Mobile-only challenger bank Monzo is taking it nice and easy with a steady roll-out of its current account. The bank, which received its full UK banking licence in April, says it’s been using the current account internally and today (17 July) is now inviting some of its customers to join and “help put it through […]
German fintech incubator FinLeap has a spring in its step with new capital, new partners and a new HQ. The company has raised around €39 million from several investors, including the German Insurer Signal Iduna, SBI Group from Japan and the Dutch NIBC bank. Furthermore, the reinsurer Hannover Re, as a “big institutional investor”, raised […]
As part of its massive job cutting spree, Commerzbank has agreed an outline reconciliation of interests and social plan with the employee representative committees in Germany. As reported last year, Commerzbank firmed up plans to lay off nearly 5,000 people. According to a letter by German labour union Verdi, the majority of these job cuts […]
Cash is no longer king in the UK, according to the British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) annual Payments Survey, which found that debit card transactions accounted for almost 43% of all retail transactions in 2016, overtaking cash, which accounted for 42% of all retail transactions, for the first time. Banking Technology‘s sister publication Paybefore reports that […]
The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has got approval from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for its plan for the consolidation of the operators of three payment systems. As first reported in May, the PSR aimed to get Bacs Payment Schemes (BPSL), Cheque and Credit Clearing Company (C&CCC) and the Faster Payments Scheme (FPSL) […]
Falcon is the “first” Swiss private bank to provide blockchain asset management solutions for its clients through a new co-operation with crypto financial broker Bitcoin Suisse. The bank’s clients can exchange and hold Bitcoins via Falcon using their cash holdings. Additionally, a Bitcoin ATM has been installed in the lobby of the bank’s headquarters in […]
Darktrace, a start-up that tackles cybercrime with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, has raised $75 million in a Series D round, reports Light Reading (Banking Technology’s sister publication). The latest capital injection values the company at $825 million, testament to the security threat faced by network operators and fintech enterprises and the power of machine learning technology. […]
Mothership, a digital asset exchange, has launched offering a cloud hosting platform and wallet for blockchain financial services around the Estonian e-residency programme. The start-up is the “first company of its kind” to integrate with e-residency. As reported in May, the Baltic state unveiled this programme to let anyone apply to join its new digital […]
A consortium of European private and public sector organisations are testing out the use of a citizen’s national digital identity from France to open a bank account in the UK. The group comprises HSBC, Barclays, the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), Orange, OT-Morpho and the Open Identity Exchange (OIX UK). The project is co-financed by […]
Seedrs will be the sole equity finance provider in a new partnership with challenger bank Fidor.
SME lender iwoca and Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo are partnering to provide Intesa’s SME clients with credit products. The partnership coincides with an investment in iwoca by Neva Finventures, Intesa Sanpaolo’s fintech venture capital arm. Maurizio Montagnese, chief innovation officer at Intesa Sanpaolo, adds that the “industrial synergies” between the firms “could be significant in the […]
The Bank of England’s (BoE) fintech accelerator has kept good speed and completed the third round of various proofs of concept (PoCs). As reported last year, BoE launched its own accelerator to harness innovation for central banking. The latest PoCs covered four areas of the bank’s work: analysing large-scale supervisory data sets; executing high-value payments […]
Banking tech provider Profile Software will acquire 100% of Paris-based Login, a specialised treasury software provider. Founded in 1988, Login offers its AcumenNet platform, which is used for front office, trading, risk management, middle and back office requirements. It covers a range of asset classes that include forex and money market instruments, exchanged traded and […]
Wirecard and Tencent are working together to give European retailers access to more than 938 million active WeChat and Weixin users by enabling QR code payments at the POS, reports Paybefore (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). The mobile payment solution, WeChat Pay, has more than 600 million active users, which is equivalent to nearly 40% of […]
It’s not enough for the fintech world to be sick to the back teeth of the “millennials would rather visit their dentist than listen to their bank” quote – but we now have yet another UK payments start-up – this time launched by an actual dentist. On the dirt-encrusted and pothole-festooned streets of the UK, […]
Finland-based Aktia Bank has completed “the full-scale implementation” of its new core banking system, Temenos’ T24.
Challenger Banco BNI Europa (BNI) has unveiled “Puzzle”, a digital and real-time credit approval process for the Portuguese market. Don’t be confused by the name, the bank says Puzzle is “simple, and non-bureaucratic”; and it even cites the Lending Club in the US, or Zopa in the UK by way of comparison. Puzzle offers credit […]
Nordea has chosen Estonian start-up Feelingstream’s artificial intelligence (AI) software to speed up response times for customers. Feelingstream’s AI solution analyses and categorises messages sent by customers so they can be forwarded automatically to the right person or unit in Nordea for further processing. The software can analyse hundreds of messages per second. The solution […]
Swedish financial technology company iZettle is reporting a 60 percent jump in revenues compared with 2016, and CEO Jacob de Geer is talking IPO.
If President Trump wants to make America great again, there are a few important ways he could bolster the fintech industry and help consumers—from supporting more uniform MSB licensing to reining in UDAAP.
By calling on the spirit of the 19th century Corn Laws repeal, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) believes it can weather the post-Brexit era with a new age of free trade. In a long speech delivered today (6 July), “Why free trade and open markets in financial services matter”, Andrew Bailey, chief executive of […]
The European Banking Authority (EBA) recently opened a consultation on its draft recommendations for financial institutions outsourcing to cloud service providers across all cloud-related domains including infrastructure, platform and software as a service.
Mobile-only challenger bank Monzo has reported a loss after taxation of £6.7 million in its latest financial results. For the year ended 28 February 2017, the firm’s directors do not recommend a final dividend. In fact, it has got worse compared to the 2016 full year results. There was also no final dividend because the […]
Open Banking, the implementation entity set up by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), has released its accounts and transaction information and payments initiation API specifications. The payments initiation API will enable third parties to set up secure payments on behalf of customers and, once authorised by the customer, submit the payment for processing. […]
Vantiv, a US-based payment processing and technology provider, and Worldpay, its counterpart in the UK, have reached “an agreement in principle on the key terms of a potential merger”.
Nordea Bank has pressed the accelerator on its open banking ambitions with the launch of pilots. As reported in March, the bank released the first version of its open banking portal targeted towards external developers, as it gets ready for the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) requirements. At the time, it invited developers to sign […]
Copenhagen-based Danske Bank has unveiled its beta open banking service as it joins the fray for API-powered innovation. The bank says open banking is set to be the “most seismic shift in financial services since online banking” and it wants to tap into this market. Danske is looking to push on from its own banking […]
Commerzbank and the Fraunhofer-Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML) in Dortmund have teamed up to research and develop the digitisation of trade finance using blockchain. The bank says by using blockchain or distributed ledger technologies (DLT), it will build a decentralised database for internet of things (ioT) applications and smart contracts. This will offer […]
Scottish Building Society has chosen Whistlebrook’s Treasury Management System (WTMS) to replace its existing solution, Parity Treasury Management Software from Manex Treasury Systems. As reported last year, Eurobase International acquired the Parity software from Manex, its flagship product. Parity clients and Manex staff moved to Eurobase as part of the deal. Scottish Building Society was […]
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is ramping up its efforts for open banking within the nation’s retail banking scene. As reported in February, the CMA published its 766-page final report on the retail banking market and its open banking goals. At that time, it said it will offer overdraft users the opportunity to […]
Barclays Bank has been hit yet again by online and mobile banking glitches. Today (3 July), the bank reported the problem on Twitter saying it’s “aware of an issue with our online banking”. Hi Mark, we’re aware of an issue with our online banking and we’re working as fast as we can to put a […]
New trade association UK Finance – created as a result of the merger between six domestic associations in the banking and payments space – has officially launched. As reported in March, UK Finance brings together the Asset Based Finance Association (ABFA), British Bankers’ Association (BBA), Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA […]
Alfa-Bank, a top ten bank in Russia by assets and profit, has purchased the source code of its core banking system, Misys Equation. The solution is provided by Finastra (formerly Misys).
Orange has put the brakes on its ambitious plans to venture into the world of mobile banking after finding the proposition doesn’t quite meet the standards.
Following the ruling of the UK’s Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA), Diebold Nixdorf has shed some of its business. Diebold UK & Ireland has been sold to Cennox.
SimCorp has acquired a fellow wealthtech vendor, APL Italiana, for €35 million. APL Italiana specialises investment and portfolio management software for the Italian insurance market.
UK-based high street bank NatWest is trialling Recordsure’s regtech recording and analysis solution “to improve and monitor the quality of information and advice provided during regulated customer conversations”.
UK challenger OakNorth Bank has deployed nCino’s Bank Operating System – the first financial institution outside of the US to use the platform. According to the pair, the bank “liked that” nCino was built on Salesforce.com, allowing it to extend its use of this customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Bank Operating System combines CRM, loan […]
London-based biometric tech vendor Sthaler is working with Nordic payments provider Nets to introduce finger-vein enabled payments to the consumer market in Europe.
BBVA has signed an agreement with Chinese tech giant Ant Financial to enable Chinese tourists to pay in Spanish stores using the Alipay mobile wallet. BBVA is the first Spanish financial institution to be working with Alipay.
