Digital


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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

Payments start-ups PayKey and Blue Code win Temenos innovation final

Israeli payments start-up PayKey was voted as Temenos’ Innovation Jam winner by the attendees of the 2017 Temenos Community Forum in Lisbon. Another payments start-up, Austria-based Blue Code, was crowned the winner of the Judges Awards (the judges panel consisted of three Temenos’ senior execs, two representatives from banks and a consultancy). The prize is […]

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 […]

Trio tussle to win Payments Canada’s tech revamp contract

CGI, SIA and VocaLink are fighting it out to win the contract for Payments Canada’s new core clearing and settlement system. Payments Canada has invited the three suppliers to participate in a competitive procurement process for the country’s new system, called Lynx. Jan Pilbauer, executive director of modernisation and CIO at Payments Canada, says this […]

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 […]

Allied Irish Banks hit with €2.3m fine for AML fails

Allied Irish Banks (AIB) has been fined €2.3 million by Ireland’s central bank for compliance failures over anti-money laundering (AML) and terrorist financing laws. AIB was reprimanded for six breaches of the law – which occurred between July 2010 and July 2014. It has admitted to these breaches. The central bank says AIB failed to […]

Interview: Oliver Hughes, Tinkoff Bank

In an exclusive interview, Oliver Hughes, CEO of Russia’s Tinkoff Bank, talks about its online financial supermarket, maintaining momentum, and how US and UK banks can be occasionally underwhelming.

Starling Bank taps Pay by Bank app for mobile boost

Teaming is pleasing to Starling Bank as it reveals another partnership with the use of VocaLink’s Pay by Bank mobile payment app for its customers. This development follows quickly on from the challenger bank cosying up with Moneybox to give its customers access to a suite of saving and investing tools. In fact, it was […]

Myanmar’s First Private Bank in tech revamp with Misys

Myanmar’s First Private Bank (FPB) has chosen the Misys FusionBanking Essence core banking system for a major tech revamp. The bank, which received the first banking licence in Myanmar in 1992, will upgrade its retail, corporate and digital offerings. FusionBanking will replace the bank’s “partially computerised distributed branch system”. Dr Sein Maung, chairman at FPB, […]

Game’s on for Sovcombank credit scoring

Russia-based Sovcombank hopes to attract more young people looking to get their first credit card by “gamifying” the credit application process. The project has been carried out with Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL), which developed a new survey-based credit scoring model, and FICO, which handles marketing.

BBVA and Ripple complete blockchain cross-border money transfer pilot

BBVA has announced the completion of “the first real-life implementation of an international money transfer using Ripple’s new distributed ledger technology (DLT)”. The transaction, which ran on BBVA infrastructures with real money, resulted in money moved between Spain and Mexio “in a matter of seconds”.

Central Bank of Lesotho overhauls tech with Intellect Design Arena

The Central Bank of Lesotho has gone live on Intellect Design Arena’s Quantum Central Banking Solution (QCBS). According to India-based Intellect, the “key highlight was an accelerated implementation with zero errors during migration despite complex integration with multiple external interfaces”. Mothetsi Sekoati, head of business solution at Central Bank of Lesotho, says the project is […]

Kid me not fraud with GoHenry digital deal

GoHenry, a UK-based digital banking solution to help young people manage their money, has appointed fraud prevention firm Featurespace to safeguard customers’ accounts. GoHenry was founded by a group of parents to help young people aged six to 18 “learn good money habits”. It is a subscription service, which offers a prepaid debit card and […]

Thumbs up for Mastercard’s new biometric card

Mastercard has launched its latest biometric card, combining chip technology with fingerprints to verify the cardholder’s identity for in-store purchases. South Africa is the first market to test the evolved technology, with two separate trails recently concluded with Pick n Pay, a supermarket retailer, and Absa Bank, a subsidiary of Barclays Africa. According to Mastercard, […]

Capriza powers Yorkshire Building Society mobile move

UK-based Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) has chosen Capriza’s platform to help improve its digital and mobile capabilities. The society will use the platform to let its customers connect and apply for its mortgages and savings accounts through mobile devices. Nick Mortimer, head of marketing and e-commerce, Yorkshire Building Society, says Capriza’s platform offers “very little […]

IBM promise in the cloud threatens to become false dawn

IBM has reported a mixed bag of results for the first quarter of 2017, with the strategic imperatives offerings up but overall revenues down 2% to $18.2 billion, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). While another quarter of decline is nothing new to report for Big Blue, what might be worrying for the team is […]