FinTech


IBM and eight banks unleash we.trade platform for blockchain-powered commerce

IBM and eight banks have unveiled we.trade – the new name for their Digital Trade Chain shared platform using distributed ledger technology (DLT) for domestic and cross-border commerce. Since January 2017, a group of seven banks (Deutsche Bank, HSBC, KBC, Natixis, Rabobank, Societe Generale and UniCredit), together with IBM, have been developing the Digital Trade […]

Sibos 2017: APIs – a holistic approach

In today’s (17 October) session at Sibos, API in financial services: the key to the future?, the discussion panel participants were in agreement on the following: if your want your API strategy to work, you’ve got to have a holistic approach to it across the organisation.

BNP Paribas and EY explore private blockchain for treasury operations

BNP Paribas ALM Treasury and EY have completed a pilot demonstrating the use of blockchain to improve global internal treasury operations for the bank. The ALM Treasury department, which manages the bank’s internal ops, at the service of all three operating divisions of the group, carried out the pilot, tested internally this summer. According to […]

BIAN unveils API-ready release to boost cloud banking ambitions

The Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN), a not-for-profit fintech industry body, has launched its latest release of its service landscape. Termed SL 6.0, the framework is designed to provide a “globally standardised and simplified” banking architecture structure, using a service-based architecture.

Sibos 2017: collaboration vital to avoid dinosaur status

The question of whether – and in what form – banks will survive in the future depends largely on how the forces of changing customer behaviour, technology and regulation will play out on different types of banks.

Instant payments in Europe: moving from theory to practice

We live in impatient times – everyone wants to be able to pay who they want when they want, instantly and regardless of location. The UK has had instant payments since 2008; Faster Payments volumes have exceeded all predictions and now exceed 135 million per month.

The race to meaningfully engage with customers is on

The disruptive threats that banks face today are well documented: fintechs, decentralised cryptocurrencies, distributed ledger technology and now the tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Apple, to name a few. These players are all now placing themselves between retail banks and their customers, meaning that banks are not just competing with other banks anymore.

Sibos 2017: social media – identity capitalism

“Our social and business communications are edited by tech,” Vladan Joler, director of Share Foundation, stated at the Sibos Innotribe panel, How does Facebook know you better than you know yourself?.

FIS and Citi team up for real-time payments for corporate treasury

FIS and Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions are working together to enable real-time payments and cash management for their corporate treasury customers. Using the CitiConnect application programming interfaces (APIs), FIS has connected its Trax corporate payments factory to the suite of Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions – enabling integration with Citi’s core treasury management functionality, […]

Sibos 2017 opening plenary: data is the new battleground

Welcome to Sibos 2017 in Toronto – bringing together 8,000+ delegates from 150 countries. And this year we have a new (or the vintage new?) theme: data. Not the “big data” though (that everyone was talking about a few Sibos conferences ago), but just data.

IBM teams with Dream for payments on the cloud

IBM has teamed with Toronto-based firm Dream Payments – bringing its cloud and security capabilities to help the firm offer mobile point of sale solutions and business-to-business (B2B) payments.

Liquidity management: real-time nostro time?

As part of its global payments innovation initiative, Swift and a group of banks have been trialling distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the reconciliation of nostro databases in real-time.

Interview: Robert Barnes, TradeIX – the IX in Trade

In an exclusive interview with trade finance specialist TradeIX, co-founder and CEO Robert Barnes explains how banks’ senior management is focusing on one goal and why product silos simply do not work.

Instant payments momentum gathers pace globally as Swift strengthens its role

Instant payments are set to be one of this year’s hot topics at Sibos. Last week, Swift and EBA Clearing announced that users of EBA’s instant payments system, RT1, will be able to access the platform via SwiftNet Instant, Swift’s instant payments messaging solution, from November 2018. Elsewhere, Australian consumers have been told they will be able to make instant payments from January next year.

Daily News at Sibos 2017 – Day 1

Read our first Daily News at Sibos edition of the Sibos 2017 conference in Toronto – all the latest news and analysis from Swift’s premier event of the year. Free to read online or pick up a complimentary print copy if you are at Sibos!

IBM, KlickEx Group and Stellar unveil cross-border payments solution

IBM, KlickEx Group, a regional financial services company, and Stellar, a non-profit organisation that supports an open source blockchain network, have unveiled a new regional cross-border payments solution using IBM’s blockchain technology to provide clearing and settlement of trades on a single network in real time.

Finicity teams with DataVerify

Data aggregation and insights company Finicity has integrated with risk mitigation firm DataVerify to offer mortgage lenders real-time borrower asset verification.

Ripple entices banks with new accelerator programme

One of the first rules of basic economics is that incentives matter. Blockchain solutions company Ripple must be privy to this rule as it has unveiled a new accelerator programme and marketing incentives to promote bank interest.

Samsung loses its CEO despite record profits

The CEO of Samsung Electronics – Oh-Hyun Kwon – has thrown in the towel, citing an “unprecedented crisis” at the company as his reason, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology’s sister publication). The specifics of that crisis were not revealed in “an emotional letter” (according to the Samsung press release) sent to all employees by Kwon, who […]

Microsoft and AWS buddy up to democratise machine learning

Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have teamed up to launch an open-source, deep learning library called Gluon which will make machine learning (ML) more accessible to a wider range of developers, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology’s sister publication). That will be the key to winning the machine learning race. Not making the most complex and […]

Ten questions for, and about, AI

I have had it with the stream of articles about what artificial intelligence (AI) can do. Yes, machine learning works. It is possible to analyse key words, correlate them with other key words, do a massive amount of statistics, and find out some stuff. People cannot do that and computers can. Is this AI?

Infographic: demystifying the cross-border remittances ecosystem

With a large chunk of the global workforce migrating to foreign countries in search of lucrative career opportunities or better living, the World Bank estimates that migrants will send up to $636 billion home in 2017, with three-quarters of that being remitted to developing countries. In 2015, $440 billion in remittances was sent back to […]

Mauritius looks to blockchain for financial inclusion boost

The State Bank of Mauritius, SBM Group and SALT, creator of a blockchain-backed loan platform, have entered into an exploratory relationship to use blockchain assets as collateral for lending services. SALT, which stands for Secured Automated Lending Technology, says it offers risk mitigation software which allows financial entities, like SBM, to participate in this new […]

Commerce platform Omnyway raises $12.75m in Series A funding

In a round led by Nyca, CommerzVentures, and CEFIF, augmented digital commerce platform Omnyway has raised $12.75 million in new funding, reports David Penn at Finovate (Banking Technology‘s sister company). The Series A will give Omnyway (formerly Omnypay) the ability to launch new services, expand operations, and add to its customer base both in the […]

Doxo surpasses 30,000 payable billers on its platform

Seattle-based consumer bill pay service Doxo now has more than 30,000 billers on its platform, allowing users the ability to pay even more companies from a single website, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). This achievement also gives Doxo a new status – the company now has more billers on its platform […]

National Bank of Canada joins SecureKey’s digital identity network

At the beginning of the year, SecureKey announced that it had won an $800,000 grant from the US Department of Homeland Security in support of the company’s development of a blockchain-based digital identity network. Today, the Ontario-based authentication specialist unveiled the latest institution to join that network: the National Bank of Canada, reports David Penn […]

Fintech funding round-up: 13 October 2017

Mongolia gets a mention in this concise fintech funding round-up. Features OakNorth Bank, AND Global and TransFICC. UK challenger OakNorth Bank has secured £154 million investment as it looks to lend a further £1.5 billion to businesses in the country in 2018, and then attempt to move on globally. The funding came from the Clermont […]