Nordea says it will be the “first” bank in Finland to offer its customers an equity-based crowdfunding service. It has developed an online crowdfunding platform that will match entrepreneurs seeking financing with investors; and will be linked to a book-entry system. The service will be launched in the next few months. The bank says the […]
Dutch bank ING has revealed it’s working with 45 fintech start-ups on banking innovation, such as money management, payments, lending and mobile on-boarding. Ralph Hamers, CEO of ING Group, says of the 45 fintech firms, these include seven start-ups working on their proof-of-concept through the ING Fintech Village initiative in Belgium, and four through the […]
UK-based Metro Bank will roll out Glory Global Solutions’ Vertera 6G teller cash recyclers (TCRs) across the bank’s new locations as well as replace older technology in existing outlets. Metro Bank will set up a number of new branches in the course of 2016 and 2017. The bank, which opened for business in 2010, currently has […]
San-Francisco based RocketSpace, with the support of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), plans to open a campus in London, designed specifically for “high-growth” tech start-ups. The campus, located near Angel tube station, will initially hold up to 1,500 members at its opening in early 2017. Duncan Logan, RocketSpace’s founder and CEO, says: “Creating a physical […]
Sopra Steria has teamed with DataStax, a provider of database software for cloud applications, as they target finserv organisations across the retail banking, investment banking and trading sectors. Working with DataStax, Sopra says it will provide solutions to some of the “biggest challenges” currently facing traditional banking institutions, such as compliance with “ever more stringent […]
Barclays’ business banking service, Barclays.net, decided it would also take time off during the three-day Bank Holiday weekend in the UK. The system suffered intermittent outages from 29 April until today (3 May), and there were numerous complaints on Twitter from angry users. The impact on customers ranged from trying to pay staff or facing […]
Italian banking heavyweight, UniCredit, is working on standardising its global transaction business (GTB) on one platform, underpinned by D+H’s Global PayPlus (GPP) system. GPP is supplied by D+H’s Global Transaction Banking Solution (GTBS) unit, formerly known as Fundtech. UniCredit’s GTB business covers 17 countries – the bank has accrued it via an aggressive M&A strategy […]
Tech consultancy firm Capgemini has launched its Intelligent Test Automation Platform for financial services, promising quality assurance savings of up to 30%. The platform uses frameworks and robotic agents, and Capgemini says it speeds up the release of new products and services by providing “much shorter test cycles and better collaboration between development and test […]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is likely to miss the set deadline to spin off its Williams & Glyn’s (W&G) subsidiary – and the technology issues are to blame. W&G has been dormant for a few decades (RBS absorbed it in the mid-1980s). It was originally set to be revived and re-launched in 2015 by […]
Broadridge Financial Solutions has launched a new solutions partner programme to enable consulting, technology and servicing firms to offer technology solutions. Partner firms will get access to solutions across wealth management, asset management, capital markets and corporate issuer segments; and a set of sales enablement resources, technical training services and a financial benefits package. Ira […]
EdgeVerve Systems, a product subsidiary of Infosys, has launched a blockchain framework targeted at the financial services sector. Called EdgeVerve Blockchain Framework, it is a permissioned ledger that allows banks to deploy blockchain-based services for “varied” business areas. EdgeVerve says it can “scale to the levels needed to support international, cross-border transactional business”; and therefore […]
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is cutting almost 600 jobs in its UK retail bank. British and Irish trade union Unite has reacted to the news. RBS will axe about 200 positions across London and the south east of England, with 400 jobs to go in the Midlands, east and the north of the country, […]
The challengers aiming to take on the traditional high street banks are themselves facing an enormous obstacle if they are to disrupt the banking market significantly, observes Zehra Chudry, organiser of the “Challengers versus Legacy Banks” debate at PayExpo Europe 2016. This hurdle is building consumer trust. Not only must they offer powerfully attractive alternatives and improvements, they must also convince consumers […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Money 20/20 Europe: Biometric identity, SMEs and final day’s sessions round-up Key highlights, what went well and what could be improved. Money 20/20 Europe: KYC/ID, commerce disruption and femtech round-up Valid points raised, key issues discussed. A must […]
Nick Kerigan, managing director of future payments at Barclaycard, lends his expert view on the changing consumer payment landscape and maps the journey to contactless card payments and beyond. Kerigan leads the team that looks at payment and competitor intelligence, and is responsible for driving innovation across Barclaycard. Last year was a milestone in UK […]
Santander and Kabbage are piloting an online tool to give UK small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) access to same day funding. Announced today (4 April) at Money 20/20 in Copenhagen, SMEs can get access to new working capital of between £500 and £100,000 via an online process. At a media briefing, Sigga Sigurdardottir, chief […]
Exchange group SIX and Switzerland’s five largest banks are in talks over a joint mobile payments platform for the country. SIX, retail chains Migros and Coop, and telecoms company Swisscom are planning to create a standardised digital payment system for consumers in Switzerland. A joint statement from the banks – UBS, Credit Suisse, Raiffeisen, PostFinance […]
Marstone, a New York-based financial services firm, has teamed up with IBM Watson for Wealth Management to offer digital advice assisted by cognitive computing. The plan is for Marstone’s platform, powered by Watson, to use data, patterns and natural language to provide cognitive advice and learn from experience. Margaret Hartigan, chief executive of Marstone, says […]
Google is bringing Android Pay to the UK market – with Bank of Scotland, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, M&S Bank, MBNA and Nationwide Building Society the first to support it. This latest move follows Android Pay’s launch in the US in September 2015, and it should be available in the UK “in the […]
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! As it’s Easter holidays in the UK, this time it’s published on Thursday. Deutsche Bank reduces branch network in Germany Rise of digital banking drives change. Polymer notes pose £45m problem for UK cash machines Slippery when plastic. […]
Commerzbank is now live with an integrated set of finance and risk solutions powered by the SAP HANA platform. SAP says the bank has more than 70% of its balance sheet running on SAP Bank Analyzer and SAP Accounting for Financial Instruments. It adds that Commerzbank is able to close its monthly books “significantly faster”, […]
Santander says it has become the “first” bank in the UK to launch voice banking technology. The solution is provided by Nuance Communications. However, last month HSBC announced it was launching voice recognition and touch security services in the UK, which will be available to 15 million banking customers. This project is also being carried […]
Deutsche Bank is cutting its retail outlets in Germany from 700 to 500 as it looks to lower costs and adapt to digital banking. Christian Sewing, head of private, wealth and commercial clients and member of management board, Deutsche Bank, says the cuts are “necessary as the retail bank’s profitability has decreased over the last […]
A great visual of how four US-based conglomerates – JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) – have grown to be the megabanks we know today. Source: American Banker
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place! Deutsche Börse and LSE to merge Two hearts beat as one. D+H Corporation joins US real-time payments rush Catches up with rivals FIS and Jack Henry. Deutsche Bank and Bank of China partner for cash management Becomes first […]
Eventus Systems, a US-based provider of data processing and analysis solutions, has signed UBS Securities for its flagship Validus risk and surveillance platform. Mark Holder, global co-head of electronic trading at UBS, says Eventus and Validus offered “impressive capabilities that strengthen our current platform”. The implementation has just begun. “Validus is going to bring a […]
Deutsche Bank has become the first foreign bank in China to establish host-to-host connectivity with Bank of China, as part of the project to deliver international cash management (ICM) services to corporate clients. The two banks have implemented an interbank host-to-host platform, with the first customer – Bosch China – already on-board. The project commenced […]
Some of the major US banks are planning to tap into the instant payments market via their digital network, according to Reuters. Banks including JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and US Bancorp will use their jointly-owned network, clearXchange, to let their customers transfer money. “What we are doing now is delivering payments […]
Standard Chartered has launched its “Bank on an iPad” sales and service tool in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Called Retail Workbench, it is a digital tablet-based sales-and-service tool that “brings the bank” to clients. It is integrated with the bank’s back-end infrastructure, and will allow sales staff to open an account for a […]
Ulster Bank and KPMG have launched the “world’s largest free business accelerator” for entrepreneurs – Entrepreneurial Spark – in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The new hub, or “Hatchery”, can host up to 80 businesses and early stage entrepreneurs. Also involved in the launch were Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and NatWest (all three are part […]
Can applying semantics make BCBS 239 reporting consistent and comparable across all regulatory bodies? Rupert Brown explores the options when best practice isn’t good enough… Regulatory vagaries and the punitive fines make these tense times for bank risk officers. On the one hand, regulators are asking for a whole lot of architectural work to be […]
A quiet revolution powered by the force of data science has begun to deliver significant improvements in many areas including national security, business intelligence, law enforcement, financial analysis, healthcare and disaster preparedness. But are we ready to use the force in banking? Standard Chartered’s global chief innovation officer, Anju Patwardhan, explores the topic. Digital data […]
Banks and fintechs should collaborate rather than compete, leveraging their respective strengths to revolutionise the B2B payments space and create sustainable business models in today’s digital era. As the next stages of digital structural change continue to transform financial services, the focus of technological developments will shift. Most recent developments in business models have been […]
Barclays is leaving Africa as it looks to consolidate the group and increase shareholder returns after a 2% drop in full-year profit. The bank will sell its 62% stake in Barclays Africa Group Limited (BAGL) over the coming few years and then focus on two divisions – Barclays UK and Barclays Corporate and International. BAGL […]
Financial institutions need to determine how to comply with the least disruption and cost in the short time frames provided. Image courtesy of Datameer. Click on picture to enlarge or use zoom feature within browser. Or you can read the PDF here.
Kevin Mountford, CEO of PBF Solutions, examines the key steps that new entrants to the UK banking sector need to take to attract customers and drive deposits. Challenging is one thing, but gaining a firm foothold in the UK banking sector is another, especially as the number of new entrants grows. From 2013 to mid-2015, the […]
Digital financial services (DFS) have the power to transform the lives of millions living in poverty. However, the lack of merchant acceptance presents a significant obstacle to its success. Sacha Polverini, chairman of the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) focus group on digital financial services and Carol Benson, managing partner at Glenbrook Partners, look at how […]
Barclays and BlackBerry are bringing BBM, the mobile instant messaging service, to Pingit money transfers in the UK. BBM users can now make mobile payments to each other using Barclays’ mobile payment app Pingit. Matthew Talbot, SVP, BBM at BlackBerry, says to “exchange money was a logical extension” of BBM’s functions. Once a user has […]
HSBC is launching voice recognition and touch security services in the UK, which will be available to 15 million banking customers. Customers of First Direct, a division of HSBC, will be offered the biometric recognition system over the next few weeks, followed by HSBC’s in the summer. HSBC is not the first to do this […]
Commerzbank has reported a quadrupling of profits on the back of digital growth, as European banks are balancing their investment in digital services with cost cutting initiatives. Stephan Engels, chief financial officer at Commerzbank, said that adoption of digital technology is proving invaluable in an earnings call with analysts on 12 February. He observed, “Due to […]
