Commerzbank, KfW and MEAG simulate blockchain-based security transaction
Commerzbank, KfW Banking Group and MEAG, the asset manager of Munich Re and ERGO, have replicated a jointly traded euro commercial paper (ECP) in a blockchain environment.
News
American private equity firm makes $5.3bn offer for Nets
In response to media speculation, Nordic payments processor Nets has confirmed that it has received a DKK 33.1 billion ($5.3 billion) takeover offer. Evergood 5, a newly formed firm controlled by funds managed and advised by American private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, has made a recommended voluntary takeover offer to acquire Nets – offering […]
Europe’s top venture capital investors by country – CB Insights
CB Insights has mapped the top venture capital (VC) investors in Europe by country, based on number of portfolio companies the investor had backed. The research company analysed the most active investors in the last five years (2012-2017), including VCs, corporate VCs, growth equity firms and super angels.
P2P lender Prosper’s valuation stands at $550m with new funding
US peer-to-peer (P2P) lending firm Prosper has landed $50 million in a Series G funding round. The capital comes from Hong Kong-based FinEx Asia and LPG Capital and raises the San Francisco-based company’s total equity funding to $410 million.
Kasasa rolls out Kasasa Loans
Fintech and marketing services company Kasasa unveiled its newest offering, Kasasa Loans, which lets consumers pay ahead to reduce debt and take that extra money back if they need it.
AutoGravity teams up with Hyundai Capital America
Thanks to a new partnership between AutoGravity and Hyundai Capital America, California car buyers using AutoGravity have new financing options when looking to buy a Hyundai, Kia or Genesis vehicle.
Starling Bank seeks £40m funding for overseas expansion
UK-based challenger bank Starling is asking its investors for another £40 million in funding as it looks to grow its business overseas, according to Sky News. Sky News says it understands that Starling, which got its banking licence last year, has appointed Quayle Munro, an advisory firm, to oversee the fundraising. As reported by Banking […]
UK watchdog approves Cardtronics purchase of ATM provider DCP
Cardtronics’ $460-million purchase of rival ATM provider DirectCash Payments (DCP) has finally been approved by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Back in May 2017, Cardtronics had to offer undertakings due to competition concerns, and initially didn’t. The CMA said at the time: “As Cardtronics has not offered these undertakings, the CMA will now […]
Fintech funding round-up: 22 September 2017
There was a round-up yesterday because fintech funding won’t go away. More action featuring Tuition.io, Apiax and Etch. Tuition.io, a US-based employer-funded student loan repayment assistance platform, has announced a $7 million Series B funding round led by Wildcat Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and MassMutual Ventures, the corporate venture […]
Japan embraces fintech’s hard-boiled wonderland
Banks and politicians in Japan are getting ever more energetic for fintech with grand plans for APIs, artificial intelligence (AI), digital currencies, blockchain, funding for start-ups and an easing of regulations. According to the Nikkei Asian Review, the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) will launch a website on Monday (25 September) for makers of smartphone […]
FinovateFall 2017: a look back at the four-day flow
Adding a pair of discussion days to Finovate’s traditional demo days format, has made it that much easier for FinovateFall attendees to answer the question perennial post-conference question: “So. What did you think?”
State Street unveils Quantextual Idea Lab for investment research
State Street has launched its Quantextual Idea Lab, a hybrid of machine learning and human knowledge, for improved investment research. According to the firm, investment professionals are inundated with research reports from the sell side, the buy side and academia. It reckons financial research teams can produce enough content to consume 24 reams or 12,000 […]
Digiliti Money plans to delist from Nasdaq
Digiliti Money (DGLT), which is in merger negotiations with Urban FT, is planning to delist from the Nasdaq, according to its most recent SEC filing.
Malauzai’s digital banking does the business for Somerset Trust
Courtesy of its partnership with Malauzai, Somerset Trust Company is extending its digital banking service to its business customers. The West Pennsylvania-based community bank will use the same MalauzaiOne digital banking platform it rolled out to retail customers last year, giving business users digital access to their accounts and ways to manage payments and receivables, reports […]
Top fintech stories this week – 22 September 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
Fintech funding round-up: 21 September 2017
Following swiftly on from the fintech funding round-up on 19 September, here’s more concise, cash-coated action. Features CivilisedBank, HighRadius, Swirlds and Luno. UK challenger CivilisedBank, which got its banking licence in May, has agreed terms for a further round of funding from current investor Warwick Capital Partners. No more details on that but the bank […]
Swift gives final wave to four more CSDs on T2S
Swift has announced the migration of Iberclear (Spain) and the Baltic central securities depositories (CSDs) of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and their respective communities to live operations on Target2 Securities (T2S) using its value added network (VAN) solution. The migration marks the end of the T2S migration plan, which started back in June 2015. Since […]
South Africa Bettr get ready for new mobile banking service
South African start-up Bettr Finance is preparing to launch its mobile banking service – with the offer of no monthly account fees and no bricks and mortar branches. It’s early days at the moment, so timelines and specific details are not available. But on its website its alpha phase is limited to 10,000 users. The […]
TerraPay Partners with Bux for Mobile Money Transfers to India
TerraPay, a mobile payments switch, has partnered with bux, a mobile app money transfer service, to enable instant cross-border money transfers from Australia, Hong Kong, the U.K. and Europe to India.
Bento for Business Names Jeff Pomeroy VP of Product
Blackhawk Network veteran Jeff Pomeroy has joined the Pay Award-winning Bento for Business, a provider of employee expense management solutions for small businesses, as vice president of product.
Bankart and Nets to deliver new payments infrastructure to Slovenian banking sector
Bankart and Nordic payments processor Nets will provide the Slovenian banking sector with a new payments central infrastructure to handle both SEPA Credit Transfers (SCT) non-urgent and SCT instant credit transfers. The duo has signed an agreement where Nets will deploy and operate an instant payments solution for Bankart via Nets’ RealTime24/7 solution. The latter […]
Fifth Third Bets on Gaming with Investment, Partnership
Fifth Third Bancorp is placing its bets on the newly merged gaming payments companies NRT Technology Corp. and Sightline Payments, announcing a strategic relationship and equity investment in NRT Sightline, “one of the largest pure-play casino payment-technology companies in the world.”
Game, FactSet and match for Banco Santander Totta’s new online broker
FactSet, a US-based provider of financial information and analytics software to the investment management industry, has developed a new online broker offering for Banco Santander Totta in Portugal. The broker portal comes with an embedded trading functionality and a portfolio application. According to FactSet, the bank’s new web presence offers a “clear design with intuitive […]
Are you data breach fatigued?
Data breaches are nothing new – quite the contrary – in fact their very frequency makes it likely that we’re fatigued to the point of indifference by the number of leaks which are surfacing, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Knowing the value of money is a lesson parents have been teaching children for years, […]
European Commission plans reform to get fintech to perform
The European Commission (EC) is proposing reforms to pave the way for further financial integration and a full capital markets union – with a handy boost to fintech included. President Jean-Claude Juncker, in his State of the Union Address, underlined the importance of the capital markets union and the EC’s plan to “promote jobs, growth […]
Ex-Barclays CEO’s start-up gets backing from China’s Ping An
10X Future Technologies, the start-up founded by ex-Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins last year, will announce this week that it has raised more than £30 million in funding from Ping An Insurance and management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, according to Sky News. The deal will speed up 10X’s expansion, and is good news for Jenkins’ ambitions. […]
Sun Life looks for life with fintech start-ups
With the unveiling of its new corporate headquarters at One York Street in Toronto, Sun Life Financial has made it loud and clear it’s on the prowl for fintech start-ups. The super-shiny, 35-storey, 800,000 square foot office tower, is a mighty site/sight and will offer connection to Toronto’s Union (railway) Station and PATH network (i.e. […]
Gulf Coast Bank & Trust turns to nCino for cloud-based lending
Louisiana’s Gulf Coast Bank & Trust has gone live with nCino’s cloud-based Bank Operating System, “increasing the efficiency and speed” of the commercial loan process. According to nCino, Gulf Coast Bank & Trust, a 113-year-old bank with branches throughout southeastern Louisiana, identified the need to replace numerous siloed systems with a solution that would automate […]
Hitachi creates IoT focused big data company Vantara
When we hear Hitachi two things come to mind; 80s style radio and construction vehicles. This might be a perception the team will want to address as Hitachi enters the internet of things (IoT) world, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Combining the capabilities of three separate brands, Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group, and […]
It looks like no-one cares about data protection regulations
It doesn’t matter if they were given more than two years to get ready, with six months to go until the EU GDPR deadline, it’s going to be a sprint finish for a worryingly large number of companies, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology’s sister publication). That’s the view of law firm Blake Morgan. After conducting a […]
Banking tech vendor Ohpen acquires FYNN Advice for implementation capabilities boost
Core banking tech vendor Ohpen has acquired a fellow Dutch fintech firm, FYNN Advice, which specialises in core banking software implementations.
SEI and Coinfirm concur for blockchain-powered asset transfers
Wealth management firm SEI is partnering with London-based blockchain company Coinfirm as they plan to tap into the UK’s asset transfer market. Coinfirm and the SEI Wealth Platform will use digital ledger technology (DLT) – and as with 99.9% of comments on any blockchain project, SEI says its solution will reduce costs and risks. Brett […]
FT Partners Hires Goldman Sachs Veteran Melissa Wasser
San Francisco-based Financial Technology Partners (FT Partners), a fintech-focused investment bank, has hired Melissa Wasser as a director and head of private capital markets.
Ping An Securities live with Finastra’s FusionCapital tech
Ping An Securities has implemented a new front-to-back office securities brokerage platform, FusionCapital Summit, supplied by Finastra (formerly Misys).
Raisin chasing UK deposit marketplace with first acquisition
Berlin-based deposit marketplace Raisin has acquired UK-based fintech specialist PBF Solutions to offer end-to-end deposit raising for UK banks and other providers. The acquisition is the first in Raisin’s history. If you’re not sick of Brexit yet, then Raisin states that “despite current market volatility and Brexit discussions, Raisin remains committed to the UK and […]
Kenya leads Africa in financial inclusion innovation
Kenya is leading the way when it comes to digital innovation for financial inclusion in Africa, according to research by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP). Earlier this year, CGAP says it invited firms and organisations to submit proposals for digital innovations they believe have the most potential to advance financial inclusion in […]
VTB applies for UK banking licence, selects core banking system
EXCLUSIVE: Russia’s second largest banking group, VTB, is looking to launch a retail banking business in the UK, Banking Technology understands. The bank has applied for a UK banking licence, to enable it to take retail deposits.
UnionPay Taps Allied Wallet for Prepaid Launch in Europe
Allied Wallet, a Los Angeles-based provider of online payment processing, is partnering with UnionPay International to issue a UnionPay-branded prepaid card, the “first ever’ partnership of its kind in Europe.
JP Morgan Chase goes in for the Bill for digital payments platform
JP Morgan Chase has teamed with Bill.com, the largest digital business-to-business (B2B) payments network in the US, for its new paytech platform. This B2B solution, to be rolled out next year, will be integrated into Chase’s digital platform for businesses, used for online and mobile solutions. Andrew Kresse, CEO of business banking at JP Morgan […]
Raise Pulls in $60 Million in Funding, PayPal Joins Party
Raise, which bills itself as the world’s largest gift card marketplace, has raised $60 million in a Series C funding round led by Accel, with participation from PayPal and existing investors New Enterprise Associates and Bessemer Venture Partners.
