Scotiabank adds mobile banking

Scotiabank has signed a partnership with mobile banking and payments solution provider M-Com, and Canada can expect more banks - and even smaller credit unions - to follow suit, states Telemanagement.

Scotiabank's mobile banking service will provide personal and small business customers with access to their Scotiabank accounts from their mobile device, regardless of their mobile service provider.

The service will be available to Scotiabank customers in Spring 2010. Customers will be able to view balances and transaction history, pay bills and make transfers.

A trading glitch halted trading on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) for three hours on Thursday last week, highlighting the urgent need for an upgrade to its trading platform, reports Times Online.

It is the second time that trading on the LSE has been halted this fortnight and coincided with a huge sell-off in shares as investors fretted over the impact of Dubai's debt problems.

The LSE purchased the Sri Lankan trading platform MillenniumIT in September to better compete with lower-cost rivals such as Chi-X and Turquoise. The exchange expects to switch to the new platform, which has already been adopted by Icap and London Metal Exchange, by the end of next year. It uses its increasingly outdated TradElect system, which was first deployed in 2003.

Uganda's banking sector has been urged to fast-track the biometric finger technology to attract the unbanked segment, according to AllAfrica.

Stelios Fragkos, the vice-president for the Middle East, Africa and east Mediterranean region of NCR, a supplier of ATM machines, recently said there were many positive reasons for the adoption of biometric technology.

He noted that Uganda is still low on the spread of ATMs, saying the ratio of 1 000 ATMs to 30 million people was low compared to SA, which has 323 ATMs for every one million people or Europe with 700 ATMs for every one million people.