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 […]
Not all Olympic athletes will be coming home from the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games with medals around their necks, but they’ll be coming home with rings on their fingers. The first contactless payments ring linked to a Visa-branded GPR account will be given to approximately 45 athletes that are part of Team Visa.
Ride-hailing service Uber has expanded a pilot partnership with Green Dot to all markets in which Uber operates in the U.S.
Prepaid cards accounted for approximately $500 million fraud losses in the past year, translating into 4 percent of U.S. card fraud, an amount that equals $4.70 in fraud loss per card, according to a study released today by LexisNexis Risk Solutions.
With the CFPB’s recently announced NPRM on small-dollar loans expected to have significant effects on the industry, QCash Financial released a white paper to quell concerns credit unions might have about entering the space.
LCH is the first central counterparty clearing house (CCP) to sign up to Swift’s ISO 20022 Harmonisation Charter. The charter is designed to help rollout the ISO 20022 messaging standard and “promote harmonisation”. LCH, which is majority-owned by the London Stock Exchange, is one of 17 financial market infrastructure providers to have “endorsed” the charter, […]
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 […]
Will everyone really benefit from the real-time payments coming to the US? Can the US regulator mandate the banking sector to adopt it? And what are the chances of this new faster payments system becoming ubiquitous? Banking Technology digs deeper, past the hype. It’s a pretty safe bet that the roll-out of faster payments in […]
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 […]
Members of the financial services industry have launched a media campaign in support of a bill they say would provide better protection of consumer data, bring retailer accountability for data breaches in line with the financial sector and supersede myriad state laws pertaining to breach-notification regulations.
The European Commission has granted final approval to Visa Inc.’s planned acquisition of Visa Europe, with the transaction expected to close by the end of this month, Visa Inc. announced.
The Finnish government and Prepaid Financial Services (PFS) have teamed up to launch a new prepaid platform offering cards for use by the country’s prison inmates. Rolled out in May, the program makes prepaid cards available to prisoners upon arrival at prisons throughout Finland.
The theft earlier this year of $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank account at the New York Federal Reserve has caught the attention of more Congressional investigators. The chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Lamar Smith (R-Texas), has given New York Federal Reserve officials until June 14 to turn over documents related to the incident.
A technical outage of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud this weekend left many customers of Australian banks unable to use cards, ATMs and Eftpos terminals. The banks affected include Westpac, ME Bank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). Some also pointed the finger of blame at payment providers such as First Data. Just a […]
It’s difficult to avoid writing about distributed ledger technologies, so we won’t. Last month Australian Craig Wright claimed to be the elusive inventor of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Displaying uncharacteristic scepticism, many mainstream media outlets doubted his claims. Whether it’s true or not, the story attracted great interest. Distributed ledger, blockchain (some argue the two are […]
The European Commission has approved the proposed acquisition of Visa Europe by Visa Inc. This concludes all regulatory approvals required for this deal to go ahead, as the Jersey and the Turkish competition authorities have already given their stamps of approval. The transaction is expected to close in Visa Inc’s fiscal Q3 2016. The takeover […]
Italian payments firm SIA has teamed with Raphaels Bank to develop and launch payment solutions in the UK and across Europe. As part of the agreement, UK-based Raphaels and SIA will offer SEPA payments services to clients through the bank’s “indirect participation” in the SEPA Credit Transfer and SEPA Direct Debit schemes. Cristina Astore, head […]
You are the weakest link. Goodbye. Banks with inadequate cyber defences could find themselves booted off Swift’s payment network, warns Swift CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt. The threat from Leibbrandt follows a spate of hacks. Investigators are looking at more potential computer breaches following three attacks – a $101 million cyber heist in Bangladesh – the biggest […]
The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN), a not-for-profit fintech industry body, has added three new members to its global network. These are Misys, First Horizon and Al Rajhi Bank, the world’s largest Islamic bank. The total count of BIAN members now stands at 64, comprising banks, software and service providers, and academic partners. Hans Tesselaar, […]
Wells Fargo is poised to beat Chase Pay to the punch with a summer release of its mobile wallet. But it’s more than timing that could give the financial institution an edge in the mobile wallet competition.
Recent media reports that prepaid cards have “hidden fees” simply because card packaging doesn’t follow the format contained in the CFPB’s proposed prepaid accounts rule are misleading and misinformed. Of course, the industry is waiting for the final rule before making standardized disclosure changes.
We’ve been hearing a lot about the demise of MCX since it announced yet another launch delay of its CurrentC app to focus on deals with financial institutions. While this move is clearly a pivot for MCX, it’s way too early to call the organization dead. In fact, we should be calling MCX a roaring success.
With the dollar down and prepaid use up in Canada, the U.S.’s top trading partner presents fertile ground for expansion.
The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.
Russian payment platform Qiwi is planning to create a blockchain consortium with the nation’s largest banks as its members. According to Russian publication Izvestia, Qiwi will develop standards for the application of blockchain and it has invited B&N Bank, Alfa Bank and Sberbank to join. Dmitry Kashtanov, head of digital business at B&N Bank, says […]
For card manufacturers like CPI Card Group, the U.S. transition to EMV continues to be a top priority. But broader trends like the rise of e-commerce and wearables also are shaping a business that goes well beyond plastic.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS), striving to overcome inefficiencies and profitability that’s historically been much more often in the red than in the black, is exploring the use of blockchain technology to improve current services, provide new services and improve operations.
Consumer fraud concerns and the popularity of mobile messaging apps likely will secure prepaid a firm spot in future commerce, according to Martin Koderisch, a manager at Edgar, Dunn and Company (EDC) during a recent Webinar entitled “Prepaid Payments in the Digital Age.”
Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten steadily has been expanding its presence in the U.S.—and the company’s recent filing for a money transmitter license in California could indicate ambitions for adding new financial services and P2P payments components to its U.S. platform.
PayPal has filed a US patent application for a modular payment module that accepts Bitcoin and other digital currencies. The application names Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin; and sets out the physical characteristics of the module. It says: “The module includes a chassis which has a modular device connector. A payment database in the chassis stores […]
SETL, the institutional payment and settlement infrastructure based on blockchain, has launched its OpenCSD platform. The blockchain-powered platform, SETL’s first commercial offering, enables any market participant to commission and run a permissioned registry service for payments, settlement and clearing of cash and other “financial instruments”. It has been benchmarked to “settle billions of transactions a […]
PayPal is suspending business in Turkey from 6 June as it has failed to get a new licence for its services. The US company says the decision will affect “tens of thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of consumers”. PayPal did issue two separate statements to TechCrunch. The first was very similar to the […]
Building on a partnership that began three years ago, UnionPay announced that U.S. travelers headed to China have a new payment option—UnionPay Gift Cards.
Wirecard’s flurry of activity continues as the German payment services and technology firm joins with Norway-based program manager Paygoo to launch a reloadable prepaid MasterCard, to be distributed through one of Europe’s largest convenience store chains, Reitan Convenience.
Student Loans Company (SLC), a large government-owned lender in the UK, is believed to have halted its IT renovation project as it puts the contract with the supplier under review. SLC embarked on this massive project in early 2014 – awarding the contract to HCL. HCL bid jointly with Deloitte and Misys. HCL would be […]
PayPal will shut down its business in Turkey on June 6 after regulators there denied the online payment processing service a new license.
Software code used in recent attacks on banks—including a high-profile Bangladesh attack that resulted in the theft of approximately $81 million—comes from the North Korean government, according to security experts.
Oman Arab Bank (OAB) has selected BPC Banking Technologies’ SmartVista suite for its payment business. SmartVista will replace the existing legacy platform, ACI Worldwide’s Open2. BPC says following a review and bid process, OAB selected its suite over ACI Worldwide and HPS. Fahd Amjad, GM retail banking at Oman Arab Bank, says the partnership with […]
CIMB Bank, in partnership with MasterCard, has launched its Corporate Card Solutions in Malaysia, a new addition to its suite of cash management products. The solutions include the corporate card and purchasing card which offer automated processes and real-time reporting; and a new virtual card solution for supply chain requirements. Tengku Dato’ Sri Zafrul Aziz, […]
Visa Europe says three billion contactless transactions were made across Europe on Visa cards and payment-enabled devices in the year to 30 April. This leap nearly triples that of the same period in the previous year. Tristan Kirchner, executive director, product management at Visa Europe, says it’s “extraordinary growth” and it’s due to the work […]
