The European Commission (EC) is proposing reforms to pave the way for further financial integration and a full capital markets union – with a handy boost to fintech included. President Jean-Claude Juncker, in his State of the Union Address, underlined the importance of the capital markets union and the EC’s plan to “promote jobs, growth […]
10X Future Technologies, the start-up founded by ex-Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins last year, will announce this week that it has raised more than £30 million in funding from Ping An Insurance and management consulting firm Oliver Wyman, according to Sky News. The deal will speed up 10X’s expansion, and is good news for Jenkins’ ambitions. […]
London-based accelerator Startupbootcamp InsurTech is on the search for the next wave of insurance-inspired start-ups to “take the industry by storm”. Startupbootcamp InsurTech says the process of searching for and purchasing something on Amazon or booking peer-reviewed accommodations in a different country at the touch of a finger, condition people to “expect this fluidity and […]
Wake me up when September sends a fintech funding round-up. Features Deutsche Börse, RegTek.Solutions, Finaeo and Now Money. Deutsche Börse and Illuminate Financial Management have co-led in a $5 million Series A funding round in RegTek.Solutions, a regulatory reporting solutions provider. As reported last month, the Regulatory Reporting Hub of Deutsche Börse launched a partnership […]
Google has responded strongly to Apple’s front-running approach to augmented reality (AR) with the launch of a new AR platform, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). ARCore is the Android equivalent to the Apple ARKit; in short, an AR reality platform for developers. It’s not the first time Google has had a crack at the […]
In the most recent InsurTech Bytes podcast, Sarah Greasley, CTO, Direct Line Group, opened up about her experience as a woman in fintech, the challenges and the solutions. FinTech Futures (Banking Technology’s sister company) uncovered the solutions for five of the key hurdles in her career. 1: Entrepreneurship and empowering risk taking Challenge: From a […]
Fintech zeitgeist! This week, Oisin Merrins, editor at InsurTech Rising, ponders whether insurtech is losing its lustre.
We’ve got your back if you want to keep track of financial backing. Our latest fintech funding round-up features Options, Instamojo, AnyPay, Aegon and Funding Circle. Options, a provider of cloud-enabled managed services to capital markets, has received nearly $100 million in investment from New York-based private equity firm Bregal Sagemount. The money will be […]
Banking and insurance provider USAA has opted for Clinc’s artificial intelligence (AI) platform to provide human-like conversations for its customers’ bank accounts. Available as a pilot programme at USAA Labs, its members, who consist of 12 million current and former members of the US military and their families, can use the “non-chatbot AI” to talk […]
The riches rounded up. Following on from the brief report on 26 July, here’s our latest fintech funding round-up. Features Brolly, Callsign and Aquiline Capital Partners. Insurtech start-up Brolly has got itself some lolly – with the closing of a £1 million seed round. The round, led by Valar Ventures, Pi Labs and Entrepreneur First, […]
Enterprise software firm R3 is working with Intel to beef up its data privacy and security for Corda, its distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform. R3, which used to call itself a blockchain consortium, says Corda only sends data to those who have a “need to know”. According to the company, this feature emerged from the […]
The Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) have signed a fintech co-operation agreement and updated an existing memorandum of understanding (MoU) on banking supervision. The agreement aims to help develop a “richer financial ecosystem” in Thailand and Singapore as well as in ASEAN. The pair will share information on emerging […]
SimCorp has acquired a fellow wealthtech vendor, APL Italiana, for €35 million. APL Italiana specialises investment and portfolio management software for the Italian insurance market.
Clark, a German insurance robo-advisor, has inked a deal with mobile bank N26. Clark says its Bancassurance-API will help customers of N26 “to better understand their current tariffs and improve their insurance situation”.
Like a bird of paradise, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is calling again – and this time for views and evidence concerning consumers’ access to insurance. This FCA’s paper looks more broadly at access issues related to insurance but specifically (and a non-fintech point) seeks views on “how consumers with cancer or those in […]
American International Group (AIG), IBM and Standard Chartered have piloted the “first” multinational, smart contract based insurance policy using blockchain. The trio converted a controlled master policy written in the UK, and three local policies in the US, Singapore and Kenya, into a smart contract that provides a shared view of policy data and documentation […]
German fintech incubator FinLeap’s digital insurance platform Element is partnering with financial services group Signal Iduna for new products and services. Element is currently in the process of applying for a life insurance licence under Germany’s Insurance Supervision Act, and plans to offer services in property, accident and liability, and cybersecurity. It will provide “Insurance-as-a-Platform” […]
Ask most people about their experience with insurance, grudge purchase par excellence, and they’ll say it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Enter Lemonade, the New York-based insurtech combining the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and an approach founded on behavioural economics and customer centricity to offer homeowners and renters protection with a difference.
The fintech industry is flying through the social media stratospheres at astonishing rates – we know. But how are particular sectors within it keeping up? Insurance – and its insurtech counterpart – is certainly moving ahead in leaps and bounds in some areas, but when it comes to social media, it looks like it is only just embarking on its journey now, a good five years behind banking.
Indian IT firm Wipro has developed nine blockchain-based solutions for banking financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, retail and consumer goods industries. The solutions were defined, designed and co-developed with Wipro’s clients in its blockchain innovation lab. In terms of fintech and insurtech, these concepts include trade finance and P2P insurance for the “sharing economy” […]
In the latest InsurTech Bytes – the podcast for the future of insurance by FinTech Futures – we learn from one of the best disruption duos in insurance: Trov and Anthemis Group.
To the outside observer the insurance industry may look very conservative with dominant global companies and local players operating in the way they have done for years and with very little interaction with their customers. But this is changing.
Many have proclaimed that 2017 will be “the year of artificial intelligence (AI)”, with a 300% increase in investment in its technologies predicted compared with 2016. Start-ups with AI at the core of their business in particular will be looking to benefit from this surge in investment capital, as they did last year when 550 raised $5 billion in funding.
Consortium R3 has partnered with Acord (Association for Cooperative Operations Research and Development) to launch a virtual “centre of excellence” for distributed ledger technology (DLT) in the insurance industry. R3 counts a number of insurance companies amongst its member base, including MetLife, AIA and Suncorp Group, as well as other financial services members that have […]
In an interview with Lisa Moyle, portfolio director of InsurTech Rising, we dive into the importance of partnerships and investments with insurtechs.
Israel’s insurtech provider Atidot has launched the “first” Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) based predictive analytics platform for the life insurance sector. The firm says its big data modelling and decision making tools will “accelerate the pace” at which life insurance executives can use intelligence in their decision making. Existing company data is loaded to the proprietary Atidot […]
Switzerland-based insurance provider Baloise Group has forged an investment partnership with Anthemis Group, a digital financial services investment and advisory firm. Together, they will curate European and American tech start-ups developing insurance (insurtech) and risk management solutions, with a mandate is to invest CHF 50 million ($50 million).
The disruptive threat is real, but the battle is not lost. Download this white paper for practical advice on surviving and thriving in the era of internet giants and fintech start-ups.
Insurance Australia Group (IAG) is looking to build an insurtech hub in Singapore. The new unit, Firemark Labs, will act as an incubator for IAG and help teamwork between start-ups and research and tech partners for new products and services across Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Julie Batch, chief customer officer, IAG, says “customer lifestyles […]
Kevin, Traity’s new chatbot, provides micro-insurance for P2P transactions online. Created in collaboration with Australia’s financial services conglomerate, Suncorp, Kevin protects buyers on online marketplaces such as Gumtree, Facebook and Craigslist.
There are many reasons to be excited about insurtech in 2017!
Philippines-based Ayannah, a provider of financial services to migrants and the unbanked, was the overall start-up winner in the Next Money Fintech Finals 2017 in Hong Kong.
Macif Group is revamping its investment administration and accounting tech, and has selected NeoXam to assist with the project. It will help implement the new software and will also host it.
There has been a tremendous amount of excitement and discussion about the potential of blockchain technology to transform the financial services industry and beyond. But the only thing that is clear at the moment is that there is still a lot of work to be done to implement wide scale use cases, clear up any regulatory uncertainly or barriers and educate institutions and employees about the technology and its potential.
UniCredit Bank, MasterCard and platform provider GoSwiff have launched mobile payments for Allianz-Tiriac Asigurari insurance agents in Romania. The partnership will enable Allianz-Tiriac agents to start accepting card payments with mobile point of sale (mPOS) for the insurance policies issued by the company. The firms say Allianz-Tiriac becomes the “first insurance company in Romania” to […]
Kenya-based Family Bank is implementing a new insurance platform, based on JMR Infotech’s Avenir offering. Avenir – an integrated bancassurance portal – will support Family Bank’s fresh entry into the insurance business. Just a couple of months back, the bank unveiled a new subsidiary, Family Bank Insurance Agency, to target “the lucrative but highly under-served […]
