Turkey's banks are acquiring a global reputation for innovative products, particularly those that connect them with the country's youthful population through social media. As Duygu Tavan discovers, this is increasingly being done through smartphones.

Sharia-compliant banks have occupied only a small proportion of Turkey’s banking market to date, but with rising global demand and the government’s focus on Islamic finance, that looks set to change.

Following its acquisition of Dresdner Bank in 2008, Germany’s Commerzbank is now turning its focus back to developing products and services, its chief information officer tells The Banker.

European securities will soon be settled on a central IT platform – Target2 Securities (T2S) – as part of the European Central Bank's initiative to harmonise post-trade standards. With the first wave of implementation scheduled for 2015, Duygu Tavan investigates how the T2S project is progressing and its consequences for the securities industry.

Lars Millberg, head of transaction banking at SEB's merchant banking division, discusses the importance of innovation, and describes the bank's unique approach to encouraging out-of-the-box thinking among its employees.

Technology provider SAP has built a single-channel, multi-service cloud network that already has the endorsement of numerous large banks. With Swift also exerting its presence in the market, the two business models are not so much mutually exclusive, but supplementary. Welcome to the era of co-operative competition.

Across the world, bankers have been arming themselves with ever more inventive and innovative technology solutions, to tackle the problems of difficult and increasingly regulated financial markets. The Banker celebrates banks and their technology providers' efforts in its newly expanded Innovation in Technology and Transaction Banking Awards 2013.

Bitcoin – an audacious, innovative and 'mathematically fantastic' virtual currency, or an unregulated, volatile and opaque money channel? The Banker puts that question to banks, regulators and technology experts to get their take. 

In recent months, the London Stock Exchange has acquired UK-based clearing house LCH.Clearnet and announced the creation of a new central securities depository. Chief information officer Antoine Shagoury explains the group’s approach to growing its business.

Global head of channels and distribution in transaction services at Royal Bank of Scotland’s international banking unit, Ken Deveaux, talks about the bank’s efforts to consolidate its channels and build an integrated systems architecture.