The Bank of England (BoE) has published a consultation paper on the next generation real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service. On the way out is the bank’s legacy 20-year old platform. The BoE is calling on the payments industry specialists to get in touch.
Finserv provider Tramonex is partnering with Saxo Payments for segregated client accounts in 25 currencies, and foreign exchange (FX) liquidity. Tramonex has joined the Saxo Payments Banking Circle, and says it is now able to offer its clients individual, physical and virtual accounts with their own unique International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs). Tramonex previously offered […]
While it sounds like something for which you’d need to visit a doctor, Swift’s HVPS+ will likely be a talking point during the payments industry panels at this month’s Sibos. Announced in mid-August, the high-value payments system task force is an important component of Swift’s ISO 20022 harmonisation initiative. A number of central banks, market infrastructures and banks from around the world are members of the task force.
The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.
Following a joint project with O2 to create Germany’s first mobile-only, full-service bank account, GFT Technologies and Fidor have entered a broader “strategic innovation partnership”. The focus is on developing mobile financial and banking apps, and marketing/selling Fidor’s proprietary technology, Fidor Operating Systems (fOS).
Banks and fintech companies need to collaborate to succeed, argue Saxo Bank’s global COO, Søren Kyhl, and Stig Tørnes, head of business management. And that requires a change of mindset on both sides, the sooner the better. Fintech has become the buzzword for a diverse group of companies whose ambition is to bring efficiency to financial […]
Lend me your ears… and eyes. LendIt and Capital One are to co-host PitchIt @ LendIt, a competition to “find a future star of the fintech world”. The competition is aimed at firms innovating within the online lending and fintech space. It provides a showcase for eight firms to pitch their business case to a […]
The disruptive forces of technology and legislation are forcing banks to become open and collaborative, things which they historically found challenging. A friend who owns a small business recently went through what I call a “connected and choreographed” experience to get a loan. iWoka, a digital lending company, simply asked him to log on to […]
BTL Group is partnering with Visa Europe Collab to investigate potential applications for blockchain settlement in financial services. The project will use BTL’s cross-border settlement platform Interbit to explore the ways in which blockchain-based settlements can “reduce the friction” of domestic and cross border transfers between banks. A small number of European banks have been […]
Infosys has partnered with Huawei to bring the Finacle core banking system to the Huawei FusionCloud. The two companies carried out a benchmarking activity under the observation of consultancy firm EY. The test was simulated on a Finacle database size of almost 1 TB, with 6,000+ branches, 33 million+ customers, 61 million+ accounts and 20,000+ […]
Brevity is the goal of this. Here’s a round-up of events in the payments space to save you time. Let’s start off small… as in Small World FS. The London-based payment service provider reached a milestone with 50 million transactions processed on behalf of its customers. The firm’s been around for ten tears and says […]
Digital banking software specialist Backbase has teamed with Entersekt to use its authentication capabilities on the Backbase Open Banking Marketplace. Backbase will offer banks push-based authentication and transaction signing integrated in its omni-channel digital banking platform. Its clients can select the authentication solution that “best meets their needs”. Dewald Nolte, Entersekt’s SVP partners and alliances, […]
Innotribe, Swift’s innovation arm, and membership organisation Innovate Finance have launched a Global FinTech Hubs Federation (GFHF) to help foster innovation. To date, more than 20 countries – including Canada, China, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and the UK – are participating in the GFHF, with more countries expected to join in the coming months. Lawrence Wintermeyer, […]
BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, ICAP and Santander have joined UBS and Clearmatics to advance their utility settlement coin (USC) concept, and plan tests in a real-market environment. USC is a digital cash model for payments and settlement. It will run on blockchain and be another rival to Bitcoin. The group plan to build on the […]
Swift has formed a global market practice task force of markets infrastructures and banks to assist its ISO 20022 Harmonisation Charter. Sponsored by the Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG), the task force aims to address the evolving ISO 20022 standards requirements of high value payments systems (HVPS) providers. Swift says it is a “key component” […]
Mizuho Bank has carried out testing for new banking services through the Facebook bot and Amazon Echo. The tests took place in Silicon Valley, California, in partnership with two other Japanese firms – Information Services International – Dentsu and Nomura Research Institute. The companies are looking to use CUI (conversational user interfaces) to develop platforms […]
Kyc.com is partnering with Dow Jones, Exiger and Regulatory DataCorp (RDC) to drive standardisation and compliance for Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. The alliance plans to deliver an end-to-end KYC process integrating compliance, onboarding, sanctions, screening, negative media searches and client risk assessment across regulatory regimes and multiple jurisdictions. Joel Lange, managing director of Dow […]
R3 and over 15 of its blockchain consortium member banks have “successfully” completed two prototypes using distributed ledger technology for smart contracts. The banks designed and used self-executing transaction agreements – aka smart contracts – on R3’s Corda distributed ledger platform to process accounts receivable (AR) purchase transactions, aka invoice financing or factoring, and letter […]
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) have teamed up to develop a blockchain prototype for trade finance innovation. The consortium uses the distributed ledger framework provided by Linux Foundation’s open source Hyperledger Project; and the proof of concept has reduced manual processing in letter of credit transactions. […]
Inter-dealer money broker Tullett Prebon has partnered with GMEX Group to develop a hybrid voice and electronic trading platform for FX Options. The new FX Options trading solution will integrate GMEX’s request for quote (RFQ) technology with Tullett Prebon’s existing central limit order book (CLOB) capability. GMEX Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GMEX Group, supported […]
New York-based OpenFin, a provider of HTML5 runtime technology for the financial industry, has joined Symphony Software Foundation. The foundation, described as “a non-profit organisation fostering open innovation around the Symphony secure messaging platform”, already has powerful members on its list, including BNY Mellon, Citadel, Citi, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and […]
Earthport, a cross-border payments service provider, is partnering with Aftab Currency Exchange Limited (ACEL) for payments growth. ACEL wants to expand its bank-to-bank capability and will initially use Earthport’s capabilities to “strengthen” its EU offering with a view to further expansion globally over the coming months. Aftab Ashraf, founder director, ACEL, says Earthport brings it […]
Blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic and LexisNexis Risk Solutions have partnered for the “first” use of “bank-grade” risk management for Bitcoin. Elliptic has integrated LexisNexis’s anti-money laundering (AML) risk management data into its Bitcoin transaction monitoring and compliance products. The two firms have built a proof-of-concept that uses financial intelligence data from LexisNexis and presents it […]
Thomson Reuters has joined R3’s partnership to design and apply distributed and shared ledger-inspired tech to global financial markets. Thomson Reuters will contribute insights from its work with customers to “drive product innovation and transformation in the financial sector using distributed ledger technologies”. David Rutter, CEO of R3, says the deal is “another significant milestone”. […]
Years of friction could be over as PayPal is talking to MasterCard on a potential strategic alliance, according to the Financial Times. PayPal, with its network of 188 million active users, has been expanding at MasterCard’s and Visa’s expense. One example was its recent partnership with Mexican telecommunications giant América Móvil for growth in Latin […]
Santander InnoVentures, the fintech venture capital fund of Santander Group, has secured a further $100 million in funding from the group’s balance sheet. Launched in 2014, Santander says the fund is now set to deploy a total of $200 million (up from the $100m originally allocated) in minority stakes in fintech start-ups. Santander says this […]
In the face of an ever rising digital agenda in Europe, banks are jumping on the fintech bandwagon, hoping to jumpstart innovation. Technology stands today as a catalyst for change in established banking institutions, write Astrid Froidure, digital transformation lead at Open Reply, and Fausto Jori, owner of E-finance Reply. The spark comes in a […]
Thomson Reuters and CME Group have reached an agreement to implement connectivity between their instant messaging networks, Thomson Reuters Eikon Messenger and CME Pivot Instant Messaging. The combined service will be available late Q3 2016; and will allow over 300,000 current market participants using the respective messenger services to communicate “seamlessly” across platforms. Shaun Sibley, […]
EMVCo, the global payment specification body, and the FIDO Alliance, an industry consortium developing open, interoperable authentication standards, are to collaborate and review how FIDO can support EMV (Europay, MasterCard and Visa) payment use cases. A “key aim” of the initiative is to investigate mobile payments using on-device authenticators, such as biometrics, as they seek […]
Neptune, the open standards network for pre-trade indications in bond markets, has set up a new company, Neptune Networks Ltd, to run the utility. Neptune was formulated by Etrading Software and a group of 40+ banks and asset managers in H2 2014. The pilot production network went live in August 2015. Its supporters include Barclays […]
American Express is partnering with Facebook to provide an Amex bot for its card members in Messenger. The concept will allow Amex card members to sign up to receive real-time notifications about their purchases, and information about card benefits and services related to those purchases. For example, if a member purchases an airline ticket, the […]
Zurich-based non-profit organisation, openfunds, has created a global standard for the characterisation of investment funds. The goal of the new standard is to improve efficiency, transparency and reliability by eliminating potential sources of error and ambiguity during fund data interchange. Openfunds is now calling for a global adoption of the standard. The standard is published […]
The five-year agreement combines Wirecard software and Verifone devices, with Indonesia as the first target market. The strategic alliance will see the Indonesian subsidiary of Wirecard, PT Prima Vista Solusi, collaborating with the local operations of Verifone. Steve Aliferis, president of Verifone Asia Pacific, says that the company is now establishing “a local team and […]
Project Sentinel, a collaborative initiative by a group of banks to mutualise the cost of MiFID II implementation in the OTC front office, has announced the creation of a normalised regulatory data model that assists investment firms to meet their MiFID II OTC sales and trading requirements. Etrading Software, which has the project management office […]
Symphony, a new instant messaging service, and Markit have partnered to promote the adoption of a Collaboration-Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS), “to enable richer workflow and collaboration throughout the financial industry and other sectors”. As part of the agreement, Markit will develop hosted applications and data delivery services, which will be made available via the Symphony service. Brad […]
Sernova Financial, a UK-based provider of turnkey post-trade services, has recruited TCS to deliver a new cloud-based derivatives post trade processing service. The software underpinning this service is supplied by Calypso. TCS says this tie-up “combines Sernova’s capital markets expertise, Calypso platform’s capability and TCS’s bouquet of capital markets solutions”. Venkat Ramasamy, executive chairman of […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! UniCredit and Open Bank Project launch fintech start-up competition Top prize is €50,000 and a contract to work with UniCredit. BBA to merge with three trade associations to create major industry body British Bankers Association (BBA), Council of […]
Alpha Payments Cloud, a provider of the AlphaHub Payments-as-a-Service platform, has received investment from Wells Fargo. Through its Startup Accelerator programme, for the next six months Wells Fargo will collaborate with Alpha Payments Cloud on its global payments network technologies for merchants. The company says its valuation now stands at $100 million. Wells Fargo’s Startup […]
Banking software vendor Mambu has joined forces with a number of accelerators and incubators to launch a new fintech start-up programme. Partners comprise Startupbootcamp FinTech, 500 Startups, Ynext Incubator by Envestnet/Yodlee, Techstars and Citi Accelerator – and those start-ups that are part of these accelerators and incubators are invited to participate in Mambu’s new venture and […]
As technology continues to proliferate in the world around us, banks are no exception. Digitalisation is revolutionising the way consumers interact with everything – companies such as Amazon, Apple, Airbnb, Netflix and Uber have transformed customer expectations and created a ripple effect across all industries. We cannot ignore the forces at work today. Across demographics, banking […]
