Activity to update the banking systems is continuing in mainland China, one of the latest moves being Bank of China’s implementation of Summit Systems’ treasury and capital markets software across its interest rate derivatives trading desks.

How should banks meet the challenge of growing competition from retailers for financial services? And where should their technology priorities lie? Bill Hartnett, financial services manager at Microsoft, gives Parveen Bansal some pointers.
Software giant Microsoft is well known not only in the consumer world, but it has also made serious inroads into the financial services sector, where it commands the majority market share in the server and desktop computer operating systems areas.

When disaster strikes, banks must get back into operation as fast as possible. That is where business continuity planning comes in, says Wendy Atkins.

The battle against money laundering and fraud is being fought on various fronts with various weapons, the most popular of which appears to be biometrics. But will this contactless form of payment eventually lead to a cashless society? Chris Skinner ponders the future.