San-Francisco based RocketSpace, with the support of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and NatWest, has opened its campus in London for fintech and tech start-ups. Housed in NatWest’s (a subsidiary of RBS) Regents House in London, the campus is the “first of its kind” in the capital and RocketSpace’s only international location. The campus occupies […]
The humans at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have laid down some guidelines and want opinions on providing robo-advisory services. In a consultation paper released today (7 June), MAS says it seeks to support innovation in financial services by recognising the unique characteristics of digital platforms. MAS states that financial institutions (FIs) regulated under […]
London-based Bank of Lambeth is getting ready to enter the UK’s highly competitive challenger bank arena. The community bank is the brainchild of Duncan Law at Transition Town Brixton. The latter is an initiative that looks to new ways of dealing with climate change, and energy and financial issues. In a report in the Brixton […]
American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has opted for SunTec’s Xelerate billing system for its corporate clients. According to SunTec, its platform can onboard new geographic regions and “weaves data locked in various legacy and modern billing systems” to create relevant offers for American Express GBT’s corporate clients. Michael Konstas, VP of billing strategy at […]
Malaysia’s largest bank, Maybank, has unveiled its fintech sandbox to let ASEAN start-ups develop and test new ideas. As the “first in ASEAN”, the Maybank FinTech Sandbox offers a place “free of charge” to help developers throughout the region. The bank is keen to tap into ideas around cloud, the internet of things (IoT) and […]
With MiFID II in mind, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has teamed with Commcise for a service that lets research funds be held in a segregated research payment account (RPA) established in the name of a buy-side client. Commcise’s technology will provide a broker-neutral, independent and un-conflicted platform to help management of the research payment […]
Fintech funding can be an intense blur of money, jargon and unerringly similar expansion plans. Here’s a round-up that gets to the heart of the matter. Features Plynk, IHS Markit, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Wahed. Ireland’s Plynk, a money messaging app, has revealed a Series A raise of €25 million. Led by […]
New Zealand-based SBS Bank is rolling out a new “end-to-end” digital banking platform supplied by Sandstone Technology.
Turkey-based Garanti Bank’s new mobile app has won BBVA’s “Open Talent Ideas” fintech competition. BBVA launched the competition in February, and yesterday (5 June) the ten finalists presented their idea to experts from BBVA’s senior management. The winning idea was GarantiStore, a mobile app able to identify products automatically. Through image recognition techniques or by […]
German fintech incubator FinLeap’s digital insurance platform Element is partnering with financial services group Signal Iduna for new products and services. Element is currently in the process of applying for a life insurance licence under Germany’s Insurance Supervision Act, and plans to offer services in property, accident and liability, and cybersecurity. It will provide “Insurance-as-a-Platform” […]
HSBC Commercial Banking has launched its Connections Hub, a digital platform to connect buyers and sellers around the world. Businesses in Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Singapore, the UK and the US can sign up to the multi-lingual hub for free. The service will be available to customers in France in the coming weeks […]
It’s another farewell to tradition as Vietnam’s TPBank has opted for Scale360’s “Digital Branch” network across the country. The digital option from Scale360, a UK-based fintech start-up with a development centre in Bangkok, replaces the usual brick-and-mortar branch with a video link. The bank plans to open 50 such branches across Vietnam. Branded as TPBank’s […]
Apple has made a bold foray into the P2P money transfer market—and Green Dot is helping the tech giant in its bid to unseat Venmo and other established players in the increasingly crowded space.
The U.S. Justice Department may have dropped its antitrust suit against American Express, but 11 states want to press on in a case that started in 2010. At issue is the company’s push to prevent Amex-accepting merchants from offering shoppers financial incentives to use other card brands.
On the heels of expanding into the B2B sector earlier this year, cross-border payments specialist Flywire has acquired PACE Invoice, a multicurrency invoicing platform provider based in London. The purchase bolsters Flywire’s offerings to enable its business, education and health care clients to more easily link invoices to cross-border receivables, increasing efficiency and savings, according to the company.
Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR said it will buy Sage Payment Solutions, the Virginia-based merchant-services offshoot of U.K.-based Sage Group, for $260 million. Sage Group sells business software, and Sage Payment serves some 100,000 merchants.
OCBC has become the first bank in Singapore to launch a human resource (HR) mobile app for its employees. The app, called “HR in your pocket”, includes an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot that is integrated with the bank’s HR information system. This chatbot can provide responses that are specific to each employee. Examples of use […]
After 18 months of development, UK-based online saving and investing service Moola has launched. The firm says there are 5.4 million “mass affluent people in the UK who have no access to financial advice, but disposable income and a desire to save and invest”. It wants to tap into that market by doing the “hard […]
Apple has unveiled Pay Cash as it looks to fight it out with PayPal, Square and Venmo in the overcrowded peer-to-peer (P2P) payments market. In a range of updates to its mobile operating system, iOS 11, new features to the iPhone and iPad are coming this autumn. Apple Pay users will be able to make […]
The Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), a new educational platform for the finance industry, has been unveiled. “In a tech world, we bet on people,” CFTE states.
Oracle has announced a number of updates to its security portfolio focusing on leveraging the buzz surrounding machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) and contextual awareness technologies.
Canada’s banking group CIBC, fintech firm Borrowell and Equifax Canada have unveiled a free credit score for mobile banking users – a “first for a major Canadian Bank”. The credit score is accessed through the CIBC mobile banking app, and clients can get their Equifax credit score which will be updated quarterly, allowing them to […]
Watch out Samsung Pay, but South Korean titan LG Electronics has unleashed its mobile payment service in the country. Called LG Pay, it will be offered first as a service that allows users to pay offline in the same way as a credit card. Its use is limited at the moment to Shinhan, KB, BC […]
The UK’s Nationwide Building Society has opted for release management software from cloud technology start-up Cutover. The deal means London-based Cutover will be the “first completely cloud-based tool with no footprint within Nationwide’s infrastructure”. Cutover’s software lets teams plan, rehearse and execute events. It also offers real-time status visualisation and communications across SMS, voice and […]
Consulting firm EY will acquire Australian cybersecurity and identity and access management (IAM) provider Open Windows. EY says Melbourne-based Open Windows’ expertise and tools will form the basis of a new Asia-Pacific regional IAM advisory platform within EY, to help assess, design, build and operate solutions. Lynn Kraus, Oceania managing partner advisory, EY, says it […]
A new instant-issuance product from CPI Card Group promises faster card processing times along with higher resolution printing. Called Precision by Card@Once, the system is designed to improve security and the customer experience.
You’ve heard of wearables—now meet “drinkables.” Global Processing Services (GPS) is helping support a new energy drink marketing campaign featuring special bottles equipped with contactless chips, each preloaded with a credit for a trip on the London Underground. The campaign for the Lucozade Energy brand launched last week, with bottles distributed free at major London train stations and commuter hubs.
Following Airbnb’s acquisition of crowdfunding and social payments start-up Tilt in February, it is now being wound down. Tilt (formerly Crowdtilt) was built with the aim to allow groups and communities to collect, fundraise, or pool money online. It was founded five years ago with high hopes. Its co-founder and CEO James Beshara said at […]
Following Airbnb’s acquisition of crowdfunding and social payments startup Tilt in February, it is now being wound down.
Argent Credit Union in the US state of Virginia has converted to a new core processing platform, Keystone from domestic software developer Corelation.
The Association of British Credit Unions (Abcul) says it is making progress with its Model Credit Union initiative, to modernise the tech and operations of its members. Three credit unions are now live with new core and mobile banking software.
Fintech zeitgeist! Every Monday, we might look back at last week; look ahead to this week; share a few thoughts (our own or others); or discuss anything that catches our eye. This week, we sum up the predictions made by Google’s illustrious chief futurist, Ray Kurzweil, on what awaits us this century. 2019 Farewell cables. […]
Towarowa Gielda Energii (TGE – Polish Power Exchange) has launched a new trading system provided by Nasdaq. Nasdaq has partnered with TGE since 2008 and the new technology allows TGE to expand future activities, including adding commodity and derivative instruments to its business offering. The trading platform features multi-market model support, a range of order […]
Banking Technology and BearingPoint conducted a survey to find out the industry view on regtech and its implications for all parties involved. The findings are now available in this nifty infographics.
Private equity firm GTCR will buy Virginia-based Sage Payment Solutions (SPS) for $260 million. Chicago-based GTCR is acquiring SPS from the Sage Group, a provider of accounting, payroll and payment solutions headquartered in the UK. GTCR says it will work with SPS management to pursue organic growth and fund future acquisitions in the payment processing […]
From Russian banks to Greek lawyers. Our latest blockchain and Bitcoin report rounds up the news into a quick and easy read. Russian news agency TASS reports that Bank of Russia, the nation’s central bank, will develop a national cryptocurrency. At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum 2017, the regulator’s deputy chairperson Olga Skorobogatova says: […]
It’s not only the end of the working week but the end of the line for Edinburgh-based payments firm Helixion. The company has gone into liquidation and intellectual property (IP) firm Metis Partners has been appointed to support the marketing and sale of its assets. On Metis’ website, it says the deadline for offers has […]
Six graduating start-ups from Startupbootcamp FinTech Mumbai have secured pilots with banks and corporates such as RBL Bank, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India (SBI). At Startupbootcamp’s demo day at the Royal Opera House in Mumbai, 11 start-ups showcased technologies in financial services to more than 400 guests. Propositions included SME banking, blockchain, digital […]
Securities processing software vendor GBST has migrated the back and middle-office operations of Deutsche Bank from the legacy GBST Shares platform to GBST Syn for processing the bank’s equity market trades in Australia. This is GBST’s fourth live Syn installation in the country. Other users are Macquarie Bank, Citi Australia and brokerage and investment firm […]
The money’s rolling in for fintech – as this round-up follows hot on the heels from 30 May. This latest report features Zopa, RateSetter and Niyogin Fintech. The plans of peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Zopa to launch a new digital-only bank in the UK are going well as it has completed a £32 million funding round […]
