News


Mambu plans to onboard 50 new clients by year-end

Fintech vendor Mambu says it has added 25 new clients to its portfolio this year and is set to double this figure by the end of 2016. It will also more than double the size of its team by the year-end. “All [of Mambu’s new customers] are focused on servicing consumers and businesses poorly reached by […]

USAA launches online virtual assistant

USAA, a provider of banking and insurance services to the US military personnel and their families, has launched a virtual assistant for its website. The solution is based on the Nina artificial intelligence (AI) technology, supplied by Nuance Communications. It will provide immediate online support and answers to USAA’s member’s “most critical needs”, says Nuance, […]

PayPal Signs Deal with Mastercard, Expanding ‘Ubiquity’ of Brand

PayPal has struck a deal with Mastercard, resulting in, among other terms, Mastercard being presented as an equal payment option within the PayPal Wallet, customers having the option to select Mastercard as their default payment method and Masterpass becoming a payment option for merchants of Braintree, a PayPal subsidiary.

Fintech sandbox and innovation hub for Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is planning to launch a regulatory sandbox and innovation hub as part of ambitions to boost its fintech brand. At the Treasury Markets Summit 2016, jointly organised by the HKMA and the Treasury Markets Association (TMA), Norman Chan, chief executive of the HKMA, says it wants to build a […]

Barclays Wealth enlists Tech Mahindra for tech modernisation

Tech Mahindra and its specialist banking IT consultancy and integration subsidiary, Sofgen, have been recruited by Barclays Wealth for its tech modernisation initiative. Barclays has been rolling out a new core banking platform – Avaloq Banking Suite – for a number of years, as well as a new front-office investment management platform, Charles River’s IMS. […]

Erste Bank Hungary updates retail payments hub with ACI Worldwide

Erste Bank Hungary is implementing ACI Worldwide’s UP Retail Payments solution, upgrading from the older versions of ACI’s solutions. The bank will also deploy ACI Proactive Risk Manager (a fraud management solution) and ACI Interchange (central monetary transaction manager) to calculate interchange fees. Erste and ACI have been working together since 2003. Tamás Foltányi, COO […]

BNP Paribas Investment Partners live with Commcise commission management solution

Commcise has implemented its flagship cloud-based commission management software, CommciseBuy, at BNP Paribas Investment Partners (BNPP IP). The project covers the investment manager’s international network across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. The new solution comprises “a complete multi-broker, multi-asset, integrated commission sharing agreement (CSA) and share-of-wallet hosted service”, says the vendor. Commcise also provided […]

Ideal Payments launches first mobile app in Iraq

Ideal Payments has teamed with Taif Money Transfer to launch Iraq’s “first” mobile payments app – Taif eWallet. The platform aims to create a “holistic payments ecosystem” used by multiple agents in the economy including retail merchants, ecommerce platforms, private companies, and government institutions. Ideal Payments’ local partner, Taif Money Transfer, will operate the service, […]

LendIt and Capital One launch fintech start-up competition

Lend me your ears… and eyes. LendIt and Capital One are to co-host PitchIt @ LendIt, a competition to “find a future star of the fintech world”. The competition is aimed at firms innovating within the online lending and fintech space. It provides a showcase for eight firms to pitch their business case to a […]

TransferWise trebles revenue

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 […]

BGL BNP Paribas centralises securities ops on ERI’s Olympic core system

BGL BNP Paribas, a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of BNP Paribas, has gone live with a new centralised hub for securities processing. The technology that underpins it is the Olympic core banking system, supplied by banking tech vendor ERI. ERI is a long-standing supplier of core banking software to BNP Paribas’ wealth management and private banking businesses. […]

US credit union consortium plots blockchain use

Watch out R3, another US-based consortium is waking up to the potential uses of blockchain. CULedger, a collaborative effort among Credit Union National Association (CUNA), Best Innovation Group, the Mountain West Credit Union Association, PSCU and other industry partners are examining blockchain with a view to piloting applications. The organisations and Glenbrook Partners, a consulting […]

Emirates NBD unveils innovation lab

Emirates NBD has established its Future Lab, part of its digital strategy to speed up the development of digital and mobile banking services in the UAE. The bank says the lab is the “first of its kind in the UAE banking sector”, and will act as a “strategic think tank” in addition to being a […]

Blockchain payments start-up SnapSwap now an electronic money institution

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 […]

Wells Fargo and Amazon abruptly kill off US student loan partnership

It only lasted six weeks but Amazon and Wells Fargo Education Financial Services have ended their partnership to offer US college students a discount on private student loans. The deal, launched in July, was Amazon’s first venture into the lending market for college students. For Wells Fargo, it was an attempt to build up its […]

Smile and an HSBC account smiles with you

HSBC business customers can now open accounts using “selfie” verification, giving them the option to complete ID security checks on their mobile device. It says ID verification can be completed in a “few clicks” on an Apple or Android device. Once the initial headshot or selfie of a customer is captured, it is then assessed […]

Payments round-up: 2 September 2016

Time flies, so we’ve devised a quick fix. Here’s a round-up of key events in the payments space. In China, Qilong and Shenzhen Qianhai Exce-card Technology (SQEC) have formed a strategic agreement to co-ordinate with banks to issue China Union Pay audio bank cards. The latter make sounds when the buttons on the cards are […]

Yes Siri, payments get pretty

Apple’s developers are previewing new Siri integrations for payments – such as asking it to send a secure payment without ever opening an app. The firm says with the introduction of SiriKit for developers, messaging apps can now tap into the “power” of Siri. Siri can be used to make a quick payment using Square […]

Commerzbank selects AxiomSL for regulatory reporting

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) […]

New US clients for Temenos’ Akcelerant subsidiary

Banking technology vendor Temenos says 16 financial institutions in the US have signed for its account and loan origination, collection and recovery software in the last six months. The suite of products originates from a local specialist vendor, Akcelerant, which Temenos acquired in early 2015; and 600+ credit union clients with it. Jay Mossman, formerly […]

Macquarie unveils new digital banking services

Australia-based Macquarie Group has launched a range of new digital banking functions and is looking for feedback from any early users. The services are underpinned by the DataStax Enterprise (DSE) platform. Features range from search-how-you-speak technology; the ability to tag and track transactions; upload receipts and warranties; set saving and spending goals; and automatically categorise spending through […]

Top fintech stories this week – 2 September 2016

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Tier 1 US bank live with Temenos core and payments software Part of its American dream. Swift reveals more cyber thefts Private letter goes public. PhonePe and Yes Bank unveil India’s “first” UPI-based payments app Unified Payments Interface […]

Tier 1 US bank live with Temenos core and payments software

Temenos says it has gone live with its flagship T24 core banking system at a “top 20 US bank”. Banking Technology understands this is Ally Financial. The bank is also now live with the vendor’s newly-built payments hub, Temenos Payments Suite (TPS). It is “the first tier 1 bank to do so in the US”, […]

Dai-ichi Life Vietnam Fund Management live with SS&C’s Portia

SS&C’s Portia platform now supports middle and back office operations at Dai-ichi Life Vietnam Fund Management. Portia is a long-standing investment management solution. It came SS&C’s way in 2012 via the acquisition of the Portia business from Thomson Reuters. SS&C paid $170 million for it. Dai-ichi Life was looking for “a proven investment management solution […]

MDM Bank launches single-tap mobile payments; OpenWay provides tech

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 opens UK innovation labs

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 […]

BTL teams with Visa Europe Collab for blockchain settlement project

BTL Group is partnering with Visa Europe Collab to investigate potential applications for blockchain settlement in financial services. The project will use BTL’s cross-border settlement platform Interbit to explore the ways in which blockchain-based settlements can “reduce the friction” of domestic and cross border transfers between banks. A small number of European banks have been […]

Finacle core banking system available on Huawei FusionCloud

Infosys has partnered with Huawei to bring the Finacle core banking system to the Huawei FusionCloud. The two companies carried out a benchmarking activity under the observation of consultancy firm EY. The test was simulated on a Finacle database size of almost 1 TB, with 6,000+ branches, 33 million+ customers, 61 million+ accounts and 20,000+ […]

Lemanik Asset Management opts for Linedata Compliance

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. […]

Nationwide hit by payment glitches

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 […]

Payments round-up: 1 September 2016

Brevity is the goal of this. Here’s a round-up of events in the payments space to save you time. Let’s start off small… as in Small World FS. The London-based payment service provider reached a milestone with 50 million transactions processed on behalf of its customers. The firm’s been around for ten tears and says […]

Bancolombia’s Nequi first in Colombia to deploy mobile biometrics

Nequi, a financial mobile banking service from Bancolombia, has become the first in Colombia to deploy mobile biometrics for authentication. The technology – the IdentityX platform – is supplied by US fintech specialist Daon. Users will be asked to provide their biometrics when signing up for Nequi. They will be able to authenticate with a […]

Worldpay launches IoT hackathon

Global payments provider Worldpay has teamed up with Consult Hyperion, MongoDB and Visa Europe Collab to host its first internet of things (IoT) hackathon in London in September. The event aims to foster innovation and encourage participants to apply technology to integrating payments. Two themes will flow through the 48-hour hackathon – the “Smart City” […]

Commerzbank and UniCredit complete first BPO live transaction in UK

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 […]

Report: SWIFT Discloses More Attempts at Cyber Thefts

SWIFT, a Belgium-based, bank-owned co-op and provider of financial messaging services, said this week that criminals attacked the technology infrastructure of member banks even as the group sought to tighten up security in the wake of an $81 million cyber theft of Bangladesh Bank, according to an Aug. 31 report from Reuters.

CFPB: Prepaid Complaints Continue Decline in July

Prepaid card-related complaints to the CFPB ticked down in July, the bureau announced in its latest monthly consumer complaint report. The month saw 211 complaints about prepaid products, down 5 percent from 223 prepaid complaints in June and slightly below the monthly average of 215 since the CFPB began tracking prepaid complaints in July 2014.