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Glasgow Times
18 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Nationalisation of train operators ‘tackling deep-rooted problems'
The Cabinet minister made the claim ahead of c2c becoming the second operator to be nationalised by the Labour Government on Sunday. The operator, which runs services between London Fenchurch Street and south Essex, has been owned by Italy's state-owned rail company Trenitalia since 2017. The Department for Transport (DfT) said c2c is 'consistently rated one of the best performing operators in the country'. It achieved a passenger satisfaction rating for the overall journey of 89% in the most recent research by watchdog Transport Focus. This was the joint sixth best performance out of 22 operators. Ms Alexander said: 'Whether you're shopping in Lakeside or walking along the beach in Southend-on-Sea, from this Sunday you will be able to get there on a train service run by the public, for the public. 'Public ownership is already tackling deep-rooted problems we see on the railway that's led to spiralling costs, fragmentation and waste.' Customers of a nationalised train company can use their tickets on another publicly-owned operator at no extra cost during disruption. Ms Alexander added: 'A unified network under Great British Railways (GBR) will take this further with one railway under one brand with one mission – delivering excellent services for passengers wherever they travel.' GBR is an upcoming public sector body that will oversee Britain's rail infrastructure and train operation. Nationalised services are currently the responsibility of DfT Operator. South Western Railway became the first operator brought into public ownership by the Labour Government in May. It joined Northern, TransPennine Express, Southeastern and LNER, which were nationalised under the Conservative government because of performance failings by the former owners of those franchises. Rob Mullen, managing director of c2c, said: 'We are proud of the reliable and high level of service we offer our passengers, consistently being rated as one of the best performing operators in the country. 'We now have a golden opportunity to collaborate with the wider family of publicly-owned operators, sharing our successes and best practice, but also learning from a wide range of different and diverse operators who have already benefited from public ownership, to drive even more improvements for the people and places we all serve. 'A unified and focused railway can deliver more for our communities, including better growth, jobs and houses.' Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, welcomed the nationalisation of c2c but expressed frustration that staff cleaning its trains and stations will still be employed by private company Bidvest Noonan. He said: 'The injustice of outsourcing must end so all railway workers can reap the benefits of public ownership and greedy private contractors can no longer extract obscene profits from the industry. 'Our members working for Bidvest Noonan deserve decent pay and the same terms and conditions as their colleagues, and we will fight tooth and nail to achieve it.' Paul Nowak, general secretary of trade union body the TUC, said: 'We need a fully integrated national rail service that works for passengers and the rail workforce. 'That means tackling outsourcing in the sector.' The next operator to be nationalised will be Greater Anglia on October 12.
Finextra
19 minutes ago
- Finextra
Citi and Ant International pilot AI-enabled forecasting solution to enhance FX risk management
Citi and Ant International announced today that they are piloting the use of Ant International's Falcon Time-Series Transformer (TST) Model to deliver an enhanced FX risk management solution for their customers. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. Developed with aviation clients as an initial use case, the solution aims to offer greater payment solutions for the airline industry, which processes billions of payment transactions annually. With airline travel set to continue growing, the joint solution combines Ant International's experience with airline payments and Citi's robust FX solutions to help the bank's clients manage their FX costs more efficiently. Ant International's Falcon TST Model is a transformer architecture-based big data model with close to 2 billion parameters. By integrating the latest time series forecasting algorithms, the TST Model predicts future data points by learning complex patterns from large historical data sets using AI technology, the model helps businesses improve the efficiency and accuracy of their cashflow and FX exposure forecasts, allowing them to reduce hedging and overall FX costs. By pairing the Falcon TST Model with Citi's Fixed FX Rates solution, an award-winning solution that simplifies the FX risk management process for businesses selling online in multiple currencies, the combined solution helps businesses mitigate the risks associated with currency fluctuations by securing FX rates for a defined period. FX rates are locked-in and agreed upon, giving businesses greater predictability in budgeting, pricing and profitability. Citi's Fixed FX Rates solution supports over 70 currencies and is widely used by clients in various sectors including Airlines, Travel and e-Commerce. With Ant International's AI-enabled forecasting capability, businesses may utilise Citi's enhanced solution to improve the accuracy of their sales and FX exposure forecasts. Ant International has already achieved an accuracy rate of more than 90% in the company's own use cases and expects the solution to help the airline industry reduce its overall FX hedging costs as forecast accuracy continues to improve. By combining Ant International's Falcon TST model with Citi's Fixed FX Rates solution, Citi has successfully completed FX transactions for one of the leading carriers in Asia, reducing the carrier's FX hedging costs in initial live transactions. Sam Hewson, Global Head of FX Sales at Citi, said: 'We are constantly evolving our products and solutions to support new use cases built on our clients' priorities. Citi's Fixed FX Rates solution supports some of the world's largest e-Commerce and Travel names and this innovative solution sees us leveraging best-in-class technology capabilities in the broader ecosystem to accelerate go-to-market use cases.' Kelvin Li, General Manager of Platform Tech at Ant International, said: 'This is the first industry-tailored solution developed from our Falcon TST Model with a bank partner to serve their customers. It's an important milestone in our journey to leverage AI for FX management for our businesses, partners, and also merchants. The 30% hedging cost savings Ant International has achieved for the pilot airline customer shows the cost efficiency that can be achieved with AI-enabled FX hedging. We are excited to expand the solution with Citi to serve more businesses and industries.'
Finextra
19 minutes ago
- Finextra
How Instant Payments Regulation Will Boost A2A Payments
Joining the FinextraTV studio at EBAday 2025 in Paris, Nuria Mohedas Yamayo, Director of Payments and Digital Banking, Cecabank and Julio Cesar Fernandez Ramos, Director of Business Development and Operations, Cecabank discussed the development of instant payments regulations and cash contingencies. Explaining how new regulations help to boost A2A payments and the growth of organisations as a whole, beyond just a smaller portion of banks, Yamayo and Ramos also emphasised the need for improved efficiencies and collaboration.
