Following a pilot, IBM says its Watson cognitive technology will be extended to Crédit Mutuel’s 20,000 employees and 5,000 branches in France to help with the bank’s operations. This marks the “first commercial use” of Watson by a financial institution in France to assist its staff. The bank’s customer advisors have been using Watson services […]
GoHenry, a UK-based digital banking solution to help young people manage their money, has appointed fraud prevention firm Featurespace to safeguard customers’ accounts. GoHenry was founded by a group of parents to help young people aged six to 18 “learn good money habits”. It is a subscription service, which offers a prepaid debit card and […]
Mastercard has launched its latest biometric card, combining chip technology with fingerprints to verify the cardholder’s identity for in-store purchases. South Africa is the first market to test the evolved technology, with two separate trails recently concluded with Pick n Pay, a supermarket retailer, and Absa Bank, a subsidiary of Barclays Africa. According to Mastercard, […]
UK-based Yorkshire Building Society (YBS) has chosen Capriza’s platform to help improve its digital and mobile capabilities. The society will use the platform to let its customers connect and apply for its mortgages and savings accounts through mobile devices. Nick Mortimer, head of marketing and e-commerce, Yorkshire Building Society, says Capriza’s platform offers “very little […]
IBM has reported a mixed bag of results for the first quarter of 2017, with the strategic imperatives offerings up but overall revenues down 2% to $18.2 billion, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). While another quarter of decline is nothing new to report for Big Blue, what might be worrying for the team is […]
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), the nation’s central bank, is calling out to fintech start-ups for ideas to improve the financial services sector. The bank’s Financial Technology Enabler Group (FTEG) is now open to concepts through its “Fintech Hacks” initiative which aims to “identify pain points in the delivery and consumption of financial services, and solicit […]
Asian investment bank Nomura plans to tap into India’s lively fintech scene with the launch of its “Voyager – Nomura Fintech Partnership” – including a new JPY 10 billion ($91.7 million) fund to provide support to start-ups. Nomura is inviting entrepreneurs to participate in the programme to build solutions for capital markets and investment banking […]
Nasdaq has unveiled its venture investment programme, Nasdaq Ventures, as it seeks out new fintech firms to work with in the global capital markets. Adena Friedman, president and CEO, Nasdaq, says it plans to “accelerate the pace of innovation”. The minority stake investments made by Nasdaq Ventures are expected to range from less than $1 […]
SouthEast Bank, a $1.2 billion financial institution in the US state of Tennessee, is implementing Fiserv’s DNA core banking system and a range of auxiliary solutions from the vendor.
Applications will soon open for Accenture’s fourth annual Asia-Pacific Fintech Innovation Lab, a 12-week programme to help start-ups speed up product and business development. According to the firm, investments in Asia-Pacific fintech companies are on the rise. During the first quarter of 2017, investments totalled $1.1 billion, representing 21% of the $5.1 billion invested into […]
Prepaid complaints to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the US hit 2,500 in 2016, accounting for about 0.9% of the 291,400 complaints in agency’s latest Consumer Response Annual Report.
We’re travelling at the speed of light, that’s why we’re on a news site. The UK’s fintech scene is chock-full of sweet accelerators and incubators – powering the industry ever onwards. In their 76-page report, “Business incubators and accelerators: the national picture”, the UK Government and innovation foundation Nesta paint a pleasant portrait of energy […]
HelloPay Group, which runs the HelloPay payment platform and online shopping and selling site Lazada, has merged with China’s Ant Financial. Ant Financial, part of Jack Ma’s Alibaba Group, runs Alipay and so HelloPay has now been rebranded as Alipay Singapore, Alipay Malaysia, Alipay Indonesia and Alipay Philippines in its respective markets. Douglas Feagin, SVP […]
BNP Paribas Securities Services is partnering with AXA Investment Managers for the creation of a new digital fund distribution platform. Called BNP Paribas Fund Link, it aims to make the fund distribution process better by improving the flow of information between fund buyers and sellers via blockchain and smart contract technology. Jean Devambez, head of […]
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) have teamed up to improve access to digital financial services in the ASEAN region. The partnership is under the ongoing UNCDF’s Shift (Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations) programme for development in this part of the world. Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer, MAS, […]
Bahrain-based Bank ABC (Arab Banking Corporation) is modernising its digital channels for retail and wholesale banking customers with Backbase’s tech.
The recent performance of Zelle Network, the peer-to-peer (P2P) payments platform with the funny name, is no laughing matter for competing P2P providers.
Aaron Cutler, partner, and Loyal Horsley, associate at Hogan Lovells, examine the state-level fintech regulation, proposed legislative solutions, and provides a brief overview of international regulation.
Piraeus Bank has launched three fully automated e-branches, across the region of Attiki – the first of their kind in Greece. Services on offer include a “remote cashier”, where customers can perform 90% of the transactions provided via a video call with a cashier; remote registration of internet banking through a phone service point; a […]
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is calling for an end to consumer vulnerability and more access to financial services in its plans for 2017. In a speech today (18 April) by Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA, the publication of its corporate documents and its role and goals were all outlined. Bailey says: […]
HSBC France is in the process of replacing its legacy core banking system with SAB AT, provided by local vendor SAB.
Italy’s largest retail bank, Intesa Sanpaolo, and EBA Clearing have successfully completed their first user testing activities on Dovetail’s solution for EBA’s pan-European real-time payment platform. Among the institutions funding the new EBA infrastructure, Intesa Sanpaolo is the first one to connect to the test system. The new infrastructure will provide a real-time payment processing […]
Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is seeking applications for its FinTech Hive at DIFC accelerator programme. The 12-week programme is designed to help early and growth-stage firms accelerate product and business development by gaining exposure to financial institution executives. Successful applicants will be offered the opportunity to develop, test and modify their innovations in collaboration […]
US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) has launched new APIs to let its clients programmatically open bank accounts, and send payments using a credit card network and via the automated clearing house (ACH) network. Dan Kimmerling, director, API banking at SVB, says its goal this year is to “develop a broad array of APIs” and wants […]
Lloyds is working with Microsoft to test biometric authentication for customers logging into their Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland internet banking sites. The three organisations will use Windows Hello to get access to Windows 10 devices using a fingerprint or facial recognition. Devices will recognise the user, “rather than having to remember an assortment […]
Ummah Finance aims to be “the first UK born Islamic bank solely set up and operating from London”, with a fully digital proposition.
Fintech investment fell in 2016 for the first time. On the bright side? Banks are becoming much more active in the space, putting money in 61% more start-ups.
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Mastercard gets approval to buy VocaLink for $920m Deal expected to close in coming weeks. Bank of England implicated in Libor rigging by secret recording Well, it was secret. FIS sheds Ambit Private Banking business FIS inherited it […]
UK challenger bank Starling has teamed up with Moneybox to give its customers access to a suite of saving and investing tools. Starling says it is the first digital challenger to join the list of banks supported by the Moneybox app for its “round ups” feature. The service will be available to Starling customers at […]
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) are calling for input on their approach to applying the second EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2). PSD2 is required to be in place in the UK by 13 January 2018, and the nation’s HM Treasury will transpose PSD2 into UK legislation in the Payment […]
Banking Technology’s deputy editor, Antony Peyton, has been replaced by an artificial intelligence (AI) powered robot – paving the way for scintillating journalism free from acidic remarks and unfettered bouts of sarcasm. With the relentless rise of AI and robots, it was only a matter of time before a journalist would be thrown on the […]
Like an astute player of the Risk board game, Android Pay’s global expansion plans continue apace as it is working with several banks to let their customers add cards to its service from a mobile banking app. The latest banks include Bank of America, Bank of New Zealand, Discover, mBank and USAA. They follow on […]
We all love food and drink, and mobile service WoraPay has got in-sync and integrated Masterpass, the digital payment service from Mastercard. WoraPay’s service allows customers to buy food and drink, and pay in advance with their mobile. This means customers can order their morning coffee or tea (or whisky if you have a crappy […]
Financial services provider Aegon is partnering with core banking engine provider Ohpen to develop a new platform for its Dutch services. The platform will be used for the administration and distribution of its savings, pension and investment products. The firms say they are merging their domain knowledge within pensions and technology. Aegon will plug into […]
Oh UK fintech firms, you pretty things. The industry brings £6.6 billion to the nation’s economy, employs 61,000 people, and was showered with praise at the UK government’s inaugural International Fintech Conference in London. At yesterday’s event (12 April), Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, like any smart politician, latched himself like a limpet onto […]
There is no smoke without fire. The “big smoke”, as London is colloquially known, has been creating a fire of innovation in the financial technology space for years, but there are other UK fintech centres in the Southwest; Cardiff; Manchester/Leeds; and Edinburgh/Glasgow that create their own heat.
Coca-Cola Credit Union in the US state of Georgia is modernising its online and mobile banking with Bankjoy, and its back office tech with Corelation.
Swift has unveiled a new real-time payment controls service to add to its customers’ existing fraud controls. The new fraud and cybercrime prevention service will enable its customers to screen their payment messages according to their own chosen parameters, “enabling them to immediately detect any unusual message flows before transmission”. Yawar Shah, chairman of Swift, […]
Consortium R3 has partnered with Acord (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) to launch a virtual “centre of excellence” for distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the insurance industry. R3 counts a number of insurance companies amongst its member base, including MetLife, AIA and Suncorp Group, as well as other financial services members that have […]
First Data has been appointed by Sabis, the IT arm of Spanish banking group Sabadell, to provide processing and acquiring services across its subsidiary TSB. First Data will migrate TSB’s credit and debit card portfolio onto its FirstVision platform. Additionally, First Data will power TSB’s digital payments and provide merchant acquiring services for money and […]
