After hitting a record low of 7.24 against the dollar early on Monday, Turkey’s lira found some support after Finance Minister Berat Albayrak stated the country’s economic action plan to ease investor concerns and the banking watchdog said it limited swap transactions.

The Financial Times reported on Friday, citing two sources, that the European Central Bank had concerns about banks in Spain, Italy and France and their exposure to Turkey.

“The exposure of European banks to Turkey seems to be not as large as people fear, so I think it’s manageable. It will not lead to a kind of banking crisis in the euro area,” stated Masafumi Yamamoto, chief currency strategist at Mizuho Securities.

In early trade on Monday, the euro dropped as low as $1.1368– falling to its lowest level against the dollar since July last year. It last traded down 0.16 % at $1.1390 at 0040 GMT.

The common currency also slipped against the safe haven Swiss franc and yen. The euro briefly fell to a one-year low of 1.1302 francs against the Swiss franc before paring some losses. It traded at 1.1332 francs as of 0040 GMT, down about 0.2 % on the day.

The euro also dipped to a 10-week low of 125.455 Japanese yen in early trade before recovering slightly. It was last down 0.4 % at 126.00 at 0040 GMT. Turkey’s lira last traded at 6.84 against the dollar at 0040 GMT, after sinking to a record low of 7.24 in early trade on Monday.

The currency has fallen about 45 % against the greenback this year on worries over Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s increasing control over the economy and a worrying, widening rift with the United States.

Yamamoto said the Turkish lira may remain unstable, while he expected the euro to stabilise during the week.

“It seems that this kind of slowdown is a kind of necessary thing for the Turkish economy to reduce the current account deficit and the very high inflation,” he stated.

Meanwhile,the yen strengthened about 0.3 % against the dollar to 110.61 yen as investors continued to bid up safe-haven assets. The Japanese currency netted some gains after briefly rising to a one-month high of 110.32 yen per dollar.

The Australian dollar was also down 0.2 % at $0.72765 , close to an 18-month low of $0.72505 hit early in the session.

Elsewhere,the Mexican peso, Argentine peso and South African rand were also weak against the US dollar on Monday as the lira crisis unsettled some other emerging market currencies.

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March 30, 2017: Qumram, a leading global RegTech firm headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland that provides digital compliance and risk management solutions, has announced further investment of 1.5 million Swiss Francs from the technology-focused venture capital firm Mundi Ventures. Headquartered in Madrid, Mundi Ventures has operational presence in Barcelona, London and Seattle.

In addition to providing due diligence support, Mundi Ventures will boost Qumram’s growth strategy by facilitating access to corporate executives, new markets and new customers. Through this investment partnership, Qumram will gain access to the Mundi Club, a global network of more than 500 renowned Spanish business leaders, located in 41 cities worldwide, including board members of Havas, Kering, Merck, Bertelsmann and Nestle, as well as the CEO of Zoetis, and the former CEO of Toys R Us.

Qumram allows all digital activity and interactions (web, social, mobile) to be recorded and replayed in movie-like form, providing a transparent digital audit trail for financial services organisations. It enables global banks, investment and wealth management firms, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, to comply with regulatory requirements for digital record-keeping: MIFID-II, FINRA, SEC, ESMA, FFSA, FIDLEG, the Department of Labor fiduciary rule, and more. It also facilitates fraud detection (monitoring digital behavior of employees as well as interactions from external sources), and delivers actionable customer insights that improve customer experience.

A spokesperson for Mundi Ventures said, “Qumram satisfies the compliance, legal and customer experience analytics needs of large corporations. We talked with existing customers, who confirmed a compelling need for the solution, and who spoke very highly of the Qumram experience. We were impressed by the strength and quality of the Qumram team, the uniqueness of the solution, and the market traction already achieved by the company within the last two years. We very much look forward to contributing to the commercial scalability of Qumram, helping to open doors that will create a solid global business.”

Patrick Barnert, CEO at Qumram, said, “We are delighted to have the backing of Mundi Ventures, as we continue to strengthen our trajectory into new global markets. The wealth of experience and network that this investment partnership brings extends far beyond its financial contribution. With the closing of Mundi Venture funding, and further investment from existing investors in December 2016, Qumram raised a total of 4.1 million Swiss Francs in angel funding last year. These funds are continuously applied to international expansion, with strong focus on the financial services markets of Europe, the UK and USA. Qumram has already gained great traction in the US. Our first client win was Russell Investments, and other financial institutions followed soon after.”

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Laying down the law

UK financial organisations are already bound by existing regulations such as the Data Protection Act (DPA), the Financial Services Authority (FSA) regulations and PCI DSS. However, the looming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will replace the 1995 Data Protection Directive and is expected to come into force on May 25, 2018, will mean organisations must change the way they treat confidential data yet again. Prominent within recent legal developments, there has also been a focus on encryption, not only of portable equipment and storage media, but also of databases, unstructured data, the cloud and application data.

The GDPR Article 32 states that data encryption is a means to protect personal data and that “the controller and the processor shall implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk, including the pseudonymisation and encryption of personal data.”

Additionally, Article 34 notes that if a breached organisation “has implemented appropriate technical and organisational protection measures such as encryption”, organisations can avoid the regulation’s breach notification requirement and the resultant administrative costs.

Unfortunately, this lack of guidance can leave organisations at risk of misinterpretation, and lends itself to being more of a ‘tick box’ process. So whilst businesses may think they are complying, with no provision of specifics on how best to adequately protect sensitive data, it could result in a serious breach which would ultimately see organisations with huge financial and reputational damages.

Understanding encryption

In some instances, a particular regulation will mandate encryption in clear, unmistakable terms; those that don’t adhere to these terms will be in violation of the law. Other times, regulations remain vague about requiring encryption, leaving murky waters for businesses to navigate, such as the GDPR. For example, a regulation may require that sensitive and/or personal data be protected without explicitly stipulating that it be protected via encryption, a less than ideal situation.

For times when the law confounds, security experts can provide clarity. A general consensus among experts regarding data protection protocols results in commonly accepted best practices. The term isn’t exclusive to regulations and encryption, but it can nonetheless help guide companies that encounter nebulous regulations. If there are questions about implementing encryption that aren’t spelled out in a particular law, following industry best practices will keep a business protected.

Encryption in business and finance

As financial markets fluctuate daily, regulations and their associated encryption requirements seem to be following suit. Encryption is just another type of risk management, and those that know how to properly assess and manage risks usually succeed. Understanding the basics of encryption in finance in particular, where data “lives” and how it moves, is the difference between what a business must do and what it (really) should do, and how all of this helps financial organisations to stay on the right side of relevant regulations.

Virtually every industry that deals with personal and/or sensitive data relies on encryption to protect that data. Those that don’t encrypt put themselves at risk for stiff government penalties, fines, lawsuits, and more.

With the introduction of the GDPR, data regulation will likely be that much harder. Many financial organisations conduct business domestically and internationally, so, as client and customer bases grow across borders, maintaining compliance is an even larger beast to tame. Furthermore, small businesses must not assume that multinational corporations are the only entities that should be concerned about complying with these regulations. Breaches can happen just as easily, if not more so, to smaller operations, resulting in massive fines, expensive lawsuits, and diminishing customer base, or more likely, all three.

The Ins and Outs of encryption

Put simply, encryption is a process of transforming data to make it unreadable without authorised access. Authorised access to encrypted data arrives via a decryption key. If implemented and managed correctly, the right people will possess the key and the wrong people will not.

When it comes to regulatory compliance, no universal standard for encrypting data exists in the financial space. Therefore, the individual regulations that govern how organisations handle data dictate the encryption requirements.

Of all the encryption methods, AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) receives the lion’s share of attention. The standard is what the NSA uses to encrypt data, which should be proof enough of its security. AES can use 128-bit, 192-bit, or 256-bit keys and thus far has been extremely resistant to attempts at exploiting potential weaknesses.

Encryption can happen in a variety of ways and situations. Software can often do the job, but hardware encryption is often seen as the more secure method. Certain hardware is designed to encrypt data without the need for separate software, e.g. self-encrypting, and options exist for large hard drives as well as portable flash drives. USB devices offer a convenient way to transfer data between computers, and hardware encrypted USB devices can provide the necessary encryption capability embedded within the device, so data can be decrypted without the need for the user to install additional software. Web traffic can also be encrypted using SSL (Secure Socket Layer). Simply put, if desired, diligent users can keep their data encrypted wherever it goes.

The important regulations, and the fines associated with non-compliance, decisively lay out the need for encryption for the security of sensitive data. If a business/organisation within the finance, banking, or securities industry has questions about securing relevant data, a proper risk assessment is the first step to instituting compliance. With global identity theft losses growing, and non-compliance violations resulting in hundreds of thousands of pounds in fines and settlements, protecting sensitive data is as crucial now as it’s ever been.

Jon Fielding is Managing Director, Apricorn EMEA

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January 19, 2017: The International Valuation Standards Council (IVSC), the global standard setter for valuation practice and the valuation profession, has launched IVS 2017, marking an important milestone towards harmonising valuation practice across the world.

The IVSC is an independent, not-for-profit organisation.

IVS 2017 will serve as the key guidance for valuation professionals globally and will underpin consistency, transparency and confidence in valuations, which are key to investment decisions as well as financial reporting.

The launch is the latest step in IVSC’s mission to raise standards of international valuation practice as a core part of the financial system, for the benefit of capital markets and the public interest.

The Standards have been created following an extensive consultation process from April to October 2016. More than 100 official comment letters on the initial drafts of IVS 2017 were received from a range of stakeholders, including valuation profession organisations, individual professionals and academics.

IVS 2017 comprises five General Standards and six Asset Standards. The General Standards set requirements for the conduct of all valuation assignments, including establishing the terms of a valuation engagement, bases of value, valuation approaches and methods, and reporting.

The Asset Standards include requirements related to specific types of assets, including background information on the characteristics of each asset type that influence value and additional asset-specific requirements regarding common valuation approaches and methods used.

The latest version of the Standards brings greater depth to IVS, as requested by members, including the major accountancy firms and other stakeholders.

Sir David Tweedie, Chairman of IVSC, said, “IVS 2017 represents the latest in IVSC’s continuing commitment to developing high-quality valuation standards. The valuation of assets, both tangible and intangible, plays an essential role in financial and real estate markets – and therefore the global economy. IVS 2017 will be instrumental in improving valuation practice and will bring greater efficiency to capital markets.”

Nick Talbot, CEO of IVSC, said, “We are very thankful to our many member organisations and other stakeholders for their input to improve the Standards. This input has ensured IVS 2017 is fit for purpose and that its adoption will boost the transparency of, and confidence in, valuations for the benefit of business and the public. IVS 2017 has been designed with the specific aim of allowing continued, targeted improvements to the standards from the new expanded Standards Board we are putting in place.”

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Alan Mellor

November 24, 2016: The UK government’s first – and last – Autumn Statement will be remembered for its sensibleness.

When faced with a crisis, Ronald Reagan had a catchphrase. Don’t just do something. Stand there.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s Chancellor is cut from the same cloth. Philip Hammond is not about fancy initiatives, meddling too much or tweaking things for the sake of a good headline. He does something only when it is required.

At a time when Brexit is going to change everything, we needed a sensible Autumn Statement from a government that lets businesses just get on with it. In years to come, I think we will look back at Theresa May’s style and be impressed.

As well as additional spending on housing (£1.4bn for 40,000 new affordable homes announced), there was confirmation that the ‘triple lock’ policy on the state pension would remain.

From April 2017, the Personal Savings Allowance for income tax will be raised from £11,000 to £11,500 and the National Living Wage will increase from £7.20 an hour to £7.50.

The government recommitted to cutting the rate of Corporation Tax to 17% by 2020 and reducing the burden of business rates by £6.7bn over the next five years.

There was 100% Rural Rate Relief announced for businesses in rural areas, a cancellation of the planned fuel duty rise and over £1bn pledged for improving the country’s digital infrastructure.

There was also good news for the North West.

What is particularly good about this Autumn Statement is the good news it delivers for the regions. May understands that it’s not all about what happens in London.

The government has committed to raising productivity across the UK. With the Northern Powerhouse Strategy, there will be £1.8bn funding for regions through the Local Growth Fund. It will be interesting to see what this means for the North West as the new mayors are elected – I expect they will have the power to spend regionally.

The new £400m Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund and the commitment to rolling out fibre to more homes and businesses will also be good for the North West.

Perks for employees are set to cost more. Known as ‘salary sacrifice’ schemes, employees have traditionally been able give up part of their salary for a non-cash benefit allowing them to buy gym memberships, mobile phone deals and take car allowances. From April, the scheme will only be beneficial for people using it for childcare vouchers, cycle to work schemes and pension contributions.

In 2010, the Personal Savings Allowance was £6,750. So this has gone up massively in a very short space of time, particularly when you consider our low inflation rate in that time.

The Autumn Statement also announced a new 2.2% fixed savings bond, which will go on offer next year.

This catches the eye but in reality it’s fairly inconsequential. Savers can only invest a maximum of £3,000 in total over the three year period – making just £66 a year in interest.

This may not have been one of the most exciting Autumn Statements but it’s just what businesses need.

Alan Mellor is Managing Director of Cheshire-based Chartered Financial Planners Phillip Bates & Co

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Suparna Goswami Bhattacharya

November 22, 2016: Despite being among the most industrialised and developed nations in the world, Japan surprisingly scores very low on financial literacy. According to a survey by the Central Council of Financial Services Information, Japanese are averse to taking financial risk, underscoring the difficulty in reversing the prolonged deflation in the economy. Twenty-five thousand individuals aged 18 to 79 participated in the survey.

One of the key goals of the Bank of Japan’s aggressive monetary stimulus programme, deployed in 2013, was to prompt households to shift money away from deposits and into investment. Although the Japanese government has tried to encourage money to flow from savings into investing, big change has not occurred because of strong loss aversion.

Only 30% of Japanese households have experience investing in stocks and nearly 80% say they would not take on risk even for an investment yielding significant returns.

Asked whether they would invest 100,000 yen ($972) if there was a 50% chance of producing a 20,000-yen gain after a year and the same probability it would produce a 10,000-yen loss, 78.6% said they would not invest.

“The survey illustrates the characteristics of Japanese households, one of which is their strong risk aversion,” said Noriaki Kawamura, the council’s director and head of a BOJ group in charge of promoting financial literacy.

Financial education

Interestingly the survey also showed that respondents who had a financial education were more likely to exhibit desirable financial behaviour, such as making comparisons while purchasing a product.

The percentage of correct answers given by students who had participated in financial education (56.4%) was higher than that of correct answers given by students who had not participated in such education (38.2%), and was also higher than the average for all age groups (55.6%).

Shaun Mundy, international financial literacy consultant and former head of financial literacy at the UK’s Financial Services Authority, says in order to improve financial literacy of a population it is important to go beyond just providing financial education in schools. “One has to make learning finance more fun. My experience suggests that these objectives are most likely to be achieved if a wide range of institutions work together under a well-resourced lead organisation,” says Mundy.

The survey is part of policymakers’ efforts to enhance financial literacy in Japan, which lags behind the United States and Europe, and encourage households to avoid hoarding cash and accept more risk.

A comparison drawn between Japan and the US (which conducted a similar survey) shows the former scores 7% less than US in giving correct reply to questions. In terms of characteristics of behaviour, fewer respondents in Japan felt they had too much debt and more respondents had set aside emergency or rainy day funds than in the United States.

Further, the percentage of those who chose desirable behaviour was 7–17% lower in Japan than in Germany or the United Kingdom.

David Kneebone, general manager of the Investor Education Centre in Hong Kong, said the survey has provided a great reference point with regards to various segment groups. “Japan enjoys long life expectancy, which raises financial retirement challenges if things are not properly planned. And echoing Japan’s research findings, Hong Kong’s survey also revealed that our people lack adequate retirement planning for our retired years. We look forward to more peer collaboration and sharing of best practices to help raise awareness of the need to manage money better throughout life.”

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The banking giant joins hands with developers and consumer brands to lead innovation

November 17, 2016: American banking behemoth Citi unveiled a new global application programming interface (API) developer portal on November 10, which it says is the most comprehensive one available in today’s financial services market. The portal enables Citi to connect with developers swiftly so as to build and deliver innovative client solutions faster than ever before, the bank said in a statement.

This move, which facilitates partnerships and collaborations with consumer brands and fintech organisations, indicates the evolution of Citi’s technology to open architecture in ways that will deliver value to the customer, the bank said.

“At Citi, we are focused on making banking easier for our customers by leveraging digitisation, mobile technology and innovation. Our open architecture approach is supported by the launch of APIs as a key enabler for the rapid and dynamic deployment of services and capabilities that will allow us to be increasingly relevant to our customers. The API developer portal enables further acceleration of offering our banking services in all areas of our customers’ digital lives and ecosystems,” said Angel Ng, Country Business Manager, Hong Kong, Citibank Global Consumer Banking, while Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer of the Monetary Authority of Singapore commented: “This will encourage open collaborations with the fintech community and potentially deliver better financial services for customers.”

As of now, the portal grants developers access to APIs across six different usage types, namely account management, peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, business money transfers, the Citi rewards programme, investment purchases and account authorisation, a list that the company says will expand over time.

“Citi’s Global Developer Portal advances our open innovation approach to delivering cutting edge solutions and enabling new streams of value for clients, partners and developers,” said Stephen Bird, CEO, Global Consumer Banking at Citi. “The rapid pace of technological change demands transformation from the inside out and the outside in. By creating a collaborative ecosystem of leading brands and developers, we will be able to offer a complete suite of products, services and experiences to meet our clients’ financial needs today and in the future.”

Mohanty added, “We are delighted that Citi Singapore is playing a leading role in developing and launching this global API initiative during the Singapore FinTech Festival. This will encourage open collaborations with the fintech community and potentially deliver better financial services for customers, as well as re-affirm Citi’s thought leadership in shaping the future of financial services.”

Developers can now register their interest at developer.citi.com where they will be offered tools to connect in a development sandbox, allowing them to put their ideas into practice.

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Nigel Davies

October 17, 2016: Over the past decade, the nature of the threats to society has evolved beyond the physical world in which they traditionally operated. State-sponsored cybercrime and organised criminal hacking has become a threat to almost every sector that relies on an internet connection. Unsurprisingly, the financial trading sector is at increasing risk from such activity.

Many countries are now waking up to the fact that protecting national security in an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape requires more than the traditional military and law enforcement efforts of previous decades. Just two examples of recent national security breaches include an attack on the Ukrainian national power grid and an attempted $951 million heist on Bangladesh’s central bank (the thieves successfully stole $81 million).

Cybersecurity firm Symantec has since found evidence linking the theft to the North Korean government, along with a string of other state-sponsored attacks against banks in South East Asia. The attacks against Ukraine and Bangladesh boiled down to one fact: malicious actors were able to exploit vulnerabilities in the critical national infrastructure (CNI) of entire states, resulting in severe consequences for both targets; an attractive end goal for any attacker.

Nigel Davies is Head of Secured Navigation, QinetiQ

Defence review covers private sector

This new kind of attack is reflected in the UK’s latest Strategic Defence and Security review. Evolving from its 2010 predecessor, the security of the private sector and civil society are now as much a part of the review as the military. From the ‘bombs and bullets’ approach of previous strategic policies, it is now concerned with defence against state-sponsored attacks, organised crime and protecting CNI.

The government’s intent “is for the UK to remain the top choice for European and global bank headquarters”, intending also to “build resilience to financial crisis”. Most importantly, it “will seek to develop long-term partnerships with industry, built on trust and collaboration, through better sharing of information and expertise¹.” It’s clear that, given its importance to the UK’s economy, protecting the financial trading sector plays a big part in securing the UK’s CNI.

At the moment, precise timing and synchronisation of financial transactions is critical to markets worldwide, is mandated by regulation in the European Union and is increasingly required in the United States. These high frequency transactions (HFT) involve moving millions of dollars in the space of seconds, with monetary values adjusting and reacting to real-time updates. To put it in perspective, the New York Stock Exchange handles nearly $2 billion in trades in the first two minutes of opening.

In order to allow HFT, the financial trading industry relies on timing sources and systems generally reliant on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), such as GPS, to remain in sync with incredibly accurate timestamps.

The MiFID II legislation, announced last year and coming into effect across the EU in 2018, dictates that trades have to be traceable up to 100 microseconds. The reliance on such miniscule accuracies and coordination makes the system and the source of time and synchronisation information an obvious target for attack.

The vulnerabilities

While GNSS has become a phenomenally successful, ubiquitous and reliable source of accurate time, it suffers from two fundamental vulnerabilities. The first is in the strength of the GNSS signals, which are used by receivers to calculate time and position. The satellites which transmit those signals orbit the Earth at an altitude of over 20,000 km, which means that the signals are very weak and vulnerable to interference by the time they reach Earth. In fact they are so weak as to be imperceptible from the background noise of other transmissions, requiring complex algorithms to identify and track them. An attacker who is able to transmit additional ‘noise’ over the top of GNSS signals can stop a receiver from working properly, or at all.

The most basic of jamming devices work by broadcasting excessive noise over the GNSS signal, resulting in the receiver’s inability to lock onto the signals broadcast by the GNSS satellites.

The SENTINEL Project – a nationwide, UK government-backed investigation into GNSS jamming – tracked the proliferation of jammers, finding in one location more than 60 GPS interference incidents in six months.

While most interference incidents are minor and go unnoticed, in some situations, the impact can be substantial, leading to lost revenue. An example of this in action took place in 2009. Engineer Gary Bojczak was fined $32,000 for transmitting radio interference which disrupted the operation of Newark Liberty International Airport’s new air traffic control system.

Bojczak worked for an engineering firm that tracked its vehicles using GPS. However, Bojczak installed a jamming device in his assigned vehicle to stop his employer tracking his movements. His daily work route would take him past the airport, subsequently interfering with GPS signals used by the aircraft landing aids on approach to the airport.

The other vulnerability is the ease with which a false signal can be transmitted by an attacker to ‘trick’ a receiver into generating a false position or time. This is known as a ‘spoofing’ attack. The open access GNSS signals, which are widely used today by non-military users, are defined by open standards published on the internet. While this has led to a vibrant market in GNSS devices, it also means that the signals can be copied by an attacker.

These two factors combine to make the civilian satellite systems used by the financial trading sector highly vulnerable to tampering, blocking and disruption. Currently, devices which can create interference and disrupt the use of GNSS can be bought for as little as $40 online and are often no bigger than the size of a cigarette lighter.

Spoofing attacks are more complex and, until recently, were considered to be only within the grasp of Nation States and militaries. However, a 2015 paper published by the Chinese Qihoo 360 security research firm demonstrated GPS spoofing using low-cost hardware and open source software.

While there is  only rare and anecdotal evidence of civilian spoofing attacks to date (for instance, reports that drug cartels are spoofing drones operated by the US Customs and Border Protection agency), most experts believe it is only a matter of time before attacks become more common.

Mitigating threats

The sheer volume and value of data in the financial industry that needs to be time-stamped by GNSS data leaves it at risk from interference. Interfering with a GNSS signal could have consequences for trading bodies calculating the correct time of trades and keeping up with real-time trade requests. Even an event that lasted only a couple of seconds may impact system performance or even cause a crash as timings between networks fail to match. In the era of HFT, this could be costly.

Audit trails would also become confused, with one party buying and receiving the share before the other has ‘officially’ sold it. This is crucial when regulators have started to clamp down on HFT fraud; an inability to unravel HFT trails could leave the industry open to market rigging.

Such interference events are experienced by financial organisations. It is claimed that for roughly 10 minutes every day, the London Stock Exchange experiences problems with the signals it receives from GPS satellites due to such inadvertent jamming.

Fortunately, as evidenced by the aims set out in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security review, the UK is quickly coming to terms with this new age of threats and is looking to future technologies which can effectively secure the nation’s critical infrastructure.

Over the next few years, the GNSS landscape will undergo a radical change. New GNSS are being deployed by Europe (Galileo) and China (Beidou), GPS is undergoing an overhaul to GPS version 3, and the Russian system (GLONASS) is being modified to be more compatible with other systems. With more systems comes redundancy and resilience. The new and modified systems bring new services and diversity.

A new generation of multi-constellation, multi-frequency (MCMF) receivers provide security to a range of threats affecting GNSS, enabling high levels of robustness and security for time-stamping as demanded by financial trading regulators. In the event of an interference attack, the MCMF capabilities allow the receiver chips to access multiple systems simultaneously, switching seamlessly between over 100 satellites, cross-checking between signals for consistency, readjusting to the next available signal, or ignoring signals (either spoofed or generated in error), which don’t agree with others.

The European Galileo system will introduce the first civilian secure, encrypted GNSS signal, the Public Regulated Service (PRS), which will be available to government-authorised organisations; core financial infrastructures are candidates for inclusion. PRS adds additional resilience against interference and is very secure against spoofing. Combining the encrypted GNSS services with new MCMF receivers minimises the likelihood of system crashes and timestamp manipulation resulting from spoofing and jamming events.

The use of these additional services together with resilient receiver processing techniques and robust design of the overall timing and synchronisation sub-systems (e.g. using accurate atomic clocks disciplined by the GNSS timing signals) can effectively mitigate these threats. With the threat of interference significantly reduced, the financial trading sector can be effectively secured on an operational level, safeguarding its future in an era of growing technological threats.

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August 16, 2016: In an increasingly complex financial world, responsibility for financial decision-making is progressively being shifted onto the individual. Yet a new report, published by the International Longevity Centre UK, reveals we don’t know enough about how to help people be more financially savvy in their old age.

The end of compulsory annuitisation puts more responsibility on older people to actively manage their retirement income. For some older people, managing money in a digital world poses significant challenges. Others find the challenge of managing debt in old age worrisome.

A number of studies have found that financial capability, defined as a person’s ability to manage money well, both day to day and through significant life events, is an essential prerequisite for sound financial decision-making. People with higher financial capability save and plan more for retirement, invest in the stock market and hold better differentiated portfolios, they choose cheaper mortgages, shop around for the best financial products and buy cheaper annuities. They are also less likely to be over-indebted and generally feel less anxious about their financial life.

Previous ILC-UK research has shown that of those aged over 55 with a private pension but not yet retired, only half understood what an annuity was “quite or very well”. Income drawdown was even less well understood. ILC-UK research has also revealed that older people have lower levels of numeracy than the young.

Yet, whilst there is a need to increase levels of financial capability among older people, a new review by the International Longevity Centre -UK (ILC-UK) finds that there isn’t enough evidence out there of what actually works.

‘What works? A review of the evidence on financial capability interventions and older people in retirement’ was commissioned by the Money Advice Service on behalf of the UK Financial Capability Strategy. The report carried out an extensive scoping review to establish which financial education programmes designed to improve financial capability amongst older people are effective.

The report examined different financial domains to determine which interventions were most successful in helping older people to manage their money and plan for later life. It found that while users of programmes designed improve money management generally report high levels of satisfaction and feeling more informed a lack of impact evaluation means that there is currently limited evidence of the impact of these programmes on financial behaviour

Dr Cesira Urzì Brancati, Research Fellow, ILC-UK said: “The world of money is becoming more complex and older people are more diverse in their experience and needs. Some older people need help understanding how to manage money. Others may need support with investments.

“We need to do all we can to reduce the risk of more older people becoming victims of scams or abuse. Helping people better understand and manage their money has to be part of the solution.

“But while there is a need to raise financial skills across our lives, our research reveals that we simply don’t adequately know how to best help people.”

David Haigh, Director of Financial Capability at the Money Advice Service, said: “This report highlights how little we know about how best to improve the financial capability of older people.  Whilst there are a number of interventions targeted at older people, there is little reliable and robust evaluation of whether they are truly effective.
“That’s why the Money Advice Service recently announced the launch of the £7m What Works Fund.  This fund is explicitly designed to help organisations carry out a robust evaluation of interventions they are delivering to improve financial capability.  By learning more about what is really effective, we can seek to ensure resources and funding are focussed on interventions that really make a difference.

“Generally, research shows that older people are financially capable. However, they face challenges around low levels of digital literacy and lack of planning for long term care. Discovering what works and targeting effective interventions in these areas will ensure that older people are able to effectively manage their money throughout later life.”
Anna Dixon, Chief Executive of the Centre for Ageing Better, said: “We know that financial security is an important aspect of a good later life. Building financial capability among older people as well as those approaching retirement is an important part of ensuring that people are able to manage their money in later life.

“This report highlights the limited evidence on ‘what works’ to increase financial capabilities among older people in retirement. 12.2 million people are projected to face inadequate retirement incomes.

“The Centre for Ageing Better wants more people to feel prepared for later life. We welcome the launch of the £7 million fund by MAS and look forward to the learning which will emerge.”

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August 1, 2016: deVere USA Inc, part of deVere Group, one of the world’s largest independent financial advisory organisations, will expand its Miami office. It has had a presence in the South Florida city since June 2011, but has now moved to larger premises in the main financial district to accommodate more advisers to meet demand.

Gareth Jones, deVere’s area manager in Miami, explains: “Whilst New York – which is, of course, the financial epicentre of America – remains our HQ and super hub office, skyrocketing client demand across the US has driven the need for another hub office from which advisers can help our growing numbers of U.S.-based clients wherever they choose to live and work.”

He continues: “With this in mind, we have recently moved into larger premises on the prestigious Brickell Avenue, famed for having the largest concentration of international financial institutions in the US.

“This relocation is part of a strategic expansion that will allow us to take on more financial advisers and support staff to meet the continually increasing demand, not only in the Florida region, but in neighbouring states and further beyond too.

“There are currently 11 of us in the Miami office and we are looking to at least double this number within the next 12 months.

“This operational development will allow us to further enhance deVere USA’s national position as the ‘go-to’ and most trusted advisory firm for international investors and expats.”

In 2013, as part of the “next phase of its global strategy for growth”, deVere Group announced it would not open pan-America offices as it had planned before, but instead would focus on a few key cities from which its consultants can serve their clients over a wider geographical area.

New York was the first ‘super hub office’, whilst Miami and San Francisco – the other deVere U.S. offices – remained more focused on their immediate surrounding areas.  Now the Miami office is preparing to look further than it did previously, as it becomes more of a hub centre.

Benjamin Alderson, Senior Area Manager of deVere USA, says it is a strategy that has been “wildly successful”.  He observes: “Our business has grown considerably over the last three years.  And, as the Miami expansion indicates, it’s a trend that shows no signs of slowing down.

“More and more expatriates and international investors in the U.S. are realising the need and the value of independent bespoke cross-border financial solutions, such as QROPS and we’re proud to say that deVere is who they are turning to in increasing numbers.

“We look forward to continued success and potentially, if the market conditions are right, expanding our existing West Coast office into a further U.S. hub.”

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