Wirecard and fintech start-up Fundflow have launched an invoice discounting platform for SMEs in Germany. The firms say that SMEs and freelancers can sell their outstanding invoices on the Fundflow website, which then enables refinancing with institutional investors. Wirecard Bank has provided its German banking licence and will handle the payment process. Joachim Kaune, MD […]
It’s expansion time for Android as it reveals that US-based Chase Bank customers can now add their eligible Chase Visa cards to Android Pay. The cards include Freedom, Slate, Sapphire, United Mileage Explorer and Hyatt Credit Card. On top of this American development, in the UK, Android says Santander and TSB customers “will soon be […]
Priceless? Not this time. MasterCard is facing a £19 billion lawsuit (which now has been reduced to £14 billion and filed, as of 8 September 2016) – the biggest in UK legal history – in a collective action over card charges that were passed on to shoppers. The claim is headed by ex-financial services ombudsman […]
UK-based payments vendor Monitise is beginning to turn its fortunes around – with a 45% reduction in operating costs and EBITDA profitability of £600,000 in the second half of the year. As Banking Technology reported in May, the firm brought in a new COO and a new, re-focused business structure. It seems the initiatives have […]
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Barclays have joined forces to let their retail customers move money between Australia and the UK with “just a mobile number”. In a “first between the two countries”, CBA and Barclays say they have worked to connect each of their payment apps together – CBA’s CommBank and Barclays’ Pingit. […]
Finland-based Aktia Bank says its new core banking platform – Temenos’ T24 – “will be implemented step-by-step during the last quarter of 2016”. The project has been underway since 2013. T24 will replace a legacy development by a local vendor, Samlink. The total investment is now estimated to exceed €65 million – a €10 million […]
Lessons learned from Lego’s business renaissance could be the way of the future for fintech innovation. At yesterday’s (7 September 2016) Avaloq Community Conference at the Seminarhotel Bocken in Horgen, Switzerland, the private banking software specialist held an open day as it looks to the future. Our first report included an exclusive interview with CEO […]
Consumers and businesses alike will often consider a company’s reputation before entering an agreement with them. After all, why would anyone choose an organisation which has history of letting its customers down, over another with a spotless track record? It’s unsurprising then that once the reputation of traditional banks in the UK was tarnished by […]
In its first public annual report TransferWise has revealed its revenue tripled to £28 million in the year to March. The UK-based international money transfer platform also says that figure is now about £5 million a month, having doubled in the past 12 months. It was not all good news as pre-tax losses grew to […]
Luxembourg-based start-up SnapSwap, which offers blockchain-based payments, has received authorisation to operate as an electronic money institution (EMI). The firm says the EMI licence, provided by the Ministry of Finance of Luxembourg, allows it to issue debit cards and other payment instruments linked to Gloneta accounts. The latter combines a mobile messenger (chat) with cross-currency […]
Commerzbank is implementing UK-based AxiomSL’s platform to automate regulatory reporting requirements. The bank, Germany’s second largest, plans to deliver the SEC 15c3-1 (Securities and Exchange Commission’s uniform net capital rule) as well as other regulatory mandates such as the Financial and Operational Combined Uniform Single (Focus), Treasury International Capital (TIC), Off Balance Sheet reporting (OBS) […]
One of Russia’s major banking players, MDM Bank, has rolled out a single-tap Mastercard Contactless mobile payments option. The service is underpinned by the WAY4 Host Card Emulation (HCE) technology from OpenWay. MDM Bank’s customers can now pay from their Mastercard account with no need to enter a password or PIN code or even activate […]
Gresham Computing has launched its “Innovation Labs” in Bristol, UK as it looks to tap into local talent and drive more software development. CTO Neil Vernon will lead the team of engineers and developers, and says he is a “big believer in the ‘serendipity of collisions’” – which the new space provides. Vernon adds that […]
Luxembourg-based Lemanik Asset Management has chosen Linedata’s compliance monitoring software – Linedata Compliance. To comply with the Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) and Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) directives, which impose controls and “transparency discipline”, Lemanik decided to manage its report production by itself and chose Linedata to roll out the tech. […]
Customers of Nationwide Building Society in the UK have taken to Twitter to report a host of problems – with direct debits and standing orders not being paid. According to users on Twitter, the bastion of rage and anger, mortgage bills and other payments have not been made. Nationwide’s Twitter feed is now awash with […]
Commerzbank London and UniCredit have “successfully” processed the first UK Bank Payment Obligation (BPO) live transaction. The banks say with the backing of the ICC Banking Commission and Swift, there has been a “growing demand for, and an increasing number of”, BPO transactions, as a “proven” digital settlement tool. Raphael Barisaac, global head of trade […]
London-based Currencycloud is partnering with Arkéa Banking Services, a subsidiary of Credit Mutuel Arkea, to offer clients its Euro bank accounts and direct access to European payments systems. This partnership will enable Currencycloud to process international payments through Target2 for real-time payment settlement. It says this builds on and “enhances” existing capabilities that allow cross-border […]
TerraPay, a mobile-first international network, has bought UK-based Pay2Global Limited to boost its ambitions for European expansion in payments. Pay2Global is being rebranded as Terra Payment Services. In an outright purchase, Netherlands-based TerraPay, which is part of the Mahindra Group, has acquired 100% of Pay2Global for an undisclosed amount. Pay2Global is a digital international money […]
Hinduja Bank in Switzerland has moved to a new core banking system, supplied by Avaloq, Banking Technology understands. Avaloq Banking Suite replaced the legacy Olympic system from rival vendor ERI. Avaloq declined to comment on the story. Hinduja Bank – part of an India-based conglomerate, Hinduja Group – was set up in the late 1970s […]
A group of volunteers is in the process of setting up a new credit union in the Isle of Man – Manx Credit Union. The Manx Credit Union Working Party has been set up, chaired by David Talbot, a retired accountant. “It is non-political and non-denominational,” the Manx Credit Union website states. The volunteers come from […]
Changing your name from Mondo to Monzo does not warrant a news story – unless a rival challenger bank makes some fun out of it. A trademark dispute with another Mondo entailed the new moniker and much unnecessary fanfare. While Monzo revelled in its new name and ignored media queries, Starling Bank decided to do […]
With digital financial services sharply on the rise in the UK, who is leading among the UK lenders? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online lending sites in the UK for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). We’ll be publishing regular updates on a monthly basis, to track the changes, […]
ING Wholesale Banking has launched Virtual Cash Management (VCM), a digital solution for corporates to centralise treasury functions. The firm says VCM enables treasurers to rationalise and simplify account structures and to set-up or “enhance” in-house bank structures with capabilities including invoice matching, reconciliation, internal transfers, and an intercompany loan administration. Dick Oskam, global head […]
Nordea’s Oslo office will welcome 35 start-ups as the bank prepares to assist the firms in fintech innovation. During the week, the best projects (around 20 teams) will be selected to take part in Nordea’s Accelerator programme, which kicks off in the autumn in Stockholm and Helsinki. In total, over 200 companies applied to the […]
Eurobase International has acquired the Parity Treasury Management Software from Manex Treasury Systems, its flagship product. Parity clients and Manex staff will move to Eurobase as part of the deal. Parity users will continue to be supported but will be encouraged to move to Eurobase’s own offering, Siena. Manex is a long-standing software supplier to the […]
Private banking software vendor ERI has completed the implementation of its flagship core system, Olympic, at SEB in Norway. This is the vendor’s first site in the country. Olympic manages SEB’s onshore private banking business and associated transaction processing for Norway. The project commenced in 2013. SEB – already a long-standing Olympic user in Luxembourg, […]
If you’re curious, then it’s been fast and furious. Spending on UK contactless cards in the first half of 2016 has already outstripped contactless spending for the whole of 2015, according to the UK Cards Association. Some £9.27 billion was spent using contactless methods between January and June of this year, more than the total […]
Temenos has officially confirmed it is implementing its software at British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB). As reported by Banking Technology back in February, BACB opted to replace its legacy core system, Misys’ Midas, with T24. Temenos is also supplying its digital channels (Temenos Connect) and analytics (Insight BI) products to the London-based corporate bank. Temenos […]
With digital banking sharply on the rise in the UK – according to the latest figures released by the British Bankers Association – who is leading among the UK retail banks? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online banking sites in the UK for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). […]
A UK-based investment firm, Octopus Investments, is looking to onboard fintech start-ups for its 12-week accelerator programme with Octopus Labs. “We’re rebuilding financial services,” states Octopus Labs. “The financial services sector is broken. We’re on a mission to rebuild it.” The programme will provide mentoring, office space in central London, plus potential access to Octopus […]
The importance of a stable deposits base has increased exponentially in the post-financial crash era. Since the 2007/8 crisis, retail banks have been forced to address huge balance sheet deficit, brought about by the freezing of mechanisms such as wholesale funding. The reaction amongst the major banks has been to stabilise income sources, growing retail […]
Payments provider Ingenico has partnered with Alipay to give Chinese tourists visiting Europe the ability to pay via their Alipay app at any store using the Ingenico solution. With this partnership, Alipay will be imbedded into Ingenico’s in-store payment gateway, which will allow acquirers across Europe to integrate and offer Alipay acceptance to their merchants. […]
Rakuten will open its Rakuten Blockchain Lab (RBL) in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 22 August to develop applications in the fintech and e-commerce sectors. The establishment of RBL follows the acquisition by Rakuten of the IP assets of Bitnet Technologies, operators of a blockchain-powered digital payments platform. Yasufumi Hirai, group executive vice-president, CIO, CISO and […]
NCR Corporation has introduced “a completely new concept” – NCR Innovation Experience Room – an “experimental playground” for financial institutions to “build digital literacy among employees and customers”. Germany-based Volksbank eG Schwarzwald Baar Hegau has become the first taker. It has introduced an experiential room where customers and employees can discover and experience new technologies. […]
The proposed sale of Vocalink to MasterCard, threatens to “kill innovation” in UK payments. This is the damning verdict of AccessPay CEO, Anish Kapoor, who is calling on payments experts to come together to voice their opinions and thoughts, before a final decision is reached. In the time it takes you to read this blog […]
Infosys has issued a statement regarding its work with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to carve out the Williams & Glyn (W&G) subsidiarity. Infosys was a W&G programme technology partner for consulting, application delivery and testing services. It was working on the W&G project since 2013, but this came to an end earlier this month […]
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it has “provisionally” found Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) acquisition of Trayport may give rise to competition concerns. ICE is the largest operator of exchanges and clearing houses in the trading of European utilities. It has its own proprietary software which allows trading of energy commodity and utility derivatives […]
UK-based Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank – which together form CYBG – have introduced Apple Pay to its customers. The payments service is also available to its “B” customers. In May, CYBG unveiled a new digital banking platform, called B, as it gets ready to become a standalone challenger bank. Helen Page, chief marketing officer […]
UK-based challenger Mondo is looking for another £15-20 million in funding as it looks to launch as a “full bank”. Last week, Mondo got its banking licence from the Bank of England. However, Tom Blomfield, CEO at Mondo, say that “authorisation comes with restrictions”. It can only hold a maximum of £50,000 of deposits in […]
Berlin-based start-up Cookies has launched its peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app in Germany. The app is in its beta phase and currently in invite-only mode. Everyone who registered on its website in the past few weeks and months gets a personal invite code, allowing them to use the Cookies App. It says anyone who’s not yet […]
