Alternative credit scoring company, Aire, has raised $5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Sunstone Capital, with funds also coming from White Star Capital, which led the company’s 2016 seed round. Aire’s funding now totals $12 million, reports Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). The London-based company plans to use the funds […]
Absa Bank, a subsidiary of Barclays Africa, has partnered with multilingual text analytics and big data firm, Hello Soda, as it looks to tap into the millennial market. The bank says it wants to make sense of unstructured social data to better understand its consumer base. According to Absa, Hello Soda provides new ways for […]
The partnerships keep coming for PayPal. Following recent news that the company is partnering with Apple for payments on iTunes and in the App Store, among other places, the company is now expanding its partnership with Samsung to enable PayPal as a payment method in any channel Samsung Pay is accepted, according to the PayPal blog. Banking […]
From a mystery to a European duet. Our latest blockchain and Bitcoin round-up features the secretive SafeToken, China’s Asset Collection Chain, Swissquote and Bitstamp. A former (and anonymous) Goldman Sachs employee has launched the first “anti-bubble” derivative for Bitcoin. They didn’t reveal their name in their email or on the website. A search around hasn’t […]
One small step for consumer choice in e-commerce. One giant leap in PayPal’s quest to be the payment option of choice for shoppers online, reports Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). This week the company announced a partnership with Apple to allow shoppers pay for their purchases at the App Store using PayPal. The feature will be available for users […]
Data aggregation provider Finicity has signed an agreement with JP Morgan Chase to let the bank’s customers choose data to share with apps. The companies will use a direct API to allow Chase customers to share information with the apps and services that Finicity supports. According to the firms, this tokenised access will eliminate the […]
The Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have signed a fintech co-operation agreement and updated an existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) on banking supervision. The agreement aims to help develop a “richer financial ecosystem” in Thailand and Singapore as well as in ASEAN. The pair will share information on emerging […]
Santander is partnering with business commerce platform Tradeshift, for a digital capital solution, the first of which will be supply chain finance (SCF). As reported last year, Tradeshift got an investment from Santander InnoVentures. At that time, Mariano Belinky, managing partner at Santander InnoVentures, said the company “is at the forefront of tackling a very […]
Seedrs will be the sole equity finance provider in a new partnership with challenger bank Fidor.
SME lender iwoca and Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo are partnering to provide Intesa’s SME clients with credit products. The partnership coincides with an investment in iwoca by Neva Finventures, Intesa Sanpaolo’s fintech venture capital arm. Maurizio Montagnese, chief innovation officer at Intesa Sanpaolo, adds that the “industrial synergies” between the firms “could be significant in the […]
Nelson Holzner, newly appointed CEO of AEVI, talks to Banking Technology about the importance of innovation and simplification, and addressing real-life problems with working solutions. “Do more” is AEVI’s motto.
Wirecard and Tencent are working together to give European retailers access to more than 938 million active WeChat and Weixin users by enabling QR code payments at the POS, reports Paybefore (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). The mobile payment solution, WeChat Pay, has more than 600 million active users, which is equivalent to nearly 40% of […]
Australia and New Zealand-based banking group, ANZ, and Westpac have teamed with IBM and shopping centre operator Scentre Group to use blockchain to digitise the bank guarantee process for commercial property leasing. The trial used distributed ledger technology (DLT) to eliminate the need for current paper-based bank guarantee documents, resulting in a “single source of […]
Mizuho Financial Group, Mizuho Bank, trading and investment firm Marubeni Corporation, and Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Insurance have completed a trade transaction between Australia and Japan using blockchain. The participants say all trade-related processes, from issuing the letter of credit to delivering documents, were completed entirely via a digital platform in this project. (See image below […]
BNP Paribas Securities Services and SmartAngels have developed a share register management tool using blockchain. The platform enables unlisted companies to digitalise their financial securities and to manage their shareholder register using a decentralised, distributed ledger. It was developed as part of their partnership formed last year. During testing, BNP Paribas Securities Services and SmartAngels […]
Set sail for fintech! The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.
This year’s Banking Technology Awards are taking place on 13 December in London and there are plenty of reasons why you and your team should be a part of this prestigious event. Besides having a good chance at winning, entering the Awards also allows you to: Make global headlines in the industry if your entry […]
Commerzbank and the Fraunhofer-Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML) in Dortmund have teamed up to research and develop the digitisation of trade finance using blockchain. The bank says by using blockchain or distributed ledger technologies (DLT), it will build a decentralised database for internet of things (ioT) applications and smart contracts. This will offer […]
How did BankMobile become the largest digital bank in the US? Luvleen Sidhu, the bank’s co-founder and chief strategy officer, shares the strategy.
London-based biometric tech vendor Sthaler is working with Nordic payments provider Nets to introduce finger-vein enabled payments to the consumer market in Europe.
The Association of Banks of Singapore (ABS) has unveiled a new funds transfer service – PayNow – that requires only a mobile and identity card numbers to enrol.
BBVA has signed an agreement with Chinese tech giant Ant Financial to enable Chinese tourists to pay in Spanish stores using the Alipay mobile wallet. BBVA is the first Spanish financial institution to be working with Alipay.
The Fintech Association of Hong Kong (FTAHK) has officially launched “to champion an open, inclusive and diverse fintech community in Hong Kong”.
Banking Technology is on the lookout for all the best FinTech projects of the year! Recognising excellence, innovation and the use of IT in banking and financial services, the Banking Technology Awards will be taking place on 13 December in London. Think your achievements deserve a special recognition? Or know projects that do? Nominate today […]
Visa is investing in Klarna, a Swedish payments and banking firm, and the two firms intend “to develop a future strategic partnership”.
Blockchain consortium R3 (which now describes itself as an “enterprise software firm”) and four of its member banks have created a prototype solution for issuance of euro commercial paper (ECP) on R3’s Corda distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform.
A group of seven large European banks, Digital Trade Chain Consortium, have turned to IBM to build and host a new trade finance platform, based on IBM Blockchain powered by Hyperledger Fabric.
Clark, a German insurance robo-advisor, has inked a deal with mobile bank N26. Clark says its Bancassurance-API will help customers of N26 “to better understand their current tariffs and improve their insurance situation”.
The Financial Services Agency of Japan (JFSA) and Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) will work together to promote innovation in financial services in Japan and Australia. Both have completed a framework and they will share information and support the entry of fintech firms into each other’s markets. ASIC says this framework will “help open […]
Facing disruption from fintech providers, traditional banks must embrace APIs and the open-source model to avoid losing their place at the centre of consumers’ financial lives, a new report warns.
SIX Payment Services (SIX) has enabled the Vienna Life Ball in Austria to be cashless for the first time in its history. The Life Ball is an annual AIDS charity event, and 110 cashless point of sale (POS) terminals were installed, configured and serviced by SIX, across the whole arena. There were also 30 top-up […]
Rabobank is modernising and centralising its cross-border payments operations. The software supplier for the new payments hub is Finastra (formerly Misys and D+H).
BBVA and start-up Das-Nano have formed Veridas, a new firm specialising in biometrics for client identification and authentication systems. Veridas, which will be directed by Eduardo Azanza, who is also co-founder of Das-Nano, will research and develop software for the digital verification and authentication of personal identity, through facial, voice, image or document recognition, or […]
This year’s Banking Technology Awards are taking place on 13 December in London and once again we will be recognising individuals for leading and playing an instrumental role in devising and/or delivering the technology strategy to support the key business objectives of an organisation. The Tech Leadership Award category is open to all industry participants worldwide – those […]
Don’t let the blocks cause you too much mental blockage. Our latest blockchain and Bitcoin round-up keeps it ultra-brief. Featuring Ayondo, XBT Provider, Xapo and the European Commission. Financial services firm Ayondo has expanded its product portfolio with the launch of Bitcoin trading, offering access to price movement without the need to open an e-wallet […]
American International Group (AIG), IBM and Standard Chartered have piloted the “first” multinational, smart contract based insurance policy using blockchain. The trio converted a controlled master policy written in the UK, and three local policies in the US, Singapore and Kenya, into a smart contract that provides a shared view of policy data and documentation […]
Know any innovative products, inspirational projects, skilled teams or visionary leaders that deserve a special recognistion this year? Nominate them for a Banking Technology Award!
Singapore Diamond Investment Exchange (SDiX) has teamed with Kynetix and Everledger to trial the “first-ever” blockchain verification and record-keeping service for diamond trading. SDiX, Kynetix, a physical commodity digitisation firm, and Everledger, a supplier of blockchain and distributed ledger (DLT) infrastructure, have completed the first part of their proof of concept. The technology is designed […]
Fintech titan Finastra is turning to IBM to power its banking operations with cloud and cognitive technologies. As reported yesterday (14 June), Misys and DH Corporation (D+H) joined forces to create Finastra, the third largest financial services technology company in the world. With Finastra now officially alive and kicking, it’s wasted no time in showing […]
Mobile payments switch TerraPay has partnered with Yes Bank to enable real-time international money transfers to bank accounts in India – with the Indian migrant market firmly in their sights. TerraPay provides its clearing and settlement service, and via a “Rupee Drawing Arrangement”, its network partners can make the transfers to bank accounts in the […]
