Ukrainian start-up Attic Lab has revealed its lofty ambitions with the launch of an open source blockchain platform. The banking platform will offer the issuance of e-money and Attic Lab claims it will be a “full-fledged alternative” to systems like Visa and MasterCard. The company was founded in early 2016 with Sergey Vasilchiuk taking the […]
Financial services IT consultancy Synechron has launched six blockchain applications in the cloud, enabling financial institutions “to be up-and-running on a blockchain network or in a ‘sandbox’ environment within weeks”. Synechron says its offering comes with consulting services on the functional and technical side, training programmes as well as the UX design. The applications use […]
Standard Chartered, National Australia Bank, Mizuho Financial Group, BMO Financial Group, Siam Commercial Bank and Shanghai Huarui Bank are the latest banks to join Ripple’s blockchain-powered network for cross-border payments. “2016 has proven to be the year where the most forward-thinking financial institutions are actually using blockchain technologies for payments and settlement rather than as […]
Welcome to the world of mergers and acquisitions – and our mission to provide a quick round-up. Ant Financial, Alibaba’s payments arm, has bought Missouri-based EyeVerify, a biometric security technology company. The big deal here is that its tech is used by Wells Fargo – and regional banks and credit unions in the US. Also, […]
IT services integrator Wipro has set up a blockchain research facility at its Bengaluru campus in India to help its engineers build applications. Wipro is working with a number of unnamed start-ups to scale up the business, and with scant regard to detail it says some pilot projects should be completed soon. Being vague is […]
All aboard the blockchain bandwagon – Goldman Sachs has filed a new patent application to use it on the foreign exchange (FX) market. The latest development follows on from late last year when Goldman Sachs made a patent application for a new virtual currency, dubbed “SETLcoin”, for “nearly instantaneous execution and settlement” of trades involving […]
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Deloitte has unveiled its first Bitcoin ATM in its Toronto office in Canada – as it looks to promote cryptocurrency technology. The Toronto office, home to its Rubix blockchain division, initially offered the bitcoin ATM to employees only. But this was quickly followed by a public launch. Deloitte’s Rubix strategy director, Iliana Oris Valiente, says […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Barclays and Wave pioneer blockchain trade finance transaction What is a fintech day without blockchain? UK challenger banks: who’s who The list has been updated. US credit union consortium plots blockchain use Watch out R3. Smile and an […]
Barclays and fintech start-up Wave claim to have become the first organisations to complete a global trade transaction using distributed ledger/blockchain technology. Barclays is now calling on other banks to adopt Wave’s platform. “This can develop into an industry-wide improvement in how trade documentation is managed,” Barclays urges. The letter of credit (LC) transaction between […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Samsung Group could be turning its eyes toward blockchain, according to the Korean Times. The CEOs of Samsung Group subsidiaries attended a lecture on blockchain at Seoul National University, which could be a sign that the group is looking to jump on the crowded blockchain bandwagon. Local media in South Korea also reported Samsung Group […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Temenos and BACB go public on core banking software project We knew back in February. Al Hilal Bank’s new CIO looks to collaborate with fintechs Let’s talk. Famous five unsettle Bitcoin with utility settlement coin Arrival of a […]
BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, ICAP and Santander have joined UBS and Clearmatics to advance their utility settlement coin (USC) concept, and plan tests in a real-market environment. USC is a digital cash model for payments and settlement. It will run on blockchain and be another rival to Bitcoin. The group plan to build on the […]
Hitachi and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) have started proof of concept (PoC) testing for using blockchain in the digitalisation of cheques in Singapore. In this PoC testing, Hitachi and BTMU developed a system in which a blockchain infrastructure is used for issuing, transferring and collecting electronic cheques. BTMU issues and settles them, while […]
SBI Ripple Asia has announced that a Japanese consortium of 15 banks in a new network will use Ripple’s blockchain technology for payments and settlement. Using Ripple, customers of the banks will get real-time domestic and cross-border payments, 365 days of the year. Initial participants include Bank of Yokohama and SBI Sumishin Net Bank (SBI […]
Rakuten will open its Rakuten Blockchain Lab (RBL) in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 22 August to develop applications in the fintech and e-commerce sectors. The establishment of RBL follows the acquisition by Rakuten of the IP assets of Bitnet Technologies, operators of a blockchain-powered digital payments platform. Yasufumi Hirai, group executive vice-president, CIO, CISO and […]
Mexico’s third-largest Bitcoin exchange, MeXBT, has gone offline without any prior warning – leaving its users confused. The firm’s website has gone and now just says “the page you are looking for cannot be found”. Its Twitter account is slightly more helpful and says (in Spanish) the platform has been suspended temporarily and it needs […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Apple bites back over Australian banks’ “cartel” Don’t team up on them. Thieves steal $72m from Hong Kong Bitcoin exchange Now looking for new funding to compensate its customers. UK challenger Mondo gets banking licence It also needs […]
R3 and over 15 of its blockchain consortium member banks have “successfully” completed two prototypes using distributed ledger technology for smart contracts. The banks designed and used self-executing transaction agreements – aka smart contracts – on R3’s Corda distributed ledger platform to process accounts receivable (AR) purchase transactions, aka invoice financing or factoring, and letter […]
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC and the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) have teamed up to develop a blockchain prototype for trade finance innovation. The consortium uses the distributed ledger framework provided by Linux Foundation’s open source Hyperledger Project; and the proof of concept has reduced manual processing in letter of credit transactions. […]
Services firm Vanbex Group and payments provider NetCents Technology have teamed up to speed up the adoption of blockchain to Canadian banks. NetCents will be integrating Vanbex’s Genisys product, a blockchain-integrated payment platform that offers a turn-key transaction messaging system for cross-border payments, to work in conjunction with the Swift and Clearing House Interbank Payments […]
It’s all gone wrong in Hong Kong as about $72 million worth of Bitcoin was stolen from the Bitfinex exchange platform. Nearly 120,000 units have been pilfered making it the second-biggest security breach ever of such an exchange. Bitfinex is one of the largest exchanges for Bitcoin, and according to Reuters is known in the […]
Danish blockchain payment service provider Coinify has raised $4 million in series A investment round from SEB Venture Capital, an entity within the SEB Group and SEED Capital Denmark. Mark Højgaard, co-founder and CEO of Coinify, says it plans to use the investment to sustain its position in Europe and “expand” its blockchain payment and […]
Blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic and LexisNexis Risk Solutions have partnered for the “first” use of “bank-grade” risk management for Bitcoin. Elliptic has integrated LexisNexis’s anti-money laundering (AML) risk management data into its Bitcoin transaction monitoring and compliance products. The two firms have built a proof-of-concept that uses financial intelligence data from LexisNexis and presents it […]
The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) is looking for a developer to work on humanitarian projects, including the use of blockchain for innovation. The role will be based in New York and the UNICEF Innovation Unit wants the developer to create products that solve problems in the developing world. The individual will also work […]
Thomson Reuters has joined R3’s partnership to design and apply distributed and shared ledger-inspired tech to global financial markets. Thomson Reuters will contribute insights from its work with customers to “drive product innovation and transformation in the financial sector using distributed ledger technologies”. David Rutter, CEO of R3, says the deal is “another significant milestone”. […]
Blockchain and biometrics could be the way forward for the future of the UK’s regtech industry, according to the findings of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The FCA issued a call for input in November 2015 about the development and adoption of regtech; and more than 350 responses were received. Of that number, 43% were […]
Deloitte Luxembourg has developed a proof of concept for regulatory transaction reporting in a distributed ledger technology (DLT) environment. In its DLT proof of concept, counterparties of the transaction will seal and report their deal using a smart contract, whose terms include all the aspects needed for the transaction reporting. The regulators will be able […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Swift seeks stronger network security Strikes back after hacks. IBM to open blockchain innovation centre in Singapore Big Blue stays true to blockchain. Starling Bank gets UK banking licence Aims to launch to customers by January 2017. Unibank […]
With news on blockchain and Bitcoin appearing thick and fast, here’s a round-up of key events to save you time. Bitcoin has got some love in Russia when the centre-right Party of Growth says it is open to accepting donations in the digital currency. Boris Titov, head of the party, who also acts as an […]
Decentralised financial platform provider Nxt has developed Ardor, the “first ever” scalable platform using blockchain. The Netherlands-based firm says Ardor, which is available from tomorrow (14 July), is designed to function beyond financial exchanges and will be “open to everyone”, including individual users, start-ups, banks and governments. Dave Pearce, director at Nxt Foundation, says: “Ardor […]
South African heavyweight Absa is the first bank in Africa to join New York-based R3’s blockchain consortium. Absa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Africa Group Limited, will be working with over 50 banks to design and deliver distributed ledger technologies to global financial markets. On the back of its membership, Absa will also be […]
IBM plans to establish the “first” IBM Center for Blockchain Innovation in Singapore. The firm says this is the first collaboration of its kind with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). IBM researchers will work with government, industries and academia to develop applications and solutions which are based […]
Payment provider Worldline and Luxembourg-based start-up SnapSwap have signed a partnership agreement for the latter’s mobile payment application Gloneta. Gloneta combines a mobile messenger (chat) with cross-currency transactions using blockchain. Worldline says it will “provide” secure card payments services to the new app Gloneta. Denis Kiselev, founder and CEO of SnapSwap, says: “Worldline’s expertise in […]
Brazil’s Banco Bradesco is planning to start trials for a blockchain-based digital wallet service, as it looks to streamline operations and reduce costs. The service is being developed by Brazilian start-up eWally, discovered via Bradesco’s own innovation programme InovaBRA. Marcelo Frontini, MD at Scopus IT and part of Bradesco’s innovation department, says trials should start […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Brexit: keep calm and carry on We assemble a panel of fintech and law specialists to discuss – with cool heads – the challenges and opportunities. Blockchain and Bitcoin round-up A round-up of key developments to save you […]
With news on blockchain and Bitcoin appearing thick and fast, here’s a round-up of key events to save you time. In Switzerland, the city of Zug, is piloting the acceptance of Bitcoin for payments. From 1 July, residents could start to pay their taxes, fees and fines with the digital currency. The project is part […]
