Dutch bank ING is cutting 7,000 jobs as its push to digital banking goes full throttle. In its strategy update “Accelerating Think Forward”, CEO Ralph Hamers and other executives will introduce a number of initiatives – such as investing €800 million in digital transformation from 2016 to 2021. The bank says its programmes will also […]
Citi is to offer direct custody and clearing (DCC) services to clients in Denmark from the fourth quarter of this year. The new offering will expand Citi’s proprietary DCC network to 63 markets globally and 36 markets across Emea. Citi will partner with VP Securities, a provider of securities and investor services in Denmark. VP […]
Germany-based Deutsche Apotheker-und Ärztebank (apoBank) is considering the implementation of Avaloq’s flagship core banking system. The two parties have signed a contract to “analyse and elaborate how far the execution of the apoBank IT strategy can be based on the Avaloq Banking Suite”, Avaloq says. The bank – which primarily focuses on servicing the healthcare […]
The single euro payments area is up and running and has proved to be a catalyst for change in the payments industry. We look at the story so far.
Axion Swiss Bank, a private bank focusing on asset management and consultancy, is migrating its technology to Avaloq’s BPO centre, Avaloq Sourcing Switzerland. On the way out is ERI’s Olympic core banking system.
Delegates attending yesterday’s Making real time successful in the Eurozone session at Sibos 2016 heard that the key to success for banks will be to initially focus on their own domestic payments markets – which still constitute the vast majority of their payments.
The UK’s existing Faster Payments scheme could be consigned to the slow lane as researchers at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) claim to have demonstrated blockchain supporting a new banking industry clearing system. In a ten-page technical paper, “Proving Ethereum for the clearing use case”, RBS’s innovation engineering team says it has created a clearing […]
Post-trade firms SIX Securities Services and Clearstream are partnering to potentially provide services to the Swiss and European markets. Both firms recently signed a letter of intent and are now focused on fleshing out the details that will lead to a memorandum of understanding targeted for mid-December. This signing will clear the way for a […]
Overly manicured beard. Check. Clothes that betray blatant narcissism. Check. Holier than thou attitude. Check. Welcome to the world of hipsters as HSBC is looking for office space in trendy tech-focused London neighbourhoods. According to Bloomberg, the bank is seeking to “bolster its fintech capabilities” and has hired real estate broker CBRE Group to find […]
Allied Irish Banks (AIB) is believed to be in the market for new digital banking software. Banking Technology understands a number of vendors have done their demos for the bank, Infosys with its Finacle digital banking platform among them.
Ukrainian start-up Attic Lab has revealed its lofty ambitions with the launch of an open source blockchain platform. The banking platform will offer the issuance of e-money and Attic Lab claims it will be a “full-fledged alternative” to systems like Visa and MasterCard. The company was founded in early 2016 with Sergey Vasilchiuk taking the […]
Deutsche Bank says it is building a new “state of the art” payments platform for its global transaction banking (GTB) business. It will be rolled out across the bank’s operations worldwide, supporting trade finance, securities and cash management businesses. The software is supplied by a specialist payments provider – Banking Technology understands this is Dovetail. […]
The FIS Profile core banking project is dead. Long live a new core banking project! UK-based Harrods Bank is back to market to find a new core banking solution, Banking Technology understands. It is understood to be in talks with a broad number of tech suppliers, including Temenos and Misys (the incumbent provider). The bank […]
Budapest Bank, a payment cards issuer in the Hungarian market, has selected Italian firm SIA to create and implement a new payment cards management system. The agreement covers the migration of the full debit and credit cards portfolio of Budapest Bank to SIA’s card processing technology platform and the integration of the SIA solution to […]
Hey! You! Get onto my cloud. This was the main message from the Misys Connect Forum in London as the vendor held a one-day conference of panel debates, Q&As, presentations and demos. At yesterday’s (20 September) event – “the largest Misys conference ever” with 600 attendees – at The Mermaid in Blackfriars, the morning began […]
A new challenger has joined the UK’s banking market, Community Savings Bank Association (CSBA). The association is working with an established bank, Airdrie Savings Bank, to set up a UK-wide network of independent, customer-owned, regional banks. These banks will support local communities and businesses.
The full authorisation by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) covers all of AvantCredit’s credit and lending operations and includes permissions for credit broking, debt collection and debt administration.
Commerzbank has processed its first transaction settled by a bank payment obligation (BPO) between Germany and China. The BPO covers the export of chemicals between Commerzbank’s customer (the buyer), Trigon Chemie in Germany. The seller is an unnamed customer of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in Beijing. Trade business between the two was previously […]
UniCredit will launch “Buddybank”, a bank project exclusively designed for smartphones, in early 2017 in Italy. Buddybank will offer current accounts, credit/debit cards and “contextual” and instant personal loans, as well as a 24/7 concierge service, accessible via chat and phone, that “can help with everyday tasks such as restaurant reservations, taxi booking and travel […]
What were the most popular mobile banking apps (on Android) in the UK in August 2016? We reveal the stats for the top ten apps in the UK, ranked taking into account two engagement metrics – current installs and active app users.
In a mere 15 months, approximately 5,000 financial institutions across Europe will be required to provide open access to customer, transaction and payment information via APIs. “This is a massive amount of work,” said James Whittle, director of industry policy for Payments UK, the representative body for the country’s payments industry, speaking at the EBAday […]
Digital bank N26 (formerly Number26) is now offering voice-powered payments via Siri – the “first” bank in Germany to do so. Users can transfer money by talking to Siri; and can also request money from their N26 contacts using Apple’s instant messaging service iMessage. Valentin Stalf, founder and CEO of N26, says: “Our customers can […]
Germany-based Evangelische Bank has implemented Profidata’s Xentis as its central platform for portfolio management and for performing depositary functions; and Xpass for automating all order and trade management processes. Swiss firm Profidata says the bank has seen an increase in its number of clients and order volume, so decided on a new portfolio management system […]
Natwest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Ulster Bank have all launched on Android Pay in the UK today (13 September), with TSB “coming soon”. The development follows hot on the heels from last week, when US-based Chase Bank customers were able to add their eligible Chase Visa cards to Android Pay. The cards include […]
Payments specialist Klarna and fashion retailer Arcadia Group have launched a new e-commerce retail financing offering to the UK market.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) have signed an agreement to foster more fintech co-operation. The plan is to share information, support financial innovators, smooth out regulations, and offer more dialogue and secondments. To provide more evidence, FINMA says it is “consistently removing unnecessary regulatory hurdles” – […]
Allevo’s open source application, FinTP, is now SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) compliant for EximBank (Export-Import Bank of Romania). The FinTP collaboration between state-owned EximBank and Allevo started one year ago, when the bank chose to implement the solution for low-value Euro payment instructions. EximBank now takes the partnership “one step further with the implementation of […]
SKG Bank, the consumer finance arm of Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB), has unveiled a digital-only lending and consumer credit service. In co-operation with Munich-based FinTecSystems, DKB says in the future loans can be arranged without submitting documents such as bank statements. Thomas Teuber, director of SKG Bank, says its customers “can close more quickly and completely […]
The Brexit unrest aside, Europe is taking initiatives to make a sounder, more user-friendly economic landscape. By using technology solutions and digital innovation, the European Union (EU) is encouraging greater transparency, usability and higher standards of security for all manner of web-based banking and financial transactions. Irrespective of any governmental re-organisation, and the trickled-down impact […]
Wirecard and fintech start-up Fundflow have launched an invoice discounting platform for SMEs in Germany. The firms say that SMEs and freelancers can sell their outstanding invoices on the Fundflow website, which then enables refinancing with institutional investors. Wirecard Bank has provided its German banking licence and will handle the payment process. Joachim Kaune, MD […]
It’s expansion time for Android as it reveals that US-based Chase Bank customers can now add their eligible Chase Visa cards to Android Pay. The cards include Freedom, Slate, Sapphire, United Mileage Explorer and Hyatt Credit Card. On top of this American development, in the UK, Android says Santander and TSB customers “will soon be […]
Priceless? Not this time. MasterCard is facing a £19 billion lawsuit (which now has been reduced to £14 billion and filed, as of 8 September 2016) – the biggest in UK legal history – in a collective action over card charges that were passed on to shoppers. The claim is headed by ex-financial services ombudsman […]
UK-based payments vendor Monitise is beginning to turn its fortunes around – with a 45% reduction in operating costs and EBITDA profitability of £600,000 in the second half of the year. As Banking Technology reported in May, the firm brought in a new COO and a new, re-focused business structure. It seems the initiatives have […]
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Barclays have joined forces to let their retail customers move money between Australia and the UK with “just a mobile number”. In a “first between the two countries”, CBA and Barclays say they have worked to connect each of their payment apps together – CBA’s CommBank and Barclays’ Pingit. […]
Finland-based Aktia Bank says its new core banking platform – Temenos’ T24 – “will be implemented step-by-step during the last quarter of 2016”. The project has been underway since 2013. T24 will replace a legacy development by a local vendor, Samlink. The total investment is now estimated to exceed €65 million – a €10 million […]
Lessons learned from Lego’s business renaissance could be the way of the future for fintech innovation. At yesterday’s (7 September 2016) Avaloq Community Conference at the Seminarhotel Bocken in Horgen, Switzerland, the private banking software specialist held an open day as it looks to the future. Our first report included an exclusive interview with CEO […]
Consumers and businesses alike will often consider a company’s reputation before entering an agreement with them. After all, why would anyone choose an organisation which has history of letting its customers down, over another with a spotless track record? It’s unsurprising then that once the reputation of traditional banks in the UK was tarnished by […]
In its first public annual report TransferWise has revealed its revenue tripled to £28 million in the year to March. The UK-based international money transfer platform also says that figure is now about £5 million a month, having doubled in the past 12 months. It was not all good news as pre-tax losses grew to […]
Luxembourg-based start-up SnapSwap, which offers blockchain-based payments, has received authorisation to operate as an electronic money institution (EMI). The firm says the EMI licence, provided by the Ministry of Finance of Luxembourg, allows it to issue debit cards and other payment instruments linked to Gloneta accounts. The latter combines a mobile messenger (chat) with cross-currency […]
Commerzbank is implementing UK-based AxiomSL’s platform to automate regulatory reporting requirements. The bank, Germany’s second largest, plans to deliver the SEC 15c3-1 (Securities and Exchange Commission’s uniform net capital rule) as well as other regulatory mandates such as the Financial and Operational Combined Uniform Single (Focus), Treasury International Capital (TIC), Off Balance Sheet reporting (OBS) […]
