WhatsApp to introduce payments feature
Facebook-owned messenger app WhatsApp submitted a new update through the Google Play Beta Programme, which will make payments available in the app’s new version.
FinTech
Top fintech stories this week – 11 August 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
BioCatch partners with LexisNexis to leverage data and analytics for better risk management
Behavioural authentication and threat detection company BioCatch teamed up with risk management company LexisNexis Risk Solutions in an effort to reduce losses caused by fraud.
PayPal to buy Swift Financial to boost SMB lending
After a spate of recent partnership announcements to expand its acceptance network and P2P reach, PayPal is buying Swift Financial to boost its small business lending division.
Socure raises $14m in new funding
In a Series B round led by Commerce Ventures, digital identity verification specialist Socure raised $13.9 million in new funding. The investment, which also featured the participation of Flint Capital, Santander InnoVentures, Synchrony Financial, Two Sigma Ventures, and Workbench, takes Socure’s total funding to $27.5 million.
HSBC digitises global trade with IBM
HSBC and IBM are working on a project “to develop a cognitive intelligence solution combining optical character recognition with advanced robotics to make global trade safer and more efficient”.
HooYu brings identity confirmation technology to BCRemit
Better onboarding and fewer fraud incidents are the goals of online money transfer platform BCRemit. The UK-based company has partnered with identity confirmation specialist HooYu to help them reach both of those critical objectives.
TransferMate Adds New Hires amid U.S. Regulatory OK
TransferMate, a global B2B payments platform, announced the expansion of its senior management team following its achievement of full U.S. regulatory approval.
Green Dot reports net income jump in Q2, touts fintech deals, acquires secured credit portfolio
Green Dot Corp. reported strong numbers for the quarter ended June 30, 2017, including a 140 percent increase in GAAP net income to $19.3 million, up from $8.0 million over Q2 2016.
SIX Swiss Exchange, Nasdaq and Chain team for blockchain OTC project
SIX Swiss Exchange and Nasdaq and working with blockchain tech company Chain to provide distributed ledger technology (DLT) for for SIX’s over-the-counter (OTC) structured products business.
Oracle Unveils New Global Payments Solution for Banks
Oracle has unveiled its brand new development, Oracle Banking Payments. Built from the ground up, the service uses the ISO 20022 messaging standard and supports global and local payment standards, including SEPA, Swift 2017, Fedwire, U.S. ACH and Swift’s gpi.
Kantox pulls in $6m from existing investors
Currency and risk management solutions company Kantox recently reeled in $6 million in funding.
The Monday mindset: 7 August 2017
Fintech zeitgeist! Every Monday, we might look back at last week; look ahead to this week; share a few thoughts (our own or others); or discuss anything that catches our eye. This week, Devie Mohan, founder of fintech research and data company, Burnmark, examines the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI). I was asked to speak […]
R3, CGI and eleven banks develop blockchain-based trade finance app
Following a year of development and testing, R3, CGI and eleven banks unveil a prototype of a trade finance app built of R3’s Corda distributed ledger technology (DLT).
Abu Dhabi Launches its First Fintech Innovation Challenge for Startups
Abu Dhabi Global Market and KPMG are launching the first Fintech Abu Dhabi Innovation Challenge—a five-week program for “innovative and mature startups across the globe,” with a chance to win $15,000 in prize money.
Banking Technology Awards: how to write a winning entry?
With less than one month left to nominate for the Banking Technology Awards, now is the time to polish up on your entry. The question we get asked often is how to write a winning entry. Well wonder no more, we have a few tips for you on what to include. The more detail the better! Dates […]
Prepaid Veteran Jeff Lewis Joins Sutton Bank
As part of its overall payments expansion strategy, Sutton Bank has named prepaid veteran Jeff Lewis senior vice president, prepaid services.
Getting to experience thinking
“We’ve got a great idea we think you’re going to love.” Despite its manifest flaws, this is the approach that has long dominated the development of new products and services. While introducing products that people love is an exemplary goal, real omniscience has proven to be distressingly rare.
Podcast: Amazon is everywhere
11:FS Fintech Insider podcast featuring FinTech Futures’ Tanya Andreasyan.
SME lender Kabbage collects $250m investment from Softbank
Online small business lender Kabbage has raised $250 million in funding from Japan’s SoftBank Group. The capital, which takes Kabbage’s total funding to more than $488 million, will be used to support new lending products for small businesses, as well as “exploring non-lending products and services” for its customers, the company says.
Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 3 August 2017
Following on from Tuesday’s (1 August) round-up, here’s more action from the busy blockchain and Bitcoin scene. Features Gwyneth Paltrow (yes, really), Abra, Gibraltar Stock Exchange and WannaCry. Actress and food writer Gwyneth Paltrow has joined Abra, a Bitcoin-based digital wallet app, as an advisor. In an episode of American reality show “Planet of the […]
Payments round-up: 3 August 2017
Take the pain out of paytech with this brief round-up. Features Seven Bank, BDO Unibank, Earthport, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Payconiq and Digicash Payments.
Personal Capital extends Series E funding round by $40m
Wealth management company Personal Capital has scored $40 million in additional funding. The money comes from existing investors as an add-on to the $75 million Series E the firm received from IGM Financial in May 2016, reports Finovate (Banking Technology‘s sister company). This brings Personal Capital’s total funding to $215 million since it was founded in 2009 […]
Banking Technology Awards: celebrating people that make things happen
This year’s Banking Technology Awards will be taking place on 13 December in London and once again we will be celebrating people that make things happen! The Leadership Awards will recognise individuals and teams that made a considerable contribution to our industry. What are the categories you can nominate in? Woman in Technology (W.I.T.) Award, in partnership with FemTechGlobal, will […]
PayPal enables Skype app payments
PayPal is on a tear and looking to significantly boost its P2P payments volume through Venmo, which already posted 103% growth in the second quarter, reaching $8 billion, reports Paybefore, Banking Technology’s sister publication. The company has announced in a blog post that any of the more than one billion people who’ve downloaded the Skype […]
Hello Soda’s new platform has a pop at dark web fraud
Big data and text analytics firm Hello Soda has launched Fraud Web, a new software solution built to combat identity fraud committed through the untraceable internet. The company says Fraud Web identifies the risk of consumer data being available for sale on the dark web and issues high, medium and low risk alerts so that […]
AWS commands corner over cloud market
Amazon Web Services (AWS) continues to dominate the worldwide cloud infrastructure services market with nearly $1.2 billion in revenue growth over the past four quarters, reports Light Reading (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Overall, hyperscale cloud providers are maintaining their lead position in the cloud market – which has steadily grown over 40% each year, according to […]
Banks look to immediate payments to drive revenue
Immediate payments is a key revenue driver for 66% of banks in markets with IP schemes, according to new benchmark data from processor ACI Worldwide and UK consultancy and Banking Technology’s sister company Ovum. Paybefore, Banking Technology’s sister publication, writes that the benchmark report, “2017 Global Payments Insight Survey: Retail Banking,” also found that although […]
xPressTap Wants to Eliminate Payment Card Readers, Reduce Fees
With the Aug. 1 launch of its Tap2App merchant payment solution and pilot program, xPressTap Inc. is enabling micro-retailers and small business owners to use their smartphones to accept card payments without a dongle or a portable card reader.
Ripple unveils expanded suite of offerings
What’s in a name? Blockchain solutions company Ripple is about to find out. The company has unveiled a new name for its existing global payments network, as well as a handful of new solutions.
Forkin’ hell! Bitcoin splits in two
Bitcoin has split in two as a breakaway group of Bitcoin miners and developers plan to create a new network that increases its transaction capacity. After two years of disagreements over network scalability issues, a user-initiated hard fork occurred, creating two versions. The one we know it as today still exists (BTC), and the new […]
Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 1 August 2017
The world of blockchain and Bitcoin rumbles on with patents, platforms and positives. Our latest round-up features Bank of America, Blackmoon Financial Group, and research from Cognizant. Bank of America (BofA) has filed three new patents using blockchain. On the US Patent & Trademark Office’s website it now reveals the details. Some of the patents […]
Samsung shows how big its IoT aaS is
Samsung has launched its latest assault on the world of internet of things (IoT), launching a brokering service for hardware manufacturers and service providers on its Artik IoT platform, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). It’s a trend which we are likely to see more of as the digital economy takes hold, but Samsung has […]
Belize’s central bank selects Swift to combat financial crime
The Central Bank of Belize has chosen Swift’s Sanctions Screening solution to combat financial crime and put in compliance controls. The bank says: “Implementing the right compliance controls within an organisation is not only a regulatory responsibility, but also a priority for global security.” Juan Martínez, managing director Latin America and the Caribbean, Swift, says […]
Facebook has a whoopsy as AI programme invents own language
Artificial intelligence (AI) detractors have just been given a bit more ammo after Facebook has had to shut down one of its programmes after it invented its own language, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). While it would not be considered realistic for AI to rise up and take-over the world in the near future, […]
Kakao Bank attracts 820,000+ clients in four days since launch
Kakao Bank, one of South Korea’s first digital only banks, says it has attracted KRW 535 billion ($477 million) worth of business in deposits and loans in just four days since its launch.
Payments Strategy Forum drafts in public for future of UK payments
The Payments Strategy Forum, created by the UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) in 2015, has launched a consultation on its blueprint for a new payments system for the UK. Calling it “the most radical change to the payments industry since the 1960s”, the Forum says the New Payments Architecture (NPA) is designed to “provide simpler […]
Fintech earnings round-up: 31 July 2017
Several major payments companies have released Q2 earnings, including The Bancorp, Discover, Mastercard and PayPal. Overall, payments volume is on the rise and partnerships are proving particularly important for PayPal, which has been on tear with recent strategic announcements.
Euroclear ends blockchain gold settlement deal with Paxos
The partnership between central securities depositary Euroclear and Paxos for a blockchain-powered gold settlement service is over, according to Reuters. As Banking Technology reported last year, the pair completed their first pilot for the service for London bullion – with a go-live planned for this year. Over 600 OTC test bullion trades were settled on […]
Confident Intel raises full-year revenue outlook by $1.3bn
Following a successful quarter, Intel has raised revenue outlook across the full-year owing to solid performance in artificial intelligence (AI) and driverless tech, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). Quarterly figures were looking pretty impressive too. Total revenue was reported at $14.8 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9%, while net income stood at $2.8 billion, […]
