The UK is home to the world’s leading centre for financial services, and in recent years a thriving centre for fintech innovation. Elizabeth Budd, financial regulation expert at Pinsent Masons, urges the financial services industry to be vocal about the framework it needs to have in place to protect this status, and continue to do […]
Just a couple of months following the appointment of the new CIO at Harrods Bank, its chief executive – Peter Ball – leaves. Ball has moved to specialist lender Together, to head its retail division. Together has been ramping up its leadership team – over the last three months alone it has added Colin Kersley, […]
As first reported by Banking Technology in early May, Phoebus Software has gained a new customer – UK challenger bank Atom. The five-year deal will see Phoebus’ lending software supporting Atom’s secured business lending and account servicing for Atom’s residential lending. The new platform will be used by the bank’s team to originate loans for […]
Three ex-Barclays workers have been found guilty of manipulating the Libor interest rate between 2005 and 2007. Jay Merchant was convicted unanimously at Southwark Crown Court in London of rigging the key financial rate. Jonathan Mathew and Alex Pabon were found guilty by majority verdict after a ten-week trial. They will be sentenced on Thursday […]
The Services Family bank will cater for the UK military personnel, veterans and their families. Sopra Steria’s technology will underpin its operations. The digital bank is being created by The Services Family Ltd (TSFL), a financial services firm set up two years ago by two military veterans. It is going through a process of obtaining […]
BookingBug says Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) has become “the first truly omnichannel mortgage provider” with its new system that enables booking appointments in branch, online, mobile and call centres. UK-based BookingBug specialises in appointment scheduling and event management software. The new system has centralised data across 3,000 staff in 200 branches at YBS, and cut […]
CTO Mark Hipperson, who was also the bank’s co-founder, has recently left Starling. Prior to moving to Starling, Hipperson was a long-standing GM at a UK-based IT consultancy firm, BJSS. Earlier in his career, he was head of technology at Barclays’ corporate banking division (1992-2000). According to FT, this was his comment on his departure: […]
Following an unsuccessful attempt to implement Third Financial’s Tercero platform and the subsequent market search, LGT Vestra has decided to keep its incumbent solution, JHC Systems’ Figaro. Figaro will continue to support front, middle and back office operations of the UK and Jersey-based wealth manager. The company was known as Vestra Wealth until recently. In […]
The London-based subsidiary of South Africa’s banking group, FirstRand Bank, is live with a new regulatory reporting solution. The software is supplied by specialist vendor AxiomSL and supports the bank’s production and submission of statistical reports required by the Bank of England (BOE). AxiomSL has been providing its BOE reporting solution to financial institutions in […]
Hundreds of UK-based jobs at Visa are in danger following the fallout from Brexit, according to Sky News. Sky News says it “has learnt that an agreement in the recent £17.5 billion takeover of Visa’s European operations by its American sister company included a stipulation that data from Visa card transactions should not leave Europe”. […]
By a slender majority of 51.9% to 48.1% the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union. The move will have ramifications for banking and financial services internationally as the country renegotiates its relationship with the EU and could topple London’s standing as a leading global financial centre. Nothing will change immediately, but in […]
Virgin Money UK, a financial services brainchild of Richard Branson, is understood to be looking for new core and digital channels banking software. Virgin Money’s underlying technology in the UK stems from a number of acquisitions, including a small outsource firm, Intelligent Managed Services (IMS), in 2010, and a larger, well-established bank, Northern Rock, in 2012 (the […]
BMCE Bank International, a UK-based subsidiary of Morocco’s BMCE Group, is live on a new regulatory reporting platform supplied by specialist vendor AxiomSL. The vendor says BMCE Bank International is using its solution to comply with its Bank of England (BOE) statistical reporting requirements (including FSA 047/048, ELS and balance sheet returns). The platform is […]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will cut about 900 tech jobs in the UK, according to a Reuters report. At the end of last year, RBS’s domestic workforce stood at 64,000 people. Since March this year, the bank has cut at least 2,700 jobs in the UK, mainly across its branch network. The latest job […]
The Bank of England (BoE) will launch its own fintech accelerator to harness innovation for central banking. Fintech firms will be invited to carry out a proof of concept with the BoE. The bank will then act as a reference site for these companies. The BoE says it “will offer firms the chance to demonstrate […]
Two former Merrill Lynch directors, Paul Richards and Giles Hutson, have unveiled a new fintech venture, Insignis Asset Management. Insignis, a cash management company, is set “to revolutionise how clients manage their cash deposits”, the founders say. The Insignis Digital Banking Network will enable clients to deposit cash, starting from £100,000, into a hub account, […]
British Bankers Association (BBA) has secured the go-ahead from its members to merge with three other UK-based trade associations: Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), Payments UK and UK Cards Association. The new trade association will be have a broader representation of the financial services industry. Anthony Browne, CEO of BBA, comments that it is only […]
Four of the UK’s biggest high street banks have signed up to launch Zapp’s “Pay by Bank app” mobile payment service. Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Halifax and Lloyds Bank are working with Zapp, VocaLink’s payments innovation team, to deliver the service. David Yates, CEO VocaLink, says the gang of four join a “growing number of […]
Cater Allen, a London-based private bank and a subsidiary of Santander, is undergoing a major technology overhaul. The bank is going to implement a new core banking system, Temenos’ T24, Banking Technology understands. It is now looking to recruit T24 specialists and project managers to help it with system customisation and implementation, and migration from […]
A new digital bank for UK businesses and consumers, CivilisedBank, has submitted its banking licence to the regulators, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA). It expects to receive the licence later this year and to open for business in early 2017. Set-up and technology CivilisedBank will not have any branches. It will […]
Famous/infamous hacking group Anonymous says it took down the London Stock Exchange’s (LSE) website for two hours as part of a protest against world’s banks. According to the Mail on Sunday, the attack was carried out by a group, within the organisation, based in the Philippines. The newspaper says: “Anonymous claims the incident was one […]
UK-based regulatory reporting and risk management software vendor, AxiomSL, has signed the local operations of Union Bank of India for its flagship product, XBRL. XBRL will automate regulatory reporting to the UK’s regulator, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), at Union Bank of India (UK). AxiomSL says the project comes as part of the bank’s compliance with […]
UK-based HPD Software has launched Aquarius Construction Finance aimed at lenders who fund construction sub-contractors. The company is targeting its module at finance providers who want to enter or expand into the construction sector, which it says is “traditionally a ‘no-go zone’ for commercial lenders”. Kevin Day, COO at HPD Software, says: “The construction sector […]
India-based IT heavyweight Tech Mahindra is spending £112 million on Target Group, a UK-based business process outsourcing (BPO) and software vendor. Target focuses on the lending, investment and insurance sectors, claiming around 50 financial institutions in the UK as customers. Among them are Yorkshire Building Society, Shawbrook Bank, Central Trust and Masthaven. It also works […]
Student Loans Company (SLC), a large government-owned lender in the UK, is believed to have halted its IT renovation project as it puts the contract with the supplier under review. SLC embarked on this massive project in early 2014 – awarding the contract to HCL. HCL bid jointly with Deloitte and Misys. HCL would be […]
Santander says it is the “first” UK bank to introduce blockchain for international payments through a new app. It is currently being rolled out as a staff pilot, with the intention to expand the technology “at a later date”. Sigga Sigurdardottir, head of customer and innovation at Santander, says: “The need for finance has evolved […]
Regulatory reporting software vendor, Lombard Risk, has revealed a loss before tax of £2.2 million in its fiscal year 2015/2016. The loss, for the period ended 31 March 2016, is a contrast to last year’s profit of £2.3 million. As a result of the loss it has suspended its final dividend payment. Adjusted EBITDA (earnings […]
OakNorth says it has become the “first cloud-based bank” in the UK, eight months after launching. The bank, which provides loans of between £1 million to £15 million to “entrepreneurs and fast-growth” businesses, has been working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for six months on policies related to […]
Advanced Payment Solutions (trading as APS Financial) has secured a credit licence from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This development allows APS to carry out consumer credit lending (including high-cost short-term credit lending) to its customer base of micro SMEs, sole traders and consumers. Rich Wagner, CEO and founder, APS Financial, says: “This credit […]
Android Pay is now available in the UK, and more countries are on the way. Banking Technology first reported on this initiative in March this year. UK consumers can now pay for goods and services with their Android smartphones. Retailers like Boots, Waitrose and Starbucks are already onboard, and so is Transport for London (underground, […]
HSBC is to cut 850 information technology jobs in the UK today (16 May), the first stage of its restructuring plan that will see 8,000 British jobs terminated by the end of 2017. The employees are based in London, Sheffield, Leeds and Birmingham and all the jobs will disappear by the end of this year, […]
With so many new banks trying to muscle into the UK banking sector, spurred on by the reduced barriers to entry and calls for competition, Banking Technology wonders: will this boom be followed by a bust? In the meantime, make hay whilst the sun shines! Here is our guide to who’s who in the UK […]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is planning to cut around 200 more jobs at its UK retail bank, according to sources close to the development. The latest round of job cuts follows the announcement last month that 600 jobs were to go in the UK. Rob MacGregor, national officer at the Unite trade union, says: […]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is powering its new Open Experience centre with Red Hat technologies, including the Red Hat Mobile Application Platform and OpenShift Enterprise, Red Hat’s web-scale container application platform. Open Experience was launched by RBS in February at its HQ in Edinburgh (UK) to pursue “innovative new technologies for the bank and […]
Barclays is providing £1 million in funding to UK-based AccessPay to support its growth and further develop their relationship. Access Systems (trading as AccessPay) provides a cloud-based connectivity layer between a business’s finance systems, their banks and “all of the major” UK and international payment networks such as BACS, Swift, SEPA, Faster Payments and Direct […]
UK-based Metro Bank will roll out Glory Global Solutions’ Vertera 6G teller cash recyclers (TCRs) across the bank’s new locations as well as replace older technology in existing outlets. Metro Bank will set up a number of new branches in the course of 2016 and 2017. The bank, which opened for business in 2010, currently has […]
Coventry Building Society is working with a credit risk analytics firm, Jaywing, to meet the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 modelling requirements. The UK-based building society has recruited Jaywing ahead of the 1 January 2018 deadline to meet the new guidelines. Initial work is already underway, says Jaywing, and a prototype model for one […]
San-Francisco based RocketSpace, with the support of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), plans to open a campus in London, designed specifically for “high-growth” tech start-ups. The campus, located near Angel tube station, will initially hold up to 1,500 members at its opening in early 2017. Duncan Logan, RocketSpace’s founder and CEO, says: “Creating a physical […]
UK-based financial services vendor Perception is building a new comprehensive platform for credit unions, community development financial institutions (CDFIs), loan companies and start-up banks. The solution aims to cover loans, savings, mortgages and current account business lines, front-to-back office. Be different, make a difference Perception has identified the gap in the market that it feels […]
First Global Trust Bank (FGTB) is a new name on the UK banking scene. The bank has recently been granted an “authorisation with restriction” licence to take deposits by the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). The London-based company was originally set up under the name of Llamabrook in 2011. It became FGTB in March this year […]
