Top fintech stories this week – 17 November 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
Mobile
Fintech funding round-up: 16 November 2017
Say it isn’t so, another fintech funding round-up? Of course! It’s busy as always. Here’s the latest news action. Featuring DIFC and its investments, ASEAN seeing a boom with fintechs on the rise, and two firms; Active.ai and PayStand get individual funding too.
Airtel Payments Bank live with new core banking system
Airtel Payments Bank, a start-up subsidiary of Indian telco Airtel, has gone live with its core banking system. This is understood to be Oracle FSS’s Flexcube.
Multiple UK banks reporting outages… again
Can’t shake the sense of déjà vu? Customers of Lloyds, TSB, Halifax and Bank of Scotland will know the feeling, after receiving more reports of outages.
Boku to raise $60m ahead of London IPO
Carrier billing company Boku plans to go public on the London Stock Exchange’s alternative investment market (AIM), an international market for smaller growing companies, reports Julie Muhn at Finovate (Banking Technology’s sister company). Ahead of next week’s public debut, the company announced it expects to raise $60 million on a post-money valuation of $164 million. Of the […]
Ex-Googlers have LightStep for hybrid app performance
LightStep, founded by ex-Googlers, has come out of stealth to introduce its first product, for application performance management in environments combining microservices with legacy apps, reports Enterprise Cloud News (Banking Technology’s sister publication). Called LightStep [x]PM, it provides application performance management that operates across all application components, including web and mobile clients, monolithic applications and […]
Rambus partners with Eftpos for Android Pay in Australia
Eftpos, the Australian domestic debit network, is using Rambus’ token service provider (TSP) technology to digitise payment cards to support Android Pay. Rambus says TSP enables Eftpos to maintain consumer data securely through tokenisation, which allows the replacement of sensitive data with unique reference numbers so information is not compromised. In turn, Android Pay lets […]
White paper: electronic signature guide for banks in Australia
Get an introduction to the world of e-signatures through this comprehensive guide. Learn the top use cases, best practices and key requirements for Australian banks of all sizes.
Standard Chartered unveils chatty banking chatbot
Standard Chartered plans to deploy a chatbot on its online and mobile banking platforms powered by Kasisto’s conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform, KAI Banking. The chatbot will act as a virtual personal assistant to help clients manage money, make payments and analyse their spending, via conversations in English and other unnamed languages. The service will […]
Why mobile wallet acceptance is key to retail growth
A young woman has made plans to join a friend for dinner at a restaurant across town, and with a few clicks on a mobile device she sets her night in motion. Her go-to ride-sharing service has sent a car, she’s ordered a cappuccino from her favorite coffee shop – this one is free because she’s a loyalty member – and her social app pings her friend to let him know her ETA.
Crime moves upmarket as fraud becomes UK’s number 1 offence
New research from Experian claims fraud is now the UK’s most common criminal offence, much to the dismay of thugs and hoodlums everywhere, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). The company’s Annual Fraud Indicator 2017 estimates the annual cost of fraud in the UK is £190 billion, exceeding the total gross domestic product of 148 […]
ACI powers Malaysia’s real-time payments network plan
Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet), the national financial market infrastructure provider, will build Malaysia’s real-time retail payments platform (RPP) using ACI Worldwide’s UP Immediate Payments solution. RPP is an initiative to modernise the country’s infrastructure to all participants in the ecosystem, including banks, institutions, businesses, consumers and the government. PayNet resulted from the merger of Bank […]
Orange Bank goes live with Backbase banking platform
France’s latest mobile-only bank, Orange Bank, has gone live on Backbase’s Omnichannel Banking Platform. Backbase says Orange is the only French bank to offer for free a service that provides real-time balances, mobile payments and a virtual adviser that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Orange Bank was finally launched on […]
Barclays in Flux for instant digital receipts
Barclays is trialling itemised digital receipts to its customers via a partnership with start-up Flux, a rewards and receipt platform. The upcoming trial will take place with around 10,000 users of the Barclays Launchpad app, its platform for testing new features with “real customers to learn more about how best to meet their needs”. Matty […]
Mastercard, Bank Asia and a2i team for financial inclusion in Bangladesh
Access to Information (a2i, an innovation lab supported by the Bangladeshi government), Bank Asia and Mastercard have signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding (MoU) to facilitate financial inclusion in Bangladesh by making digital payment services accessible countrywide through the Union Digital Centres (UDCs).
Top fintech stories this week – 10 November 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
Banking Technology November 2017 issue out now
The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.
Payments round-up: 9 November 2017
We got a trilogy folks. Following the payments round-ups on 8 November and 7 November, here’s more paytech action. Features PayPal, NCR, Samsung, Scotiabank, Mastercard and Eftpos. It’s been offering cross-border payments in India for a decade, but PayPal has now launched domestic operations in the country as it looks to take on Paytm and […]
Africa can learn from the South American mistakes
Africa is firmly in last place when it comes to the development of the digital society, unless you count the Antarctic, but looking towards the failures of other emerging markets might help things along, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). First of all you have to address the hurdles which Africa is facing. Firstly, the […]
Over-regulation and career politicians could spell disaster for tech
Government intervention has been a hot topic all week at AfricaCom, and it doesn’t seem like there is going to be a resolution to the problem anytime soon, reports Telecoms.com (Banking Technology‘s sister publication). Of course there will always be a need to regulate any industry; commercial entities should not be left by themselves, they […]
UK banks join the iPhone X Face ID rush
Customers of TSB and Tesco Bank are now able to use facial recognition technology, Face ID, for mobile banking app and make payments. The new technology is exclusive to Apple’s iPhone X. Carlos Abarca, TSB’s chief information officer, says: “Providing customers with biometrics logon to their mobile banking, such as Face ID, means all of […]
OCBC Bank in good shape with digital health insurance plan
Singapore’s OCBC Bank has unveiled the purchasing of health insurance plans via its mobile and internet banking channels. The bank says: “Typically, health insurance plans like critical illness, disability, hospitalisation and surgical are not sold via online channels as they require a health check-up to evaluate the applicant’s medical condition. However, with ‘Early Cancer Care’, […]
Payments round-up: 8 November 2017
Just yesterday (7 November) was a payments round-up, but here’s more action from the lively paytech place. Features Apple, Coinsilium Group, UMT United Mobility Technology, Visa and even the Olympic Winter Games. Apple, which is rarely out of the news, has set up Apple Pay Cash for person-to-person (P2P) payments in Messages. This feature is […]
Finastra gains new digital banking tech project in Libya
Libya-based Bank of Commerce and Development (BCD) has signed for Finastra’s front-end software to launch a new online and mobile banking platform.
ICICI Bank sets the tone for voice-based payments in India
ICICI Bank has unveiled India’s first voice-based international remittance service to enable non-resident Indians (NRIs) to send money to any bank in the country. With the new feature in its Money2India (M2I) app, an NRI customer can make a remittance to existing payees in India with a voice command to Apple’s virtual voice assistant, Siri. […]
Payments round-up: 7 November 2017
A distinctly European feel in our latest payments round-up. Stars Facebook Messenger, the UK’s Payment Systems Regulator, Concardis and AliPay. The UK will be the first country outside the US to get the Facebook Messenger payments service. Messenger was launched in the US in 2015 and lets people transfer cash during any conversation within the […]
Fintech funding round-up: 7 November 2017
Not cash-strapped just backed. Our latest fintech funding round-up features Douugh, Choice Financial, Monzo and Smartkarma. All rise please. Banking (not baking) challenger Douugh has partnered with community bank Choice Financial to launch an integrated checking account and debit card. Choice has also made an investment to “support Douugh’s roadmap”, bringing the company’s total seed funding […]
Starling Bank bolts to Yolt money app
Yolt, the money app backed by ING, has integrated with its first digital challenger bank, Starling Bank. Yolt says its aggregation functionality now enables Yolt users to view their Starling Bank account details and transactions alongside their other bank accounts, together in one place. Since launching in June 2017, Yolt states that its users have […]
Bank of Scotland pilots AI tech for customer iPhone chat
Bank of Scotland, a subsidiary of Lloyds Banking Group, has launched a pilot artificial intelligence (AI) project – a virtual assistant for customers using the iPhone app.
Wirecard provides paytech to Orange Bank
France’s latest mobile bank, Orange Bank, is getting its mobile payment and banking services underpinned by Wirecard. The paytech vendor says it is providing “all the technical components integrated into the Orange Bank platform to manage their mobile payments”.
OCBC Bank first in Singapore to launch face ID recognition for mobile app
OCBC Bank’s retail and business banking customers can now log into the bank’s app via a selfie, if they use Apple iPhone X. The bank says it’s the first in Singapore to offer such biometric tech.
SoftBank to increase Sprint stake as Vision Fund boosts earnings
SoftBank has revealed plans to increase its stake in Sprint shortly after abandoning efforts to merge the US telco with local rival T-Mobile US, reports Light Reading (Banking Technology‘s sister company). The announcement came as the Japanese company reported a sharp increase in operating profits for the April-to-September period thanks to investment activities by its $98 […]
Wells Fargo unveils Greenhouse effect with money management app
Wells Fargo has unleashed Greenhouse, a new standalone mobile banking app to help consumers manage their money and know where they stand financially. The app combines personal finance management (PFM) tools with Wells Fargo banking, offering “personalised” insights through artificial intelligence (AI). The bank says Greenhouse will be available in a limited, national pilot in […]
Revolut to bring processing in-house
Revolut is building its own in-house processor, following a string of outages caused by its current third party provider.
Bar Harbor Bank & Trust in core banking tech overhaul with Jack Henry
Bar Harbor Bank & Trust has implemented new core banking software, Jack Henry & Associates’ Silverlake, provided on an outsourced basis.
Cashplus licence = new UK challenger bank
London-based financial services provider Cashplus is making the bold move into the challenger bank ring by unveiling its next move: applying for a banking licence.
Studio Bank starts up with CSI’s core and mobile banking
Tennessee-based Studio Bank has powered up in the US and selected Computer Services Inc (CSI) as its core and mobile banking technology provider. Studio, which filed its application to become Nashville’s “first newly chartered de novo bank in nearly a decade”, plans to use CSI’s NuPoint core processing solution for an omnichannel and “hyper-local” strategy. […]
German mobile challenger bank N26 expands to UK
Germany-based mobile challenger bank N26 will enter the UK market in the first half of 2018. According to N26, the UK is “one of the most advanced markets” in Europe in terms of digital payment methods. It says “non-cash payments and e-commerce are the accepted norm” and reckons there is a demand for a “fully-fledged […]
Personetics leverages AI to help chip away at student loan crisis
Cognitive analytics company Personetics has launched Personetics Act to offer banks a way to help customers repay their student loans ahead of schedule.
Top fintech stories this week – 3 November 2017
Catch up on Banking Technology’s top five fintech stories of the week – all in one place!
