A new law in New Zealand is being readied with plans to bring in more innovation and accountability to credit unions. Called the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions (Regulatory Improvements) Amendment Bill, the new legislation will update the law for credit unions and their associations. It has been read for the first time in Parliament. […]
Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank continued its drive to take centre stage in the evolution of the tech industry with the acquisition of Boston Dynamics from Google/Alphabet. Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication) reports that Boston Dynamics has been a fairly high profile robotics pioneer in recent years, specialising in humanoid and quadrupedal machines apparently designed to […]
With its increase in innovation BBVA has created a Global Patent Office (GPO) to protect its intellectual property (IP) – particularly in biometrics and artificial intelligence (AI). The GPO will put the bank’s IP work in a single office and offer collaboration between departments, agents and training. Don Relyea, director of the BBVA global patent […]
It wouldn’t quite be June if we didn’t have rain or Cisco’s annual visual networking index (VNI) forecast. We’ve had plenty of rain, now it’s time to tuck into some stats! Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication) reports that you probably didn’t need us to tell you, but internet traffic is going to grow. The total […]
An inevitable consequence of the recent spate of terrorist incidents has been calls for greater access to private data and now the European Commission has joined in, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). According to a Reuters report the European Union (EU) wants to make it easier for authorities to get hold of private data […]
German payments company AEVI and Australian software firm Moroku have teamed up to offer POS software in AEVI’s B2B app store. Called Marrakash, Moroku’s software is for small retail and hospitality merchants that integrates their business, products, customers and payment systems into one platform. Moroku says it lets firms run their business “entirely from a […]
French bank Crédit Mutuel Arkéa has chosen Moneythor’s analytical engine to be at the heart of “Max”, a personal finance assistant app for its new start-up Nouvelle Vague. Max is a mobile-only initiative of Nouvelle Vague, which operates in several cities in France (Paris, Bordeaux, Brest, Rennes etc). It will be available on 1 September […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
TradeIX has launched its TIX Platform, the “first open platform” for trade finance powered by blockchain. The platform provides banks, alternative funders, business-to-business (B2B) networks, technology providers and corporates with a way to finance trade-related assets. Like everyone else commenting on trade finance, Rob Barnes, CEO of TradeIX, says the market has “high-cost, high-maintenance, time-consuming […]
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has unveiled its Bancs app development kit (ADK) to let banks design and build their own apps. The firm says the ADK enables financial institutions to build their digital offerings without the need for mobile development skills. The ADK comes with its own array of widgets, controls and components; and the […]
Mizuho Bank has opted for a suite of IBM services to power its open banking ambitions in Japan. The bank will use IBM’s FinTech API solution, API Connect on the IBM Cloud and IBM DataPower Gateway. The shift to API banking is a common theme for many in fintech at present. According to IBM, the […]
Mastercard has unveiled its B2B Hub to help SMEs speed up invoice and payment processes with accounts payable and payment automation tools. According to the firm, a majority of all B2B payments in the US are still made via cheque with manual payment processes. The Mastercard B2B Hub, delivered through card issuers, is an automated […]
Fair play is on its way as Hong Kong’s Private Wealth Management Association (PWMA) has adopted the “Treat Customers Fairly Charter for Private Wealth Management Industry”. Developed by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the PWMA, the charter has five “high-level principles” and examples of measures to guide PWMA members in their implementation. These […]
For those worried about artificial intelligence (AI) taking over the world, the University of California has got your back with an idea to make robots neurotic to stop them getting too cocky, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). One of the concerns which has been raised through the implementation of AI, and also the advancement […]
German payment service provider Concardis is bringing Chinese mobile payment solution Alipay to Austria and Switzerland. Clothing brand Gössl will be the first merchant in Austria to let Chinese citizens pay via smartphone and the Alipay app. The roll-out in the Swiss market is planned for October this year. In Germany, Concardis says it has […]
With just under 12 months to go until the European Union (EU) imposes new data protection regulations, there seems to be a growing sense of unpreparedness throughout the industry, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). Perhaps it’s because of the timeframes which were involved for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), or a misunderstanding of […]
It felt like only yesterday (7 June) that we published a fintech funding round-up. In fact, we did. But this latest version features Kasikornbank, Lmrkts, International Finance Corporation and Entersekt. Kasikornbank (Kbank), one of the largest banks in Thailand, has launched its “Beacon Venture Capital” investment unit with $30 million on hand to support start-ups […]
California-based SafeAmerica Credit Union is building a new omnichannel banking platform with fintech start-up Bankjoy.
Four Australian banks, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank (NAB) and Westpac are now live or planning to implement Swift’s global payments innovation (gpi) initiative. According to Swift, these Australian banks represent over 80% of cross-border payments flow for Australia. The banks all say the same stuff – so […]
San-Francisco based RocketSpace, with the support of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and NatWest, has opened its campus in London for fintech and tech start-ups. Housed in NatWest’s (a subsidiary of RBS) Regents House in London, the campus is the “first of its kind” in the capital and RocketSpace’s only international location. The campus occupies […]
The humans at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have laid down some guidelines and want opinions on providing robo-advisory services. In a consultation paper released today (7 June), MAS says it seeks to support innovation in financial services by recognising the unique characteristics of digital platforms. MAS states that financial institutions (FIs) regulated under […]
London-based Bank of Lambeth is getting ready to enter the UK’s highly competitive challenger bank arena. The community bank is the brainchild of Duncan Law at Transition Town Brixton. The latter is an initiative that looks to new ways of dealing with climate change, and energy and financial issues. In a report in the Brixton […]
American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has opted for SunTec’s Xelerate billing system for its corporate clients. According to SunTec, its platform can onboard new geographic regions and “weaves data locked in various legacy and modern billing systems” to create relevant offers for American Express GBT’s corporate clients. Michael Konstas, VP of billing strategy at […]
Malaysia’s largest bank, Maybank, has unveiled its fintech sandbox to let ASEAN start-ups develop and test new ideas. As the “first in ASEAN”, the Maybank FinTech Sandbox offers a place “free of charge” to help developers throughout the region. The bank is keen to tap into ideas around cloud, the internet of things (IoT) and […]
Fintech funding can be an intense blur of money, jargon and unerringly similar expansion plans. Here’s a round-up that gets to the heart of the matter. Features Plynk, IHS Markit, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and Wahed. Ireland’s Plynk, a money messaging app, has revealed a Series A raise of €25 million. Led by […]
New Zealand-based SBS Bank is rolling out a new “end-to-end” digital banking platform supplied by Sandstone Technology.
Anders la Cour, CEO of ground-breaking payments utility Saxo Payments Banking Circle, which is underpinning the service propositions of a growing number of payments businesses, reports on the payment pain points currently faced by merchants who have ambitions to trade globally.
Turkey-based Garanti Bank’s new mobile app has won BBVA’s “Open Talent Ideas” fintech competition. BBVA launched the competition in February, and yesterday (5 June) the ten finalists presented their idea to experts from BBVA’s senior management. The winning idea was GarantiStore, a mobile app able to identify products automatically. Through image recognition techniques or by […]
German fintech incubator FinLeap’s digital insurance platform Element is partnering with financial services group Signal Iduna for new products and services. Element is currently in the process of applying for a life insurance licence under Germany’s Insurance Supervision Act, and plans to offer services in property, accident and liability, and cybersecurity. It will provide “Insurance-as-a-Platform” […]
HSBC Commercial Banking has launched its Connections Hub, a digital platform to connect buyers and sellers around the world. Businesses in Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Singapore, the UK and the US can sign up to the multi-lingual hub for free. The service will be available to customers in France in the coming weeks […]
It’s another farewell to tradition as Vietnam’s TPBank has opted for Scale360’s “Digital Branch” network across the country. The digital option from Scale360, a UK-based fintech start-up with a development centre in Bangkok, replaces the usual brick-and-mortar branch with a video link. The bank plans to open 50 such branches across Vietnam. Branded as TPBank’s […]
OCBC has become the first bank in Singapore to launch a human resource (HR) mobile app for its employees. The app, called “HR in your pocket”, includes an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot that is integrated with the bank’s HR information system. This chatbot can provide responses that are specific to each employee. Examples of use […]
After 18 months of development, UK-based online saving and investing service Moola has launched. The firm says there are 5.4 million “mass affluent people in the UK who have no access to financial advice, but disposable income and a desire to save and invest”. It wants to tap into that market by doing the “hard […]
Apple has unveiled Pay Cash as it looks to fight it out with PayPal, Square and Venmo in the overcrowded peer-to-peer (P2P) payments market. In a range of updates to its mobile operating system, iOS 11, new features to the iPhone and iPad are coming this autumn. Apple Pay users will be able to make […]
The Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE), a new educational platform for the finance industry, has been unveiled. “In a tech world, we bet on people,” CFTE states.
Canada’s banking group CIBC, fintech firm Borrowell and Equifax Canada have unveiled a free credit score for mobile banking users – a “first for a major Canadian Bank”. The credit score is accessed through the CIBC mobile banking app, and clients can get their Equifax credit score which will be updated quarterly, allowing them to […]
Watch out Samsung Pay, but South Korean titan LG Electronics has unleashed its mobile payment service in the country. Called LG Pay, it will be offered first as a service that allows users to pay offline in the same way as a credit card. Its use is limited at the moment to Shinhan, KB, BC […]
The UK’s Nationwide Building Society has opted for release management software from cloud technology start-up Cutover. The deal means London-based Cutover will be the “first completely cloud-based tool with no footprint within Nationwide’s infrastructure”. Cutover’s software lets teams plan, rehearse and execute events. It also offers real-time status visualisation and communications across SMS, voice and […]
Consulting firm EY will acquire Australian cybersecurity and identity and access management (IAM) provider Open Windows. EY says Melbourne-based Open Windows’ expertise and tools will form the basis of a new Asia-Pacific regional IAM advisory platform within EY, to help assess, design, build and operate solutions. Lynn Kraus, Oceania managing partner advisory, EY, says it […]
Following Airbnb’s acquisition of crowdfunding and social payments start-up Tilt in February, it is now being wound down. Tilt (formerly Crowdtilt) was built with the aim to allow groups and communities to collect, fundraise, or pool money online. It was founded five years ago with high hopes. Its co-founder and CEO James Beshara said at […]
