Partnerships


Wells Fargo and NCR partner for retail banking innovation

NCR Corporation and Wells Fargo have established a team focused on research and development in ATM and retail banking customer experience. Over the past eight years, NCR and Wells Fargo have worked together on other projects. These range from cash- and check-processing to self-service devices. The latest agreement expands the relationship to a “more strategic […]

Barclays launches digital banking hackathon

Barclays and MuleSoft, a platform provider for building application networks, have teamed up to host a digital banking hackathon. The hackathon will take place at Barclays Technology Centre Radbroke in Cheshire (UK) on 20-21 July. The event aims to foster innovation and harness technology to build a range of new financial services solutions. Peter Josse, […]

Santander InnoVentures gets another $100m for fintech investment

Santander InnoVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, has secured a further $100 million in funding from the group’s balance sheet. Launched in 2014, Santander says the fund is now set to deploy a total of $200 million (up from the $100m originally allocated) in minority stakes in fintech start-ups. Santander says this […]

FIS and PAI eye cardless cash expansion in US

FIS and Payment Alliance International (PAI) have teamed up to offer cardless cash services across the US. The partnership connects mobile solution FIS Cardless Cash to PAI – the nation’s “largest”, privately-held provider of ATM processing and maintenance services. FIS says the deal will “ultimately” expand to 70,000 ATMs in the PAI ATM network. Anthony […]

Cringle partners with SolarisBank for Eurozone payments

German mobile payments start-up Cringle is working with SolarisBank to launch a peer-to-peer (P2P) payments platform for the Eurozone. Berlin-based Cringle will use SolarisBank’s banking licence and Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) access API to roll out its wallet-less mobile payment solution. Cringle says the SEPA-based approach allows it (with SolarisBank’s help) to “move and […]

Fintech innovation: staying on fringes or time to become core?

In the face of an ever rising digital agenda in Europe, banks are jumping on the fintech bandwagon, hoping to jumpstart innovation. Technology stands today as a catalyst for change in established banking institutions, write Astrid Froidure, digital transformation lead at Open Reply, and Fausto Jori, owner of E-finance Reply. The spark comes in a […]

SIA and Telecom Italia team up for e-payments

TIM, the single brand of Telecom Italia Group, has teamed with SIA (through its subsidiary TSP), to make POS MultiPay terminals operative in over 2,200 stores in its sales network across Italy. The aim is to extend the methods of e-payment for its offers; and SIA says TIM’s prepaid mobile phone customers will be able, […]

Thomson Reuters and CME Group team up to integrate instant messaging networks

Thomson Reuters and CME Group have reached an agreement to implement connectivity between their instant messaging networks, Thomson Reuters Eikon Messenger and CME Pivot Instant Messaging. The combined service will be available late Q3 2016; and will allow over 300,000 current market participants using the respective messenger services to communicate “seamlessly” across platforms. Shaun Sibley, […]

Absa first in Africa to join R3 blockchain consortium

South African heavyweight Absa is the first bank in Africa to join New York-based R3’s blockchain consortium. Absa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Africa Group Limited, will be working with over 50 banks to design and deliver distributed ledger technologies to global financial markets. On the back of its membership, Absa will also be […]

EMVCo and FIDO Alliance team up for mobile payment authentication

EMVCo, the global payment specification body, and the FIDO Alliance, an industry consortium developing open, interoperable authentication standards, are to collaborate and review how FIDO can support EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) payment use cases. A “key aim” of the initiative is to investigate mobile payments using on-device authenticators, such as biometrics, as they seek […]

Worldline and SnapSwap team up for mobile money messenger app

Payment provider Worldline and Luxembourg-based start-up SnapSwap have signed a partnership agreement for the latter’s mobile payment application Gloneta. Gloneta combines a mobile messenger (chat) with cross-currency transactions using blockchain. Worldline says it will “provide” secure card payments services to the new app Gloneta. Denis Kiselev, founder and CEO of SnapSwap, says: “Worldline’s expertise in […]

Neptune sponsors set up company to run the open standard utility

Neptune, the open standards network for pre-trade indications in bond markets, has set up a new company, Neptune Networks Ltd, to run the utility. Neptune was formulated by Etrading Software and a group of 40+ banks and asset managers in H2 2014. The pilot production network went live in August 2015. Its supporters include Barclays […]

ING and KBC team up for mobile payments in Belgium

ING and Belgian bank KBC have joined forces to launch a new, integrated mobile payments and loyalty platform in Belgium. This will combine ING’s payment app Payconiq with loyalty platforms Qustomer and KBC’s CityLife. Rik Vandenberghe, CEO ING Belgium, says the customer feedback it received about Payconiq and Qustomer “strengthens our conviction that as a […]

Russia’s central bank launches blockchain research consortium

The Bank of Russia, the country’s central bank, has set up a blockchain research consortium with several privately-owned Russian banks. The development follows Banking Technology reporting recently that Russian payment platform Qiwi was planning to create such an entity. The central bank’s deputy governor Olga Skorobogatova says: “We developed a technical prototype for message transmission […]

IBM and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa pilot blockchain ID project

IBM and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa have completed their first blockchain project to “improve” the French bank’s ability to verify customer identity. The result of the pilot is an operational permissioned blockchain network that provides a view of customer identity to enable compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. “Blockchain is a transformative agent in our […]

Amex teams with Facebook for Messenger bot

American Express is partnering with Facebook to provide an Amex bot for its card members in Messenger. The concept will allow Amex card members to sign up to receive real-time notifications about their purchases, and information about card benefits and services related to those purchases. For example, if a member purchases an airline ticket, the […]

Openfunds launches global standard for fund data interchange

Zurich-based non-profit organisation, openfunds, has created a global standard for the characterisation of investment funds. The goal of the new standard is to improve efficiency, transparency and reliability by eliminating potential sources of error and ambiguity during fund data interchange. Openfunds is now calling for a global adoption of the standard. The standard is published […]

Wirecard and Verifone join forces to grow payments business in Asia

The five-year agreement combines Wirecard software and Verifone devices, with Indonesia as the first target market. The strategic alliance will see the Indonesian subsidiary of Wirecard, PT Prima Vista Solusi, collaborating with the local operations of Verifone. Steve Aliferis, president of Verifone Asia Pacific, says that the company is now establishing “a local team and […]

Seven major financial institutions in blockchain project for European SMEs

The participants are BNP Paribas Securities Services, Caisse des Dépôts, Euroclear, Euronext, S2iEM, Société Générale and Paris Europlace. They have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to study and develop a post-trade blockchain infrastructure for SMEs in Europe. The agreement is open to other interested parties. The aim is “to improve SME’s access to capital […]

Industry players unite for MiFID II implementation with Project Sentinel

Project Sentinel, a collaborative initiative by a group of banks to mutualise the cost of MiFID II implementation in the OTC front office, has announced the creation of a normalised regulatory data model that assists investment firms to meet their MiFID II OTC sales and trading requirements. Etrading Software, which has the project management office […]

Symphony and Markit join forces to promote Collaboration-Platform-as-a-Service

Symphony, a new instant messaging service, and Markit have partnered to promote the adoption of a Collaboration-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS), “to enable richer workflow and collaboration throughout the financial industry and other sectors”. As part of the agreement, Markit will develop hosted applications and data delivery services, which will be made available via the Symphony service. Brad […]

TCS to deliver cloud-based post-trade processing platform to Sernova Financial

Sernova Financial, a UK-based provider of turnkey post-trade services, has recruited TCS to deliver a new cloud-based derivatives post trade processing service. The software underpinning this service is supplied by Calypso. TCS says this tie-up “combines Sernova’s capital markets expertise, Calypso platform’s capability and TCS’s bouquet of capital markets solutions”. Venkat Ramasamy, executive chairman of […]

New coalition to ensure fair banking software deals for community FIs

A new alliance of US community banks, credit unions and other financial institutions – Golden Contract Coalition (GCC) – launches to stand up to IT providers. GCC’s aim is to ensure fair market deals from the technology suppliers to its members. “GCC is the first alliance of its kind where a group of like-minded institutions […]

Top fintech stories this week – 17 June 2016

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! UniCredit and Open Bank Project launch fintech start-up competition Top prize is €50,000 and a contract to work with UniCredit. BBA to merge with three trade associations to create major industry body British Bankers Association (BBA), Council of […]

Wells Fargo invests in Alpha Payments Cloud

Alpha Payments Cloud, a provider of the AlphaHub Payments-as-a-Service platform, has received investment from Wells Fargo. Through its Startup Accelerator programme, for the next six months Wells Fargo will collaborate with Alpha Payments Cloud on its global payments network technologies for merchants. The company says its valuation now stands at $100 million. Wells Fargo’s Startup […]

Mambu launches fintech start-up programme

Banking software vendor Mambu has joined forces with a number of accelerators and incubators to launch a new fintech start-up programme. Partners comprise Startupbootcamp FinTech, 500 Startups, Ynext Incubator by Envestnet/Yodlee, Techstars and Citi Accelerator – and those start-ups that are part of these accelerators and incubators are invited to participate in Mambu’s new venture and […]

The future of the bank-fintech start-up relationship

As technology continues to proliferate in the world around us, banks are no exception. Digitalisation is revolutionising the way consumers interact with everything – companies such as Amazon, Apple, Airbnb, Netflix and Uber have transformed customer expectations and created a ripple effect across all industries. We cannot ignore the forces at work today. Across demographics, banking […]

The regulatory fintech sandboxes: are they really useful?

This truly has been the time of regulators announcing fintech sandboxes – what better thing to write about on my first fintech column here, than the ways regulators and fintechs can work together! There were three announcements in the past couple of weeks around regulatory sandboxes – the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) announced […]

UniCredit and Open Bank Project launch fintech start-up competition

UniCredit and Open Bank Project, an open source API and app store for banks, invite fintech developers and start-ups to take part in its Appathon competition. The 2016 Appathon is driven by the Open Bank Project API, developed by the Berlin-based Tesobe Ltd/Open Bank Project. Ten companies will be selected to demo their products in […]

Accelerators: bridging the gap in fintech

Since 2015 the fintech market has changed dramatically but even bigger changes are yet to come in 2016 affecting financial services big time, believes Francisco Lorca, MD of a London-based fintech accelerator programme, Startupbootcamp. Tech is coming for banking as more fintech start-ups are springing up. There still huge gap between the collaboration of these two but […]

Earthport gains foothold in Sri Lanka via Commercial Bank of Ceylon

Earthport, a cross-border payments service provider, has inked a deal with Commercial Bank of Ceylon to provide local payment capability into Sri Lanka. The deal is part of Earthport’s Asian expansion strategy, with similar money transfer partnerships already secured in Pakistan and India. Sajeev Viswanathan, president, global strategy at Earthport, says the tie-up with Commercial […]

Point of view: how UK banks can deliver better service to customers

The banks know they need to do better for their millions of UK customers, but the pressing question is how? One answer is to form partnerships with some of the fintech companies that are now gathering momentum as powerful players in the market. Can these potential competitors be the banks new best friends? Jurgen Hutter, […]

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 […]

ACI Worldwide teams with Raphaels Bank for Faster Payments Scheme access

ACI Worldwide is partnering with UK-based Raphaels Bank, opening up access to the Faster Payments Scheme in the UK for financial institutions (FIs), including challenger banks and payment service providers (PSPs). ACI says its relationship with the bank means FIs and PSPs can use ACI as a “technical aggregator” providing real-time access to Faster Payments […]

LSE and Boat Services launch trade reporting solution for MiFID II

London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Boat Services have launched Tradecho, a combination of the two companies’ existing and “complimentary” trade reporting services. LSE says by early Q1 2017, Tradecho will provide a single trade reporting venue and “complement” its T+1 MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) and EMIR (European Market Infrastructure Regulation) transaction reporting services, […]

Volante launches a “plug and play” Ripple integration solution

Volante Technologies has launched a new solution – as part of its VolPay Foundation payments platform – for integration with Ripple’s distributed ledger technology. Volante’s software has been Ripple-ready since last autumn, says the vendor, and following “close engagement with Ripple” it has now brought to market an “integration solution wholly designed to simplify the […]

New instant payments platform for PSPs comes to Italy

Nets and Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane (ICBPI) have joined forces to launch an instant payments solution in Italy. The new offering is set to go live in Q1 next year. It will be based on Nets’ RealTime24/7 platform and will serve the Italian payment service providers (PSPs). “We will provide to the Italian […]