Making payment easy across Africa and beyond
Thabo Makoko, explores how the continent can improve its payments infrastructure.
Business-to-Consumer/B2C
Help-to-buy fintech Proportunity raises £2m, offers alternative to UK government
The fintech provides first-time buyers with an equity loan of up to 15%.
US challenger Chime goes down for millions of customers
Chime serves more than five million accounts across the US.
Santander leads €35m funding round in digital debt marketplace CrossLend
Lakestar, ABN AMRO Ventures and Earlybird will also be investing.
ID Finance crowdfunds £1.5m in minutes, eyes up Hispanic and Latino loan market
ID Finance is on track to double revenues to €90m this year.
DIS 2019: OBIE trustee says business-consumer adoption figures in ‘hundreds of thousands’
The ‘big nine’ UK banks still represent around 95% of the market, says OBIE.
DIS 2019: Lendtech OpenWrks says it can predict divorce and relationship breakdown
OpenWrks can determine when gambling will become a health issue too.
UK lendtech Zopa brings transparency to credit score calculations
Zopa says it’s the first lender to show how it determines who to lend to.
Educating the masses
The age for financial literacy is getting younger and younger.
India’s fintech Paytm in talks with T Rowe Price for $1 billion funding round
Existing investors SoftBank and Ant Financial are also expected to participate.
Nine UK fintechs land in Australia under the countries’ bridge programme
The companies will be showcased at Melbourne’s Intersekt conference.
Brazilian fintech Nubank’s user base soars to 15 million
The fintech has reached decacorn status with a $10 billion valuation.
Intesa Sanpaolo invests €7m into vending machine digital wallet MatiPay
The fintech will expand its operations in Europe, Japan and the US.
Revolut hires JP Morgan to manage $500m funding round and issue a $1b loan
The loan will turn into shares if Revolut receive a US banking licence.
Mastercard, Visa, eBay and Stripe follow PayPal’s suit and leave Facebook’s Libra
Facebook’s hopes of a global cryptocurrency are hanging in the balance.
UK’s Royal Mint unveils first 18-carat gold payment card
The card enables limitless spending and zero foreign exchange fees.
Finnish invoicer Enterpay raises €1m and partners with German bank
The fintech partners with Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken.
Branch launches free checking account and debit card for hourly workers
The fintech wants to increase financial stability in the US.
Metro Bank brings fintech to UK SMEs with £120m funding
The bank wants to inject “much needed competition” into the SME space.
Pakistan’s JS Bank first in country to launch ‘chat banking’ on WhatsApp
The service is free to use with no registration process.
Amex admits to data breach from employee trying to commit fraud
Card numbers and social security numbers were compromised.
Temenos signs core banking deal with Maltese challenger Laskaris Finance
Laskaris will serve high-net-worth individuals and corporate clients.
Nordic banks reveal business plan for single payments platform P27
The banks predict P27 will start generating revenue in 2021.
Banks’ culture and governance next target for Australian regulators
There will be “deep dive” reviews if firms don’t deliver.
Norway’s largest bank set to monopolise country with all-access mobile banking app
DNB has access to every bank in the country.
Russia’s Sberbank catches internal culprit of data leak
The leak could have affected at least 200 of its customers.
Decentralised vs centralised exchanges: a comparative analysis
Crypto is not about rolling the dice but it’s about making tough decisions.
PayExpo 2019: Monzo COO not so sure it needed to be a bank for its success
His reasons boil down to expensive, slow and heavy hoops since its licence.
PayExpo 2019: We will be taking action, says FCA on insufficient safeguarding
The regulators found banks are delaying safeguarding precautions.
Consumer champion app Snoop goes live, founded by ex-Virgin Money execs
The UK-based fintech is accepting sign ups on its waiting list.
Beyond personalisation
Recognising who customers are, what they believe, how they respond and act.
Five lessons global banks can learn from African fintechs
Mobile payments have been positioned as a ground-breaking idea but Africans have been doing that for a while.
Funding the revolution: the dawn of digital banking
Traditional banking giants are feeling the squeeze.
Regulators could delay Facebook’s Libra launch, says executive
Libra’s MD says regulators must be “fully onboard” first.
Swedish challenger bank PFC goes live on Mambu technology
Mambu banking engine gets green light 10 months after launch.
NatWest online banking glitch exposes account details to wrong customers
Customers could see “bank details, balances and transactions” of other customers.
TransferWise delivers cheaper international payment service to US
The service gives customers access to the real exchange rate.
Sibos 2019: Final wrap-up of talks, interviews and daily news
See our final wrap-up of the London-hosted four day event!
Mobile finance fintech Channel VAS lands $54m investment
Investors see potential in Africa’s “growing yet underpenetrated mobile airtime market.”
Fibank, Mastercard and Garmin launch pay watch
The tech enables contactless POS and ATM transactions.
