Mastercard has teamed with Turkish mobile retail firm Getir to use its bot for the “first” Masterpass payments in Facebook Messenger. Customers search for Getir (think “get here”) in Messenger, chat with the bot in a “natural, conversational way”, and make a payment with Masterpass. Getir says users can receive a ten-minute delivery from its […]
Bank of Baroda, a public sector bank in India, has launched a fellowship programme to support fintech, rural, agricultural and financial inclusion start-ups.
Turkey’s largest bank Isbank is partnering with PPRO Group for cross-border payments in more regions. The deal means the bank can offer e-commerce merchants 13 local alternative payment methods worldwide. Isbank says it can now also extend access to real-time online banking payment methods and e-wallets in more than 25 countries in Europe, Asia and […]
Fintech Valley Vizag, a project championed by the Government of the State of Andhra Pradesh in India, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Visa and Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters will use the infrastructure provided by the government and local university resources to build fintech projects in the area. Visa is expected to support […]
Bharti Airtel, through its subsidiary Bharti Airtel Services, has acquired a stake in Seynse Technologies, an India-based fintech start-up. In a regulatory filing to the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the telecommunications company revealed that it was interested in the firm’s digital lending platform, Loan Singh. The solution provides loans to “credit-worthy yet underserved” […]
Mahindra Comviva has launched Payplus Aadhaar Pay, a merchant payment acceptance solution, as it targets the rural areas of India. The Aadhaar infrastructure, created by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), onboards customers and provide them with online services. UIDAI collects the biometric and demographic data of residents, stores them in a centralised database, […]
Infosys is fighting back over allegations made by an anonymous whistleblower that its $200 million acquisition of Israeli firm Panaya was a big old mess. The whistleblower says in an email that Infosys’ acquisition price in February 2015 was over the odds, as the company had been valued at $162 million by Israel Growth Partners. […]
A number of banks in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have signed up to use Swift’s Know Your Customer (KYC) Registry, a centralised repository that maintains a standardised set of information about correspondent banks, funds distributors and custodians required for due diligence processes. In both deals, Swift worked with its business partner in the Central Asia region, […]
Pakistan’s Bank of Khyber (BOK) has chosen Autosoft Dynamics’ Islamic treasury management system, Adams, and its RTGS STP utility (real-time gross settlement system straight-through processing), AutoRTGS. The government-owned bank will use Adams (automatic deal, money market and securities trading system) for conventional and Islamic treasuries, while AutoRTGS will be used for processing fund transfers between […]
Turkey’s largest bank Isbank and its tech partner Monitise have launched a money transfer service via Apple’s iMessage – a first in the republic. Using Isbank’s new mobile banking app, IsCep, users are now able to request and send money through iMessage. As Banking Technology reported in January, IsCep also allows “for the first time” […]
Pakistan-based Askari Bank has gone live with Autosoft’s Islamic treasury management system, Adams Islamic, and its RTGS STP utility (real-time gross settlement system straight-through processing), AutoRTGS. The bank can manage its Islamic treasury operations using Adams Islamic as well as process funds transfers between banks using AutoRTGS. Adams Islamic is also integrated with the bank’s […]
The Indian city of Visakhapatnam, the commercial capital of Andhra Pradesh, has launched five start-up challenges in its quest to become a national and global hub for fintech. The big plan is to build an ecosystem including start-up entrepreneurs, innovators, incubators, investors and academia. Several start-ups including Paytm, Blocktrust, Knolskape, Transaction Analyst, GMS, ValueLabs have […]
Several Indian Bitcoin start-ups have formed the Blockchain and Virtual Currency Association of India as they look to quell investors’ virtual currency fears becoming a reality. Coinsecure, Searchtrade, Unocoin and Zebpay have banded together in response to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) recent circular warning people that it has not authorised dealings in or […]
Digital money transfer service WorldRemit is now available in Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, expanding its partnership with the Russian “Contact” payment system. The development follows WorldRemit’s recent service launch across Russia in collaboration with Contact. The firm’s users can now send money to be collected as cash pick up at more than 3,000 locations […]
Fintech zeitgeist! Welcome to the third in a new series of brief reports. 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 we welcome the views of guest writer Soumik Roy on India’s latest budget and its implications for e-payments and digital economy.
Amid India’s recent boom in m-wallet transaction volume following a government discontinuation of two popular currency notes, the government now is considering developing an insurance framework for mobile wallet and electronic transactions. Government officials from the IT Ministry already have begun discussions with m-wallet providers and insurance companies on how to insure money in the wallet apps, according to The Financial Express.
India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) has launched and is rolling out pilot services in Raipur and Ranchi. IPPB is the third payments bank to be authorised in India, and follows on the heels of Paytm (launched last year) and Airtel (opened for business this year). IPPB’s chief executive officer, A P Singh, says: “The idea […]
Turkey’s largest bank Isbank has launched a new P2P money transfer service, called “social account”, available for the “first time” in the republic. The launch quickly follows on from the release of its new app, IsCep, to allow “for the first time” banking and stock exchange transactions through one application with real-time data. With the […]
DCB Bank, a private sector bank in India, plans to allow customer transactions and account opening through iris scans for Aadhaar authentication. The Aadhaar infrastructure, created by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), onboards customers and provide them with online services. UIDAI collects the biometric and demographic data of residents, stores them in a […]
Turkey’s largest bank Isbank has unveiled its new app, IsCep, to allow “for the first time” banking and stock exchange transactions through one application with real-time data. The bank says IsCep has been integrated into its Mobil Borsa (mobile stock market) and is also available for all foreign customers in Turkey. Isbank deputy chief executive […]
Pakistan-based Samba Bank has signed for BenchMatrix’s retail loan origination system, RiskNucleus LOS. The solution will automate the bank’s consumer lending processes across its entire network of 37 branches and facilitate “moving towards a fully paperless environment”, BenchMatrix says.
The Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), set up by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), has recently issued a whitepaper, “Applications of Blockchain Technology to Banking and Financial Sector in India”. We summarise the report and highlight the key findings.
Fintech zeitgeist! Welcome to the first in a new series of brief reports. 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. Anything goes, so here goes. Rome versus Carthage. Britain versus France. History shows […]
India’s Yes Bank is inviting fintech start-ups to take part in its Yes Fintech Accelerator Programme. The application process is open until 2nd February 2017.
Airtel Payments Bank, India’s “first” payments bank, has started national operations with services now live across the country. As Banking Technology reported in July 2016, telecoms giant Airtel was planning its own bank. It says it is a “fully digital and paperless” bank, and from today (12 January), over 250,000 neighbourhood Airtel retail stores across […]
India-based HDFC Bank is about to introduce its first “humanoid” branch assistant – Ira. The human-sized robot was built together with artificial intelligence (AI) company Asimov Robotics.
Axis Bank has become the first bank in India to use Ripple’s blockchain network for cross-border payments. The bank, the third largest in the private sector, will use the network for real-time settlement as it targets future growth. Amit Sethi, president and CIO at Axis Bank, says: “We will come out with solutions for our […]
A group of senior executives in India’s digital sector are looking to create a group of chief digital officers (CDOs) or equivalent in the country.
State Bank of India (SBI) is working on its own digital bank – SBI Digi Bank – which it plans to launch in the next three to six months.
Pakistan-based Samba Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Samba Financial Group, has gone live with new core banking software, Temenos’ T24 (R15).
ICICI Bank goes for Twitter, while HDFC Bank banks on Facebook Messenger.
Look back at some of the major payments projects in 2016, with Banking Technology’s top ten.
Money transfer firms WorldRemit and Xpress Money have partnered to unveil a remittance service to Pakistan. Through Xpress Money’s agent partner network, WorldRemit customers will be able to make instant money transfers to be collected at over 9,500 cash pick-up locations all over the country – including major banks, Al Habib Bank, Bank Alfalah, Bank […]
India-based National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) has launched NextGen – a new trading and surveillance system developed by MillenniumIT (a trading tech subsidiary of London Stock Exchange).
Société Générale is partnering with Smartkarma, a curated online platform, for investment insight focused on the Asian markets. Under this global agreement, Société Générale will provide its institutional clients access to a “new form” of equity research based on “demand driven and customised content”. Société Générale says it is the first global investment bank to […]
Rising cybercrime in India is no secret. According to a report by Symantec, India now ranks third in the world, after the US and China, as a source of malicious activity. In fact, the National Crime Records Bureau data reveals that in the three years up to 2013, registered cases of cyber crime were up 350%, from 966 to 4356. Dubious distinctions both, and give banks and the financial sector in India cause for worry.
India’s second largest bank, Bank of Baroda, is calling on fintech start-ups to solve the challenge of paying blue-collar workers.
Where is India with the adoption of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) so far, and what is the outlook for the future?
Bangladesh’s central bank is hoping to get back $30 million more of the $81 million stolen from its account at the New York Federal Reserve in February, according to Reuters. As Banking Technology reported earlier this year, Bangladesh Bank said a total of $101 million was “wrongly transmitted”, of which $20 million went to a […]
City Union Bank (CUB) has become the first bank in India to introduce a robot to deal with customer queries. Called Lakshmi, the robot is based on the IBM Watson artificial intelligence (AI) engine.
