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News

• HSBC discloses customer accounts hacked at its US bank

  Hackers breached some HSBC customers' accounts in the United States in October and accessed their information, the bank said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.

• HSBC looks to ramp up machine learning usage with Google Cloud

  ​Global bank HSBC has taken its first pilot machine learning projects with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) into production and is now looking to ramp up the porting of applications and data workloads onto the vendor’s cloud infrastructure, once Google provides more granular encryption key controls in August.

• Banks turn to smartphone tech to fight online fraud

  To ward off cyber-crooks trying to break into customers' accounts, banks are expanding their security efforts beyond desktops and onto iPhones and other mobile devices.

• HSBC IT systems down due to 'mainframe issue'

  HSBC customers were unable to access online banking and ATMs for a short period of time on Friday due to a ‘mainframe issue'.

• Gamification trend could save banks from huge compliance fines

  Gamification of compliance and regulatory training could save banks millions of pounds in fines, according to finance software start-up True Office.

• DDoS attacks against banks raise question: Is this cyberwar?

  It's been a month of crippling denial-of-service attacks on websites operated by U.S. banks and financial services firms. A terrorist organization called Al-Qassam takes credit online, but now the attacks are being blamed on Iran.

• Costs to dip as banks standardise on XML

  Firms could save time and money as banks move to adopt a standardised format for communicating with businesses' accounting software.
  XML is a widely used method for labelling data so it can be easily recognised by different software programs. HSBC has implemented XML file exchanges for financial data in what it says is a first for New Zealand.
  Spokeswoman Cath Henry says some clients are now using the format, which lets them download statements into their systems and submit payment instructions to the bank.
  Banks use a range of messaging formats and firms sometimes have to tweak their systems to communicate easily with those used by banks, she says. "This single universal standard is saving corporates a lot of money and makes life easier for them in terms of not having to use the alternative proprietary formats with each of their banking relationships."
  BNZ spokeswoman Erica Lloyd says it is about to launch a "processing channel" for business clients that will let them use XML to access account information and facilitate payments.
  ASB chief operations officer Russell Jones says it tailors XML file format support for business customers, "depending on their business needs and commercial constraints".
  Computer Society chief executive Paul Matthews says most data transfers between computer programs today are done using an XML format.
  The move by banks to pick up the format will not revolutionise the way businesses interact with banks, but will make it easier for software developers building accounting packages, he says.
  "It is quite important from a software perspective because in the current situation banks sometimes do use different formats. For example, the Quicken Interchange Format is the most common one, but the problem with that is some banks use four digits for the year, others use two and some banks have the month and the date around in the American style."
  Most banks support four or five different formats for exchanging data, and most of the main business software programs should support XML or be close to doing so, he says.
  Deloitte partner Faris Azimullah says banks will be able to easily assess their business activities, such as credit lending and exposure, if they know exactly what data firms have supplied them with.
  Businesses will benefit more from the move because they will no longer have to clarify with banks what data they have sent through.
  "Once you've cracked the nut in terms of what the bank wants and established and tagged that data ... you can share that information by pressing a button."

• UK bank feed for Xero

  Xero has made further inroads into the UK market, with the announcement of a bank feed to HSBC Bank.