ING
Daniele Tonella, global head of IT at ING Bank, tells Computer Weekly about his first nine months in the job, which has so far seen him navigate four layers of tech. The chief technology officer (CTO), who describes himself…
UK challenger bank targets US’s mid-tier banking sector with tech platform
Starling Bank has created a US subsidiary where it will target mid-sized banks with its banking software as a service (BaaS) offering. The tech operation of Starling Bank has already won customers in Europe and Australia for its platform,…
Spirit of openness helps banks get serious about stopping scams
Three announcements in the space of a few days this month suggest financial scams have reached a tipping point and banks are ready to up the ante. Santander last week published figures on the amount of money scammed from…
Lloyds Bank moves AI work onto Google Cloud platform
Lloyds Banking Group will build, deploy and scale artificial intelligence (AI) systems using a Google service, accelerating production while slashing CO2 emissions. The bank is using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI to build a machine learning (ML) and generative artificial…
Over £18m stolen from Santander UK customers in first three months of year
Over £18m was stolen from Santander customers in the UK during the first three months of this year, according to the bank. In its quarterly report on scams, the Santander said over £9m of the lost funds was through…
Fintech body calls on government for national anti-fraud centre
Fintech trade body calls on the government to establish a national centre to help businesses across different sectors fight fraud through data sharing. Innovate Finance said that current data sharing initiatives designed to fight fraud operate in silos, which…
Banks to share fraud data with tech firms in cross-sector collaboration
Banks and tech firms are coming together in an initiative to share information on fraud to give them visibility of the attacks targeted at customers. The collaboration is part of Stop Scams UK’s intelligence-sharing pilots, which have brought together…
How to respond to digital regulation in 2025
Given digital technology is so central to how we live, work, transact and communicate, we have recently seen the finalisation of an unprecedented amount of digital regulation in both the UK and the EU. In such a fast-moving environment,…
‘Bankenstein’ and a cold calculation means banking crashes will continue
Banks are operating a “spaghetti” tech structure that is creating a game of “technology Jenga” for IT managers updating their systems. Making changes to IT systems has huge knock-on effects, with upgrades risking downtime. But banks are willing to…
Government announces inevitable end to Payments Services Regulator
The government has canned the Payments Services Regulator (PSR) to reduce red tape as part of its Plan for Change. PSR activities will be transitioned to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which will provide “one port of call” to…
2024: the year misconfigurations exposed digital vulnerabilities
Imagine the impact of a sudden service disruption on your business. Customers unable to access your platform, transactions put on hold, and your team racing against the clock to fix the issue. These aren’t far-fetched scenarios — they’re the…
Norway says ‘no way’ to global financial crime
In 2024, the Norwegian government set out a national digitisation strategy with the aim of making the country the most digitised in the world by 2030. This intent is nothing new and has both ignited, and been ignited by,…
CFIT publishes blueprint for digital company business IDs
The government-backed Centre for Finance, Innovation and technology (CFIT) has outlined its plan to fight economic crime through digital business IDs. Digital IDs for business will improve business efficiency, security and trust, according to the CFIT, which was launched…
Major UK banks hit by payday digital banking problems again
Customers of multiple banks have reported problems banking online, as they struggle to access services on payday for the second month running. The problems came two days after MPs were due to receive details of how IT failures have…
Post Office makes first official apology to Capture users
The Post Office has made its first official apology to subpostmasters who used its faulty Capture accounting software and were blamed and punished for unexplained shortfalls. Ken Tooby received a letter from a senior executive who “apologised sincerely and…
Government seeks payments tech partner through £49m contract
The UK government has begun its search for an IT supplier to support its plan to build open banking capabilities into its payment platform. The Government Digital Service (GDS) is looking for a tech supplier to start work in…
CaixaBank outlines artificial intelligence intentions in €5bn plan
CaixaBank will invest in programmes to make more use of artificial intelligence (AI), as part of a multibillion-euro business plan announced last year. The IT element of the bank’s two-year, €5bn Strategic Plan, known as Cosmos, leans heavily on…
Cyber Monitoring Centre develops hurricane scale to count cost of cyber attacks
The CrowdStrike incident in 2024 hit the UK like a hurricane. As it swept across the country, it ground flights to a standstill, forced hospitals to cancel operations, and brought down the computer systems and websites of hundreds of…
EY: Industrial companies worldwide stunted in emerging technology use
Many companies from a range of industries worldwide are stuck at a trial stage of emerging technologies usage, according to the sixth annual EY Reimagining industry futures study. The firm surveyed 1,635 enterprises in November 2024, including 9% in…
‘Times are hard’ for fintech but latest report reveals glimmer of recovery
Fintech investment has been on a downward spiral since 2012, but the second half of this year could see the first shoots of recovery. Investment in UK fintechs fell by over a quarter last year, but there are signs…
MPs demand bank bosses come clean over IT outages following Barclays crash
MPs have written to bosses at the UK’s biggest banks to shed light on the impact of IT failures on their businesses, after a Barclays outage caused chaos on payday last month. The recent three-day outage at Barclays Bank…
Courting Global Talent: How can Web3 Startups Attract the Best Developers in the World?
One of the interesting developments right now is the intersection between AI and Web3. From the creation of AI agents integrated into Web3 decentralised applications to the impact of generative AI on Web3 gaming, Web3 is once again at…
MPs to scrutinise use of artificial intelligence in the finance sector
The Parliamentary Treasury Committee has called on consumers, finance firms and IT suppliers to provide evidence to support an inquiry into the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the finance sector. AI is used widely in the finance sector…
Barclays hit by major IT outage on HMRC deadline day
Customers of Barclays Bank have been left unable to access web app and online banking, make payments to and from their accounts, or access customer services, in the wake of a significant IT outage at the bank which struck…
The death of the piggy bank marks coming of age of a fintech
Those Beyond started life as the tech lab of fintech unicorn Thought Machine, supplying cloud-based core banking systems to the world’s biggest banks. Now, after setting off in a different direction to its former parent, it is on an…
A guide to DORA compliance
The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) came into force on 16 January 2023. Following a two-year implementation period, from 17 January 2025, financial organisations must fully comply with the new regulation, which aims to ensure they remain resilient to…
Bank of England and New York counterpart exchange puts technology cooperation into 3D
Financial services regulators in the UK and New York are to share staff through a secondment programme that kicks off next month. The New York Department of Financial Services and the Bank of England plan to share insights, knowledge…
Almost half of UK banks set to miss DORA deadline
Although they have had two years to prepare for the incoming legislation, a study has today revealed that a significant minority of UK financial services organisations are set to miss the 17 January 2025 deadline to comply with the…
UK’s female fintech leaders hit harder by investment collapse
The women behind fintechs still face discrimination when seeking investment, despite the issue being an industry talking point for years, according to figures from a UK fintech industry body. Innovate Finance’s numbers, which revealed UK fintech investment dropped by…
Experts say ‘something has to break’ before banks slow IT-driven cost-cutting measures
Two separate announcements have highlighted the aggressive cost-cutting measures banks are putting in place as digital technologies replace thousands of people from the back-office of their organisations. Bloomberg Intelligence’s recent report predicts 200,000 middle and back-office jobs will be lost…
US bank FNBO uses Pindrop to tackle voice fraud, deepfakes
With cyber criminality and fraud against banks running rampant in recent years and showing no signs of slacking off, banking organisations around the world are coming to understand that they need to be doing much more effective due diligence…
Top 10 financial services stories of 2024
It seems fintech has been replaced by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) as the most-used term in banking IT this year. Fintech, after all, is not a technology but a movement, which will undoubtedly see its next evolution through the…
Interview: Wendy Redshaw, chief digital information officer, NatWest Retail Bank
Wendy Redshaw, chief digital information officer (CDIO) at NatWest Retail Bank, has had a distinguished career leading technology-led change in some of the world’s biggest financial services organisations. Now, she’s using that experience to drive even more innovation. After…
The future is inclusive: How technology can democratise access to opportunity
Technology has always been a transformative force, reshaping industries, economies, and societies. In today’s rapidly evolving landscape, its potential to democratise access to opportunities stands out as one of its most powerful capabilities. Innovations such as artificial intelligence (AI),…
Financiers isolate Middle East over sanctions-evading paytech
International financiers have pulled support for a revolutionary paytech system being rolled out in the Middle East after it became embroiled in Russian plans to evade sanctions intended to snuff foreign trade flows supporting its invasion of Ukraine. The…
Bank of England warns against AI ‘complacency’
The Bank of England is launching a consortium where private sector finance organisations and artificial intelligence (AI) experts can provide knowledge on the technology’s benefits to the sector and manage risk. During an international financial conference in Hong Kong,…
Tata Consultancy Services to deliver Irish pension scheme
Ireland’s Department of Social Protection has contracted Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to provide the IT and business services that underpin its new retirement pension scheme. The 15-year contract will see Ireland’s My Future Fund use TCS’s BaNCS digital platform…
MoneyGram customer data breached in attack
Financial services firm and money transfer specialist MoneyGram has disclosed a breach of customer data arising from a late-September cyber attack on its systems, but has waited over a week to tell customers that they have been affected. The incident…
‘Shocked’ MoneyGram hits back at Post Office
MoneyGram said it is “shocked and disappointed” by Post Office portrayal on a contract breakdown, which saw money transfer services removed from thousands of branches. The money transfer firm also confirmed that the UK is the only country it operates…
Metro Bank outsources IT to Infosys to cut costs and digitally transform
Metro Bank has contracted Infosys to support its digital business transformation and use of automation, artificial intelligence (AI) and data technologies in a deal that will also help it meet cost-cutting targets. According to reports, the bank is planning to…
HSBC tests post-quantum VPN tunnel for digital ledgers
HSBC has worked with Quantinuum to trial “the first application” of quantum-secure technology for distributing tokenised physical gold. The HSBC Gold Token for retail investors in Hong Kong allows the bank’s customers to acquire fractional ownership of physical gold. Moving…
Barclays takes on more GreenLake
Barclays has extended a private cloud contract with HPE to use GreenLake Cloud as a core pillar of its hybrid cloud strategy. Barclays signed a strategic contract with HPE in 2021 to deliver a global private cloud platform, hosting more…
Mphasis expands UK roots with leap into quantum computing
Mphasis is expanding its UK operation with a central London innovation hub that will provide its customers with the opportunity to jointly investigate the application of the latest technologies to their businesses. The company emerged from the ashes of former…
Fraud and scam complaints hit highest ever level in UK
Recorded incidents of digitally enabled financial fraud and scams across the UK have hit their highest ever level, with consumers lodging a total of 8,734 complaints and with over half relating to customer-approved online bank transfers – also known as…
Lloyds Bank uses artificial intelligence to check trade finance documents
Lloyds Bank is streamlining its trade financing sales through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), which will automate the checking of documents in line with industry regulations. Trade finance transactions involve large payments, often international, that traditionally require many participants…
TSB systems could be on the move again as BBVA eyes its parent
Financial services company BBVA has received approval from the UK regulator for a takeover of Spanish rival Sabadell, which would see it take control of the UK’s TSB Bank and pose interesting questions over its future IT strategy. TSB customers…
Nationwide development platform uses Red Hat technology
Nationwide Building Society is using Red Hat as part of its application development platform, which is speeding up software releases and improving availability. The UK finance giant is using Red Hat OpenShift as part of a platform to integrate business…
Updating taxation: Can AI and data analysis help with HMRC’s human resources problem?
According to the House of Commons, there were approximately 5.6 million private sector businesses in the UK as of 1 January 2023, 0.8% more than in 2022. Meanwhile, the number of self-employed people in the UK has been steadily rising…
Wells Fargo bank turns to AI to help families settle estates after a death
US bank Wells Fargo has reported a big jump in recommendations from customers after using artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to help families manage the bank accounts, mortgages and financial assets of bereaved relatives. The bank, which runs over 4,000…
CrowdStrike update chaos explained: What you need to know
On Friday 19 July 2024, the UK awoke to news of a fast-spreading IT outage, seemingly global in its nature, affecting hundreds – if not thousands – of organisations. The disruption began in the early hours of Friday morning in…
Room to grow in UK for Tata Consultancy Services after half a century
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is only bettered in size by Accenture and IBM Global Services, with a customer list already containing the world’s largest and best known corporates. In the UK, TCS competes in the top three with Accenture and…
Nordic banks pursue AI in battle with digital competitors
Nordic banks are turning more eagerly to artificial intelligence (AI) and innovation-led tech partnerships that can help them compete more cost-efficiently with niche digital banking rivals that are increasingly populating the financial services space in the region. Leading Nordic financial…
Rapid AI development poses supervisory challenges in the Netherlands
The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) and the monetary authority, De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), are in the midst of a profound supervisory transformation fuelled by the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI). While technological advances are driving a…
CIO interview: Belinda Finch, CIO, IFS
Technology changes fast and tech jobs are changing just as rapidly, according to Belinda Finch, CIO at enterprise technology company IFS. Finch joined IFS late last year from mobile company Three, where she led Three’s digital transformation and helped to…
Lords to challenge controversial DWP benefits bank account surveillance powers
Members of the House of Lords are pressing for changes to legislation that will give the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) new powers to require banks to monitor the accounts of every person who receives benefit payments, including the…
International police operation infiltrates LabHost phishing website used by thousands of criminals
Police have shut down a web service used by more than 2,000 criminals worldwide to launch and manage phishing attacks. The Metropolitan Police worked with police forces from 19 countries to disrupt the world’s largest phishing-as-a-service platform, known as LabHost….
Security Think Tank: Ransomware lessons from the armed forces
Coming from a military intelligence background, focusing on the financing of terrorist groups, I saw the power of the dollar over bad actors. A dollar removed from their back pocket, or to that end, in the pocket of others, sometimes…
Which? calls for government action on fake banking sites
Thousands of fraudulent websites that appear to be those of the UK’s largest retail banks – but are, of course, nothing of the kind – are being reported every year. More than 2,000 such copycats were seen in 2023, with…
Nationwide building society falls victim to IT outage
Nationwide building society is recovering from an IT outage that caused significant difficulties for customers over a period of several hours, with account holders reporting problems making purchases and sending and receiving payments, including making mortgage payments and receiving salaries….
Nationwide IT infrastructure poised to absorb Virgin Money
Nationwide’s proposed takeover of Virgin Money could see a company that has gone through multiple technology integrations in recent years integrated into a well-established digital strategy. Nationwide plotted its future technology in 2008, when it announced an initial £1bn investment…
Dutch organisations vulnerable to deepfake fraud
Dutch companies are vulnerable to deepfake digital fraud due to the country’s high level of digitisation and working from home. Ali Niknam, CEO of Dutch digital bank bunq, recently reported that an employee received a video call from him with…
IT leaders dial back cloud-first strategies as hybrid IT becomes more of an investment priority
Cloud-first IT strategies seem to be falling out of favour with technology decision-makers and business leaders, suggests data from the TechTarget/ESG 2024 Technology Spending Intentions study. More than 1,400 technology decision-makers and business leaders participated in the study, which aims…
American Express customers exposed through third-party breach
American Express has written to customers warning that their account details may have been breached after a third-party supplier to various merchants reported unauthorised access to its systems. Details emerged following a letter to regulators in the US state of…
Insurance company Admiral partners with Google Cloud for digital transformation push
Insurance services provider Admiral is shifting its core operations to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and working with the tech giant to improve how its customer-facing app works. The collaboration means Google is now Admiral’s strategic cloud partner, and will…
Aviva signs 15-year contract with Indian IT giant
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will provide technology services to over five million pension policies over the next 15 years, after life insurance and pensions giant Aviva contracted the IT services giant to support its UK business. The Indian IT…
SEC bitcoin hack was result of SIM-swapping
A cyber attack against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that resulted in misinformation being posted on the financial regulator’s social media channels was the result of a SIM-swapping attack, it has emerged. The attack came to light…
Urgent question asks which ministers knew of Post Office’s shocking plan to remove judge
Labour peer Prem Nath Sikka has asked the government what it knew about the Post Office’s attempt to remove a High Court judge from his position during a High Court battle with 555 subpostmasters. In March 2019, a multimillion-pound group…
More than 900 subpostmaster convictions wouldn’t have happened without Post Office-backed law change
The IT expert who represented Alan Bates and more than 500 subpostmasters in a High Court case against the Post Office said if changes to the rules on computer evidence, described as “onerous” by the Post Office, had not…
2024: The year Generative AI is let out of its cage
Whilst other forms of AI will still drive the bulk of the business impact, generative AI will remain the hotly debated topic. All the big players have now put their first cards on the table, though new challengers keep…
Santander bank added 4,500 tech staff last year
Spanish banking giant Santander has increased its IT workforce to 27,500 globally after adding 4,500 in 2023 to support its digital transformation, which has seen 95% of systems moved to the cloud. New recruits include experts in cloud, cyber…
SEC social media hack highlights value of MFA
Cryptocurrency markets fluctuated wildly on the evening of Monday 9 January after the US financial regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), briefly appeared to claim it had approved spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for the first time. The…
Metropolitan Police launches second criminal investigation in Post Office scandal
The Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office for fraud related to money taken from wrongly prosecuted subpostmasters, nearly four years after the force began investigating possible crimes of perjury committed by former Fujitsu staff. As revealed by Computer…
Top 10 financial services and fintech stories of 2023
With spending on IT in the finance sector expected to emerge from the doldrums, we kick off our review of Computer Weekly articles with research from software giant Finastra and its prediction that investment in IT will begin to…
Visa to fund AI scholarships for underrepresented students in government scheme
Visa is funding data science and artificial intelligence (AI) scholarships for students from underrepresented backgrounds in a programme aimed at increasing diversity in the sector and closing the UK skills shortage. The payments giant is funding scholarships as part…
Visa to invest $100m in generative AI startups
Visa wants to be at the forefront of the next phase of generative AI (GenAI) innovation through investment in tech startups that will apply the technology to payments and commerce. The financial services giant has launched a GenAI initiative…
Lloyds Bank launches digital identity app
Lloyds Banking Group has launched a digital identity service in partnership with a tech startup it invested in this year. The app, which is available free of charge to all UK residents, can be used to prove who they…
UK Finance paints mixed picture of fraud as losses top £500m
The rate of cyber fraud dropped slightly over the first six months of 2023, falling 2% compared to the same period in 2022, but even so criminals and fraudsters still managed to steal approximately £580m via both authorised and…
The implications of biased AI models on the financial services industry
The meteoric increase of the use of artificial intelligence (AI) across all sectors is impossible to ignore. Whatever your feelings about AI, the use of these models is with us to stay and used in the right way it…
Over a quarter of UK adults use buy now, pay later fintechs
Fintech-based credit services, known as buy now, pay later (BNPL), were used by over a quarter of adults in the UK in the second half of last year, according to Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) figures. In its Financial Lives…
Lloyds bank kicks off Hyderabad operation
Lloyds Banking Group has described the opening of a tech delivery centre in Hyderabad, India, as a “pivotal moment” in the bank’s £3bn, three-year, digital transformation journey The tech centre, which was announced in June, will house around 600…
Banking should start testing out quantum ideas
Banks should be setting up a quantum computing taskforce, a report from UK Finance has concluded. The Identifying and seizing the opportunities presented by quantum technology report, produced in conjunction with IBM, lists several areas where banks can benefit…
Cloud banking fintech unicorn cuts 50 staff
UK fintech unicorn Thought Machine has cut 50 staff in roles it said were no longer needed, with sales and marketing positions mainly affected. The cloud-based core banking software provider, which now employs 590 staff, has grown rapidly and…
Visa launches artificial intelligence advisory service
Visa is offering its customers artificial intelligence (AI) advisory services following the launch of an operation dedicated to the technology. As part of Visa Consulting and Analytics, the payments giant’s AI Advisory Practice will harness the skills and experience…
Ransomware attack on major Chinese lender disrupts financial markets
A suspected LockBit ransomware attack on ICBC Financial Services, the US arm of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), a leading state-owned bank, disrupted activity in the US Treasury market on Thursday 9 November, allegedly forcing the…
Shawbrook Bank slashes mortgage processing time through low code
Shawbrook Bank has seen a fourfold reduction in the time it takes to process buy-to-let mortgage offers since rewriting legacy software using low code through a Pegasystems platform. The time it takes for customers to move from an indicative…
Lloyds Bank warns over rising threat of crypto scams
Cryptocurrency scams have increased by 23% in 2023 compared with the same period last year, according to Lloyds Banking Group. In a report that collated accounts held at Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland between January and September…
Million Brits could lose access to bank branch if closure rate continues
A million people in the UK could lose easy access to a bank branch in their local area, as banks continue to shutter their high street operations in favour of digital investments. Research by analytics software company SAS compared…
CIO interview: Sasha Jory, Hastings Direct
Sasha Jory developed her IT leadership skills in a series of roles with blue-chip finance firms. She joined insurer Hastings Direct in 2019 and became CIO in January 2023. As a member of the company’s executive team, she reports…
US government reinforces ICBC hack link to Citrix Bleed
The possibility that this was the case was first raised by security researcher and commentator Kevin Beaumont via social media website Mastodon on Thursday 9 November. Beaumont had posted evidence drawn from Shodan revealing that ICBC was running a Citrix…
JPMorgan Chase tops bank AI ranking
JPMorgan Chase has been named the leading global bank for artificial intelligence (AI) maturity in the benchmarking index from Evident AI. Created by AI platform Evident, the AI index is a benchmark for commercial AI adoption and performance in…
Three-quarters of finance executives expect generative AI to replace them
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is expected to take over the jobs of three-quarters of current financial services executives, according to a survey. Following a survey of around 500 executives at major banks and insurance companies, FintechOS’s Generative artificial intelligence: the…
‘Excited’ finance firms pump money into digital technology
According to Finastra’s Financial services: State of the nation survey 2023, technology investment is currently constrained for 78% of financial institutions, but 69% expect investments to resume in full in the first six months of 2024. In fact, 87%…
Government’s Online Fraud Charter welcomed
Consumer affairs and financial services specialists alike have given their backing to new commitments from some of the world’s leading tech and social media platforms to do more to clamp down on online fraud affecting UK citizens. Delivering on…