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08.02.2023

Blog

CONSUMER DUTY: THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

On 25 January 2023, the FCA published the findings from its review of firms’ plans to embed the Consumer Duty (the “Duty”) within their businesses. These implementation plans should have been agreed by firms’ Boards by the end of October 2022.

05.12.2022

Blog

2022 Annual Cyclical Scenario (ACS): What is new?

On 26 September 2022, the Bank of England (BoE) published details of the return to its 2022 Annual Cyclical Scenario (ACS). The ACS was not performed over the past two years during Covid-19 and postponed in March 2022 due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

12.11.2021

Blog

Transforming Data Collection – The joint transformation programme

On Wednesday the 13th October 2021, the Bank of England (BoE) and the Financial Conduct (FCA) have announced the launch of the joint transformation programme on Transforming Data Collection, officially kicked off at the beginning of July 2021: this initiative follows the letter published on 23 February 2021 from the two authorities.

23.04.2021

Blog

From Operational Resilience
to Operational Excellence

At Reply, we support, guide and advise our clients in their Operational Resilience to Operational Excellence journey through our deep industry experience, leading strategic partnerships and proven framework.

15.10.2020

Blog

Negative Interest Rates - Are Banks Ready?

On 12th October, the BoE asked banks about their operational readiness and the challenges associated with the potential implementation of negative rates, particularly in terms of technological capabilities. Here, we contextualise this recent announcement against the BoE direction of travel over the summer and identify key areas of impact for banks.

12.10.2020

Blog

The Data Religion: Dataism in Financial Services

In my latest blog I reflect on Yuval Noah Harari's celebrated book, Homo Deus, delving into Harari’s fresh angle on the role of data in our day-to-day life. As I was contemplating Harari's spellbinding book it occurred to me that Dataism is, to a large extent, already the religion of the financial services industry.

01.10.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days – The Sixth Leg of the Journey: Cloud Regulation

This is Part 6 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

21.09.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days – The Fifth Leg of the Journey: Cloud Security

This is Part 5 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

12.08.2020

Blog

Refining MREL – preparing to fail The

The EBA has published a consultation paper, seeking industry feedback on proposed changes to MREL requirements. Their intent is to better approximate the capital requirements & capital buffers inputs into the MREL calculation for firms whose banking groups are different from their resolution groups.

27.07.2020 / New banking applications

Blog

The Long Road to the Level Playing Field

The Bank of England has published two key documents in relation to the banking landscape in the UK for non-systemic banks. These proposals are a step in the right direction, but do they go far enough?

03.07.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days: The Fourth Leg of the Journey: Operating Model and Governance

This is Part 4 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

29.06.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days: The Third Leg of the Journey: Architecture

This is Part 3 of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

11.06.2020 / Cloud computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days: The Second Leg of the Journey: Infrastructure

This is part two of our ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

05.06.2020 / Cloud Computing

Blog

Around the Cloud in Eighty Days: The First Leg of the Journey

Jules Verne authored the novel Around the World in Eighty Days, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours in its native French, which was published serially in 1872. It would presumptuous of me to rescript the story of the unflappable Phileas Fogg’s trip around the world, but allow me to take you on a ten-legged journey to explore how the Cloud can enable productivity, innovation, and scalability in financial services.

28.05.2020 / Fintech Magazine

Blog

Technology Enablement across the Wealth Management Value Chain: The Mass Affluent Opportunity

Market conditions are forcing financial institutions to find new models for growth. One of the largest identified gaps for growth is the underserved and overlooked mass affluent segment.

FEATURED IN FINTECH MAGAZINE

14.05.2020 / ESG Rating

Blog

Blind Reliance on ESG Data and Rankings — The Seeds of the next Mis-selling Crisis?

In early 2019, a survey of financial advisers had already revealed serious misgivings over the possible mis-selling of products marketed to investors as ‘ESG friendly’. 97 of every 100 financial advisors in the United Kingdom (UK) had declared themselves as either “very” or “fairly” concerned about the potential for allegations of mis-selling ESG investments, according to market research firm Cicero.

07.05.2020

Blog

The Cloud and the future of finance

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of co-authoring a short article on the adoption of the Cloud in Financial Services with Professor Nelson Phillips of the Imperial College Business School. We conducted several interviews with senior leaders in financial services about their experiences of moving to the Cloud. It turned out to be such a captivating journey that Nelson and I are planning to continue along this path and turn it into a much more comprehensive piece of research.

16.04.2020 / Coronavirus

Blog

Never waste a good crisis: the strategic challenges of rapid cloud adoption in financial services

One dramatic impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been the rapid acceleration in the digital transformation of organisations as much of the workforce has been suddenly forced to “WFH”. The ability of organisations to close physical offices and continue operating rests largely on various kinds of cloud services providing distributed, on-demand availability of data storage and computing.

30.03.2020 / Remote Working

Blog

How to maintain business productivity with hundreds of employees working from home

With Covid-19 wreaking havoc on business and the economy, the only ideal solution is to respect Government guidelines while continuing business as usual — from home. The problem is, how can an organisation, in particular a financial institution, give hundreds or thousands of employees secure access to the documents and applications required to work from home without disruption to service?

20.03.2020

Blog

IT & DevOps in Financial Services (The Phoenix Project)

If, like me, you have to interact with IT —and technology is vital for you or your clients — this excellent novel will enlighten your day-to-day work. The Phoenix Project was first published in 2013 and, in the fast-moving world of technology, one could view this book as ‘outdated.’ But no. The way it articulates the value of DevOps for organisations remains insightful. It remains useful. And it remains worth your attention. Of particular value is the presentation of the Three Ways — the principles from which all observed DevOps behaviours are derived.

16.03.2020

Blog

It's all anyone is talking about...

It’s all anyone is talking about and, whilst I really wanted to write about something lighter, I was dragged back to the Reply Risk & Regulatory Academy, which has had the honour to run courses in Cambridge for many years. This led me to an incredible report published by the University there...

02.03.2020

Blog

Victor Hugo & the Green Swan: An Introduction to the threat of Climate Change on Financial Stability

There is something peculiar in the book released last January by the Bank for International Settlement and Banque de France, The Green Swan. The book builds on the concept of ‘black swans’ first introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in 2007, but this time the swan is green. Green swans (or climate black swans), the authors argue, are extreme financially disruptive events resulting from climate-related risks.

21.02.2020

Blog

The Laundromat Movie: Meryl Streep discusses Anti Money Laundering & Counter-Terrorism Financing

Few realise just how corrosive the effects of Money laundering and the financing of terrorism are on society. That’s why, when we have the opportunity to assist our clients with their Anti Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorism Financing (CTF) initiatives, I find it exciting and rewarding.

14.02.2020

Blog

How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog: Applicability to Financial Services

I had just finished reading Chad Orzel’s bestselling book ‘How to teach quantum physics to your dog’ last week when my colleagues presented what is perhaps one of the first concrete applications of ‘quantum-inspired’ computing in European banking. Before I turn to that, allow me to share a few words on Orzel’s book and how it got me to think about quantum computing in financial services…