Banking


Acorns Australia goes live with Moneythor for personal finance

Micro-investing service Acorns Australia has chosen Moneythor’s machine-learning solution to help it analyse customers’ spending patterns and offer insights into savings. The new “My Finances” features of the Acorns app were developed with Moneythor’s engine. The solution’s predictive analytics and data classification techniques are also used to provide customers with an estimate of their future […]

Nordea innovation homes in on Stockholm

Nordea Bank has teamed up with the Stockholm Fintech Hub (SFH) for innovation ambitions and to connect with start-ups, financial institutions and regulators. The bank says a number of people from Nordea will move into the space, so it can talk and work with start-ups, bigger companies, other banks and “new players” like IBM and […]

Travelex preps new challenger bank Ditto for launch

New banks are appearing at the double – and Ditto, a France-based mobile-driven multi-currency bank, is the latest one getting ready to launch. Ditto, which is backed by foreign exchange company Travelex, has been built from scratch over the last two years and is “managed as a separate entity” from Travelex. Ditto is based on […]

Banks banking on APIs for payments and beyond

Facing increased competition from financial services upstarts and tech firms, banks are doubling down on application programming interfaces (APIs) as a competitive tool, a new report shows. Paybefore (Banking Technology‘s sister publication) reports that an Aite Group study canvassed product and digital channel managers at Asia-Pacific, European and North American banks, and found that those […]

Infographics: UK’s fintech job market

Time for some simpler infographics. According to meta search engine Joblift, there has been an average monthly growth of 5% in the number of fintech jobs posted in the UK in the past year, this is in comparison with a growth of 1% in the UK job market as a whole. Joblift found that London […]

Idea’s express bank branch hits the tracks

Poland’s Idea Bank has launched the first bank branch on rail tracks and the first co-working space for travellers. Called the Idea Hub Express carriage, the bank selected Poland’s PKP intercity trains, and the hub will be for passengers traveling on the Warsaw-Poznan-Warsaw, Warsaw-Krakow-Warsaw and Warsaw-Wrocław-Warsaw routes. Selected trains linking the cities will have a […]

UK’s CYBG banking group launches innovation lab

UK-based Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank – which together form CYBG – have launched their banking innovation lab on Kensington High Street in London. Called Studio B – CYBG partnered with design consultancy Market Gravity to design, implement and launch the lab. Nick Sherrard, managing director, Market Gravity Edinburgh, says it will be exploring voice […]

Banking Technology May 2017 issue out now

The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.

Philippines’ UnionBank picks IBM Cloud for app overhaul

UnionBank of the Philippines (UnionBank) has selected IBM Cloud to build, deploy, run and manage new apps for its digital customer base. Through the IBM Bluemix cloud platform and IBM API Connect, UnionBank says it can create, manage, secure and run APIs that the bank has made available internally and run them externally for consumption. […]

Humans hanging on in RBS hybrid bot plan

New York-based LivePerson has rolled out the “first financial industry hybrid bots in the world” at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), offering a service where humans and bots can team up in one conversation. With RBS continuing with branch closures and job cuts, and seeking a digital redress to a financial mess; the idea […]

Apple Pay ready to go for HSBC Australia

With the battle of the four banks won, Apple Pay’s fight to retain its Australian smartphone market continues as HSBC Australia is now offering support for its customers for the first time. Back in March, Apple Pay emerged victorious in its long-running feud with four domestic banks over their permission to collectively bargain with Apple […]

Hackers cybersquatting on hundreds of UK bank domains

Cybersquatters have wormed their way onto hundreds of websites and are tricking web users into thinking they’re clicking on to UK high street bank websites. According to research by DomainTools, a DNS-based cyber threat intelligence firm, it found 324 registered domains using the trademarked names of five of the UK’s top high street banks – […]

Paper put in place by Singapore’s simpler banking plan

Singapore is piloting a new initiative to let people apply for a bank account without needing to submit supporting documentation. The Smart Nation and Digital Government Office, Government Technology Agency and Monetary Authority of Singapore, have begun a pilot with four banks to explore simplifying online banking transactions with the use of the government’s MyInfo […]

Lessons learnt on a start-up journey

I grew up in Darwin, northern Australia and dreamt of playing hockey for my country. Today I live in Glasgow, thousands of miles away from the sunny climes of home and head up the UK operations and marketing for regtech firm Encompass.

Barclays opens Europe’s largest fintech site in London

Barclays has opened its new open innovation site, Rise London, in Shoreditch – hailed as Europe’s “largest co-working space dedicated to fintech”. Rise will be a place for start-ups, corporate clients and others to co-create new products, services and platforms. The bank also has six other innovation sites in New York, Manchester (UK), Mumbai, Cape […]

Innotribe unveils ten start-ups for Africa challenge

Innotribe, Swift’s innovation arm, has named the ten firms who will compete in its Start-up Challenge Africa. The start-ups will pitch their products in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, on 17 May 2017 during Swift’s African Regional Conference. Innotribe evaluated close to 100 applications received for the third edition of the Startup Challenge in Africa. The applications […]

Payroll Cards Earn Top Grades from CFSI—Except in One Area

The payroll card industry received high marks for its standards and its ability to “stretch beyond the basics,” according to a new report from the Center for Financial Services Innovation. But CFSI’s first-ever “Payroll Industry Scorecard” gave the industry an average mark for its ability to provide additional services that “improve customers’ lives.”

Lehigh Valley Educators CU live with new core tech

Lehigh Valley Educators Credit Union has gone live with a new core processing platform, Keystone, supplied by Corelation. The Pennsylvania-based credit union stated its tech renovation project last year.

Australia’s Mosaic to unveil “bank account on steroids”

An Australian start-up is set to launch a “bank account on steroids” by offering investment, transaction and savings accounts in one product. Called Mosaic, the bank will allow a user to invest in any asset class if they’re an active investor or be risk profiled to determine a passive fund “best suited to their situation”. […]

Challenger Iam Bank to launch in UK

The UK will be getting yet another challenger, with Iam Bank – calling itself the “Apple store” of banking – preparing to launch online and with branches. Iam, which is headquartered in Chicago, has unveiled its website and like many new banks is targeting millennials. It plans to roll out free learning and therapy-based financial […]

Liberty Bank goes Geezeo for digital finance revamp

Connecticut-based Liberty Bank has chosen Geezeo’s retail and business financial management solutions for more data and insights for its customers. Geezeo is a white-label personal financial management (PFM) provider for banks and credit unions in the US. The bank will use “Responsive Tiles” – which offers digital money management features that can be integrated into […]

BIM, Peru’s first mobile money wallet: lessons learnt

Peruvian mobile wallet BIM, described as “the world’s first fully-interoperable national mobile money platform”, will launch new services in H2 2017. It will enable customers to pay electricity, water and telephone bills, as well as have access to micro savings and loans, and micro-insurance.

Payments keep pushing Fiserv revenue growth

The power of payments keeps on driving revenue growth upwards for Fiserv – with some healthy Q1 2017 results. GAAP revenue for the company increased 5% in the first quarter to $1.39 billion, driven by 6% growth in its payments segment and 4% growth in its financial segment, compared to the first quarter of 2016. […]

Lloyds, Halifax and NatWest customers hit by online banking glitch

The customers of Lloyds, Halifax and NatWest have all been affected by an online banking glitch that is preventing access to accounts and making payments disappear. The problems, which are not good at any time, have been exacerbated by the fact that today (28 April) is a payday for many in the UK, and 1 […]

Samsung Pay lands in four more nations

Samsung Pay is expanding to four more countries – with official launches in Sweden and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and it enters early access in Hong Kong and Switzerland. The launches in the UAE and Sweden are Samsung Pay’s first markets in the Middle East and the Nordics. Last month, Nordea launched the beta […]

Top fintech stories this week – 28 April 2017

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Amlak in core banking software overhaul with Temenos and NDC EXCLUSIVE. T24 will replace Silverlake Axis’ SIBS. Temenos MarketPlace gets boost with new services and leadership Targets open banking and PSD2 services. Trio tussle to win Payments Canada’s […]

Temenos MarketPlace gets boost with new services and leadership

Temenos has launched open banking and Payment Services Directive (PSD2) targeted services on its MarketPlace. The aim, says the vendor, is “to facilitate the exchange of value between banks and fintech companies”. MarketPlace is “customer driven”, says Ben Robinson, group chief strategy director of Temenos – i.e. the vendor proactively seeks out solutions that customers […]

How to Grow Prepaid through Financial Well-Being

Prepaid providers are at a crossroads: They can create products that carry relative high fees, or craft consumer-friendly programs that promote financial health. Here’s a case for doing the latter.

One hand clapping for TSB’s new mobile app

TSB has begun to roll out its new mobile banking app – the first service built by its new Proteo IT platform. It says the app has been built from scratch – with a new user interface. Features include access through fingerprint and one-hand navigation for the most-used transactions. It is available for both AndroidTM […]

‘Mythbusting’ Payroll Cards

To coincide with its just released and first “Payroll Industry Scorecard,” CFSI is separating fact from fiction when it comes to payroll cards, which continue to face scrutiny by state regulators and the media.