Fintech start-up Configo has launched a project to aggregate the API portals launched by financial players around the world. It is not commercial driven but is “just a small project to put everything in order”, says Yosi Dahan, co-founder and CEO of Configo.
A group of Australia’s biggest banks have launched the latest salvo in their dispute with Apple over third-party access to the iPhone’s NFC hardware. In a joint filing to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the banks rebuffed Apple’s claims that they should not be allowed to collectively negotiate with the tech giant over making their own mobile payment apps available on iPhones.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a final rule Oct. 5 to correct “certain clerical and non-substantive” errors it found in Regulation E, which implements the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. The rule was published in the Federal Register Oct. 12 and the corrections take effect Nov. 14, 2016.
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! MasterCard to buy French payment firm Stet? EXCLUSIVE. Payments processor could be a target. Brooks Macdonald puts IT revamp with Third Financial on hold EXCLUSIVE. All freeze for wealth management firm. Banks behaving badly in Singapore Monetary Authority […]
The CFPB has announced three leadership changes within the agency.
Make it lean, keep them keen. A round-up of events in the payments space. Nordea is leaving the Swipp collaboration and partnering with Danske Bank’s MobilePay platform in Denmark and Norway. The shared payment solution’s plan is a reaction to “new international players” who “regularly appear in the market”. Danske says it will begin converting […]
Fintech funding without the tub-thumping. A realistic and brief round-up of key events. ComplyAdvantage, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to help firms manage compliance, has revealed an $8.2 million Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital. The funding will allow the regtech firm to do the usual stuff – growth and […]
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Oct. 11 deemed the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unconstitutional because of it being led by a single director, calling the bureau a “gross departure from settled historical practice” in which independent agencies are led by commissioners or board members, according to the court’s decision.
The CFPB has fined Navy Federal Credit Union $28.5 million for improper debt collection action. That breaks down to $23 million going to victims and a $5.5 million civil penalty, the federal consumer agency said.
With regulators placing ever greater demands on institutions in the area of sanctions, it is essential that institutions screen their customers and transactions against relevant sanctions lists. Regulators are showing less tolerance for errors than in the past. Not only have fines have been imposed on banks but also on payments companies and casinos. Specifically, […]
The CFPB might have taken two years to release its final rules on prepaid accounts, but it took little time for payments industry players and observers to weigh in on them. Within a day of the rules’ release, which go into effect Oct. 1, 2017, prepaid services giant Green Dot Corp., the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), the Consumers Union and the Network Branded Prepaid Card Association (NBPCA) all had issued official comments, covering the spectrum of support for the new mandates.
A shareholder of ID verification startup Jumio Inc. has sued company officials over alleged mismanagement and misrepresentation of the firm, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2016. In a lawsuit filed in Delaware, Bloso Investments Ltd., alleges that Jumio directors, including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, made deliberately misleading statements about the company’s prospects, duping Bloso into investing $5 million in Jumio.
Wasting your time is a crime. Here’s a round-up of key events in the payments space. Absa has teamed up with South African start-up Walletdoc to let its Absa Rewards customers earn cash rewards each time they use Walletdoc to pay their monthly accounts. Walletdoc works by sending reminders when payments are due, notifying users […]
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Oct. 5 released its final rule on prepaid accounts, and the agency’s requirements, which go into effect Oct. 1, 2017, go well beyond plastic.
The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Oct. 5 released its final rule on prepaid accounts, a move that sharply expands the definition of prepaid—to the distinct displeasure of prepaid industry players. The new rules, which take effect Oct. 1, 2017, are quite similar to what CFPB had initially proposed, with provisions tweaked in the final rule, rather than major additions or deletions.
A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit alleging payment networks colluded over fraud liability can go forward, denying the networks’ motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Filed in March 2016 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by two Florida retailers, the lawsuit accuses American Express, Discover, Mastercard and Visa of engaging in “a conspiracy” when shifting liability for transaction fraud to merchants that failed to upgrade their POS systems to accept EMV chip technology by Oct. 1, 2015.
In a study conducted by the CFPB, with assistance from American Express, researchers found that offering a monetary incentive was most effective in motivating consumers to set money aside in savings accounts. The research results from the study, “Tools for Saving: Using Prepaid Accounts to Set Aside Funds,” also indicate that having a savings option reduced consumers’ use of payday loan services.
A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers has asked the CFPB to reconsider some of the agency’s proposed restrictions on short-term lenders, arguing that such loans provide much-needed access to credit for those who have few other alternatives.
IBM plans to acquire Promontory Financial Group, a risk management and regulatory compliance consulting firm, to boost IBM Watson’s cognitive technology. Upon close of the deal, Promontory’s employees will train Watson, which will learn by “continuously ingesting regulatory information as it is created and through interaction in real-world applications”. Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice-president, IBM […]
The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 29 agreed to hear arguments from a group of New York merchants who want the right to impose surcharges on purchases made with credit cards. The outcome of the case could have an effect on laws in 10 states that restrict such surcharges.
Within a two-day span, the CFPB ordered two companies in separate cases to pay a total of more than $12.6 million in civil penalties and refunds.
If central banks want to retain a large share of payments in central bank money, they must innovate, said Andrew Hauser, executive director for banking, payments and financial resilience, Bank of England (BOE). Speaking during the Towards a single platform for all payments session, he said BOE consultation on a refresh of its real time […]
t’s been a bad month for the payments industry in the state of New York. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law Sept. 26 imposing restrictions on gift cards and gift certificates sold in the state. The new law comes just weeks after the New York Department of Labor (DOL) issued a final rule regulating the use of payroll cards. The gift card law goes into effect Dec. 25, 2016, as that is 90 days from the governor’s signing.
American Express scored a major legal victory on Sept. 26 when a federal appeals court ruled that Amex had the right to restrict retailers. Specifically, Amex had wanted to prevent Amex-accepting merchants from offering shoppers financial incentives to use other card brands. In its ruling, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit New York tossed out a lower court’s decision that said language barring such “steering” in American Express’ contracts with its merchant clients violated anti-trust laws.
The CFPB has filed a federal lawsuit against a credit repair company over what the consumer protection agency called “a series of illegal advance fees” and misrepresentations of the cost and effectiveness of the company’s services.
Momentum is building behind the T2S securities settlement system as it gains critical mass. While expected benefits and outcomes have not fully materialised, the unexpected benefits have captured the imagination of the post-trade industry.
Regulation is likely to be a hot topic at Sibos, both inside and outside of conference sessions. We assesses the main regulatory themes for this year’s event.
One of the U.K.’s first-ever class action lawsuits is targeting Mastercard, providing a potential preview of future class actions in the country. The case stems from a 2007 finding by the European Union (EU) Commission that the network’s interchange fees were too high, in breach of EU rules.
A computer scientist appears to have broken Apple’s iPhone security by simply opening the phone and replacing the main memory chip with a cloned version. As long as the researcher kept switching the chips, it allowed an unlimited number of password attempts. The researcher said that the technique, which is known and referred to as Nand mirroring, cracked a 4-digit code in 40 hours and a 6-digit code in “hundreds of hours.”
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has proposed new regulations designed to protect against the rising threat of cybercrime targeting financial systems and consumer data. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo unveiled the plan, which would require banks, insurance companies and other financial services providers regulated by the NYDFS to establish a cybersecurity plan that meets standards set by the agency.
In a Sept. 19 ruling in a case over a cyberattacks against JPMorgan Chase and others, a federal judge became the latest to declare that bitcoin qualifies as legal tender. Manhattan District Court Judge Alison Nathan rejected an attempt by Anthony Murgio to dismiss charges that the bitcoin exchange he operated was an unlicensed money transmitting business.
A Dutch international cash management services specialist, Bank Mendes Gans (BMG), is implementing a new cash and liquidity management system, SmartStream’s Corona. It will go live in Q4 2016, managing BMG’s 500,000 transactions per month.
Federal regulators are planning to tighten the screws on marketplace lenders over concerns about consumer protections and reckless lending. At a marketplace lending policy summit, U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry told lenders to expect a new regulatory framework this fall that would support “responsible innovation.”
Most people have heard of the headline-making achievements in artificial intelligence (AI); systems winning quiz shows and beating world champions in chess. These are the poster children of the discipline but there is a quieter revolution taking in shape in other areas, including regulatory compliance in financial services. Writing for Banking Technology, Mike MacDonagh, London-based […]
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.
A new open ecosystem – where banks can enable third parties to develop mobile banking apps and cash management solutions for them – has many advantages over the previous closed world, where everybody tried to do everything themselves. The key to successful “opening up” is to provide a standard interface, such as a smart phone to a bank account, that is accessible to third parties whilst retaining the necessary control.
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.
Mastercard faces a £14 billion claim ($18.6 billion) in the U.K. over interchange fees in a case filed with the country’s Competition Appeal Tribunal. The claim comes two years after the European Union labeled the interchange charged by the payment card network as unfair. European interchange caps went into effect in December of 2015.
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council has revised the “Information Security” booklet of the agency’s FFIEC Information Technology Examination Handbook.
Home Depot’s complaint asserts that Visa and Mastercard “unlawfully” fixed interchange fees at high levels.
