Financial Services/Finserv


Top fintech stories this week – 10 June 2016

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Goldman Sachs to underpin new digital bank with Infosys tech It’ll be the e-Finacle digital banking platform, Banking Technology understands. Infographics: The Euro 2016 guide to e-commerce In the spirit of that football tournament that starts today, we’ve got an e-commerce […]

American Express and HSBC part of $75m investment in Tradeshift

Business network Tradeshift says new and existing investors have joined its $75 million series D funding, including HSBC and American Express Ventures. Other investors comprise venture capital firm Data Collective (DCVC), Notion Capital, CreditEase Fintech Investment Fund, managed by CreditEase, and Pavilion Capital, a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings. Matt Ocko, co-managing partner and co-founder of […]

Four UK banks sign up for VocaLink’s Zapp app

Four of the UK’s biggest high street banks have signed up to launch Zapp’s “Pay by Bank app” mobile payment service. Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Halifax and Lloyds Bank are working with Zapp, VocaLink’s payments innovation team, to deliver the service. David Yates, CEO VocaLink, says the gang of four join a “growing number of […]

Goldman Sachs to underpin new digital bank with Infosys tech

Goldman Sachs has recently launched a new digital bank, GS Bank. It accepts deposits from consumers and institutional clients, starting from just $1. Goldman Sachs is understood to be working with Infosys and its EdgeVerve division on this project, with the vendor’s e-Finacle platform as the underlying tech for GS Bank. Infosys’ spokesperson provided a […]

Cater Allen Private Bank in major tech overhaul with Temenos

Cater Allen, a London-based private bank and a subsidiary of Santander, is undergoing a major technology overhaul. The bank is going to implement a new core banking system, Temenos’ T24, Banking Technology understands. It is now looking to recruit T24 specialists and project managers to help it with system customisation and implementation, and migration from […]

Infographics: FATCA and CRS – how ready are you?

As we enter a new era in global tax reporting with increasing regulations around tax transparency, Banking Technology and Thomson Reuters have gathered industry views from across the globe to piece together a full picture on the financial market’s readiness for the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) and continued approach to the Foreign Account Tax Compliance […]

Ex-Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins sets up new fintech start-up

Former Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins has set up a fintech firm called 10X Future Technologies. Jenkins, who was sacked by Barclays in summer 2015 for failing to transform the bank quickly enough, has appointed himself as the sole director of 10X Future Technologies. He has refused to comment on what he plans to do with […]

Standard Chartered unveils mobile and online banking in Africa

Standard Chartered is bringing its mobile and online banking platform to eight countries in Africa. After the roll-out to Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe in the first half of 2016, the bank will launch fingerprint recognition technology in these markets later in the year. Karen Fawcett, Standard Chartered’s CEO for retail […]

Santander UK pilots blockchain app for payments

Santander says it is the “first” UK bank to introduce blockchain for international payments through a new app. It is currently being rolled out as a staff pilot, with the intention to expand the technology “at a later date”. Sigga Sigurdardottir, head of customer and innovation at Santander, says: “The need for finance has evolved […]

UK start-up Ormsby Street launches in Germany with Deutsche Bank

UK start-up Ormsby Street has launched its credit-checking tool CreditHQ in Germany, as part of a new partnership with Deutsche Bank. CreditHQ allows a small business to check the financial health and credit status of any customer or partner and will be available to small business customers of Deutsche Bank. Its German launch is the […]

High five for Apple Pay in Singapore

Apple Pay support is expanding beyond American Express to Visa and MasterCard credit and debit cards from five of Singapore’s major banks. The big banks include POSB, DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered and UOB. This latest deal is a significant development for Apple as it now has more than 80% of the Visa and MasterCard credit […]

BNP Paribas in Poland opts for Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX

Poland-based subsidiary of the BNP Paribas group, Bank BGŻ BNP Paribas, is automating its risk management ops with Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX solution. OneSumX will support asset and liability management (ALM), liquidity risk management and funds transfer pricing (FTP) at Bank BGŻ BNP Paribas. The parties already have a long-standing relationship – BNP Paribas has been […]

Commerzbank chooses Infosys for investment banking tech revamp

Financial systems vendor Infosys has been awarded a five-year contract with Commerzbank to remodel its investment banking IT architecture. Along with the remodel, Infosys will improve IT processes and evaluate a potential post-trade processing utility. The later would then “focus on the clustering of trade processing platforms across various product types”. Stephan Müller, group CIO, […]

Standard Life and ING Australia working with IBM on digital projects

UK-based investment company Standard Life and ING’s Australian subsidiary are working with IBM on a range of digital and data management initiatives. Standard Life: it’s personal Standard Life is personalising its financial services capabilities “to each of its 3.8 million UK customers”, IBM states. Using IBM’s analytics tools Standard Life “can accurately track a person’s […]

UBS invests in digital tech firm SigFig, develops new platform for advisors

UBS Wealth Management Americas (WMA) and tech company SigFig has formed a “strategic alliance” to develop digital technology for UBS WMA, its financial advisors and their clients. San Francisco-based SigFig specialises in wealth management software. It will create and customise digital tools and services for UBS WMA’s 7,000 advisors. UBS WMA’s remit is domestic US and […]

HSBC to cut 850 jobs in UK

HSBC is to cut 850 information technology jobs in the UK today (16 May), the first stage of its restructuring plan that will see 8,000 British jobs terminated by the end of 2017. The employees are based in London, Sheffield, Leeds and Birmingham and all the jobs will disappear by the end of this year, […]

UK challenger banks: who’s who

With so many new banks trying to muscle into the UK banking sector, spurred on by the reduced barriers to entry and calls for competition, Banking Technology wonders: will this boom be followed by a bust? In the meantime, make hay whilst the sun shines! Here is our guide to who’s who in the UK […]

Top fintech stories this week – 13 May 2016

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Perception brings to market new core platform UK credit unions, lenders and start-up banks take note. ING adds some zing to start-up ring It’s working with 45 start-ups on banking innovation. Punjab National Bank to modernise enterprise data […]

Barclays swerves Android Pay with smartphone NFC payments

Banking giant Barclays has announced the launch of its own mobile contactless on Android, and confirmed it will not be joining Android Pay, reports Tim Skinner at Telecoms.com. The bank has been one of the UK’s more innovative financial institutions harnessing mobile payments, and specifically the integration of payment technology into wearable or alternative devices. […]

RBS to cut 200 more jobs in UK

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is planning to cut around 200 more jobs at its UK retail bank, according to sources close to the development. The latest round of job cuts follows the announcement last month that 600 jobs were to go in the UK. Rob MacGregor, national officer at the Unite trade union, says: […]

RBS puts on Red Hat for new innovation centre

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is powering its new Open Experience centre with Red Hat technologies, including the Red Hat Mobile Application Platform and OpenShift Enterprise, Red Hat’s web-scale container application platform. Open Experience was launched by RBS in February at its HQ in Edinburgh (UK) to pursue “innovative new technologies for the bank and […]

Cloud nine for UK start-up AccessPay with £1m Barclays backing

Barclays is providing £1 million in funding to UK-based AccessPay to support its growth and further develop their relationship. Access Systems (trading as AccessPay) provides a cloud-based connectivity layer between a business’s finance systems, their banks and “all of the major” UK and international payment networks such as BACS, Swift, SEPA, Faster Payments and Direct […]

Nordea to launch crowdfunding service in Finland

Nordea says it will be the “first” bank in Finland to offer its customers an equity-based crowdfunding service. It has developed an online crowdfunding platform that will match entrepreneurs seeking financing with investors; and will be linked to a book-entry system. The service will be launched in the next few months. The bank says the […]

ING adds some zing to start-up ring

Dutch bank ING has revealed it’s working with 45 fintech start-ups on banking innovation, such as money management, payments, lending and mobile on-boarding. Ralph Hamers, CEO of ING Group, says of the 45 fintech firms, these include seven start-ups working on their proof-of-concept through the ING Fintech Village initiative in Belgium, and four through the […]

Metro Bank inks teller cash recycling deal with Glory Global Solutions

UK-based Metro Bank will roll out Glory Global Solutions’ Vertera 6G teller cash recyclers (TCRs) across the bank’s new locations as well as replace older technology in existing outlets. Metro Bank will set up a number of new branches in the course of 2016 and 2017. The bank, which opened for business in 2010, currently has […]

RBS and RocketSpace to open London campus for tech start-ups

San-Francisco based RocketSpace, with the support of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), plans to open a campus in London, designed specifically for “high-growth” tech start-ups. The campus, located near Angel tube station, will initially hold up to 1,500 members at its opening in early 2017. Duncan Logan, RocketSpace’s founder and CEO, says: “Creating a physical […]

Sopra Steria partners with DataStax for data storage tools for banks and FIs

Sopra Steria has teamed with DataStax, a provider of database software for cloud applications, as they target finserv organisations across the retail banking, investment banking and trading sectors. Working with DataStax, Sopra says it will provide solutions to some of the “biggest challenges” currently facing traditional banking institutions, such as compliance with “ever more stringent […]

Barclays.Net down and out for UK Bank Holiday weekend

Barclays’ business banking service, Barclays.net, decided it would also take time off during the three-day Bank Holiday weekend in the UK. The system suffered intermittent outages from 29 April until today (3 May), and there were numerous complaints on Twitter from angry users. The impact on customers ranged from trying to pay staff or facing […]

UniCredit to unify global transaction business on one platform

Italian banking heavyweight, UniCredit, is working on standardising its global transaction business (GTB) on one platform, underpinned by D+H’s Global PayPlus (GPP) system. GPP is supplied by D+H’s Global Transaction Banking Solution (GTBS) unit, formerly known as Fundtech. UniCredit’s GTB business covers 17 countries – the bank has accrued it via an aggressive M&A strategy […]

Capgemini launches test automation platform for finservs

Tech consultancy firm Capgemini has launched its Intelligent Test Automation Platform for financial services, promising quality assurance savings of up to 30%. The platform uses frameworks and robotic agents, and Capgemini says it speeds up the release of new products and services by providing “much shorter test cycles and better collaboration between development and test […]

Broadridge launches global solutions partner programme

Broadridge Financial Solutions has launched a new solutions partner programme to enable consulting, technology and servicing firms to offer technology solutions. Partner firms will get access to solutions across wealth management, asset management, capital markets and corporate issuer segments; and a set of sales enablement resources, technical training services and a financial benefits package. Ira […]

EdgeVerve launches blockchain framework for financial services

EdgeVerve Systems, a product subsidiary of Infosys, has launched a blockchain framework targeted at the financial services sector. Called EdgeVerve Blockchain Framework, it is a permissioned ledger that allows banks to deploy blockchain-based services for “varied” business areas. EdgeVerve says it can “scale to the levels needed to support international, cross-border transactional business”; and therefore […]

RBS to cut 600 jobs in UK

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is cutting almost 600 jobs in its UK retail bank. British and Irish trade union Unite has reacted to the news. RBS will axe about 200 positions across London and the south east of England, with 400 jobs to go in the Midlands, east and the north of the country, […]

Building consumer trust – a major challenge for newcomer banks

The challengers aiming to take on the traditional high street banks are themselves facing an enormous obstacle if they are to disrupt the banking market significantly, observes Zehra Chudry, organiser of the “Challengers versus Legacy Banks” debate at PayExpo Europe 2016. This hurdle is building consumer trust. Not only must they offer powerfully attractive alternatives and improvements, they must also convince consumers […]

Top fintech stories this week – 8 April

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Money 20/20 Europe: Biometric identity, SMEs and final day’s sessions round-up Key highlights, what went well and what could be improved. Money 20/20 Europe: KYC/ID, commerce disruption and femtech round-up Valid points raised, key issues discussed. A must […]

Consumer payments: the contactless landscape

Nick Kerigan, managing director of future payments at Barclaycard, lends his expert view on the changing consumer payment landscape and maps the journey to contactless card payments and beyond. Kerigan leads the team that looks at payment and competitor intelligence, and is responsible for driving innovation across Barclaycard. Last year was a milestone in UK […]

Santander and Kabbage team for SME funding innovation

Santander and Kabbage are piloting an online tool to give UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) access to same day funding. Announced today (4 April) at Money 20/20 in Copenhagen, SMEs can get access to new working capital of between £500 and £100,000 via an online process. At a media briefing, Sigga Sigurdardottir, chief […]

Swiss banks and SIX plan national mobile payments platform

Exchange group SIX and Switzerland’s five largest banks are in talks over a joint mobile payments platform for the country. SIX, retail chains Migros and Coop, and telecoms company Swisscom are planning to create a standardised digital payment system for consumers in Switzerland. A joint statement from the banks – UBS, Credit Suisse, Raiffeisen, PostFinance […]

Marstone teams with IBM Watson for cognitive computing-powered advice

Marstone, a New York-based financial services firm, has teamed up with IBM Watson for Wealth Management to offer digital advice assisted by cognitive computing. The plan is for Marstone’s platform, powered by Watson, to use data, patterns and natural language to provide cognitive advice and learn from experience. Margaret Hartigan, chief executive of Marstone, says […]