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. […]
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 […]
Gresham Computing has launched its “Innovation Labs” in Bristol, UK as it looks to tap into local talent and drive more software development. CTO Neil Vernon will lead the team of engineers and developers, and says he is a “big believer in the ‘serendipity of collisions’” – which the new space provides. Vernon adds that […]
Customers of Nationwide Building Society in the UK have taken to Twitter to report a host of problems – with direct debits and standing orders not being paid. According to users on Twitter, the bastion of rage and anger, mortgage bills and other payments have not been made. Nationwide’s Twitter feed is now awash with […]
Commerzbank London and UniCredit have “successfully” processed the first UK Bank Payment Obligation (BPO) live transaction. The banks say with the backing of the ICC Banking Commission and Swift, there has been a “growing demand for, and an increasing number of”, BPO transactions, as a “proven” digital settlement tool. Raphael Barisaac, global head of trade […]
Changing your name from Mondo to Monzo does not warrant a news story – unless a rival challenger bank makes some fun out of it. A trademark dispute with another Mondo entailed the new moniker and much unnecessary fanfare. While Monzo revelled in its new name and ignored media queries, Starling Bank decided to do […]
With digital financial services sharply on the rise in the UK, who is leading among the UK lenders? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online lending sites in the UK for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). We’ll be publishing regular updates on a monthly basis, to track the changes, […]
Eurobase International has acquired the Parity Treasury Management Software from Manex Treasury Systems, its flagship product. Parity clients and Manex staff will move to Eurobase as part of the deal. Parity users will continue to be supported but will be encouraged to move to Eurobase’s own offering, Siena. Manex is a long-standing software supplier to the […]
If you’re curious, then it’s been fast and furious. Spending on UK contactless cards in the first half of 2016 has already outstripped contactless spending for the whole of 2015, according to the UK Cards Association. Some £9.27 billion was spent using contactless methods between January and June of this year, more than the total […]
Temenos has officially confirmed it is implementing its software at British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB). As reported by Banking Technology back in February, BACB opted to replace its legacy core system, Misys’ Midas, with T24. Temenos is also supplying its digital channels (Temenos Connect) and analytics (Insight BI) products to the London-based corporate bank. Temenos […]
With digital banking sharply on the rise in the UK – according to the latest figures released by the British Bankers Association – who is leading among the UK retail banks? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online banking sites in the UK for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). […]
A UK-based investment firm, Octopus Investments, is looking to onboard fintech start-ups for its 12-week accelerator programme with Octopus Labs. “We’re rebuilding financial services,” states Octopus Labs. “The financial services sector is broken. We’re on a mission to rebuild it.” The programme will provide mentoring, office space in central London, plus potential access to Octopus […]
The proposed sale of Vocalink to MasterCard, threatens to “kill innovation” in UK payments. This is the damning verdict of AccessPay CEO, Anish Kapoor, who is calling on payments experts to come together to voice their opinions and thoughts, before a final decision is reached. In the time it takes you to read this blog […]
Infosys has issued a statement regarding its work with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to carve out the Williams & Glyn (W&G) subsidiarity. Infosys was a W&G programme technology partner for consulting, application delivery and testing services. It was working on the W&G project since 2013, but this came to an end earlier this month […]
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it has “provisionally” found Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) acquisition of Trayport may give rise to competition concerns. ICE is the largest operator of exchanges and clearing houses in the trading of European utilities. It has its own proprietary software which allows trading of energy commodity and utility derivatives […]
UK-based Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank – which together form CYBG – have introduced Apple Pay to its customers. The payments service is also available to its “B” customers. In May, CYBG unveiled a new digital banking platform, called B, as it gets ready to become a standalone challenger bank. Helen Page, chief marketing officer […]
UK-based challenger Mondo is looking for another £15-20 million in funding as it looks to launch as a “full bank”. Last week, Mondo got its banking licence from the Bank of England. However, Tom Blomfield, CEO at Mondo, say that “authorisation comes with restrictions”. It can only hold a maximum of £50,000 of deposits in […]
Nationwide Building Society has “successfully” tested UK start-up Cutover’s release management software during digital banking maintenance releases this month. Cutover’s software provides a platform for teams to plan, rehearse and execute events and gives real-time communications to those involved. Matt Cox, head of insight and innovation, Nationwide Building Society, says Cutover’s prototype “clearly demonstrated the […]
UK-based Route Trading is to unveil Money Router – a solution designed to tackle the problem of “illicit money transfers taking place” in London. Launching on 27 September, Route Trading says the new software enables banks to reduce the risks involved in home remittance. The firm says the solution can “strengthen the safety of global […]
UK-based challenger bank Mondo has got its banking licence. The bank kindly passed the news to the Financial Times first rather than informing anybody else. It then issued a tweet saying it’s an “exciting day” which caused some confusion to its followers. According to the Financial Times, Mondo’s founder Tom Blomfield (formerly chief technology officer […]
UK-based Raphaels Bank has become the “first new fully operational participating financial provider” of Faster Payments, the UK’s 24/7 real-time payment service. The bank says it is the 12th direct participant of the Faster Payments Scheme (FPS), and the first new bank to connect directly to the payment system since it was launched in 2008. […]
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has unveiled its plans to make banks “work harder for customers” and ensure the “benefits of new technology are fully exploited”. The CMA’s final report on its retail banking market investigation concludes that “older and larger banks do not have to compete hard enough for customers’ business, and […]
UK-based challenger bank Mondo has reached the £20 million mark for money spent through its service. Since its last spending announcement, published at the end of April, the bank has gone from around £80,000 spent daily to over £200,000. Of the £20 million spent, around a quarter has been spent abroad, with its customers (called […]
Royal Bank of Scotland has scrapped its plans to carve out the Williams & Glyn (W&G) subsidiarity – and instead it is likely to be sold to Santander. W&G has a network of 300 branches, 1.4 million retail and 200,000 SME clients – effectively the country’s seventh largest bank. It has been dormant for a […]
A new challenger is coming to the burgeoning UK banking market – Copernicus Bank. It is founded and backed by Danela Ventures Partners Limited, a London-based advisory firm set up in 2010 by Aidan Brady and Michael Rossman. Danela Ventures Partners “focuses on financial services innovation”, according to Brady’s LinkedIn profile. It is “currently building […]
TransferWise has become the “first” tech firm to get direct access to the UK’s Faster Payments Scheme (FPS) as technical partner to Raphaels Bank. TransferWise and the bank sent their first Faster Payment as part of pre-launch test activity. Later this summer, TransferWise customers’ transfers will be “processed instantly” after the firm has received the […]
Mitratech, a provider of legal, compliance, and operational risk solutions, has acquired Hitec Laboratories, a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software provider. This is the firm’s fifth acquisition in the past year and the “second major” one in the GRC market. It recently bought CMO Software in June. The financial terms of this latest deal […]
Innovation accelerator Startupbootcamp FinTech has announced the nine finalists selected to join its London programme. The firms come from across Europe, America and Asia-Pacific, and are Enterprise Bot – offering an AI-customer relationship tool; EuropeOne – a pan-European mobile bank; Kyolab – providing mobile compliance for regulated institutions; MoBILLity – designed to let customers switch […]
Passwords are past it, as Barclays plans to launch voice recognition technology for phone banking. From tomorrow (2 August), customers will no longer need to answer a variety of questions to gain access to their accounts on the telephone. Steven Cooper, CEO personal banking and executive director at Barclays, says: “We have been testing it […]
UK-based start-up Monizo is planning to launch the “first” banking service targeted solely at freelancers. In an exclusive interview with Banking Technology, CEO and co-founder Samuel O’Connor says the firm caters for the particular needs of freelancers across the UK. He says: “The rules are getting more onerous for freelancers and by the end of […]
The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) says the nation’s payments infrastructure needs to undergo reform to increase competition and to better meet consumer needs. The announcement was made as the PSR unveiled the final conclusions of its market review into the ownership and competitiveness of the infrastructure that supports three payment systems – Bacs, Faster […]
UK-based challenger Shawbrook Bank is working with a credit risk analytics firm, Jaywing, to meet the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 modelling requirements. Jaywing is helping the bank through the build of a credit risk modelling programme that will underpin credit management, impairment forecast and capital requirement including stress testing and Internal Capital Adequacy […]
UK-based Tide will offer a “nimble small business current account”, with a swift set-up and no monthly fees. It claims to be among the “world’s first” mobile-first banking services for SMEs. Tide’s CEO George Bevis says the company will open its virtual doors for business in autumn this year. Tide is currently in the “private alpha […]
DH Corporation (D+H) has onboarded UK’s Lloyds Banking Group for its white-labelled Bacs payment service. Lloyds “sought to provide new payment services to enhance clients’ payables and receivables processes”, says D+H. To begin with, Lloyds will offer the vendor’s Bacs capabilities to SMEs and mid-market clients, but D+H hopes this will be subsequently scaled up […]
The UK’s challenger bank sector is set to gain another player. Unicredit’s subsidiary, FinecoBank, is coming to the UK this autumn, according to City AM. FinecoBank has been around since the late 1990s and today has over 1.1 million clients in its home market of Italy and €55 billion of assets. Alessandro Foti, CEO and […]
Xenomorph, a provider of data management technology to banks, investment managers and insurance companies, has received new funding from HSBC. The firm says the funding has enabled it to “accelerate global go-to-market plans” for its TimeScape EDM+ financial analytics and data management platform. TimeScape EDM+ is designed to manage the complete lifecycle of financial data […]
