Financial Services/Finserv


Nordea has every idea for start-ups worldwide

Nordea’s Oslo office will welcome 35 start-ups as the bank prepares to assist the firms in fintech innovation. During the week, the best projects (around 20 teams) will be selected to take part in Nordea’s Accelerator programme, which kicks off in the autumn in Stockholm and Helsinki. In total, over 200 companies applied to the […]

Top ten retail banking sites in the US – July 2016

Who is leading the digital way among the US retail banks? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online banking sites in the US for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). We’ll be publishing regular updates on a monthly basis, to track the changes, developments and trends – to bring you a fuller […]

Top ten retail banking sites in the UK – July 2016

With digital banking sharply on the rise in the UK – according to the latest figures released by the British Bankers Association – who is leading among the UK retail banks? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online banking sites in the UK for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). […]

Top fintech stories this week – 19 August 2016

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! New core banking project for Temenos in Canada Exclusive. Credit union in British Columbia goes for T24. Swift slow on strong security say execs “Took their eye off the ball.” Volksbank pioneers NCR Innovation Experience Room An “experimental […]

Meridian Credit Union plans to take on top Canadian banks by launching own bank

One of Canada’s ten largest credit unions, Meridian CU, is looking to launch a new digital bank and has applied for a banking licence. “We believe, and our research shows, that there is a clear desire in the marketplace for an innovative digital bank that offers a true full-service alternative to the big banks,” states […]

RBS cancellation of Williams & Glyn project affects 3,000 staff at Infosys

Infosys has issued a statement regarding its work with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to carve out the Williams & Glyn (W&G) subsidiarity. Infosys was a W&G programme technology partner for consulting, application delivery and testing services. It was working on the W&G project since 2013, but this came to an end earlier this month […]

Standard Chartered bringing biometrics to Asia, Africa and Middle East

Standard Chartered is rolling out a suite of fingerprint and voice biometric technologies across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The bank says the launch reaches more than five million clients, and is the “most extensive rollout of fingerprint biometric technology by any international bank and a first in most markets”. It is on a […]

Four to score in ING innovation studio

Four start-ups will enter ING’s Innovation Studio in September to see whether they can make the big time – the launch of a viable commercial business. Axyon AI, Gekko, Startup Insight and Surance will take part in the bank’s accelerator programme, the third of its type, since it began in July 2015. ING selected the […]

Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC team up for blockchain-based trade finance innovation

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. […]

Cambodia’s Prasac launches remote banking with Compass Plus

Prasac, the largest microfinance institution (MFI) in Cambodia, has launched internet and mobile banking services using the TranzWare multi-card processing solution from Compass Plus. Its customers can now transfer money between their accounts, pay bills, top-up their mobile phones, manage their cards, check their balances and get a mini-statement by logging on to their internet […]

Top fintech stories this week – 5 August 2016

Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! RBS scraps Williams & Glyn banking platform plans, writes off £345m Defeated by the IT challenges. W&G is now likely to be sold to Santander. Azimo “industry first” to enable money transfers via Facebook Messenger Sending money should […]

RBS scraps Williams & Glyn banking platform plans, writes off £345m

Royal Bank of Scotland has scrapped its plans to carve out the Williams & Glyn (W&G) subsidiarity – and instead it is likely to be sold to Santander. W&G has a network of 300 branches, 1.4 million retail and 200,000 SME clients – effectively the country’s seventh largest bank. It has been dormant for a […]

ING Bank Romania launches new mPOS service with GoSwiff and MasterCard

ING Bank Romania has launched a new mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) service, underpinned by MasterCard and specialist vendor GoSwiff. ING mPOS is aimed at local merchants of all sizes. It enables them to accept card payments through mobile devices, smartphones and tablets, connected to a card reader. It also supports other added-value services, such as consumer […]

SIA buys e-money processing unit of Unicredit

Unicredit is selling its e-money processing unit to payments vendor SIA. The unit – part of Unicredit Business Integrated Solutions (UBIS) – processes around 13.5 million payment cards and manages 206,000 POS terminals and 12,000 ATMs in Italy, Germany and Austria. SIA has also got a ten-year outsourcing contract from UBIS for the supply of […]

New corporate challenger bank seeking to launch in the UK

A new challenger is coming to the burgeoning UK banking market – Copernicus Bank. It is founded and backed by Danela Ventures Partners Limited, a London-based advisory firm set up in 2010 by Aidan Brady and Michael Rossman. Danela Ventures Partners “focuses on financial services innovation”, according to Brady’s LinkedIn profile. It is “currently building […]

Barclays brings voice recognition tech to phone banking

Passwords are past it, as Barclays plans to launch voice recognition technology for phone banking. From tomorrow (2 August), customers will no longer need to answer a variety of questions to gain access to their accounts on the telephone. Steven Cooper, CEO personal banking and executive director at Barclays, says: “We have been testing it […]

Interview: Rupert Scofield, founder of Finca International

Rupert Scofield, president and CEO of microfinance organisation Finca International, discusses how it brings banking to the developing world and why people should follow America’s lead in the art of philanthropy. “This is your world. My generation had its shot. We thought our problems were daunting but it’s nothing like the stuff you’re dealing with. […]

Top ten retail banking sites in the US – June 2016

Who is leading the digital way among the US retail banks? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online banking sites in the US for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). We’ll be publishing regular updates on a monthly basis, to track the changes, developments and trends – to bring you a fuller […]

Lloyds selects Bacs payment solution from D+H

DH Corporation (D+H) has onboarded UK’s Lloyds Banking Group for its white-labelled Bacs payment service. Lloyds “sought to provide new payment services to enhance clients’ payables and receivables processes”, says D+H. To begin with, Lloyds will offer the vendor’s Bacs capabilities to SMEs and mid-market clients, but D+H hopes this will be subsequently scaled up […]

Italy’s FinecoBank to expand to UK

The UK’s challenger bank sector is set to gain another player. Unicredit’s subsidiary, FinecoBank, is coming to the UK this autumn, according to City AM. FinecoBank has been around since the late 1990s and today has over 1.1 million clients in its home market of Italy and €55 billion of assets. Alessandro Foti, CEO and […]

HSBC funds Xenomorph for data management boost

Xenomorph, a provider of data management technology to banks, investment managers and insurance companies, has received new funding from HSBC. The firm says the funding has enabled it to “accelerate global go-to-market plans” for its TimeScape EDM+ financial analytics and data management platform. TimeScape EDM+ is designed to manage the complete lifecycle of financial data […]

Top ten retail banking sites in the UK – June 2016

With digital banking (and particularly mobile) sharply on the rise in the UK – according to the latest figures released by the British Bankers Association – who is leading among the UK retail banks? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online banking sites in the UK for the past month (data […]

Société Générale’s African mobile banking underway with TagPay

Société Générale has acquired a stake in TagPay, a French mobile banking firm, as it looks to develop mobile banking in Africa. Société Générale says the deal will support the development of TagPay on the market and it will roll out the service to its African subsidiaries. TagPay’s mobile-centric core banking system, also called TagPay, […]

Standard Chartered bringing video banking to Asia, Africa and Middle East

Standard Chartered Bank is bringing its video banking service to Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the “biggest roll-out of its kind by any international bank”. The bank says more than five million clients in nine markets across the continents will get access. The service is already live in Malaysia and Singapore, and will launch […]

Wells Fargo and NCR partner for retail banking innovation

NCR Corporation and Wells Fargo have established a team focused on research and development in ATM and retail banking customer experience. Over the past eight years, NCR and Wells Fargo have worked together on other projects. These range from cash- and check-processing to self-service devices. The latest agreement expands the relationship to a “more strategic […]

BT fault hits UK banks’ digital services

UK internet banking has been affected by a BT fault with its broadband and telephone services. In a tweet today (20 July), BT says: “Sorry, we’re aware of a problem & working to fix ASAP.” Some internet banking customers at Barclays, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, Natwest and Santander have been unable to […]

Deutsche Bank prefers Swift for intraday liquidity reporting

Swift Scope has been named by Deutsche Bank Global Transaction Banking (GTB) as the preferred solution for intraday liquidity reporting requirements. Swift Scope is an automated, end-to-end business intelligence solution used to collect and consolidate data, and provide the analysis required to monitor and report intraday liquidity flows. It supports compliance with the Basel Committee […]

Barclays launches digital banking hackathon

Barclays and MuleSoft, a platform provider for building application networks, have teamed up to host a digital banking hackathon. The hackathon will take place at Barclays Technology Centre Radbroke in Cheshire (UK) on 20-21 July. The event aims to foster innovation and harness technology to build a range of new financial services solutions. Peter Josse, […]

Lloyds goes mentor with start-up match-ups

Lloyds Banking Group has launched a new mentoring scheme giving fintech start-ups access to its workforce’s expertise. The support offered includes refining concepts to strengthening business models within a flexible timeframe determined between the mentor and the start-up. The mentors will come from all areas of Lloyds and will be matched with start-ups according to […]

HSBC dodges US money laundering charges

HSBC has escaped charges of money laundering by US officials due to fears by the Department of Justice (DOJ) it might create a “global financial disaster”. A US Congressional report shows that UK officials, including Chancellor George Osborne, used their clout to warn the US it could lead to market unrest. According to the BBC, […]

On the UK’s Speaking Clock turning 80 and financial services

Britain’s Speaking Clock, which will celebrate its 80th birthday on Sunday, July 24, was a real fascination for me as a child. Who was this person on the other end of the phone who was always available, any time of day, who could tell me the time down to the exact second? Did they ever […]

Standard Chartered to invest $3bn in strengthening ops; not threatened by fintech firms

Standard Chartered says it plans to invest $3 billion in strengthening it technology, retail and private banking and wealth management operations. As part of this, $30 million will be invested over the next three years in Scope International, the bank’s global shared services centre in Malaysia. Scope International’s CEO Matthew Norris says that the subsidiary […]

Nordea’s new chief digital officer calls on fintechs to get in touch

Ewan MacLeod is heading to Nordea as co-head of its newly created “Group Digital” unit and is on the lookout for fintech companies, services and ideas to introduce to Nordea. MacLeod will be one of two chief digital officers at the Nordic banking group. The other one is Poul Raaholt, previously head of group IT […]

Top fintech stories this week – 8 July 2016

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 […]

Becoming a challenger bank – a worthwhile challenge?

Advanced Payment Solutions (APS) has secured a credit licence from the UK’s regulator, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). And whilst APS is not a bank, it competes with them. So is going through the pains for getting a banking licence really worth it, asks Rich Wagner, CEO and founder APS. We regularly see news of challenger finance […]

ING and KBC team up for mobile payments in Belgium

ING and Belgian bank KBC have joined forces to launch a new, integrated mobile payments and loyalty platform in Belgium. This will combine ING’s payment app Payconiq with loyalty platforms Qustomer and KBC’s CityLife. Rik Vandenberghe, CEO ING Belgium, says the customer feedback it received about Payconiq and Qustomer “strengthens our conviction that as a […]

Torstone’s Inferno backs BNP Paribas in Fed Reserve deal

BNP Paribas Securities Services has become a direct securities participant to the US Federal Reserve through FedLine, its online financial services information and payment service. The company, a subsidiary of the BNP Paribas group, says this completes its direct connectivity to the US market on all securities instruments. BNP uses Torstone Technology’s post-trade securities and […]

Third bank onboard for Raisin’s European deposit marketplace

Berlin-based Raisin has gained a third partner bank on its pan-European deposit marketplace website, Euram Bank in Austria. The latest partnership follows on from deals with Poland-based Alior Bank and J&T Banka in the Czech Republic. Dr. Tamaz Geordgaze, CEO and founder of Raisin, says the level of Euram’s equity has remained at an “excellent” […]

Three ex-Barclays staff convicted in Libor rigging trial

Three ex-Barclays workers have been found guilty of manipulating the Libor interest rate between 2005 and 2007. Jay Merchant was convicted unanimously at Southwark Crown Court in London of rigging the key financial rate. Jonathan Mathew and Alex Pabon were found guilty by majority verdict after a ten-week trial. They will be sentenced on Thursday […]