TSB has chosen Iress’ mortgage sales and originations (MSO) solution – with the first deployment due to be rolled out to TSB’s intermediary channel in the summer. Branch, telephony and digital will follow in a phased rollout at unspecified times. Ian Ramsden, mortgages director, TSB, says Iress is a “natural fit to support our technology […]
After absorbing hundreds of complaints from the payments industry, the European Banking Authority will relax its pending customer authentication rules for online transactions. But given the rise in popularity of online shopping, the new threshold of 30 euros before two-factor authentication is required may not be enough to assuage industry concerns.
A fintech journalist has reached the pinnacle of his career after being given a glossy brochure at the conference “Blockchain and Brexit – tenuously linked over four days”. Jaded hack and scarecrow impersonator Eugene Egmont, reporter at Flabbergasted by Fintech, approached a firm’s stand at the event with good intentions – a quick and lively […]
Switzerland’s Valiant Bank has selected the Backbase Omnichannel Banking Platform for its banking systems upgrade. The platform will help the bank drive “customer engagement” and “increase manageability across its different channels”. Matthias Häfner, head of digital banking at Valiant, says it chose Backbase “due to its expertise in providing a single omnichannel platform, which will […]
Four Russian banks, Ak Bars, VTB 24, Bank Saint Petersburg and Home Credit Bank have teamed with Mastercard to launch the “first collaborative” acceleration programme for fintech in Russia. Strategic consultancy will be done by Accenture, and representatives of the Central Bank of Russia (aka the Bank of Russia), the Ministry of Communications, the Association […]
Visa has unveiled its latest and largest innovation centre in London, located at its European headquarters in Paddington Basin. The 1,000+ square metre space will let Visa staff work side-by-side with financial institutions, merchants and other partners to develop new payment solutions. Rajesh Agrawal, London’s deputy mayor for business, says “as a successful fintech entrepreneur […]
Accenture will acquire German digital agency SinnerSchrader to boost its Accenture Interactive services in the country. Also, the company plans to launch ten new innovation hubs in the US in the next three years. Accenture has agreed to purchase a 62% majority of SinnerSchrader shares from co-founder and CEO Matthias Schrader, CFO Thomas Dyckhoff, and […]
Barclaycard has retained its contract to provide payment solutions to Transport for London (TfL) in the UK for another seven years, with an option to extend for a further three years. TfL and Barclaycard have worked together for two decades, and the former is expanding its network. We assume that Barclaycard didn’t go on strike […]
Erste Group Bank has opted for Asset Control’s AC Plus financial data management platform to support its PRIIPs and MiFID II regulatory requirements.
Nordea Liv, a life insurance arm of Nordea, has worked with Norwegian fintech start-up Spiff to create a new app that will motivate customers to save money to reach goals.
NatWest (part of the RBS group) is set to launch a new digital platform to allow small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) to quickly obtain unsecured loans of up to £150,000. Called Esme Loans, it is in trial mode and the bank will offer fast decisions on lending applications “potentially within an hour”. There will […]
Bank of Cyprus has selected Dovetail’s payment solution to support Swift, Target2, SEPA credit transfer and direct debits. The project is part of the bank’s ongoing digital transformation programme. Dr Andreas Stylianou, manager organisation and change, Bank of Cyprus, says: ‘Payments are the life blood of our business. We needed a modern, proven payments solution […]
Berlin-based SolarisBank has raised €26.3 million in its series A funding round as it targets European expansion, according to a “confidential source that’s close with the company”. The official press release is expected in the next two weeks, where Solaris will announce its new partners, as well as the products available for these partner companies. […]
Misys has announced Poland-based Alior Bank has signed for FusionCapital “to fuel continued rapid growth” (everyone, get your marketing jargon bingo cards ready!). What the announcement fails to mention is that Alior has already been using one of Misys’ treasury and capital markets (TCM) solutions, Opics, for nearly a decade. Opics is now known as […]
The new National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has been unveiled in the UK – and will work with the Bank of England (BoE) to produce advice for the financial sector for managing cybersecurity effectively. The NCSC is based in London and part of the intelligence agency GCHQ (government communications headquarters). Ciaran Martin, formerly director general […]
2017 looks set to be the year in which a number of different jurisdictions vie to become the natural home of the financial technology sector. To help ensure that London remains fintech-friendly, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has created the “regulatory sandbox”.
Avaloq has reported increases in its revenue and earnings for the 2016 fiscal year – with three new customers and 28 go-live projects completed. The Swiss firm generated full year revenues of CHF 533 million ($530 million) in 2016, an increase of 10% on a reported basis from CHF 485 million ($482 million) in the […]
Santander has become the first bank in the UK to allow customers to make payments using their voice. As Banking Technology reported in March 2016, Santander said it was the “first” bank in the UK to launch voice banking technology. Phase one enabled customers to talk to their Santander SmartBank app and ask about their […]
The UK’s Co-operative Bank has been put up for sale – with the minority investor Co-op Group saying it is “supportive of the plan to find the bank a new home”. The recent history of Co-op Bank (which markets itself as an ethical bank) has been interesting. It had a disastrous merger with Britannia Building […]
UK-based challenger Jargon Bank has updated its “revolutionary” mobile payments app from version 1.1 to version 1.2. As Banking Technology reported in December, the “game changer” bank launched offering “compelling and innovative” products that left journalists diving for cover… usually to the nearest pubs. Now it’s back with a 2,000-word press release that contains so […]
London-based fintech firm EquiChain has unveiled a working prototype blockchain platform for capital markets. The company plans to implement a full end-to-end “execution to custody” (E2C) pilot in 2017, as it jumps on the distributed ledger technology (DLT) bandwagon Nicholas Bone, EquiChain’s founder and CEO says it “creates a verifiable, transparent and immutable flow of […]
Misys is planning another initial public offering (IPO), following last year’s cancellation, according to the Daily Telegraph. As Banking Technology reported in October, Misys had planned a £5.5 billion float but this didn’t go smoothly as planned with its value cut by 20%. At the time it said it “decided not to proceed… at the […]
Bob Wigley, the former chairman of the collapsed Yellow Pages, will be the chair of a new financial services trade association, which will bring together six member organisations across the UK. It hasn’t got a name yet, but the new moniker and brand “will be decided in due course” and launched in the summer. The […]
Start-up DiPocket has unveiled its new mobile banking app, which is not dependent on third party IT systems but built on its own platform. As well as “challenging” the traditional high street banks with its technology, DiPocket thinks it “has a thing or two to teach other ‘neo-banking’ start-ups”. Fedele Di Maggio, CEO and co-founder […]
Brainy boffins have developed a mathematical algorithm that could boost new cryptocurrency Zcash‘s prestige and topple Bitcoin’s crown. Scientists at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) of the University of Luxembourg have created the algorithm – Equihash – a core component for Zcash, which “offers more privacy and equality than the famous […]
We’re only six weeks into the New Year and already we’ve seen significant activity on the regulatory front in the U.S. and more to come in the U.K. and Europe. Meanwhile, many of the other trends we identified as ones to watch in our Year-in-Review report—bots, blockchain and co-opetition—have been dominating the headlines (along with some major acquisitions). Are you investing in the right places?
Five European central securities depositories (CSDs) have migrated their respective communities to live operations on the Target2-Securities (T2S) platform using Swift’s value added network (VAN) solution. OeKB CSD (Austria), Clearstream Banking (Germany), LuxCSD (Luxembourg), Centrálny depozitár cenných papierov SR (CDCP) (Slovakia) and KDD – Centralna klirinško depotna družba (Slovenia) all migrated over. These five quickly […]
Canada’s banking group CIBC is implementing Wolters Kluwer’s OneSumX for regulatory reporting across its locations in the UK, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Banks need to do more than just comply with the upcoming revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2). To survive, banks will need to embrace these changes.
UK-based payments start-up Revolut has unveiled its “human-like” chatbot, Rita, to answer customer queries. Rita – which stands for “Revolut’s Intelligent Troubleshooting Assistant” – is accessible via the mobile app’s messenger support service. Customers can open the app, send Rita a message and get an instant reply. During the pilot scheme, Rita resolved 20% of […]
UK challenger Metro Bank has accelerated a data project delivery, cutting provisioning time by 80%, following the deployment of the Delphix Data Virtualisation platform. The bank began working with California-based Delphix to enable it to deliver data to teams better. The idea was to integrate enterprise software into an existing IT stack. Delphix says its […]
BankUP, a new fintech venture based in Kontich, Belgium, looks to tap into the European SME banking market.
Uncertainty over Brexit has created a 33.7% decrease in UK venture capital (VC) investment for fintech firms, according to research by Innovate Finance. Investment was down to $783 million – less than two thirds of 2015 investment of $1.2 billion. Nine of the top 20 UK deals closed post Brexit, with total investment after the […]
Digital money transfer service WorldRemit is now available in Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, expanding its partnership with the Russian “Contact” payment system. The development follows WorldRemit’s recent service launch across Russia in collaboration with Contact. The firm’s users can now send money to be collected as cash pick up at more than 3,000 locations […]
Moven, the online-only bank founded by Brett King, has launched its finance help app to “make monetary monitoring easy for everyone” in the UK at FinovateEurope. Moven was first launched in the US in 2013, and this new UK app took four weeks to launch. King says this is its “first launch in Europe” and […]
Private equity firm AnaCap Financial Partners will acquire a portfolio of Italian performing and non-performing corporate secured loans from Barclays. The portfolio, which has a gross book value of €177 million, comprises loans to primarily small and mid-sized corporates secured against real estate located mostly in the north of Italy. The agreement follows AnaCap’s Credit […]
Fire Financial Services – now trading as Fire – has launched and is targeting the UK and Irish markets with a digital account. Colm Lyon, founder and CEO at Fire, says: “It has taken some time for us to reach this day – several years of trying and getting it wrong.” Now the business has […]
CaixaBank’s mobile-only bank, imaginBank, has unveiled a chatbot to help millennials find offers and promotions most relevant to them, based on their preferences or location. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the chatbot will be available to users via Facebook Messenger on imaginBank’s Facebook page. Launched in January 2016, imaginBank is a 100% digital and mobile […]
Clearstream Banking Frankfurt and LuxCSD have migrated to the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Target2-Securities (T2S) platform. “The first business day is already in process and runs smoothly,” Clearstream states.
Sweden-based payments provider Klarna has acquired a fellow payments company in Germany, BillPay. The deal is understood to be worth £60 million.
