FinTech


Faure to fintech – what music can teach us about communicating the benefits of tech

On the surface Handel or Shostakovich seem a world away from the world of finance. Yet, strange as it may seem, the similarities are there. This is because both the mechanics behind music and the technology underpinning the digital transformation are – unless you’ve had first-hand experience of either – pretty abstract concepts to understand.

Dell makes case for cloud “core”

Make another space on your buzzword bingo card, as Dell is talking about the cloud “core”, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). “We decided instead of the edge and the cloud we need one more point – the core,” Jason Shepherd, Dell director of IoT strategy and partnerships tells Enterprise Cloud News. The […]

Multicloud can lead to management nightmare – survey

As enterprises move to a multicloud universe that combines different public and private clouds, the question now becomes how to manage all these competing platforms as the complexity builds? Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication) reports that’s the question at the heart of a study released this week by research firm opinion.life and sponsored […]

Fintech funding round-up: 17 November 2017

Following on from yesterday’s (16 November) fintech funding fun, here’s another summary. Features Flender, Tipigo Ventures, India Accelerator, Kuants, Sumeru and a handy $2 billion in Singapore. Return to Flender. Address known. As reported in May, peer-to-peer lending start-up Flender was seeking to get €1 million in funding and is targeting a UK launch after […]

Wanted: US-based bank for crypto-friendly fun

It wasn’t spotted on Craigslist but here’s an unusual request. If you are the owner of a small or medium-sized bank in the US and are ready to sell it completely (or partially) – you have a buyer! Vladislav (aka Slava) Solodkiy, managing partner at venture capital (VC) firm Life.Sreda, is being refreshingly direct and […]

Alogent adds Jwaala to digital banking tech portfolio

US firm Alogent has acquired a Texas-based digital banking tech vendor, Jwaala, for an undisclosed amount. Alogent, which is based in the US state of Georgia, says it will continue to support Jwaala’s collection of solutions, which will be marketed under the new name, Alogent Digital. Dede Wakefield, Alogent CEO, describes the acquisition as “the […]

PoC-ketful of fintech pinnacles for Kickstart Accelerator

Fintech is running like clockwork in Switzerland as over 30 proof of concepts (PoCs) and partnerships have been secured at Zurich-based Kickstart Accelerator’s tech programme. The accelerator – an initiative of digitalswitzerland and operated by Impact Hub Zurich – saw 29 start-ups as well as an intrapreneur team from AXA Winterthur and Swisscom working in […]

Veridium and Wala bring blockchain power to Africa’s unbanked

Biometrics firm Veridium has teamed with Wala, a blockchain-powered financial services platform, as they target the unbanked and underbanked population in Africa. The duo will collaborate on a pilot programme in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate their digital model offering “zero-fee banking”. This pilot is funded by a grant awarded to Veridium from the Digital Financial […]

Facebook data privacy lawsuit is worth keeping an eye on

Large companies getting sued is nothing particularly new, but a lawsuit over whether Facebook has violated the data privacy rights of European citizens might make quite a splash, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). As reported back in September, Facebook was slapped with a fine from the Spanish data protection watchdog for inappropriately collecting and […]

Actiance acquired by K1 Capital Management

Communications compliance and analytics company Actiance has made its exit this week. The California-based company has been acquired by K1 Investment Management, an investment firm focused on acquisition-based growth opportunities, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). K1 will join Actiance with its rival, Smarsh, which specialises on archiving compliance. The combined company will reach […]

BNP Paribas and Caple make European SME credit capable

BNP Paribas Asset Management (BNPP AM) has acquired a 10% stake in European credit provider Caple, allowing for a partnership to offer alternative credit to European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

InvestCloud goes Neon and Gray for wealthtech way

US-based InvestCloud has released two new lines of financial apps – Gray and Neon – to run on its digital platform. InvestCloud Gray digitises client interactions, providing a platform for wealth managers. While InvestCloud Neon enables wealth managers and financial institutions to automate trading, accounting and middle-office workflows. It also supports the real-time processing of […]

Fintech funding round-up: 16 November 2017

Say it isn’t so, another fintech funding round-up? Of course! It’s busy as always. Here’s the latest news action. Featuring DIFC and its investments, ASEAN seeing a boom with fintechs on the rise, and two firms; Active.ai and PayStand get individual funding too.

All aboard the Amex blockchain payments express

American Express has launched blockchain-enabled, business-to-business cross-border payments with Santander using Ripple’s network. The Amex FX International Payments (FXIP) business is working with Ripple to make blockchain payments commercially available, “reducing the time and cost of settlement”. Santander UK is the selected partner to initiate this new transaction channel. Marc Gordon, EVP and CIO at […]

Microsoft doubles down on open source and analytics for developers

Microsoft’s embrace of open source software is about to get a lot bigger as the company is rolling out several new tools and services designed to help developers create applications designed for the cloud, as well as highly specialised apps for artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things (IoT), reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking […]

Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 16 November 2017

Coming straight after yesterday’s (15 November) action, here’s our latest blockchain and Bitcoin round-up. Features Mastercard in a patent place, ING Bank opening up, and another warning from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. Let’s start with yet another patent. Mastercard has jumped on the blockchain payments bandwagon by filing “Method and System for Instantaneous Payment […]

Rainmaking Colab kicks up a storm for fintech innovation

Rainmaking Colab is looking to make its new model of innovation reign via a theme-based fintech programme that taps into mature markets. Created by the founders of Rainmaking and Startupbootcamp FinTech, they say “mature fintech markets like New York and London are starting to experience ‘accelerator fatigue’ and require a new way of thinking to […]

Give donations better with Betterment

Robo advisory platform Betterment says it is not only making it easier to give to charities, it is also giving consumers more reasons to do so, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). Starting 28 November, on “Giving Tuesday”, Betterment investors will be able to donate shares of long-term investments from their taxable accounts directly to […]

EyeLock docks with ViaTouch for iris-powered payments

Iris-based biometric authentication specialist EyeLock has signed an agreement with ViaTouch Media that will integrate EyeLock’s technology within ViaTouch’s smart-shelf vending solution, Vicki. David Penn at Finovate (Banking Technology‘s sister company) reports that EyeLock CEO Jim Demitrieus says the agreement was the culmination of years of working with firms from a variety of industries to bring embedded […]

TransferTo and Fern Software get UN funding for payments push

Cross-border mobile payments network TransferTo and banking software provider Fern Software have both been awarded a grant as a part of the United Nations Capital Development’s Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformation (Shift) Challenge Fund, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). The goal of the fund is to use remittances to improve the economic power of women […]

Cisco’s Q1 beats Wall Street expectations

After several quarters of less-than-stellar results, Cisco managed to beat analysts’ expectations with a better-than-expected report for its first quarter of fiscal 2018, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). For the quarter ended 28 October 2017, Cisco reported GAAP revenue of $12.1 billion, a 2% year-over-year decline. However, GAAP net income increased 3% […]

Microsoft warns of multicloud risk

Some enterprises worry about giving all their public cloud business to one provider and getting locked in. But multicloud has its own risks, says Microsoft Azure chief technology officer Mark Russinovich. Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication) reports that enterprises pursue a multicloud strategy to help negotiate a better pricing, among other reasons. But […]

Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 15 November 2017

Following on from yesterday’s (14 November) news, here’s our latest blockchain and Bitcoin round-up. Featuring Trustology, Accenture, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Association of Banks in Singapore, Square and London Block Exchange. Another day, another new firm. Trustology has emerged from stealth and revealed it is building a peer-to-peer network of smart contract compute services. Trusted […]

Investec Bank to use iMeta for client data management

Investec Bank has selected iMeta’s client lifecycle management (CLM) platform to help with the automation and streamlining of data management processes. The platform consists of know your customer (KYC) support; credit and legal help (such as with MiFID II); and standing settlement instruction (SSI) for data management processes to provide a centralised hub of reference […]

Fintech alliance round-up: 15 November 2017

Shoot it in the right direction, make making it your intention, live those fintech dreams, scheme those schemes, and hit me with those alliances and teams. Our friendly round-up features ASEAN Fintech Network, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Polish Financial Supervision Authority and Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Welcome to the ASEAN Fintech Network (AFN), a new […]

Boku to raise $60m ahead of London IPO

Carrier billing company Boku plans to go public on the London Stock Exchange’s alternative investment market (AIM), an international market for smaller growing companies, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). Ahead of next week’s public debut, the company announced it expects to raise $60 million on a post-money valuation of $164 million. Of the […]

TrueAccord lands $22m to humanise debt collection

Online debt collection service TrueAccord has received $22 million in funding – bringing its total amount to almost $34.5 million, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). Leading the round was Arbor Ventures. A mix of existing and new investors, including Arbor, Nyca Investment Partnership, Assurant Growth Investing, Caffeinated Capital Fund, Felicis Venture, TenOneTen and Crystal […]

Amazon selling part of China cloud business for $300m

Amazon is selling off a portion of its cloud computing business in China to a local partner, but the company still plans to compete in what is a growing market for cloud-based services and infrastructure, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Beijing Sinnet Technology will buy a portion of Amazon’s cloud business for […]

Ex-Googlers have LightStep for hybrid app performance

LightStep, founded by ex-Googlers, has come out of stealth to introduce its first product, for application performance management in environments combining microservices with legacy apps, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Called LightStep [x]PM, it provides application performance management that operates across all application components, including web and mobile clients, monolithic applications and […]

Rambus partners with Eftpos for Android Pay in Australia

Eftpos, the Australian domestic debit network, is using Rambus’ token service provider (TSP) technology to digitise payment cards to support Android Pay. Rambus says TSP enables Eftpos to maintain consumer data securely through tokenisation, which allows the replacement of sensitive data with unique reference numbers so information is not compromised. In turn, Android Pay lets […]

The Clearing House makes history with new US payments system

The Clearing House (TCH) has launched its 24×7 real-time payments (RTP) system, the first new core payments infrastructure in the US in more than 40 years. RTP was designed and built through the “collaborative effort” of TCH’s 25 owner banks and meets the objectives of the Federal Reserve Faster Payments Task Force. RTP is open […]

When are we going to look at the human cost of AI?

Another week has passed, and another piece of research has emerged about the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), but the human cost is starting to become a very big elephant, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). The research itself is from SAS and highlights businesses are becoming normalised to the idea of AI. The concept […]

Cisco creates $1bn financing programme for smart cities

Cisco is looking to expand its presence in the smart city and internet of things (IoT) markets with a $1 billion financing program that will allow communities to make investments in their infrastructure with the vendor’s financial backing, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). The City Infrastructure Financing Acceleration Programme also has backing […]

Standard Chartered unveils chatty banking chatbot

Standard Chartered plans to deploy a chatbot on its online and mobile banking platforms powered by Kasisto’s conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform, KAI Banking. The chatbot will act as a virtual personal assistant to help clients manage money, make payments and analyse their spending, via conversations in English and other unnamed languages. The service will […]