FinTech


Mobile-only bank Pepper gears up for launch in Israel

Israel’s Bank Leumi is gearing up for the launch of its new digital banking subsidiary, Pepper. It is expected to open its virtual doors for business before the end of 2016. The tech is provided by Temenos.

New fintech firm, Soldo, comes to UK and Italy

Soldo, a London-based fintech start-up, is launching its flagship multi-user spending account. Soldo is not a bank, but a prepaid MasterCard. It holds an e-money licence from the UK’s regulator, FCA.

FCA to hold regtech themed TechSprint

The UK’s regulator, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), will focus on “unlocking regulatory reporting” in its second TechSprint event. Over 100 developers and 30 organisations are expected to participate and “experts from the Bank of England will be observing”, says the FCA.

ABN Amro selects MarkLogic for trade store

Amsterdam-based ABN Amro Bank has chosen MarkLogic Corporation’s database for its trade store – and to integrate trade data across asset-classes and several trading systems. It will provide a consolidated view of data to provide a “single source of truth” for reporting purposes as well as providing alerts when behaviour is outside normal parameters. Jaap […]

White paper: Achieving Real-Time Financial Regulatory Compliance with In-Memory Computing

Stringent regulations and client protection initiatives enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown are causing unprecedented and growing technical challenges. Banks and other financial institutions must monitor, collect, and analyze vast amounts of data from multiple, disparate sources in real-time. This new white paper provides an overview of the current economic and regulatory […]

Kbank and IBM team up for blockchain in Thailand

Kasikornbank (Kbank), one of the largest banks in Thailand, is exploring blockchain with IBM, “to save costs and speed up transactions”, the two companies say. The services will be launched in H1 2017, to certify the letters of guarantee (LCs).

Blockchain is not just for banking… insurance wants it too

There has been a tremendous amount of excitement and discussion about the potential of blockchain technology to transform the financial services industry and beyond. But the only thing that is clear at the moment is that there is still a lot of work to be done to implement wide scale use cases, clear up any regulatory uncertainly or barriers and educate institutions and employees about the technology and its potential.

UK’s Financial Conduct Authority calls for current account competition

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says it will take action to improve competition in the current account market. This follows a series of recommendations which were proposed by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as part of its investigation into retail banking. Christopher Woolard, executive director of strategy and competition at the FCA, […]

Fintech funding round-up: 4 November 2016

Let’s put the fun in funding by keeping it mercifully brief. A round-up of some key events. KEEN Venture Partners, a new venture capital firm operating from London and Amsterdam, has announced €90 million first close of its inaugural fund. It will use the money to provide early growth capital for tech firms with a […]

Tandem Bank calls for first customers

Digital banking start-up Tandem has started inviting its community of 10,000 “co-founders” to be its first customers. Tandem was formed in 2014 and is accessible online, via an app and through a UK call centre. It got its banking licence in November 2015 and says its focus is on helping people manage their money rather […]

Payments start-up Cookies crumbles

Berlin-based payments start-up Cookies has ended its short life and applied for insolvency. As Banking Technology reported in August, Cookies launched its peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app in Germany. The app was in beta phase and in invite-only mode. However, in a statement, Cookies co-founder Lamine Cheloufi says the other co-founder, Garry Krugljakow, has been dismissed. […]

Top fintech stories this week – 4 November 2016

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Weatherbys Bank live with new core banking system EXCLUSIVE. Oracle FSS’s Flexcube flexes its muscles. Mobile payments and European millennials Vocalink reveals millennials’ habits and perceptions. Japan rises to blockchain challenge with new consortium Launches with 42 member […]

Latin American banks turn to Swift for crime compliance

Eight central banks in Latin America have adopted Swift’s financial crime compliance solutions to combat financial crime. The central banks of Belize, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti and Paraguay, have implemented the solutions, including Swift’s KYC registry and sanctions screening. Some of the banks have also endorsed the adoption of the KYC […]

Profit problems worsen for Intellect

Intellect Design Arena’s lack of profit has worsened as it reveals a loss after tax of INR 138 million ($2 million) for the quarter ended 30 September 2016. As Banking Technology reported for its previous quarter results, it had a loss after tax of INR 55.2 million ($826,690) for the quarter ended 30 June 2016. […]

Euronext and Algomi to launch new MTF for corporate bond trading

Pan-European exchange Euronext will use Algomi’s fixed income technology for its new multilateral trading facility (MTF) in a ten-year partnership. With their joint venture (JV), capitalised by Euronext for $2.3 million, dealers will be able to access the trading interface either directly through their existing Algomi technology or through their stand-alone systems. The platform will […]

No dispute with Citi mobile app innovation

Citi has unveiled a new feature to let credit card members dispute certain posted charges directly within the Citi mobile app for iPhone in the US. It says it is the only major US credit card issuer to provide this feature on mobile, and the new feature is designed to provide “increased peace of mind” […]

Dysrupt Labs launches world’s first SaaS collective forecasting platform

Dysrupt Labs has launched Percypt, the “first” Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) collective forecasting platform. The firm says Percypt is designed to give organisations insight on questions; and by tapping into the combined insight of its teams and networks, it says collective forecasts are 30-80% more accurate. Dysrupt Labs CEO Karl Mattingly says surveys, polls and traditional management […]

UK challenger bank FGTB bites the dust

First Global Trust Bank (FGTB) had its licence cancelled by the UK regulators, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

Swiss plan lighter regulations to seduce fintech firms

If you reduce it, they will come. Swiss ministry officials want to entice fintech firms and boost competition with new, lighter regulations. The nation’s finance ministry says the plan is to remove barriers to market entry and offer more legal certainty for the fintech space. Ministry officials say draft legislation could be sent to Switzerland’s […]

UK challenger Pockit reaches 100,000 customer mark

UK challenger “neo-bank” Pockit says it now has 100,000 customers, “nearly twice as many” as three of its rivals – Monzo, Atom and Tandem – “combined”. On its website, Pockit says it is a “prepaid MasterCard, not a bank”, so the term “neo-bank” may be worth scrapping or explaining. It’s been around for a while, […]

Four banks team up to standardise repackaging transactions

Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Nomura International and Societe Generale have teamed up to produce documentation for use in listed and unlisted repackaging transactions. According to the banks, repackaged products provide the investor exposure to the underlying credit of an issuer and are specifically designed for the investor’s risk-return needs. In addition, cash flows can be […]

Poland’s banks power national “paper to digital” project

Poland’s Ministry of Digital Affairs and its banking sector have launched a project, “From paper to digital Poland”, to boost the digitalisation of the nation’s public administration. With the project, Poles can use their banking ID and password to log in to the social insurance board, contact public administration offices or a local government’s site […]

ACI powers Faster Payments for Turkish Bank UK

ACI Worldwide has partnered with Turkish Bank UK to power its Faster Payments offering. The UK-based bank will use ACI’s aggregator service to connect to the nation’s Faster Payments Scheme (FPS) – allowing it to process all transfers to and from UK bank accounts “instantly”. It will use the service via ACI’s cloud-based delivery model […]

Abu Dhabi launches fintech regulation lab

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has launched its Regulatory Laboratory (RegLab) as it looks to boost innovation in the region. As Banking Technology reported in August, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of ADGM was looking for public feedback and comments for its proposed RegLab. Richard Teng, chief executive officer, FSRA of ADGM, says it […]

Payments and blockchain: Pilotville

The payments industry went just a bit blockchain bonkers at this year’s Sibos. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) was a hot topic throughout the week. This was quite astounding given there are very few examples of working blockchain or DLT use cases; most of the initiatives under way are proofs of concept.

UK’s Financial Conduct Authority calls for more finserv access

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) wants more access to financial services and for fintech to show a greater understanding of the nation’s ageing population. In its 160-page “FCA Occasional Paper”, published today (1 November), the FCA looks at “barriers to bank accounts”, digital transformation and the growing grey brigade. Christopher Woolard, director of strategy […]

Credit Suisse plans tech cost-sharing with another bank

Credit Suisse is talking with an unnamed bank about a cost-sharing project around technology as it looks to make savings. In an interview with the Financial Times, Tidjane Thiam, the bank’s chief executive, says its idea is at the “proof of concept” stage – and hints it may use an investor day in December to […]