Our client’s ageing technology estate was constraining its ability to provide a highly resilient, scalable and “always on” payments solution. Change costs were also high, making it difficult to offer new product…

Currently, only 38 participants are directly connected to CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System), with most connecting through indirect agreements. Many prospective participants choose not to pursue direct participation due to strict…

Our client needed an agile and holistic technology architecture fit for a modern digital financial institution. They engaged Icon’s Architecture team to recommend a new model for wider adoption, one that put…

Driving the mainstream growth of Open Banking payments continues to be a key talking point for the UK government, regulators and wider banking industry. With more than 10% of the UK adult…

Last month, Icon brought together payments professionals from across Europe and the US for our 3rd IPF Day. Amid regulatory pressures, increasing competition and evolving business needs, the event served as an…

In 2024, Sibos is opening its doors in Beijing, marking the first time that China’s capital is hosting the event. Taking place 21-24 October, the event will bring together thousands of senior leaders…

In today’s turbulent economy, corporate treasurers are looking for banks that offer payment and treasury services that help them automate tedious AP and AR processes, optimise their liquidity management, reduce risks as…

Our client’s legacy payments platform was not able to support the ISO 20022 data format, and with the impending Cross-Border Payments and Reporting Plus (CBPR+) transition to ISO 20022, they needed a…

Our client, a Tier 1 UK bank needed to migrate its FATCA and CRS applications to Google Cloud Platform. Icon Solutions was selected to assess the current state of their technology platform…

From Delays to Innovation: Payments Canada’s Real-Time-Rail (RTR) is the country’s new real-time payment system, enabling account-to-account (A2A) money transfers 24/7 for low-value payments with immediate fund availability and irrevocability. This initiative…

Financial crime is on the rise, and it is costing billions. New research shows UK financial services organisations are collectively spending £34.2 billion each year on financial crime compliance, up 19% since…

Our client, a Tier 1 UK bank, approached Icon for support with developing a payments and payment card strategy for its Commercial Banking division. Alongside upgrading its payments product strategies, the bank…

As banks look towards their priorities for the coming year, instant payments – particularly the new European Instant Payments Regulation (IPR) – loom large in the minds of many. A poll of…

The client had selected a new strategic transactional fraud detection capability – comprising a fraud detection engine, alert management application and model development environment – and wanted to integrate various bank channels…

Instant payments, characterised by their speed and availability, are transforming the financial landscape across the globe. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region in particular, has emerged as a leader in adopting and innovating in…

Icon recently released IPF 2024.1, which included upgrading all of our components to Java 17 and required Java 17 as a minimum. I was the lead engineer on this piece of work,…

Matt Piper, Head of Pre-Sales at Icon Solutions, explains why flexibility is key when it comes to future-proofing payments but, to understand the steps that must be taken, there are fundamental questions…

Following NACHA’s annual Smart Faster Payments Conference in Miami, Arjeh van Oijen, Head of Product Management for Icon Solutions, explores the key trends shaping the rollout and adoption of real-time payments in…

This global Tier 1 bank’s payments architecture of the WPB function was constraining their ability to defend its market share, attack new growth opportunities and deliver a consistent customer engagement. They engaged…

In the run up to NACHA’s annual Smart Faster Payments Conference in Miami, Arjeh van Oijen, Head of Product Management for Icon Solutions, explains why real-time payments are top of the agenda…

In this blog, Jamie Packham, shares his own experiences deploying generative artificial intelligence (AI) models and explores the potential for AI to help accelerate banks’ migration to the ISO 20022 messaging standard….

It is critical for financial institutions to have an efficient Reconciliation and Investigation (R&I) capability to minimise financial risk by identifying potential payment errors, discrepancies, or irregularities promptly and fixing them early…

With SWIFT beginning its migration to ISO 20022, our client needed a solution to implement the new messaging standards in line with strict industry timelines. This case study describes how Icon, with…

A recent independent survey conducted by Celent found that 73% of corporate banks have reported clear revenue benefits from investment in advanced data analytics. Looking ahead, analytics, intelligent automation, and artificial intelligence…

The banking industry is going through significant transformation across its various business domains and core banking has been one of the key areas of focus for many banks in recent years. Most…

For this bank Icon delivered a target Payments Reference Architecture that met the client’s strategic objectives in terms of resilience, performance, simplification and agility. Icon’s consultants worked within a closely integrated team,…

Back before Christmas, at the same time as the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, a new report by HM Treasury was released – the Future of Payments Review report [1]. This report proposes a set…

In the first blog of our two-part predictions series, we explored the key technological and regulatory trends shaping the payments landscape in 2024. In this second blog, we explore the practical strategies…

2023 put the traditional processing model for account-based payments to the test, as evolving customer demands, intensifying competition from fintechs and shifting regulatory requirements continued to intensify margin pressures. And although 2024…

This case study is about Icon helping a Tier 1 UK bank onboard a Payment Service Provider to expand the number of currencies available for customers to make international payments. We provided…

Last month Icon hosted its final IPF Client Day of 2023. The event brought our clients together in London to explore the latest business trends in the payments market and technologies shaping…

Icon’s expertise was needed when a Tier 1 global bank wanted to introduce an automated self-service customer journey for account closures. We did not only bring our strong architecture capabilities and banking…

Where is your bank on the order management (or pre-processing, or initiation management – whichever you prefer) maturity scale? Are you running your order management on legacy technology as a routing/integration layer…

This case study is about Icon providing a Tier 1 UK bank with expert solution and data architecture capabilities to augment the bank’s own teams across three areas: 1 Payments – Creating…

This case study is about a South Africa-headquartered pan-Africa bank that engaged Icon to determine the bank’s overall capability to deliver their target architecture and make prioritised recommendations for transforming the bank’s…

With Artificial Intelligence (AI) being part of the Zeitgeist and almost every newspaper containing an article on AI, it is reasonable to want to ensure that your business can gain competitive advantage…

This Tier 1 bank was looking for a payments infrastructure that would allow them greater flexibility, speed and innovation. The bank recognised Icon’s proven track record in delivering payments transformation strategies for…

When a Tier 1 UK bank was facing numerous challenges with its core banking system, typical to monolithic and legacy platforms, the bank turned to Icon. This case study describes how we…

This case study demonstrates Icon’s expertise and understanding of how enterprise architecture supports effective transformation and that it must encompass people, processes and technology. It’s about work we recently did for a…

Icon Solutions was founded in 2009 with the desire to be different and simplify banking transformation, using technological expertise and deep experience to fight complexity, promote transparency and put the needs of…

With the Payments IT landscape frequently changing due to regulations, customer needs, and innovations, Financial Institutions (FIs) face challenges of high cost, slow pace of change, operational complexities, and a constant struggle…

This Tier 1 UK bank was keen to benefit from a more efficient use of its fraud and financial crime technology and data, while decreasing operating costs. Read about Icon’s work to…

By all measures, Sibos 2023 in Toronto was a great success. The event brought together more than 9,000 attendees to discuss this edition’s theme – ‘Collaborative finance in a fragmented world’. Rich…

When this Tier 1 UK bank was facing a strict industry timeline for compliance with ISO20022 messaging standards, Icon helped the bank in a number of ways. One was that we proposed…

Icon’s consultants are recognised New Payments Architecture (NPA) experts and this case study details the work our team has done for a leading UK challenger bank. Specifically, we helped with the implementation…

Traditional banking has evolved over centuries into what we have today: digitalized products and services that keep the worldwide economic cogs turning. In pursuit of automation and digitalization banks have accrued sizeable…

As banks continue to grapple with the account-based payments processing model amid seemingly interminable margin pressures, the wider commercial implications of software developer capacity limitations are coming into much sharper focus. In…

The traditional payments processing model for account-based payments is under unprecedented strain amid diminishing profit margins, increasing competition from fintechs, and rising costs. These challenges are only set to compound in a…

This case study describes Icon’s work for a specialist provider of premium finance solutions to the insurance industry. The business wanted to transform its operations and technology estate because the existing Core…

On 28th June 2023, the European Commission (EC) set out its proposals for ‘modernising payment services and opening financial services data’. The proposals for payments – referred to as ‘PSD3’ –essentially reflect…

This is a case study about Icon’s work for a Tier 1 bank which was looking to derive greater business value from its Customer Due Diligence (CDD) solution. The legacy CDD solution…

This Tier 1 UK bank lacked comprehensive and real-time visibility into customers’ needs and transactions and therefore couldn’t provide on-time responses. Additionally, the bank was planning to provide more of-the-moment insights to…

This Tier 1 UK bank needed to accelerate change to its payments platforms to be more competitive and deliver value sooner. Read what Icon Solutions did to help the bank transition to…

Discover how Icon Solutions enabled BNP Paribas to meet their first challenge on the transformation journey through the fast track deployment of IPF for instant payments, and how the impact of our…

Icon Solutions was engaged by the bank to assist them with evolving their current payments technology estate. The bank needed to enhance and refine their current payments technology estate in order to…

Icon Solutions was engaged by the bank to propose an enhanced payments proposition for small and medium business customers and to recommend the best technical approach for deployment. The project was co-sponsored…

The bank’s reaction to major changes in the global Payments industry was a new Payments Platform Reference Architecture. Icon Solutions was asked to assess both current and target states, and overall delivery…

Our client is a Tier 1 bank with £750+ billion of assets and 19 million customers across UK and Ireland. Icon had proven experience at the bank from previous engagements, and were…

Our client wanted their in-house payments platform to be used for processing all types of payments and needed to migrate legacy systems to the platform. As part of this programme, they needed…

Our client, a major Swiss bank operating in a number of countries across the globe, selected Icon Solutions to assist them on their payments transformation journey and chose Icon’s payments platform, IPF,…

Our client needed to transform their current payments architecture to ensure scalability and resilience, moving to an event-driven architecture approach. Faced with this significant strategic challenge, the bank needed a trusted third…

Icon Solutions was engaged by the wholesale banking division, co-sponsored by the Global CIO and the Chief Architect for Payments, Liquidity and Cash Management. In commissioning Icon, the Wholesale division’s business and…

The number of banks identifying payments data monetisation as a key strategic priority has doubled in the past two years. The growth of real-time payments (RTP), ISO 20022 migration and open banking…

At a recent payments forum hosted by the Bank of Finland, ECB board member Fabio Panetta signalled commercial banks must make instant payments ‘cheap and easy to use’. While on the operational…

Highlights from our recent webinar where Toine van Beusekom, Strategy Director, Payments at Icon Solutions, Boris Bialek, Global Head of Enterprise Modernization at MongoDB, Kieran Hines, Senior Analyst at Celent and Krystle…

Thomas Halpin, Managing Director, Global Head of Payments Product Management, Global Liquidity and Cash Management, HSBC and Michel Vaja, Head of Payments Consulting, Icon Solutions, speak to FinextraTV about the recent report…

How many people have heard of Kathleen Booth or Margaret Hamilton? Chances are not many. But why not? These two women achieved two significant firsts. Kathleen invented the first assembly language and Margaret,…

08 June 2021 – Research conducted by Celent on behalf of Icon Solutions and MongoDB has revealed the bank data services that corporates will pay for, and the ones they consider table…

17th May 2021 – Icon Solutions is delighted to return as a key sponsor for the sixth year running at this year’s EBAday Virtual Conference, ‘Payments transformation in 2021 – The road…

In the fourth part of our series exploring the motivations, architecture and principles driving the development of IPF, Tom Beadman, Principal Engineer at Icon Solutions, discusses the benefits of using Domain-Specific Languages…

As competition in payments has increased, data has long been touted as the cure-all for incumbent banks. If banks could charge a transaction fee for every time they are told that ‘data…

Remaining competitive in payments is the key to future relevance and profitability for incumbent banks. But with incumbents now competing on multiple fronts against various players, how can they stay ahead of…

For several decades, incumbent banks have held a comfortable leadership position in payments. But the rapid growth of digital payments has signalled opportunity for new market entrants to attack this status quo….

11th March 2021 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and payments expertise, is delighted to announce its sponsorship of this year’s MoneyLive Summit. The company’s payments experts will be…

In July 2020, a group of sixteen major European banks from five Euro countries announced the launch of the European Payments Initiative (EPI) with the aim of creating a unified payment solution…

Financial and technological industries have always been male dominated, with men at the forefront of key projects and making up most of the workforce. Although things have improved over the years with…

Setting the scene In the third part of our series exploring the motivations, architecture and principles driving the development of IPF, Pat Altaie, Senior Consultant, discusses the benefits of using interoperable programming…

It has been said that prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future. The unprecedented events of 2020 demonstrated quite how difficult it can be. The monumental uplifts in digital…

In the second part of our series exploring the motivations, architecture and principles driving the development of IPF, Sirin Sevinc, Senior Solution Architect, explains the roles CQRS and Event Sourcing play in…

Standardisation, regulation and technological innovation means payments are well on the way to becoming instant, invisible and free. This is good news for everybody. Well, not quite everybody. Banks are now faced…

Over the past 20+ years, I have been deeply involved in designing, building and delivering systems in a few different sectors across a multitude of technologies and methodologies, varying team sizes and…

9th November 2020 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, was yesterday featured in The Sunday Times report by Raconteur on ‘The Future of Banking and…

3rd November 2020 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, is delighted to return as a key sponsor and presenter for the fifth year running at…

As part of Icon Solutions’ thought leadership in the world of payments, our latest webinar, ‘Busting the Myths of Payments Transformation’, delved into the noise and misnomers in the payments transformation space and…

COVID-19 has been a major stress test for digital transformation. Merchants have had to ramp up their e-commerce, delivery and card-not-present capabilities. As COVID-19 continues to take its toll, players in the…

Icon Solutions has been shortlisted in the ‘Payment Technology Provider of the Year’ category at this year’s Payments Awards. Organised by FStech and Retail Systems the Payments Awards “recognise and celebrate companies…

‘Payments transformation’ has emerged as perhaps the single biggest opportunity for banks. But getting payments transformation right is no easy task. With only 9% of banks nearing completion in their transformation efforts,…

Instant payments are the ‘new normal’. The last decade saw a ramp-up in adoption as regulation, customer expectation and technology dovetailed to create immediate, 24/7 demand for financial services. This means that…

It has been two years since the European Payments Council published the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme and EBA Clearing launched RT1 – their infrastructure solution for the processing SCT…

The first Faster Payments Barometer, conducted by the US Faster Payments Council in partnership with Glenbrook, received over 700 responses with broad coverage across industry stakeholder groups such as financial institutions, core…

AFP Annual Conference drew a huge number of attendees this year and packed a lot into three days. People came from far and wide to attend and discuss all things payments, risk…

The new report “The Payments Transformation Race: Criteria for Success” from Aite and Icon Solutions identified that banks that have a clear and robust payments transformation plan are more profitable than their…

Icon Solutions, a leading Fintech provider of payment and technology solutions, was approached by City AM to give a view on whether we should be worried about yesterday’s services sector PMI data. Simon…

Report reveals that slow payment transformation risks shrinking margins further London, 17th September 2019 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and payments expertise, today launches a new report “The Payments…

Increasingly software development in large organisations is moving to agile methods, primarily scrum.  Agile empowers developers to design and build the system – where does solution architecture fit in? Agile and scrum…

This year’s EBAday, hosted in Stockholm, focused on three themes: innovation, infrastructure and reinvention. It explored positive disruption, the opportunity of payments and examined the impact of real-time, roadmaps and regulations. Here…

Icon Solutions, a leading Fintech provider of payment and technology solutions, has commissioned Aite, an independent research and advisory firm, to explore the payments transformation progress of global banks. The research provides…

Faster Payments have changed the world for the better and many corporates are already reaping the benefits. During our recent webinar we heard from industry experts in the US, Steve Ledford –…

Icon Solutions, a leading Fintech provider of payment and technology solutions, has commissioned Aite, an independent research and advisory firm, to explore the payments transformation progress of global banks. ‘Payment transformation’ is…

While payments transformation is high on the list of priorities for banks, there is a lack of information around strategic considerations, best practice and how to minimise risk to ensure success. In…

While Canada has been a leader in mobile and app-based banking technology, the same cannot be said for the speed of their implementation of Real Time Payments (RTP).  However, the last Payments…

Icon Solutions, a leading Fintech provider of payment and technology solutions, is delighted to announce that Gema Montoya, Head of Continental Europe, will speak at NACHA’s Alliance 2019 Spring Meeting in Madrid…

Thank you to all who completed our recent survey, developed in partnership with InstaPay.  As you’ll remember, the aim of the survey was to understand how far along banks are from adopting…

London, 14th May 2019 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, is delighted to return as a key sponsor and presenter for the fourth year running at…

As part of a NACHA initiative, we are conducting a short survey to collect views from the banking community on the adoption of real-time payments and payments modernisation in North America. The results…

Discover the era of collaborative payments platform at NACHA Payments 2019! For the last 10 years banks have focused on consolidating payment infrastructures, but have ended up with multiple ‘hubs’, inefficient processes,…

This month, Icon Solutions is celebrating 10 years in business. With over 30% of new businesses failing during the first two months of being open, 50% in the first five years and…

The InstaPay Tracker, sponsored by Icon Solutions, now identifies 43 active instant payment schemes around the world, up from 30 in 2017. Further, our Tracker also identifies 15 instant payment programs under…

A colleague summed it up perfectly when he described a ‘tsunami of payments’ heading the way of banks on account of changes in the payments landscape. The changes have been fuelled primarily…

London, 14th March 2019 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, is delighted to return as an exhibitor, presenter and moderator at NACHA’s prestigious Smarter. Faster. PAYMENTS event…

Since time began men have been at the forefront of technological innovations and in the finance world, building and establishing themselves as leaders – this culture has made it difficult for the…

It’s been said a number of times – instant payments are the new norm, but what about international payments?  Could there be the possibility for these to become instant too? In my…

Icon Solutions Executive Advisor, Gene Neyer, has been invited to keynote at the 2019 Payments Summit which will be taking place at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix between Monday 11th and Thursday 14th March. Gene…

Last week I attended a Women in Payments event entitled, ‘New Payments Architecture – What can we expect and how will we get there?’ The event was hosted by AmazonPay in London…

  Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of global payment technology solutions and consultancy services, has confirmed its sponsorship of this year’s Annual Payments Forum in London. Toine van Beusekom, Icon’s Global Head…

  London, 22nd November 2018 – Icon Solutions, a leading provider of Payment Solutions, is now ready to help payment service providers connect to the European Central Bank’s Target Instant Payments Settlement (TIPS) service…

  London – 13th November 2018 – Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of global payment technology solutions and consultancy services, was recently announced as a founding member of a newly launched organisation, the…

Germany is undergoing something of a fintech renaissance with startups like challenger bank Number 26 taking advantage of the culture of innovation fostered in cities like Berlin. This spirit of innovation is…

  At Icon we firmly believe that the combination of APIs and Instant Payments will provide a powerful alternative to card payments, particularly in e-and m-commerce. And it’s not just our belief…

There is a lively debate on whether the modern real-time payment infrastructures came into being through regulation or out of commercial necessity and end-user demand. Although regulators are almost always involved in…

  IPF, Icon Solutions’ ground-breaking solution for accelerating the transition to instant payments, has been shortlisted for ‘Payments Innovation of the Year’ at this year’s Payments Awards. The Payments Awards recognise cards…

Icon’s Global Software Sales Director, Simon Wilson, addresses one of the biggest questions asked when moving into real-time payments, “How do I find the right payment solution and partner to suit my…

  I recently had the pleasure of speaking at an event in Paris organised in partnership with DXC, one of Icon’s partner organisations. The audience included representatives of banks and corporates, and…

  Gene Neyer, Icon Solutions’ Executive Advisor, Payments, spoke at an exclusive InstaPay webinar on Tuesday 3rd July. “The road to instant payments in Germany: Connectivity, Culture and Global Considerations” featured speakers from: Deutsche Bank,…

Simon Wilson, Global Software Sales Director at Icon Solutions, talks to Finextra at EBAday 2018 about the latest developments within the instant payments market. Here Simon discusses the importance of moving towards…

Webinar: The road to Instant Payments in Germany: Connectivity, Culture and Global Considerations Tuesday 3rd July 2018 2pm – 3pm CST Gene Neyer, Icon Solutions’ Chief Executive Officer, will be joining esteemed…

There was one overwhelming take away for me from EBAday in Munich. It was that the phrase “instant payments is the new normal” has become meaningless. The statement fails to capture the…

Icon Solutions has produced an infographic visually illustrating an IPF project undertaken with a global bank. Click on the image below to download the full infographic. You can find more information on…

I was recently preparing a presentation for an Instant Payments client of ours, and one of the boilerplate slides that I’ve been using for years shows “Instant Payments Around the Globe”. It…

The convergence of Open Banking, PSD2 and instant payments are giving rise to new use cases in the payments industry on an almost daily basis. The creation of new customer centric value-added…

  Welcome back! The past two posts in our series on building reactive systems have dealt with the topics of performance and fault-tolerance. In this post I’m going to talk about resilience,…

  Aniruddha Maheshwari, a payments consultant at Icon Solutions is interviewed by InstaPay, where he discusses the technical challenges introduced by instant payment schemes and shares his views on ‘best practices’. Below…

  En France, de nombreuses banques étudient actuellement l’évolution des systèmes de paiement en vue d’adopter les Instant Payments. Ceci est principalement dû à des facteurs tels que la réduction des coûts,…

  A few years ago, the question “how fast is fast” was being debated across the globe, with many organizations feeling that faster was good enough and hoping to get away with…

  Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of European payment and technology solutions has confirmed its sponsorship of EBAday in Munich. Tom Kelleher, Icon’s Commercial Director has confirmed that Icon will be a key sponsor of EBAday…

  2018 sees the introduction of IPF for a major European Bank that wants to offer its customers seamless and efficient instant payments. A world class FI has appointed Icon Solutions to…

  You would think from the many articles, discussion panels and chaotic clamour regarding ISO 20022 in recent years, that it was the new kid on the block. However, ISO 20022 has been slowly…

  “Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it!” Experience is a great thing, but it’s sometimes painful to get it the hard way. It’s quicker, less expensive, and generally…

  The recent InstaPay webinar “Transitioning to Instant Payments in Germany” provided some more TIPS (pun intended) for the introduction of SCT Inst.  Icon’s very own Gene Neyer took part along with…

In Germany, many of the smaller banks (for example Sparkasse banks) have opted to use payments as a service via a Technical Service Provider (TSP) in order to deliver Instant Payments.  This…

  In the previous post in this series, we talked about the performance and scalability benefits that we get from actors and the actor system. I also briefly mentioned fault tolerance and…

An important meeting took place this week in Budapest between the Hungarian National Bank (MNB), Giro, Nets and various financial institutions to discuss progress with the Hungarian instant payments project.  And the…

How can Banks in Germany prepare for Instant Payments whilst controlling costs and managing risks? And what can we learn from those who have already travelled the path to Instant Payments? In…

  Caught between two regulatory juggernauts I’ve been really enjoying the recent Six Nations rugby: there is some phenomenal skill on show, and some very astute tactics, but you can’t beat the…

  London, 12th March 2018 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real time payments expertise, are delighted to return as an exhibitor at NACHA’s prestigious Faster Payments 2018…

  London, 9th March 2018 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, today announced the appointment of Toine van Beusekom as Head of Payments Architecture. With…

I vantaggi di essere i primi ad adottare il sistema dei pagamenti istantanei Benché l’azienda EBA Clearing abbia lanciato i pagamenti istantanei dell’area unica dei pagamenti in euro (SEPA) a novembre 2017…

  While the conversations we have had with payments business leaders point to a willingness to participate in the Clearing House’s RTP scheme, many of them are struggling with the business case…

The benefits of being an early-adopter of Instant Payments Even though EBA Clearing launched SEPA Instant Payments in November 2017 via RT1, so far only a handful of banks (early-adopters) have decided…

  London, February 9th 2018. Icon Solutions, the leading provider of financial technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, today announced a new partnership with Digital Control Room (DCR), an independent RegTech software company…

  In a recent interview with PYMNTS, Darren Capehorn, Icon’s Director of Services, and Gene Neyer, Executive Advisor, discuss how payments are changing and how flexible technology can help banks adapt to…

  At the European Central Bank’s #TIPSapp event on Tuesday there was lots of focus on opportunity, both short-term and longer-term from the introduction of Instant Payments (IP). The day was to…

  London, 2nd  February 2018 – Tom Hay, Icon’s Chief Product Officer discusses in the latest edition of Payments Cards and Mobile, what it takes for financial organisations to position themselves for success…

  As part of Icon’s continued efforts to support the adoption of Instant Payments across the Eurozone, we were invited to present our thoughts and expertise on Instant Payments to a wide…

  London, 10th January 2018 – Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments expertise, today announced the appointment of industry luminary Gene Neyer as Executive Advisor to the…

  2017: The year of Instant Payments  Unless you’ve spent the last 365 days hiding under a rock, you’ll be fully aware that 2017 has been the year of Instant Payments. Regulators…

  Much of what we write about on the Icon blog is instant payments and instant payment adoption around the world. This blog is part of a series, which aims to bring…

  The neusten Zahlen des European Payments Council (EPC) zeigen, dass sich derzeit mehr als 400 deutsche Payment-Service-Provider (PSPs) auf die Einführung der neuen SCT Inst-kompatiblen Instant-Payments-Plattform RT1 von EBA Clearing vorbereiten….

  In the Canadian market, both consumers and banks have been early adopters when it comes to banking innovation, whether it is mobile, desktop or behind the scenes technology. Canadian consumers generally expect,…

  The Clearing House’s (TCH) central processing scheme in the US has recently started Real Time Payments (RTP) testing for the clearance and settlement of funds between banks. The event is significant…

  Ovum Report: Real-Time Payments Key Driver for $3.3 Billion Rise in Technology Spend by North American Commercial Banks 50 percent of U.S. and 40 percent of Canadian banks to increase investment…

  The latest stats from the European Payments Council (EPC), show there are over 400 German Payment Service Providers (PSPs) gearing up to go-live early next year with EBA Clearing’s new SCT…

There was much agreement at Retail Banking Europe (#RBE2017) in Amsterdam last week. Banks need to support the digital economy and are slowly reinventing themselves to become digital entities. Although different approaches…

  Tom Hay, Icon Solutions’ Head of Payments, will be speaking on instant payments at the T-Systems Symposium on 28th November 2017 in Budapest. This prestigious event takes place annually and hosts…

  This week the Icon team was at Money 20/20 where we saw a lot of discussion around the new ways in which consumers are interacting with their money, modes of payments…

  At the recent Sibos 2017 conference in Toronto, one theme rang out loud and clear – it’s time to think about the corporate. The common thread throughout the four-day conference was…

  London, 12th October 2017 –Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real time payments expertise, are looking forward to attending the highly regarded Money20/20 in Las Vegas, which will…

  London, 10th October 2017 –Icon Solutions, the leading provider of technology solutions and real time payments expertise, are delighted to announce their participation at Sibos, SWIFT’s annual global event for the…

After commissioning a ground-breaking whitepaper from Ovum, the market-leading research and consulting firm, Icon Solutions has now produced an infographic visually illustrating the results of the research. The research “Instant payments and…

  London, 5th October 2017 – Icon Solutions are delighted to announce the appointment of Tom Hay, Head of Payments, to the European Payments Council’s Scheme Technical Forum (ESTF). The Forum is…

Author: Lauren Jones Date: 2nd October, 2017 Lauren Jones, Icon Solutions’ International Payments Ambassador, has created a profile on Central America’s regional payments scheme: Sistemas de Interconexíon de Pagos (SIP). This shares key facts and figures…

London, 19th September 2017 – Icon Solutions, a leading provider of technology solutions and instant payments consultancy, has successfully completed EBA Clearing’s testing procedure for SCT Inst payments – proving full compliance with the…

  Icon Solutions was delighted to host an Instant Payments breakfast roundtable in Hungary, in association with their local partner T-Systems on Wednesday 13th September 2017. Breakfast Roundtable The topic of this…

From July 2019, customers of Hungarian banks will be able to make instant credit transfers of up to HUF 10 million and the beneficiaries would be able to use these funds within…

  London, 5 September 2017, Icon Solutions, the independent IT payment specialist technology provider and consultancy, has today announced the appointment of a strategic senior hire in Canada. Jason Hayes, has joined Icon…

London, 4th August 2017 – Icon Solutions, a leading provider of technology solutions and instant payments consultancy, today announces the start of functional testing between the Instant Payments Framework (IPF) and RT1,…

Icon’s Director of Services, Darren Capehorn is scheduled to speak at Payments International on Thursday 14th September 2017. Darren will be presenting ‘Instant Payments – it’s not all about speed…or consumers’ and…

Any mention of payments and multiple schemes, and the gurus are quick to respond with an “industry leader payments hub” as your go-to solution. These hubs are ‘centralized payments platforms’ which provide…

The US has always been more business-friendly than the Old World, and New York is peppered with temples to industry built by 19th century tycoons such as John D. Rockefeller and J….

  London, 27th July 2017 – Icon Solutions, a leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments consultancy, today announces the completion of connectivity testing between its Instant Payments Framework (IPF) and…

Author: Lauren Jones Date: 13th July, 2017 Lauren Jones, Icon Solutions’ International Payments Ambassador, has created a country profile on the Guatemalan payments market. This shares key facts and figures for this country including modernisation plans…

  London, July 13th 2017 – Icon Solutions, an independent award-winning payment and specialist technology company, has donated £62k during the last 12 months in charitable programmes around the world supporting health,…

We’re at something of an inflection point in the payments landscape. It’s pretty clear that the arrival of PSD2 and Instant Payments will significantly disrupt retail payments, and the media has been…

Author: Lauren Jones Date: 4th July, 2017 Lauren Jones, Icon Solutions’ International Payments Ambassador, has created a country profile on the Belize payments market. This shares key facts and figures for this country including the launch…

  In 2014 Europe started ramping up the rhetoric for building a pan European Instant Payments solution (now known as SCT-Inst). In response, various forums sprung up to enable interested parties to…

  It’s fair to say that Dublin in the June sunshine was out to impress the financial world attending the European Banking Association’s 12th annual congress. Dublin, founded by the Vikings during…

London, EBAday 2017,  Finextra     Finextra interviews Icon’s Richard Dear on the Ovum research “Instant Payments and the Post-PSD2 Landscape” as well as the challenges banks are facing when planning and implementing…

London, EBAday 2017,  Finextra     Finextra  interviews Icon’s Richard Dear regarding financial organisations seeking to move to instant payments. In this interview, Richard identifies some of the key challenges involved and…

A year ago, the European Retail Payments Board (ERPB) flagged that “In practice, PSD2 and the EBA RTS will not cover all aspects that are relevant for the development of an integrated…

While the industry continues its race against time to be PSD2-ready in January 2018, there still remains a number of unknowns and conflicting opinions on how the banking and payments landscape will…

Dublin, June 21st 2017 – Icon Solutions has completed connectivity testing between IPF and SIA’s high-speed and secure network infrastructure SIAnet, which provides access to EBA Clearing’s platform for instant payments. SIAnet…

  Retail Instant Payments in Europe will hit €725bn in transactions by the end of 2027 Single card payments set to decline from 40% to 11% market share by 2027 Instant Payments…

London, 14 June, 2017 – Form3, the cloud based end-to-end secure standard for global payments processing, today announced a partnership with Icon Solutions, a payment and specialist technology provider. The deal extends…

  London, June 13th 2017, Icon Solutions, a leading provider of technology and instant payments solutions, has today announced its expansion into the Hungarian market by partnering with T-Systems Hungary to provide customers with…

The world is now immediate. We’re able to buy things online and have them delivered the same day (sometimes within an hour), our correspondence is sent and reacted to in seconds, and…

  With PSD2 around the corner and Instant Payments no longer a dot on the horizon, the crucial question is: are you ready? Icon Solutions will be partnering with Capgemini to host…

  Icon Solutions, a leading provider of technology solutions and real-time payments consultancy has just announced the enhancement of its Instant Payments Framework (IPF) product to support connectivity to The Clearing House’s…

SCT Inst – or SEPA Instant Credit Transfers – is set to completely change the way that payments are made across Europe. Under the current SEPA scheme, cross-border European payments are processed…

  PSD2 brings a seismic shift in what it fundamentally means to be a bank. It’s no longer enough to be a trusted custodian of consumer transactions and the traditional bank position…

  London, 23 May 2017, Icon Solutions, the independent IT payment specialist technology provider and consultancy, has today announced the appointment of a strategic senior hire in the US.  James Methe, previously Capgemini’s Senior Director,…

Author: Lauren Jones Date: 18th May, 2017 Lauren Jones, Icon’s International Payments Ambassador has created a country profile on the Mexican payments market. This shares key facts and figures for this country including the names of…

  London, 15 May 2017,  Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of instant payments technology has been published in the April issue of Financial IT’s magazine.  This international publication is renowned for providing cutting edge FinTech…

 London, 09 May 2017, PYMNTS.COM Past Lessons May Prove Invaluable For US Real-Time Payments Rollout Real-time payments initiatives are under way all across the globe, but there is little consistency across jurisdictions…

  With real-time payments on the horizon for the US, NACHA’s Faster Payments 2017  was a key conference for payments professionals. But how close is real-time payments to becoming the norm there…

  Icon Solutions is delighted to be participating in the InstaPay webinar: Is Europe ready for SCT Inst? How ready are organisations for SCT Inst? Webinar: Wednesday 3rd May 2017 12pm BST/…

  What insights can the U.S. take from early real-time payments adopters?    Change is constant in the banking and payments industry – and organizations that can keep pace with this change…

  Real time means ‘now’, like boom – you have it, just like receiving a WhatsApp message. And if we think of what ‘now’ means for e-commerce, the first things that come…

London, 13 April 2017,  Ovum releases: On the Radar – Icon Solutions adds real-time capability to existing systems, which evaluates Icon’s Instant Payments Framework (IPF).This is the latest release in their series…

  PSD2 paves the way for a new way to pay online across Europe. Instead of using a card, consumers will soon be able to pay directly from their bank accounts. Similar…

London, 12 April 2017,  Richard Dear is interviewed by Julie Muhn at Finovate on Icon’s Instant Payments Framework (IPF) that will help keep banks PSD2 compliant. IT payment consultancy Icon Solutions is tackling…

  Icon Solutions is delighted to be an exhibitor at NACHA’s prestigious Faster Payments 2017 event in Austin, Texas. Taking place in April, Faster Payments 2017 brings together those who are driving and…

  London, 27 March 2017, Tom Hay, Icon’s Head of Payments will speak at the forthcoming techUK event: PSD2 Authentication…the rumours, facts, challenges and solutions on 3rd April, London Last month, saw the release of PSD2…

  London, 23 March 2017 Icon Solutions, the specialist provider of European payment and technology solutions confirms sponsorship of EBAday, 2017 in Dublin Tom Kelleher, Icon’s Commercial Director has confirmed that Icon…

Author: Tom Hay Date: 13th July 2016 Until now financial institutions (FI’s) have been in control of their digital presence, offering their own branded services to customers via tablets, mobiles and wearable…

London, 6 March 2017,  Fintech Finance      Fintech Finance interview Richard Dear and Tom Hay at Finovate 2017,  on Icon’s Instant Payments Framework (IPF), a real-time payments orchestration engine, built from the ground…

The internet of things (IoT) is at the peak of the hype cycle, so it’s not surprising to find payment companies trying to jump aboard the gravy train. The problem is, consumers…

Ten years ago the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) announced a common vision for the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), which they described as an “integrated market for…

  London, 27 February 2017,   Payments Card & Mobile publish Tom Hay, Head of Payment and Mark Burlison, Senior Consultant at Icon Solutions blog on SEPA: Is the ECB stifling competition…

  At Finovate Europe, 2017, 71 Fintech companies got to present their latest and greatest products via a 7 minute live demo, in front of 1,500 people.  What makes this years’ Finovate…

  London, 8 February 2017,  Icon Solutions the specialist provider of instant payments technology, has today announced that it is partnering with Featurespace, the world’s leading supplier of Adaptive Behavioural Analytics technology. ARIC™, Featurespace’s advanced…

  Over the last year, we’ve been talking with many banks and payment service providers about the challenges of instant payments.  The most progressive organisations are looking to instant payments as an…

  London, 7 February 2017, Tom Hay, Icon’s Head of Payments will speak at the forthcoming webinar: Avoid the common pitfalls of instant payments installations in association with InstaPay.Today and Lipis Advisors on…

  London, 6 February 2017, Icon Solutions the specialist provider of instant payments technology, has today announced that it is partnering with Featurespace, the world’s leading supplier of Adaptive Behavioural Analytics technology….

  London, 17 January 2017. After a competitive application process, Icon Solutions have been selected to showcase their innovative response to the need for global Instant Payment solutions, Instant Payment Framework (IPF),…

The end of 2016 witnessed an excellent step by the Hungarian Central Bank (MNB) – the release of the ‘Operational model of the instant payment service in Hungary’. It is remarkable for…

  A recent survey conducted by InstaPay.today highlighted that key stakeholders within the instant payments industry overwhelmingly believe that it is consumer demand driving instant payments, and not new regulations. The survey was…

  SEPA instant payments (SCT inst) is the first instant payment scheme to be inter-operable in a region as large as SEPA and is a response to European customer needs for faster…

New research from Lipis Advisors, commission by Icon Solutions, has hit the headlines with a number of payments focused publications. The research “Instant Payments: Insights from Early Adopters” dispels the myths that migrating…

Icon Solutions was delighted to host its first Payments Breakfast roundtable in Amsterdam, in association with EBA and Finextra on Tuesday 22nd November 2016. The topic of this exclusive roundtable was ‘Instant payments –…

  We’re delighted to have been invited by the Hungarian Banking Association to present at their PSD2 Payments Workshop on Monday 12th December 2016 in Budapest, Hungary. At the event, we’ll be…

 Average five year cumulative costs for small and medium-sized banks as low as €500,000 By year five, maintenance fees can make up over 50% of total costs Modular, highly configurable systems remove…

The world is moving towards Immediate Payments (also called Faster Payments and Real-time Payments). In fact a recent survey identified around 30 systems globally that might be classed as immediate payments, with…

Icon’s Payments team have just returned from the FinExtra’s  NextGen Banking conference in Helsinki, Finland and thought we’d share some highlights from the event. To open the event, Erkki Poutiainen summed up…

I was recently on a panel at NextGen Banking Nordics, discussing PSD2 (of course) where I was pretty critical of the draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) on Secure Customer Authentication. After the discussion, a…

Tom Hay, Icon’s Head of Payments has been invited to speak at this year’s Fintech Innovation on the 27th October in Budapest, Hungary. The Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) expects to establish an instant payment…

Icon Solutions has recently been announced as an Associate Member of the Euro Banking Association (EBA). The EBA is a practitioners’ body for banks and other service providers supporting a pan-European vision…

Following the recent publication of the European Banking Association (EBA) draft Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS), covering Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) and secure communication, Icon’s Tom Hay takes a closer look at ten…

Payment consultant Icon Solutions has been shortlisted in the ‘Most Disruptive Payments Technology’ category at this year’s Payment Awards. The Payments Awards recognise cards and payments excellence and innovation – and are organised…

Hear an Icon podcast with PaymentEye – Faster Payments 101 with Tom Hay, Head of Payments at Icon Solutions, discussing the real costs of implementing faster payment solutions and the dangers to…

Following on from the topic of fragmentation in Part 1, we have much to discuss. Techno-genies, the value chain and realism Rather than lamenting the lack of international interoperability, we should consider whether…

Fragmentation has become a very real challenge for the industry as instant payment schemes are being implemented on a country by country basis, and each country is doing it differently. Like the…

Tom Hay, heads up Icon’s payment team and has a wealth of experience in aiding financial institutions move to faster payments. With two decades of payments experience as Head of Architecture with…

The landscape of faster payments has been changing rapidly over the past 12 months, with more change to come. This article tries to capture some of the key debates that have been…

Mastercard’s planned acquisition of Vocalink has the potential to create a new payments powerhouse in Europe and beyond. The news of the planned acquisition broke a few days after the Payment Systems…

Seven major US banks – including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Corp, Wells Fargo & Co and Bancorp – are collaborating on a jointly owned system that will speed up and simplify…

Icon Solutions, the independent IT payment consultancy and specialist technology provider, today announced the worldwide launch of its Instant Payments Framework (IPF). IPF is an agile yet robust software product that expedites…

Icon Solutions, the independent IT payment consultancy and specialist technology provider, today announced the worldwide launch of its Instant Payments Framework (IPF). IPF is an agile yet robust software product that expedites…

Icon Solutions, the independent IT payment consultancy and specialist technology provider, today announced the worldwide launch of its Instant Payments Framework (IPF). Read More

Icon Solutions, the independent IT payment consultancy and specialist technology provider, today announced the worldwide launch of its Instant Payments Framework (IPF). IPF is an agile yet robust software product that expedites…

Icon Solutions is gearing up to launch a technology framework that enables banks to connect to instant payment schemes. Read More

Icon Launches Instant Payments Framework To Facilitate Real Time Payments. Icon’s IPF solution offers financial institutions flexibility, lower cost of ownership and faster time to market. Icon Solutions, an independent IT payment…

The new framework – available worldwide – is set to open up access to real-time payments for banks. UK-based Icon Solutions, an IT payment consultancy and specialist technology provider, describes its Instant…

Tom Hay, Icon’s Head of Payments has been invited to speak at this year’s Money 20/20 Europe, 4-7 April in Copenhagen, the World’s Largest FinTech event. Tom will take to the stage…

Icon Solutions was delighted to host our first Payments Breakfast roundtable, in association with Finextra, this morning. The topic of this exclusive roundtable was ‘The new access model to Faster Payments: Will…