UniCredit will launch “Buddybank”, a bank project exclusively designed for smartphones, in early 2017 in Italy. Buddybank will offer current accounts, credit/debit cards and “contextual” and instant personal loans, as well as a 24/7 concierge service, accessible via chat and phone, that “can help with everyday tasks such as restaurant reservations, taxi booking and travel […]
What were the most popular mobile banking apps (on Android) in the UK in August 2016? We reveal the stats for the top ten apps in the UK, ranked taking into account two engagement metrics – current installs and active app users.
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
A San Francisco-based mobile-only banking startup announced Sept. 14 new partnerships as it prepares to launch a beta of its mobile banking product in the U.S. later this year. Varo Money Inc. has signed an agreement with The Bancorp, in which The Bancorp Bank will be providing private-label banking services for Varo’s mobile checking and savings accounts.
Retailers are increasingly faced with the need to provide a seamless omnichannel experience in order to succeed. One way to achieve this is via APIs that help integrate the in-store experience with Web and apps. Discover highlights five key areas that retailers can quickly and easily address with the right publicly available APIs.
Look for Chase Pay at the POS at your local Best Buy, just in time for this year’s U.S. holiday shopping season, Chase announced Sept. 14. Chase this week also made a noteworthy security move. On Sept. 12, JPMorgan Chase—without announcing it—reversed its security position on its mobile app, removing the need to type in a password once a customer has already been authenticated by either Apple’s Touch ID or an Android biometric scan.
Finovate – now ten years old (or young) – has celebrated its anniversary with over 1,600 attendees at its New York show. Banking Technology was a media partner, and FinTech Futures Series, Banking Technology’s sister company, took part in the event.
The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.
National Australia Bank (NAB) will launch a new mobile banking app later this year – which promises to give customers more control over how, when and where they use their cards. The new app will include card transaction controls to self-manage personal Visa debit and credit cards through a mobile device. And, in an “Australian […]
Natwest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Ulster Bank have all launched on Android Pay in the UK today (13 September), with TSB “coming soon”. The development follows hot on the heels from last week, when US-based Chase Bank customers were able to add their eligible Chase Visa cards to Android Pay. The cards include […]
Facebook Messenger platform updates announced Sept. 12 have enabled chat bots to accept payments, meaning Messenger users now can make payments within Messenger threads and not have to leave the app. Facebook says it has 1 billion users in 200 countries who use Messenger monthly, and developers and businesses have built more than 30,000 bots for the app.
Visa is offering a glimpse into the future of commerce during the Toronto International Film Festival, running until Sept. 18. In its 20th year sponsoring the festival, Visa is offering festival-goers access to a first-of-its-kind Connected Screen, powered by Ingenico, along with an “immersive virtual shopping experience” that enables them to virtually try on and purchase clothing from a film’s wardrobe department.
Following a joint project with O2 to create Germany’s first mobile-only, full-service bank account, GFT Technologies and Fidor have entered a broader “strategic innovation partnership”. The focus is on developing mobile financial and banking apps, and marketing/selling Fidor’s proprietary technology, Fidor Operating Systems (fOS).
Fintech start-up Clinc says it has created “the world’s first” open source platform for building artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning-based personal assistants. Clinc calls it “the financial genie” or “Finie”. It is pitched to banks, financial institutions and personal finance managers. The solution was developed by a group of professors at the University of Michigan, […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Barclays and Wave pioneer blockchain trade finance transaction What is a fintech day without blockchain? UK challenger banks: who’s who The list has been updated. US credit union consortium plots blockchain use Watch out R3. Smile and an […]
Two of the leading mobile payments services made significant moves on Sept. 7, with Android Pay adding support for more payment cards in the U.S. and U.K. and launching on the mobile Web, while Apple announced it will bring Apple Pay to Japan in October.
Barclays said it will link its Pingit m-payments app to the CommBank app from the Australian bank, enabling customers to send payments via their phones, including between customers in the two countries.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Barclays have joined forces to let their retail customers move money between Australia and the UK with “just a mobile number”. In a “first between the two countries”, CBA and Barclays say they have worked to connect each of their payment apps together – CBA’s CommBank and Barclays’ Pingit. […]
The term “fintech” has long been tied to the idea of disrupting the existing financial services industry. Although that spirit remains, Discover sees a maturation of the market and a growing realization from investors and startups that there is a greater value in collaborating with the industry rather than trying to supplant it.
Our rejuvenated Banking Technology Awards have received an unprecedented amount of entries this year – from banks, financial institutions, fintech firms and individuals worldwide – and we are happy to reveal the shortlisted candidates. Now in their 17th year, Banking Technology Awards recognise and reward excellence and innovation in the use of IT in financial […]
Discovering the secrets of the universe may not be part of Sam Shrauger’s day job, but exploring what’s possible in payments is. As senior vice president of digital solutions at Visa Inc., Shrauger is responsible for making sure the payments network is leading the charge into new territory—whether that’s through Visa Checkout, contactless payments, wearables or whatever comes next.
As EMV faces rollout hurdles in the U.S., two major terminal makers, reporting adoption delays from smaller merchants, are paying the price.
PayPal has struck a deal with Mastercard, resulting in, among other terms, Mastercard being presented as an equal payment option within the PayPal Wallet, customers having the option to select Mastercard as their default payment method and Masterpass becoming a payment option for merchants of Braintree, a PayPal subsidiary.
Ideal Payments has teamed with Taif Money Transfer to launch Iraq’s “first” mobile payments app – Taif eWallet. The platform aims to create a “holistic payments ecosystem” used by multiple agents in the economy including retail merchants, ecommerce platforms, private companies, and government institutions. Ideal Payments’ local partner, Taif Money Transfer, will operate the service, […]
HSBC business customers can now open accounts using “selfie” verification, giving them the option to complete ID security checks on their mobile device. It says ID verification can be completed in a “few clicks” on an Apple or Android device. Once the initial headshot or selfie of a customer is captured, it is then assessed […]
Time flies, so we’ve devised a quick fix. Here’s a round-up of key events in the payments space. In China, Qilong and Shenzhen Qianhai Exce-card Technology (SQEC) have formed a strategic agreement to co-ordinate with banks to issue China Union Pay audio bank cards. The latter make sounds when the buttons on the cards are […]
Apple’s developers are previewing new Siri integrations for payments – such as asking it to send a secure payment without ever opening an app. The firm says with the introduction of SiriKit for developers, messaging apps can now tap into the “power” of Siri. Siri can be used to make a quick payment using Square […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Tier 1 US bank live with Temenos core and payments software Part of its American dream. Swift reveals more cyber thefts Private letter goes public. PhonePe and Yes Bank unveil India’s “first” UPI-based payments app Unified Payments Interface […]
One of Russia’s major banking players, MDM Bank, has rolled out a single-tap Mastercard Contactless mobile payments option. The service is underpinned by the WAY4 Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology from OpenWay. MDM Bank’s customers can now pay from their Mastercard account with no need to enter a password or PIN code or even activate […]
Nequi, a financial mobile banking service from Bancolombia, has become the first in Colombia to deploy mobile biometrics for authentication. The technology – the IdentityX platform – is supplied by US fintech specialist Daon. Users will be asked to provide their biometrics when signing up for Nequi. They will be able to authenticate with a […]
Global payments provider Worldpay has teamed up with Consult Hyperion, MongoDB and Visa Europe Collab to host its first internet of things (IoT) hackathon in London in September. The event aims to foster innovation and encourage participants to apply technology to integrating payments. Two themes will flow through the 48-hour hackathon – the “Smart City” […]
More consumers are using mobile banking, however there are obstacles to further adoption that present opportunities to financial institutions, according to a new report by global provider of financial services technology Fiserv Inc.
TransferWise, a five-year-old P2P firm based in the U.K., plans to “scale back” its reliance on banks as it expands, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Digital-only B1NK, part of Capital Bank Kazakhstan, has unveiled the region’s “first” chat and payments bot – using Telegram Messenger. The bank says its customers can send money to friends and manage their cards all via the messenger service. Gani Uzbekov, CEO, Capital Bank Kazakhstan (B1NK), says: “Today only a couple of tier-2 banks in […]
Early Warning, a provider of real-time payments, authentication and risk mitigation services, is preparing to raise the profile of its P2P payments platform clearXchange, upping the competition with Venmo, arguably the king of the hill in P2P payments. Competing with Venmo might seem daunting, considering its parent company is PayPal and its student-popular P2P service is currently free for people on both ends of the transaction.
Apple is pushing back against a bid by a group of Australia’s major banks to be allowed to negotiate collectively with the U.S-based tech giant over contactless payments. In a filing with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released Aug. 30, Apple called upon the regulator to reject a request by the banks to collectively bargain with Apple in negotiations to offer Apple Pay to their customers.
Consumers in India made 18.29 million prepaid transactions in June, down 11 percent from 20.60 million in May but up nearly 127 percent from 8.06 in June 2015, according to figures from the Reserve Bank of India. The total prepaid transactions in June 2016 topped $342.7 million, up from approximately $252.6 million in June 2015.
India’s fledgling mobile payments system, the Unified Payments Interface, has a head of steam behind it: An Aug. 30 story in Mashable said that some two dozen banks in the country are set to release UPI apps via Google Play in the coming days.
As a Gen Xer, I have always had difficulty relating to the obsessive appeal social media has to millennials. Tweeting and Facebook posting of mundane daily events seemed like over-sharing and just a little narcissistic to me. This is not an intellectual problem of understanding the concepts or technologies, but a kind of generational disparity […]
A new international network of fintech hubs aims to foster global cooperation for the development of fintech and give the emerging industry a collective voice. Dubbed the Global Fintech Hubs Federation, the new group was formed by Innotribe—the innovation arm of global financial network SWIFT—and Innovate Finance, a fintech industry organization.
