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.

TowerGroup estimates that total IT spending in the global financial services industry will rise 4% from nearly $334bn in 2003 to just over $347bn in 2004. Continuing this growth pattern, total IT spending will increase to $379.2bn by 2006, at a compound annual rate of 4.5% from 2004. Banking customers, both corporate and individual, demand superior service and are taking note of their institutions’ performance gaps vis-à-vis other service industries. Innovation will shift dramatically from the traditional, vertically focused dimension of banking products to a horizontal integration of new service breakthroughs by virtue of a federation of alliances and partnerships. Bank business strategy will shift from short-term cost cutting mandates to long-term value and revenue growth.

The Moscow Social Card is being used as a pilot to measure the added value of dual interface smart card technology, combining credit/debit and social payments applications on a single card. Wendy Atkins reports on the scheme.

The role of the chief information officer has evolved to take on responsibility for many facets of a company. Parveen Bansal talks to Capital One’s Gregor Bailar about this transformation.

ALMA is concerned that some of the IASB’s proposals are not in line
with practice in its member banks and may be too difficult to implement.