US-based First Data and KeyBank have teamed up to offer merchant services to the latter’s commercial, business and government clients across the country. The partnership will allow KeyBank to offer First Data’s entire portfolio of business tools, including the Clover platform which lets business owners accept payments, manage inventory, track sales, and access analytics and […]
Fiserv’s healthy payments segment has boosted its revenue for the fourth quarter and full year 2016. In its latest results, GAAP revenue increased 5% in Q4 to $1.43 billion, driven by 7% growth in its payments segment and 2% growth in its financial segment, compared to Q4 2015. Full year GAAP revenue saw a rise […]
Salem Five, a $4.2 billion mutual bank in Massachusetts, is embarking on a major technology overhaul with Fiserv’s core, digital banking, payments, and commercial solutions.
Brainy boffins have developed a mathematical algorithm that could boost new cryptocurrency Zcash‘s prestige and topple Bitcoin’s crown. Scientists at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) of the University of Luxembourg have created the algorithm – Equihash – a core component for Zcash, which “offers more privacy and equality than the famous […]
Five European central securities depositories (CSDs) have migrated their respective communities to live operations on the Target2-Securities (T2S) platform using Swift’s value added network (VAN) solution. OeKB CSD (Austria), Clearstream Banking (Germany), LuxCSD (Luxembourg), Centrálny depozitár cenných papierov SR (CDCP) (Slovakia) and KDD – Centralna klirinško depotna družba (Slovenia) all migrated over. These five quickly […]
Canada’s banking group CIBC is implementing Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for regulatory reporting across its locations in the UK, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Pakistan-based Askari Bank has gone live with Autosoft’s Islamic treasury management system, Adams Islamic, and its RTGS STP utility (real-time gross settlement system straight-through processing), AutoRTGS. The bank can manage its Islamic treasury operations using Adams Islamic as well as process funds transfers between banks using AutoRTGS. Adams Islamic is also integrated with the bank’s […]
Reloadable prepaid cards are a hit with Canadian consumers, with 95% of them saying they are satisfied with the products in 2016, reports Banking Technology‘s sister publication Paybefore. The figure represents an increase of 22 percentage points from 2015, and stands as the highest satisfaction rate for all payment tools, according to the second annual […]
San Francisco-based fintech start-up Zikher has unveiled its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for online lending as it targets small banks’ and credit unions’ business. Mortgage and loan applications are done online and take 15 minutes to fill out. Customers can access their application to get real-time information about their loan or mortgage and talk to a […]
UK-based payments start-up Revolut has unveiled its “human-like” chatbot, Rita, to answer customer queries. Rita – which stands for “Revolut’s Intelligent Troubleshooting Assistant” – is accessible via the mobile app’s messenger support service. Customers can open the app, send Rita a message and get an instant reply. During the pilot scheme, Rita resolved 20% of […]
Accenture has unveiled a patent-pending solution for blockchain to integrate with industrial-grade security systems that support sectors including financial services. The solution creates an interface between emerging blockchain platforms and “widely used” hardware security technology. It uses Hyperledger Fabric; and Accenture worked with French firm Thales — whose hardware is used by banks to secure […]
The Indian city of Visakhapatnam, the commercial capital of Andhra Pradesh, has launched five start-up challenges in its quest to become a national and global hub for fintech. The big plan is to build an ecosystem including start-up entrepreneurs, innovators, incubators, investors and academia. Several start-ups including Paytm, Blocktrust, Knolskape, Transaction Analyst, GMS, ValueLabs have […]
UK challenger Metro Bank has accelerated a data project delivery, cutting provisioning time by 80%, following the deployment of the Delphix Data Virtualisation platform. The bank began working with California-based Delphix to enable it to deliver data to teams better. The idea was to integrate enterprise software into an existing IT stack. Delphix says its […]
Reloadable prepaid cards are a hit with Canadian consumers, with 95 percent of them saying they are satisfied with the products in 2016. That represents an increase of 22 percentage points from 2015, and stands as the highest satisfaction rate for all payment tools, according to the second annual survey from the Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization.
Banking software vendor Temenos is understood to have laid off a number of staff across its operations in the US, including at the Trinovus and Akcelerant subsidiaries. It is also understood to be eyeing the payments business of DH Corporation, Global Transaction Banking Solution (GTBS, formerly Fundtech).
US-based brokerage services provider Convergex has implemented Ancoa’s market surveillance platform to monitor all trading activity across its domestic and international cash equities and options businesses. It also monitors trading activity of “all lit and dark venues” including Millennium, Convergex’s proprietary applicant tracking system (ATS). The cloud-based deployment is running on Amazon Web Services (AWS), […]
PayPal has a new pal—namely its first bot that enables Slack users to move and manage their money in a conversational and casual style. The PayPal bot is available to 5 million Slack users in Australia, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.
Maikki Frisk has been named executive director of Mobey Forum, the global industry association aimed at helping banks and other financial institutions to lead the future of digital financial services.
Cristina Astore has been named director of the international division for SIA, a European provider of payments technology and services.
Fraud detection specialist Simility has announced that financial services veteran Robert Stock has joined the company as head of global business development.
B2B cross-border mobile payments specialist TransferTo has appointed Gautam Kalro as country head, India, to lead the company’s expansion in that country.
TSYS has named Philip McHugh as senior executive vice president, as well as president of TSYS Merchant Solutions, effective May 1.
White-label digital banking services provider Urban FT has named Tony Dandola to the role of chief compliance officer.
Several Indian Bitcoin start-ups have formed the Blockchain and Virtual Currency Association of India as they look to quell investors’ virtual currency fears becoming a reality. Coinsecure, Searchtrade, Unocoin and Zebpay have banded together in response to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) recent circular warning people that it has not authorised dealings in or […]
BankUP, a new fintech venture based in Kontich, Belgium, looks to tap into the European SME banking market.
IBM has launched a blockchain initiative for trade finance with telecom operator du, Dubai Customs, Dubai Trade, Emirates NBD and Banco Santander. The plan is to explore the use of logistics solutions for the import and re-export process of goods in and out of Dubai. Using Hyperledger Fabric and IBM Cloud, their blockchain solution transmits […]
PayPal has a new pal – namely its first bot that lets users move and manage their money in a conversational and casual style. It is built on the Slack messaging platform, which has five million daily active users and lets teams centralise conversations. With the bot, people can send money between PayPal accounts without […]
BNP Paribas has unveiled a new 2017-2020 business development plan – building the bank of the future. €3 billion will be invested in the programme.
Uncertainty over Brexit has created a 33.7% decrease in UK venture capital (VC) investment for fintech firms, according to research by Innovate Finance. Investment was down to $783 million – less than two thirds of 2015 investment of $1.2 billion. Nine of the top 20 UK deals closed post Brexit, with total investment after the […]
Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), a blockchain architecture and development start-up, has built a proof-of-stake protocol as it seeks to create a “better” Bitcoin, aka Bitcoin 2.0. The protocol, called “Ouroboros”, is a consensus algorithm designed to be a foundation for blockchains that “improve” user governance, system maintenance, transaction processing speeds and blockchain scalability. IOHK […]
Digital money transfer service WorldRemit is now available in Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, expanding its partnership with the Russian “Contact” payment system. The development follows WorldRemit’s recent service launch across Russia in collaboration with Contact. The firm’s users can now send money to be collected as cash pick up at more than 3,000 locations […]
In yet another sign that simplifying checkout for consumers is key to driving e-commerce payments, Amazon on Feb. 7 said that more than 33 million consumers have used its Amazon Payments service since its launch in 2013—and that the volume of payments “nearly doubled” in 2016 compared with the previous year. But don’t count on the e-commerce giant to be content with online payments alone.
Moven, the online-only bank founded by Brett King, has launched its finance help app to “make monetary monitoring easy for everyone” in the UK at FinovateEurope. Moven was first launched in the US in 2013, and this new UK app took four weeks to launch. King says this is its “first launch in Europe” and […]
Private equity firm AnaCap Financial Partners will acquire a portfolio of Italian performing and non-performing corporate secured loans from Barclays. The portfolio, which has a gross book value of €177 million, comprises loans to primarily small and mid-sized corporates secured against real estate located mostly in the north of Italy. The agreement follows AnaCap’s Credit […]
Fire Financial Services – now trading as Fire – has launched and is targeting the UK and Irish markets with a digital account. Colm Lyon, founder and CEO at Fire, says: “It has taken some time for us to reach this day – several years of trying and getting it wrong.” Now the business has […]
CaixaBank’s mobile-only bank, imaginBank, has unveiled a chatbot to help millennials find offers and promotions most relevant to them, based on their preferences or location. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the chatbot will be available to users via Facebook Messenger on imaginBank’s Facebook page. Launched in January 2016, imaginBank is a 100% digital and mobile […]
Wells Fargo has signed an agreement with financial software firm Intuit to help customers import their bank account data to financial management tools such as QuickBooks Online, Mint and TurboTax Online, via their application programming interface (API). Data imported via these APIs is intended to help customers save time and avoid potential data-entry errors. Brett […]
Emirates NBD has launched Cockpit Application, an intelligent new CRM solution for branches. The bank has also introduced biometric digital signatures and straight-through processing (STP) of digital forms.
Central 1 Credit Union, a software and services provider to 300 financial institutions in Canada, will overhaul its MemberDirect digital banking platform with Backbase’s tech. This is the first known deal for the Dutch vendor in Canada.
The CFPB’s final prepaid rule is turning out to be unpopular with the current U.S. Congress: A U.S. representative has followed the lead of a Senate colleague and filed a joint resolution to repeal the rule, which has attracted criticism from industry groups since the agency released it last year. But consumer groups, who lobbied for the rules, are attacking the effort, arguing that it would put consumers at risk.
