Fintechs – friends or foes?
Visa employees have a saying that “cash is our biggest competitor.” Mightier threats, however, are looming.
Asia
CFTE Supercharger-s fintech learning in Asia
The Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) has teamed up with SuperCharger, a fintech accelerator in Asia with offices in Hong Kong and Malaysia, to help its students learning with CFTE. UK-based CFTE cites SuperCharger’s accelerator programmes – which offer a B2B sales focus, closing 14 commercial proofs of concept (PoCs) in 12 weeks […]
Seylan Bank to swap legacy trade finance tech for Finastra’s Fusionbanking Trade Innovation
Sri Lanka’s Seylan Bank is modernising its trade finance technology with Finastra’s Fusionbanking Trade Innovation system. On the way out is the legacy China Systems’ Eximbills system, Banking Technology understands.
TerraPay Partners with Bux for Mobile Money Transfers to India
TerraPay, a mobile payments switch, has partnered with bux, a mobile app money transfer service, to enable instant cross-border money transfers from Australia, Hong Kong, the U.K. and Europe to India.
Bank of Baroda teams with Amazon for SME lending
India’s second largest bank, Bank of Baroda, has got itself an “exclusive” micro lending partnership with Amazon. The bank says through this partnership it is running a process for underwriting Amazon sellers “who would traditionally not be able to procure a line at formal financial institutions”. The deal is part of the bank’s ambitions to […]
Nainital Bank to launch new digital venture, searches for consulting and tech partner
India-based Nainital Bank is gearing up to launch a new digital venture. It has recently gone to market to find a consulting and implementation partner to help it design, build and launch this venture as well as service it post-launch.
Google Gets into Digital Payments Fray in India
Google is expected to launch a mobile payments app in India next week. Google Tez, which means “fast” in Hindi will reportedly support Android Pay as well as the government-backed Unified Payments Interface and other consumer payment services including Paytm and MobiKwik.
Nucleus Software signs TAB Capital for flagship lendtech platform, FinnOne Neo Cloud
India-based finance company TAB Capital is implementing a new lending system, FinnOne Neo, supplied by domestic vendor Nucleus Software. The solution will be delivered in the cloud.
Yes Fintech calls on fintech start-ups worldwide to apply for second cohort
Yes Bank, one of the largest banks in India, us calling for start-ups to apply for the second cohort of its Yes Fintech innovation programme.
Symphony Communication Services makes its Asia debut
Hong Kong-headquartered capital markets and investment group CLSA has deployed Symphony Communication Services collaboration platform across its entire business. The roll-out of Symphony to CLSA’s 1,900 employees is its largest deployment to date by an Asia-headquartered firm. CLSA joins a community who connect on Symphony, comprised of over 220,000 corporate users from 190 firms. CLSA […]
Infosys CEO quits after personal attacks
Infosys’ MD and CEO has resigned, citing a continuous stream of distractions and disruptions, and personal and negative attacks on his performance. In his notice of resignation, Dr Vishal Sikka, complained of “false, baseless, malicious and increasingly personal attacks” from the company’s founders. Sikka’s exit pushed Infosys shares down around 8% – and follows a […]
India Payments Roundup: Paytm, Amazon and Flipkart
The battle for e-commerce and payments domination is on in India. Paytm, an e-payment/e-commerce brand and payments bank, is bringing the QR code scanning habit to the Indian masses, while rival Flipkart has raised $2.5 billion from Japan’s SoftBank and Amazon has launched its digital wallet.
Paytm and Amazon in payments projects in India
Paytm, e-payment/e-commerce brand and payments bank, is bringing the QR code scanning habit to the Indian masses, while Amazon Pay has launched a digital wallet.
PayPal launches two innovation labs in India
PayPal has set up two innovation labs in India – based out of the company’s tech centres in Chennai and Bangalore – to help the country’s fintech start-ups grow.
CFTE brings fintech education initiative to Asia with MAS
UK-based Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE) is looking to expand to Asia and plans to set up its first international hub in Singapore. The newly launched organisation says it “has been working closely with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to formalise plans to expand CFTE’s education initiative to ASEAN”.
Top fintech stories this week – 4 August 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
Paytm to add messaging capabilities to rival WhatsApp
India’s most popular electronic wallet and payments bank Paytm is gearing up to add messaging capabilities to its mobile app. Experts believe this is in response to WhatsApp’s plans to add a payments piece to its platform. With mobile payments growing rapidly in India post demonetisation, Paytm is expected to quickly double its user base […]
India consolidates bill payment system
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank and regulator, has given National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) the go-ahead to consolidate payment of local utility and services bills.
Reserve Bank of India unleashes account number portability
Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the country’s central bank and regulator, has asked banks in the country to work towards implementing a system that allows users to port their account from one bank to another, without changing the account number.
The Monday mindset: 31 July 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, Soumik Roy, a digital marketing and technology specialist, brings us his perspective from within India – and all about the UI and […]
Top fintech stories this week – 28 July 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
New Indian SME digital bank Open readies for launch
India’s SME-focused digital challenger bank Open is getting ready for its mid-August launch with a round of seed funding. Open calls itself “Asia’s first SME neo-banking start-up” and is using the same business model as Tide in the UK and Finnish start-up Holvi (recently acquired by BBVA). With its launch date in sight, the bank […]
New payments bank launched in India, Fino Payments Bank
India has seen the launch of its fourth payments bank, Fino Payments Bank. For its core banking system, the bank uses Profile from FIS, delivered on a hosted basis.
Infosys profit delicately declines
Excitement is thin on the ground as the net profit for India-based Infosys dipped ever so gently in its latest financial results. For the quarter ended 30 June 2017, the financial systems vendor announced that Q1 net profit was $541 million, a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) decline of 0.4%. Although for year-on-year (YoY), it displayed growth of […]
The Monday mindset: 10 July 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, Soumik Roy discusses India’s Goods and Service Tax (GST) and whether it’s an opportunity for fintech firms. First discussed by a committee […]
Indian Domestic Networks Report Positive Growth
The National Payments Corporation of India is reporting positive momentum for transactions across its domestic payment networks for the fiscal first quarter of 2018. Its goal is to hit 11 billion transactions by the end of the fiscal year.
Azerbaijan adopts Bloomberg auction platform for FX
The Central Bank of Azerbaijan has chosen to conduct its auctions for foreign exchange (FX) instruments and deposits through Bloomberg’s auction platform. The platform manages primary market operations, and has been recently extended to include FX instruments (spot and outright) and deposits, in addition to its pre-existing suite of fixed income and repo products. Ali […]
Money20/20 Europe: Asia in the ascendant
Denmark took a back seat at Money20/20 Europe as the lively fintech scenes in China and India fell under the spotlight with a wealth of information and stats.
More jobs to go from RBS in UK to India
Job-cutting spree continues at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) – 443 jobs are to go from its business loans department. Many of these will be moved to India.
ZineOne is the one for HDFC digital banking hub
India-based HDFC Bank has selected Silicon Valley start-up ZineOne to improve its digital banking offerings. The bank will deploy ZineOne’s Customer Interactions Hub (CIH), which will establish a single customer identity and “bring real-time, contextual, and omni-channel functionality” to interactions across businesses, applications and digital properties including web applications, mobile apps, digital wallets, website, kiosks […]
Workup a fintech sweat with Isbank’s start-up programme
Turkey’s largest private bank, Isbank, has unveiled its entrepreneurship programme for fintech start-ups in the country. Since forming an innovation team within its Digital Banking Unit, the bank says it has become “much closer” to tech entrepreneurs in the republic. The innovation team is working remotely at Kolektif House Levent (a co-working space for Turkish […]
Yes Bank and TerraPay tap into India’s migrant market
Mobile payments switch TerraPay has partnered with Yes Bank to enable real-time international money transfers to bank accounts in India – with the Indian migrant market firmly in their sights. TerraPay provides its clearing and settlement service, and via a “Rupee Drawing Arrangement”, its network partners can make the transfers to bank accounts in the […]
Turkey’s Garanti Bank wins BBVA fintech ideas challenge
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 […]
Six Startupbootcamp stars secure sweet deals in India
Six graduating start-ups from Startupbootcamp FinTech Mumbai have secured pilots with banks and corporates such as RBL Bank, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India (SBI). At Startupbootcamp’s demo day at the Royal Opera House in Mumbai, 11 start-ups showcased technologies in financial services to more than 400 guests. Propositions included SME banking, blockchain, digital […]
Fintech funding round-up: 2 June 2017
The money’s rolling in for fintech – as this round-up follows hot on the heels from 30 May. This latest report features Zopa, RateSetter and Niyogin Fintech. The plans of peer-to-peer (P2P) lender Zopa to launch a new digital-only bank in the UK are going well as it has completed a £32 million funding round […]
Misys scores another core banking system deal in Myanmar
Myanmar-based Ayeyarwady Bank (AYA Bank) has signed for Misys’ Fusionbanking Essence core banking platform.
Afghanistan’s First Microfinance Bank selects Accuity for regulatory compliance
The First MicroFinance Bank in Afghanistan (FMFB-A) has chosen Accuity for regulatory compliance screening of its customer accounts and cross-border transactions. Accuity says it will help FMFB-A enhance the performance of its compliance operations by eliminating manual procedures and speeding up the end-to-end process with its automated regulatory list updates and real-time screening of transactions […]
Nasdaq powers Kazakhstan’s new stock exchange
Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) has chosen Nasdaq to power Kazakhstan’s nascent stock exchange, the AIFC Exchange. The exchange is targeted to launch in late-2017 and will initially trade equities and fixed income with other asset classes for future phases. Within the framework of the agreement, the Nasdaq Matching Engine will be implemented and go […]
U.S.-Based Ebix Buys Majority Stake in India’s ItzCash
Indian payment solutions provider and Pay Award-winning ItzCash Card Ltd. has a new main backer. U.S.-based Ebix, which sells on-demand software and e-commerce services, has taken an 80 percent stake in the company for $120 million.
State Bank of India revamps e-commerce payments gateway
State Bank of India (SBI) has deployed the “largest payment gateway for cards’ e-commerce transactions”, according to Shiv Kumar Bhasin, CTO of the SBI group. It processes ten million transactions per day, with 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) of peak load processing capabilities. This “beats the business volumes processing capabilities of a lot of leading […]
