Financial Services/Finserv


East vs. East: a comparison of regional fintech trends

With our newest conferences – FinovateAsia and FinovateMiddleEast – back-to-back, we wanted to examine unique trends to those regions, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). Each place has its own distinctive culture, and with that comes not only individual financial needs, but also a particular set of regulatory rules. These factors not only create […]

HPE: can new boss bring back the magic?

Meg Whitman was a wartime CEO for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Now, she says, the company needs new leadership – Antonio Neri, a technologist who came up through the company ranks, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). In a transition announced last week, Whitman is leaving the CEO position in February, replaced by […]

Wealthtech: a market poised for extended growth

Rapid changes are occurring in the wealth management space and the level of disruption in how advice and capital are managed is only beginning. Wealth management is a monumental industry. The players in the space run the gamut from gigantic hedge funds to individuals who manage their own investments. This changing wealth management landscape is driving a significant uptick in transactions.

Starling makes big European push

UK-based challenger bank Starling is taking the battle to lenders after being granted a contract allowing for a big push into wholesale banking in Europe.

ING has a thing for data analytics

ING Wholesale Banking has set out its plans to increase investments in data analytics and put more resources into Asia and the Americas. It’s very early days as its ambitions and goals offer no real specifics. Stats and timelines are like good service in shops in the UK – i.e. almost nowhere to be seen. […]

UK urged to improve data protection for the digitally naive

Several consumer groups have written to UK Minister for Digital Matt Hancock urging changes to data privacy and protection rules, removing grey areas which allow companies to navigate breaches unscathed, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). Many rules and regulations should be viewed as dated today. This is not necessarily anyone’s fault, but is more […]

Forrester: don’t give up on private clouds, yet

For the past several years, private clouds have taken a backseat to the big public cloud providers, with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform sucking up all the oxygen around the conversation of how to manage enterprise infrastructure, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Now, however, private clouds are […]

Payments round-up: 22 November 2017

Hot on the heels from Monday’s (20 November) round-up, here are more lively adventures in the paytech space. Featuring Manigo powering up; Volante Technologies and eVision in North Africa; and ACI Worldwide and Payworks getting friendly. Digital money platform Manigo has launched. The firm, which is based in London’s tech hub Level39, says it will […]

Standard Chartered and Axis Bank launch cross-border payments via Ripple

Standard Chartered and Axis Bank have unveiled a real-time cross-border payment service for corporates using Ripple’s distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution. This offering is now commercially available between Standard Chartered (Singapore) and Axis Bank India, and, accessible through Standard Chartered’s corporate digital banking platform, Straight2Bank. Himadri Chatterjee, president, transaction banking, Axis Bank, says by using […]

SumUp teams with BancoEstado for cool mobile card deal in Chile

SMEs in Chile have just won a new ally when it comes to making it easier to accept mobile card payments. The country’s largest national bank, BancoEstado de Chile, has partnered with SumUp to launch a joint venture (JV) that will give Chilean businesses the ability to offer “anytime, anywhere” mobile card acceptance without fees […]

HPE enterprise sales sluggish in Q4

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) saw revenue up 5% year-over-year to $7.8 billion, but it’s having trouble gaining traction with enterprise sales – and its CEO is leaving, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). For the fourth quarter ending 31 October, combined net revenue for HPE was $7.8 billion, including $174 million associated with […]

RBC to open AI lab in Montreal

Borealis AI, a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Institute for Research, will open an artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Montreal. Borealis AI has partnered with McGill University Professor, Jackie Cheung, as academic advisor for the lab and will work with the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA). The team anticipates opening the doors of the […]

Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 21 November 2017

From major crimes to KYC times. Our latest blockchain and Bitcoin round-up features Tether, Metal, Deutsche Bank and IBM. Digital currency firm Tether is feeling under the weather as it has reported that “funds were improperly removed from the Tether treasury wallet through malicious action by an external attacker”. The amount is a rather large […]

Co-op Money NZ wins credit union legal fight

Co-op Money NZ, the industry body for credit unions and mutual building societies in New Zealand, has won its legal fight to continue providing wholesale banking. The organisation has successfully appealed against the decision of the Registrar of Friendly Societies and Credit Unions. By way of recap, earlier this year, a former Co-op member, Westforce […]

NatWest, RBS and Ulster Bank hit by online banking issues

This is becoming a regular fixture in the UK, as yet again British banks are reporting online banking problems. In the latest glitch, customers of NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Ulster Bank have been hampered by the outage. The trio say they are “aware of some issues” with their online banking services. Customers […]

Configo launches cloud environment

Digital sales and engagement firm Configo is taking its technology to the cloud. The company is making its Live Experience Platform – which gives FIs the ability to create customer-centric, personalised digital experiences – available as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, reports David Penn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). Until now, Configo’s platform was installed on-premise. The new cloud […]

Google eyes more data centre space in Denmark

Google is eyeing an expansion in Europe, buying land in Denmark where it plans to build a new data centre that could be used to expand the company’s cloud computing footprint, as well as meet new European Union standards related to data privacy, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Reuters reported that Google’s […]

Fujitsu and Sensory are the face of biometrics for Mizuho

Fujitsu has teamed with Silicon Valley-based Sensory to provide face biometric authentication for Mizuho’s mobile banking. Mizuho is the first customer of the Fujitsu and Sensory partnership and it will be using TrulySecure. This solution’s features include the option to fuse voice and face biometrics recognition together; and it works with Android, iOS, Linux and […]

AWS and VMware vs Cisco and Google: a cloud fight worth watching

At one time in the not-so-distant past, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cisco, Google and VMware all competed against each other in the cloud market space. While AWS and Google succeeded with their cloud ambitions, Cisco, with its Intercloud platform, and VMware, with vCloud Air, failed to gain much traction Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister […]

European Association for Biometrics conference: easing the digital journey

Customers are impatient and friction leads to lost sales – a key takeaway from last week’s seminar on the use of “Biometrics in Banking and Payments” organised by the European Association for Biometrics. Researched flagged by Michael Sass, VP market product management, security solutions Europe at Mastercard, highlighted the potential impact on revenue; abandonment rates […]

RBS unleashes robo-advice service via NatWest brand

Wealthtech is coming to the UK high street as Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has launched a robo-advice service for around five million customers under its NatWest brand. The service will be available for clients with a minimum of £500 to invest. The total cost of advice, investment and platform fees will be at 0.95%. […]

Coinbase goes into Custody to let investors store digital assets

Who knows how much more appreciation in the price of Bitcoin will be required to encourage notorious cryptocurrency skeptic and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon to endorse investing in digital assets. But when he does, a new company launched by Coinbase called Coinbase Custody will be there to make sure he does it the right […]

Faure to fintech – what music can teach us about communicating the benefits of tech

On the surface Handel or Shostakovich seem a world away from the world of finance. Yet, strange as it may seem, the similarities are there. This is because both the mechanics behind music and the technology underpinning the digital transformation are – unless you’ve had first-hand experience of either – pretty abstract concepts to understand.

Dell makes case for cloud “core”

Make another space on your buzzword bingo card, as Dell is talking about the cloud “core”, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). “We decided instead of the edge and the cloud we need one more point – the core,” Jason Shepherd, Dell director of IoT strategy and partnerships tells Enterprise Cloud News. The […]

Multicloud can lead to management nightmare – survey

As enterprises move to a multicloud universe that combines different public and private clouds, the question now becomes how to manage all these competing platforms as the complexity builds? Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication) reports that’s the question at the heart of a study released this week by research firm opinion.life and sponsored […]

PoC-ketful of fintech pinnacles for Kickstart Accelerator

Fintech is running like clockwork in Switzerland as over 30 proof of concepts (PoCs) and partnerships have been secured at Zurich-based Kickstart Accelerator’s tech programme. The accelerator – an initiative of digitalswitzerland and operated by Impact Hub Zurich – saw 29 start-ups as well as an intrapreneur team from AXA Winterthur and Swisscom working in […]

Veridium and Wala bring blockchain power to Africa’s unbanked

Biometrics firm Veridium has teamed with Wala, a blockchain-powered financial services platform, as they target the unbanked and underbanked population in Africa. The duo will collaborate on a pilot programme in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate their digital model offering “zero-fee banking”. This pilot is funded by a grant awarded to Veridium from the Digital Financial […]

Facebook data privacy lawsuit is worth keeping an eye on

Large companies getting sued is nothing particularly new, but a lawsuit over whether Facebook has violated the data privacy rights of European citizens might make quite a splash, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). As reported back in September, Facebook was slapped with a fine from the Spanish data protection watchdog for inappropriately collecting and […]

Actiance acquired by K1 Capital Management

Communications compliance and analytics company Actiance has made its exit this week. The California-based company has been acquired by K1 Investment Management, an investment firm focused on acquisition-based growth opportunities, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). K1 will join Actiance with its rival, Smarsh, which specialises on archiving compliance. The combined company will reach […]

InvestCloud goes Neon and Gray for wealthtech way

US-based InvestCloud has released two new lines of financial apps – Gray and Neon – to run on its digital platform. InvestCloud Gray digitises client interactions, providing a platform for wealth managers. While InvestCloud Neon enables wealth managers and financial institutions to automate trading, accounting and middle-office workflows. It also supports the real-time processing of […]

All aboard the Amex blockchain payments express

American Express has launched blockchain-enabled, business-to-business cross-border payments with Santander using Ripple’s network. The Amex FX International Payments (FXIP) business is working with Ripple to make blockchain payments commercially available, “reducing the time and cost of settlement”. Santander UK is the selected partner to initiate this new transaction channel. Marc Gordon, EVP and CIO at […]

Microsoft doubles down on open source and analytics for developers

Microsoft’s embrace of open source software is about to get a lot bigger as the company is rolling out several new tools and services designed to help developers create applications designed for the cloud, as well as highly specialised apps for artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT), reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking […]

Rainmaking Colab kicks up a storm for fintech innovation

Rainmaking Colab is looking to make its new model of innovation reign via a theme-based fintech programme that taps into mature markets. Created by the founders of Rainmaking and Startupbootcamp FinTech, they say “mature fintech markets like New York and London are starting to experience ‘accelerator fatigue’ and require a new way of thinking to […]

Give donations better with Betterment

Robo advisory platform Betterment says it is not only making it easier to give to charities, it is also giving consumers more reasons to do so, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). Starting 28 November, on “Giving Tuesday”, Betterment investors will be able to donate shares of long-term investments from their taxable accounts directly to […]

TransferTo and Fern Software get UN funding for payments push

Cross-border mobile payments network TransferTo and banking software provider Fern Software have both been awarded a grant as a part of the United Nations Capital Development’s Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformation (Shift) Challenge Fund, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). The goal of the fund is to use remittances to improve the economic power of women […]

Cisco’s Q1 beats Wall Street expectations

After several quarters of less-than-stellar results, Cisco managed to beat analysts’ expectations with a better-than-expected report for its first quarter of fiscal 2018, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). For the quarter ended 28 October 2017, Cisco reported GAAP revenue of $12.1 billion, a 2% year-over-year decline. However, GAAP net income increased 3% […]