FinTech


Trio triumph in Innotribe’s African start-up challenge

Innotribe, Swift’s innovation arm, has revealed the three winners of its third 2017 Startup Challenge for Africa in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Each start-up receives a €10,000 cash prize and will share their insights about innovation in Africa at Sibos in Toronto. The trio are: IroFit Technologies – offers small businesses processing for in-store mobile/card payments […]

Are Passwords Here to Stay?

Even as security experts lobby for tighter authentication, a study demonstrates that passwords still command the loyalty of consumers. A payments expert discusses why biometrics and other methods lag behind the warhorse of digital protection.

The View from Finovate

Payments compete for attention with “RegTech” while an overall lull in disruption suggests that fintech could be in the eye of a storm.

Tokyo turns up volume in foreign fintech talent hunt

With its shrinking population and its growing interest in fintech, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) has turned to Accenture to support recruiting companies find the right stuff from abroad. According to Japan’s health ministry, the nation’s population is expected to fall from 127 million to 88 million in 2065, dropping further to 51 million by […]

Paytm to launch payments bank next week

India’s Paytm has at last got final approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and is set to unveil its Paytm Payments Bank on 23 May. The bank was set to launch in August 2016, and teamed with IT services integrator Wipro for its plan. No reasons were given for the delay. As reported […]

Mobile money could make Africa the new boss

Samsung Pay has officially launched in the UK, continuing the evolution of the digital economy, but does this technology have the potential to disrupt the global pecking order?

Knowledge economy in financial services: from curator to conductor

Once upon a time, not so long ago, companies tried to generate new business by sending marketing messages to prospective clients by post. Direct or “junk” mail – sending a leaflet or letter to anyone for whom the firm had a job title, street address or postcode – was pretty unsophisticated, often derided as a “scattergun” approach.

IBM heats up Chile’s financial sector with blockchain

IBM and Chile’s Santiago Exchange, the largest in the country, have teamed up to introduce blockchain across the country’s financial sector. The agreement makes the Santiago Exchange the “first stock market in Latin America” to apply IBM blockchain within its short selling system for securities lending. Built by IBM and Santiago Exchange, the solution is […]

Equifax forms new alliance to develop open banking products

Equifax, credit information provider Castlight and Oakbrook Finance, the owners of consumer loan brand Likely Loans, have teamed up to develop new products for the 2018 open banking initiative. Under open banking, Equifax says bank transaction data will play a crucial role in lending decisions. Lenders will have access to real-time and historic account and […]

Crosstown Civic Credit Union in digital banking tech revamp

Crosstown Civic Credit Union, a 31,000-member institution in Winnipeg, Canada, is modernising its digital banking delivery channels with Central 1 Credit Union. Crosstown Civic CU is implementing Central 1’s MemberDirect platform, provided on a hosted basis.

Jabre Capital turns to Broadridge for risk management

Asset management firm Jabre Capital Partners has chosen Broadridge’s integrated trading, portfolio management, and risk management platform to help manage its front, middle and back-office operations. Broadridge says its solution will enable Jabre to streamline and automate workflow, and help meet its pre- and post-trade compliance requirements while providing connectivity to brokers and EMS platforms. […]

Sweet sixteen keen on CCRManager’s trade finance platform

Sixteen financial institutions (FIs) are onboard for CCRManager’s new electronic platform, developed for the distribution of trade finance, supply chain finance and working capital assets. Bank of China, DBS Bank, ICICI Bank, Swiss Re Corporate Solutions and UniCredit have signed up as members of the platform to support their trade risk distribution businesses. In addition, […]

Fintech boosted by IBM’s quantum computing leap

Fintech innovation could be getting a push as IBM has built and tested its most powerful universal quantum computing processors. IBM says this development opens up a range of possibilities within the fintech world. Namely, solutions to optimisation problems found in supply chains, modelling financial data, and risk analysis; making facets of artificial intelligence (AI) […]

Rise and shine with Wipro’s blockchain nine

Indian IT firm Wipro has developed nine blockchain-based solutions for banking financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, retail and consumer goods industries. The solutions were defined, designed and co-developed with Wipro’s clients in its blockchain innovation lab. In terms of fintech and insurtech, these concepts include trade finance and P2P insurance for the “sharing economy” […]

Fintech funding round-up: 17 May 2017

Quickly following on from the cash flow glow of 15 May, here’s another fintech funding round-up. Features Additiv, BZ Bank, Symphony, BNP Parabis and IOTA. Zurich-based digital finance provider Additiv knows how to stay healthy as it has secured its first capital investment funding round of CHF 21 million ($21.3 million). The round was headed […]

Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up: 17 May 2017

The world moves fast, so you need a fast read. A round-up of key events in the blockchain and Bitcoin arena. Featuring Coinsilium Group, SatoshiPay, Aragon, ShapeShift and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Blockchain accelerator Coinsilium Group reveals that SatoshiPay, a “nano-payments” company in which Coinsilium has a 12.08% equity interest, has added PayPal as a new […]

Five start-ups fire up with Abu Dhabi Global Market’s RegLab

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has approved its first batch of Regulatory Laboratory (RegLab) firms comprising five local and international fintech start-ups. The start-ups were selected from a pool of 11 applicants and are now ready to further develop and test their innovations at the fintech regulation lab. Richard Teng, CEO of the Financial Services […]

Apple Pay launches in Italy

Apple Pay has landed in Italy with users able to add Mastercard, Maestro, Visa and V Pay credit and debit cards to the app. On the Italian Apple Pay website it says that the cards can be used with the banking services of Boon, Carrefour and UniCredit. It also states that more will be coming […]

Corvil’s virtual Cara cares for cybersecurity scares

Trading tech firm Corvil has launched “Cara” – its virtual security expert designed for electronic trading businesses looking to solve cyberattack issues. Powered by machine learning algorithms, Cara works in tandem with Corvil’s existing analytics appliances and it autonomously identifies vulnerabilities and possible attacks within trading environments. It then runs multi-dimensional security analytics that detects […]

SAP fires up Leonardo platform for digital innovation

SAP has made a raft of announcements (and promises) at its annual Sapphire conference in Orlando, Florida. Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP, says the company continues to be committed to its “empathy” strategy unveiled last year and the time is now for “the urgency of action”. The vendor has unveiled its new SAP Leonardo platform […]

Brazil’s central bank mulls new rules to boost fintech

The Central Bank of Brazil is eyeing up new regulations this year to oversee and assist fintech firms across the nation, according to Reuters. In a Reuters interview with the bank’s director, Otavio Damaso, he says increased innovation and a growing number of fintechs are all “very positive” for the efficiency of Brazil’s financial system. […]

SIX and Credit Suisse play same game with ATM software launch

SIX and Credit Suisse have unveiled ATMfutura – a cash dispenser which displays the same user interface and guidance on all ATMs in Switzerland. SIX and its partners were commissioned by Swiss banks to develop the centralised multivendor software and it is planned to function on all bank ATMs in the alpine nation from 2018. […]

European banks call for EC support on screen scraping ban

The European Banking Federation (EBF) is asking the European Commission (EC) for its help on a screen scraping ban due to concerns over the privacy of client data, cybersecurity and innovation. The EBF wants the EC not to dismiss a key recommendation made by the European Banking Authority (EBA) on future electronic payments in the […]

Samsung Pay makes its UK debut

Samsung Pay has arrived in the UK with Visa keen to reveal that its account holders can use their compatible Samsung smartphones for purchases worldwide. In terms of Visa, the service is available to its cardholders who bank with MBNA, Nationwide and Santander. Samsung adds that its app can be used with HSBC (Mastercard and […]

Virgin Money walks away from Co-op Bank takeover talks

Virgin Money has withdrawn from a potential takeover of the UK’s Co-op Bank as the struggling lender prioritises talks with a group of hedge funds about a financial restructuring, according to Sky News. As Banking Technology reported in February, the Co-op Bank was put up for sale – with the minority investor Co-op Group saying […]

A credit union star is born with Constellation launch

North Carolina-based Coastal Federal Credit Union and eight partners have unveiled Constellation Digital Partners – an organisation offering the “first and only” suite of digital financial services dedicated solely to credit unions. The creation of the firm and its platform is the result of a three-year long R&D effort, which culminated in the filing of […]

India seeks to avoid ATM tears from WannaCry ransomware

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is telling the nation’s banks to operate their ATM networks only after the machines receive a Windows update to protect them from the WannaCry ransomware affecting systems across the globe. The computer malware has spread across 150 countries and takes over users’ files with a demand of $300 to […]

First National Bank of Pandora opens up to tech revamp with Fiserv

Ohio-based First National Bank of Pandora has selected Fiserv’s Premier core account processing platform for a front-to-back office technology overhaul. The bank has also chosen Retail Online and Business Online from Fiserv for consumer and business online banking, Mobiliti for mobile banking, CheckFree RXP for electronic bill payment, and Web Hosting and Design Services. Todd […]

Westpac takes first steps in cloud core system plan

Australian bank Westpac has gone live with the first stages of its tech overhaul in Australia to move its core processes from its own premises and into the cloud. According to the Australian Financial Review, it “has already moved two core banking processes to the cloud since the end of March, and intends to have […]

WorldRemit targets migrant market with US mobile money move

Digital money transfer service WorldRemit is now available in the US and it is targeting the nation’s migrant market with its mobile money services. The firm wants to tap into the $135 billion US remittance market (the global market is $600 billion) – and says mobile money lets people in emerging market economies send and […]

Fintech funding round-up: 15 May 2017

Brevity and celerity. It’s our latest fintech funding round-up for a quick fix – featuring Axoni, Citi, MarketInvoice, Banco BNI Europa, Alibaba and Qupital. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) provider Axoni has revealed that Citi has joined its Series A funding round, bringing the total amount raised to over $20 million. Citi joins a group of […]

Apple’s $200m acquisition wants to shed light on dark data

Apple has reportedly made another sly move into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) through the $200 million acquisition of dark data firm Lattice, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology’s sister publication). The purchase has been brought to light by TechCrunch, and will add a small, but respected team of AI engineers to the ranks of the […]

China’s central bank sets up fintech committee

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has set up a fintech committee, aimed at strengthening financial research, planning and co-ordination. On its website, the nation’s central bank doesn’t offer specifics about the new committee, but says fintech has “injected new vitality”, but also “brought new challenges” for financial security. PBOC will study the impact of […]

The Monday mindset: 15 May 2017

Fintech zeitgeist! 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, Antony Peyton, Banking Technology’s deputy editor, looks at why journalism is not controlled by your company. Well, not here anyway. Hey fintech […]

White paper: value of commercial cards for banks and their clients

This free white paper provides a structured framework for measuring performance of commercial card programmes across multiple industry sectors, suggests a range of norms for card penetration and usage, and describes the key data points for measurement. It also describes the actions that card issuers could take to maximise value from the programmes they have running: retaining business that is already fruitful, and nurturing business which could be more abundantly fruitful.

Misys brings AI to its trade monitoring software

Misys is getting in on the artificial intelligence (AI) act, with the launch of Misys FusionCapital Detect – a component for its trading solution which uses machine learning to spot booking errors, anomalies and unusual activity. The firm says FusionCapital Detect behaves as a personal assistant for trade validation teams, red flagging probable mistakes that […]