Coinbase joins unicorn club with $100m funding, partners with Fidelity
Digital currency wallet Coinbase has taken the leap to become a unicorn. The San Francisco-based company announced it has received $100 million in Series D funding led by IVP.
Innovation
Top fintech stories this week – 11 August 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
HSBC digitises global trade with IBM
HSBC and IBM are working on a project “to develop a cognitive intelligence solution combining optical character recognition with advanced robotics to make global trade safer and more efficient”.
StreetShares raises $10.3m for “Shark Tank meets eBay” approach to P2P lending
Alternative lending platform StreetShares raised $10.3 million in a venture round this week. The funds come from an undisclosed investor and bring the Virginia-based company’s total funding to almost $20 million since it was founded in 2013.
SIX Swiss Exchange, Nasdaq and Chain team for blockchain OTC project
SIX Swiss Exchange and Nasdaq and working with blockchain tech company Chain to provide distributed ledger technology (DLT) for for SIX’s over-the-counter (OTC) structured products business.
Nordnet welcomes “digital employee”, AI Amelia
Nordnet, a digital bank in the Nordics, will have a “new digital employee” as of this autumn – IPSoft’s Amelia artificial intelligence (AI) platform.
CFTE brings fintech education initiative to Asia with MAS
UK-based Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) is looking to expand to Asia and plans to set up its first international hub in Singapore. The newly launched organisation says it “has been working closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to formalise plans to expand CFTE’s education initiative to ASEAN”.
CUA pilots Australia Post’s new digital ID verification tool, Digital iDTM
Credit Union Australia (CUA) has become to the first financial institution in the country to trial Australia Post’s new digital identity verification service, Digital iDTM.
Bank of Lithuania to offer regulatory sandboxes for fintechs, calls for public feedback
Fintech companies will soon be able to test their products in Lithuania by creating customised regulatory sandboxes under the supervision of Bank of Lithuania.
R3, CGI and eleven banks develop blockchain-based trade finance app
Following a year of development and testing, R3, CGI and eleven banks unveil a prototype of a trade finance app built of R3’s Corda distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Abu Dhabi Launches its First Fintech Innovation Challenge for Startups
Abu Dhabi Global Market and KPMG are launching the first Fintech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge—a five-week program for “innovative and mature startups across the globe,” with a chance to win $15,000 in prize money.
Banking Technology Awards: how to write a winning entry?
With less than one month left to nominate for the Banking Technology Awards, now is the time to polish up on your entry. The question we get asked often is how to write a winning entry. Well wonder no more, we have a few tips for you on what to include. The more detail the better! Dates […]
Payworks to integrate Alipay into its POS tech Europe-wide
Payworks, a Germany-based provider of point-of-sale (POS) payment infrastructure, has inked a deal with Alipay. Payworks’ gateway tech will be supporting the integration of Alipay for payment providers across Europe.
Abu Dhabi’s first fintech innovation challenge for start-ups launched
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) and KPMG are launching the first Fintech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge – a five-week programme for “innovative and mature start-ups across the globe”.
Payments: Australia gives Swift instant results
Off the back of its involvement in Australia’s New Payments Platform (NPP), Swift has entered the instant payments market in Europe, with plans to launch a gateway solution in November 2018. The solution will enable instant payments to be made over the Swift network using a single gateway to connect to multiple instant payments systems across Europe.
Efigence designs interface for Emirates NBD’s new digital banking platform
Emirates NBD has launched a new digital banking platform with interface design developed by Efigence Group, a Poland-based customer experience (CX) specialist. Efigence, through its Artegence business, worked on “enhanced information architecture, re-designing user experience with a new graphical user interface (GUI) and supporting the implementation of front-end technology”.
VTB brings Alipay to Russia big time
Chinese online and mobile payment platform Alipay is looking to grow its presence significantly in Russia with the help of VTB Group.
Top fintech stories this week – 4 August 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
Getting to experience thinking
“We’ve got a great idea we think you’re going to love.” Despite its manifest flaws, this is the approach that has long dominated the development of new products and services. While introducing products that people love is an exemplary goal, real omniscience has proven to be distressingly rare.
Podcast: Amazon is everywhere
11:FS Fintech Insider podcast featuring FinTech Futures’ Tanya Andreasyan.
US community bank rallies banking industry to address core software needs
Jim Kisch, president and CEO of Passumpsic Savings Bank, a community bank operating in the US states of Vermont and New Hampshire, is calling on the banking industry to support its request to core banking software vendors.
Barclays Africa looks for innovation heads-up with nine start-ups
Barclays Africa will collaborate with nine firms to explore new technology-based solutions to improve its banking services. The nifty nine are not just fintech but include Abe.ai and Kapitalwise from the US; FOMO Group and Byte Money from South Africa; and FlexPay, Spatialedge, Sun Exchange and Avenews-GT. Details below if you want the full show. […]
Banking Technology Awards: celebrating people that make things happen
This year’s Banking Technology Awards will be taking place on 13 December in London and once again we will be celebrating people that make things happen! The Leadership Awards will recognise individuals and teams that made a considerable contribution to our industry. What are the categories you can nominate in? Woman in Technology (W.I.T.) Award, in partnership with FemTechGlobal, will […]
Monetary Authority of Singapore plans payments council
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) says it will establish a Payments Council with the plan to create an “e-payment society” for the city state. The new council will comprise 20 people from banks, payment service providers, businesses, and trade associations. Members are appointed for a two-year term. MAS says the setting up of the […]
Banks look to immediate payments to drive revenue
Immediate payments is a key revenue driver for 66% of banks in markets with IP schemes, according to new benchmark data from processor ACI Worldwide and UK consultancy and Banking Technology’s sister company Ovum. Paybefore, Banking Technology’s sister publication, writes that the benchmark report, “2017 Global Payments Insight Survey: Retail Banking,” also found that although […]
Abu Dhabi and Kenya form fintech bridge
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the International Financial Centre in Abu Dhabi, and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) Kenya have signed a co-operation agreement for fintech innovation. The agreement provides a framework for information sharing; and keeping abreast of regulatory and relevant economic or commercial developments in the respective markets. They will also support fintech […]
Klarna unveils free P2P payment service, Wavy
Klarna has unveiled Wavy, a new, free P2P payments service. Available in iOS and Android as well as online, the free app enables users in more than 30 European markets to transfer euros between friends and family.
Ripple unveils expanded suite of offerings
What’s in a name? Blockchain solutions company Ripple is about to find out. The company has unveiled a new name for its existing global payments network, as well as a handful of new solutions.
Samsung shows how big its IoT aaS is
Samsung has launched its latest assault on the world of internet of things (IoT), launching a brokering service for hardware manufacturers and service providers on its Artik IoT platform, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). It’s a trend which we are likely to see more of as the digital economy takes hold, but Samsung has […]
India consolidates bill payment system
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank and regulator, has given National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) the go-ahead to consolidate payment of local utility and services bills.
Facebook has a whoopsy as AI programme invents own language
Artificial intelligence (AI) detractors have just been given a bit more ammo after Facebook has had to shut down one of its programmes after it invented its own language, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). While it would not be considered realistic for AI to rise up and take-over the world in the near future, […]
Prospera CU is Open Anywhere to omnichannel onboarding
Prospera CU, a 63,000-member credit union in British Columbia, Canada, has launched Open Anywhere, a real-time application processing across all of its digital and physical channels. The solution is provided by Central 1 Credit Union in partnership with Canadian tech heavyweight CGI.
Reserve Bank of India unleashes account number portability
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank and regulator, has asked banks in the country to work towards implementing a system that allows users to port their account from one bank to another, without changing the account number.
Fujitsu in blockchain-powered payments breakthrough
Fujitsu Laboratories says it has accelerated transaction processing for Hyperledger Fabric, one of the Hyperledger blockchain frameworks hosted by the Linux Foundation. In its latest development, Fujitsu says the processing of communications between applications and the blockchain platform, which had been the source of bottlenecks, is now “more efficient”. In a trial where this technology […]
Kakao Bank attracts 820,000+ clients in four days since launch
Kakao Bank, one of South Korea’s first digital only banks, says it has attracted KRW 535 billion ($477 million) worth of business in deposits and loans in just four days since its launch.
Payments Strategy Forum drafts in public for future of UK payments
The Payments Strategy Forum, created by the UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in 2015, has launched a consultation on its blueprint for a new payments system for the UK. Calling it “the most radical change to the payments industry since the 1960s”, the Forum says the New Payments Architecture (NPA) is designed to “provide simpler […]
Interview: Ben Brabyn, Level39 – high rise
In the beating business heart of London, Banking Technology met Ben Brabyn, head of tech hub Level39, for an exclusive interview on Brexit, rivalry and how success isn’t a zero-sum game.
Three more Chinese banks join Swift’s global payments innovation
Three local Chinese commercial banks have joined Swift’s global payments innovation initiative (gpi), bringing the number of Chinese banks involved to 16, the most in the world, according to Xinhua. The new trio are Yinzhou Bank and Bank of Ningbo in eastern China’s Zhejiang province; and the Bank of Jiangsu, in the eastern Jiangsu province […]
Euroclear ends blockchain gold settlement deal with Paxos
The partnership between central securities depositary Euroclear and Paxos for a blockchain-powered gold settlement service is over, according to Reuters. As Banking Technology reported last year, the pair completed their first pilot for the service for London bullion – with a go-live planned for this year. Over 600 OTC test bullion trades were settled on […]
AI in Financial Services: be a part of the hottest topic in tech world
Banking Technology is producing the AI in Financial Services supplement for the AI Summit in San Francisco.
