Following the launch of Misys’ applications in the cloud – FinCloud – earlier this year, the banking software vendor has unveiled its new Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) strategy, FusionFabric.cloud. It will be commercially available next year.
Deutsche Bank is partnering with start-up accelerator Axel Springer Plug and Play to select, develop and finance up-and-coming firms from sectors such as banking and insurance. Deutsche Bank will be an exclusive Axel Springer Plug and Play partner – the latter a joint venture between the media company Axel Springer and California-based Plug and Play […]
The Bank of England (BoE) has published a consultation paper on the next generation real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service. On the way out is the bank’s legacy 20-year old platform. The BoE is calling on the payments industry specialists to get in touch.
Finserv provider Tramonex is partnering with Saxo Payments for segregated client accounts in 25 currencies, and foreign exchange (FX) liquidity. Tramonex has joined the Saxo Payments Banking Circle, and says it is now able to offer its clients individual, physical and virtual accounts with their own unique International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs). Tramonex previously offered […]
While it sounds like something for which you’d need to visit a doctor, Swift’s HVPS+ will likely be a talking point during the payments industry panels at this month’s Sibos. Announced in mid-August, the high-value payments system task force is an important component of Swift’s ISO 20022 harmonisation initiative. A number of central banks, market infrastructures and banks from around the world are members of the task force.
The latest edition of our flagship magazine – Banking Technology – is out now, packed with news, analysis and insights, case studies, research and expert commentary.
Following a joint project with O2 to create Germany’s first mobile-only, full-service bank account, GFT Technologies and Fidor have entered a broader “strategic innovation partnership”. The focus is on developing mobile financial and banking apps, and marketing/selling Fidor’s proprietary technology, Fidor Operating Systems (fOS).
Payments specialist Klarna and fashion retailer Arcadia Group have launched a new e-commerce retail financing offering to the UK market.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) have signed an agreement to foster more fintech co-operation. The plan is to share information, support financial innovators, smooth out regulations, and offer more dialogue and secondments. To provide more evidence, FINMA says it is “consistently removing unnecessary regulatory hurdles” – […]
SKG Bank, the consumer finance arm of Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB), has unveiled a digital-only lending and consumer credit service. In co-operation with Munich-based FinTecSystems, DKB says in the future loans can be arranged without submitting documents such as bank statements. Thomas Teuber, director of SKG Bank, says its customers “can close more quickly and completely […]
Banks and fintech companies need to collaborate to succeed, argue Saxo Bank’s global COO, Søren Kyhl, and Stig Tørnes, head of business management. And that requires a change of mindset on both sides, the sooner the better. Fintech has become the buzzword for a diverse group of companies whose ambition is to bring efficiency to financial […]
Wirecard and fintech start-up Fundflow have launched an invoice discounting platform for SMEs in Germany. The firms say that SMEs and freelancers can sell their outstanding invoices on the Fundflow website, which then enables refinancing with institutional investors. Wirecard Bank has provided its German banking licence and will handle the payment process. Joachim Kaune, MD […]
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Barclays have joined forces to let their retail customers move money between Australia and the UK with “just a mobile number”. In a “first between the two countries”, CBA and Barclays say they have worked to connect each of their payment apps together – CBA’s CommBank and Barclays’ Pingit. […]
Lend me your ears… and eyes. LendIt and Capital One are to co-host PitchIt @ LendIt, a competition to “find a future star of the fintech world”. The competition is aimed at firms innovating within the online lending and fintech space. It provides a showcase for eight firms to pitch their business case to a […]
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 […]
It only lasted six weeks but Amazon and Wells Fargo Education Financial Services have ended their partnership to offer US college students a discount on private student loans. The deal, launched in July, was Amazon’s first venture into the lending market for college students. For Wells Fargo, it was an attempt to build up its […]
The disruptive forces of technology and legislation are forcing banks to become open and collaborative, things which they historically found challenging. A friend who owns a small business recently went through what I call a “connected and choreographed” experience to get a loan. iWoka, a digital lending company, simply asked him to log on to […]
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 […]
Infosys has partnered with Huawei to bring the Finacle core banking system to the Huawei FusionCloud. The two companies carried out a benchmarking activity under the observation of consultancy firm EY. The test was simulated on a Finacle database size of almost 1 TB, with 6,000+ branches, 33 million+ customers, 61 million+ accounts and 20,000+ […]
Brevity is the goal of this. Here’s a round-up of events in the payments space to save you time. Let’s start off small… as in Small World FS. The London-based payment service provider reached a milestone with 50 million transactions processed on behalf of its customers. The firm’s been around for ten tears and says […]
Commerzbank London and UniCredit have “successfully” processed the first UK Bank Payment Obligation (BPO) live transaction. The banks say with the backing of the ICC Banking Commission and Swift, there has been a “growing demand for, and an increasing number of”, BPO transactions, as a “proven” digital settlement tool. Raphael Barisaac, global head of trade […]
London-based Currencycloud is partnering with Arkéa Banking Services, a subsidiary of Credit Mutuel Arkea, to offer clients its Euro bank accounts and direct access to European payments systems. This partnership will enable Currencycloud to process international payments through Target2 for real-time payment settlement. It says this builds on and “enhances” existing capabilities that allow cross-border […]
Digital banking software specialist Backbase has teamed with Entersekt to use its authentication capabilities on the Backbase Open Banking Marketplace. Backbase will offer banks push-based authentication and transaction signing integrated in its omni-channel digital banking platform. Its clients can select the authentication solution that “best meets their needs”. Dewald Nolte, Entersekt’s SVP partners and alliances, […]
Payments firm PhonePe and Yes Bank have teamed up to launch India’s “first” UPI (Unified Payments Interface) based mobile payments app. UPI was launched in April by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) – with Yes Bank being one of the 21 banks recently going live. UPI offers instant, online bank payments, and is […]
US Bank Wealth Management is partnering with FutureAdvisor to offer automated investing capabilities to clients of its affiliate US Bancorp Investments. FutureAdvisor, an investment advisory firm owned by BlackRock, expects the service to be available to US Bancorp Investments clients in 2017. Mark Jordahl, president of US Bank Wealth Management, says: “Moving forward we believe […]
Innotribe, Swift’s innovation arm, and membership organisation Innovate Finance have launched a Global FinTech Hubs Federation (GFHF) to help foster innovation. To date, more than 20 countries – including Canada, China, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and the UK – are participating in the GFHF, with more countries expected to join in the coming months. Lawrence Wintermeyer, […]
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 […]
UAE-based Al Hilal Bank has got a new CIO, Gopi Krishnan. He is calling on fintech CEOs to get in touch “to explore ways to collaborate”.
South Korea’s SK Telecom and Hana Financial Group have formed a joint venture (JV) agreement to develop and launch a mobile financial services platform. The firms say the deal combines SK Telecom’s mobile technologies and big data analytics with Hana Financial Group’s experience in financial products and mobile financial services. Kim Jung-tae, chairman of Hana […]
Payments provider Ingenico has partnered with Alipay to give Chinese tourists visiting Europe the ability to pay via their Alipay app at any store using the Ingenico solution. With this partnership, Alipay will be imbedded into Ingenico’s in-store payment gateway, which will allow acquirers across Europe to integrate and offer Alipay acceptance to their merchants. […]
US networking gear giant Cisco has announced it will be cutting 5,500 jobs to reinvest the consequent savings on strategic growth areas like IoT, cloud, data centres and collaboration, reports Scott Bicheno at Telecoms.com. The announcement was made as part of the company’s quarterly earnings announcement, which revealed flat revenue growth but improved profitability. It […]
Swift has formed a global market practice task force of markets infrastructures and banks to assist its ISO 20022 Harmonisation Charter. Sponsored by the Payments Market Practice Group (PMPG), the task force aims to address the evolving ISO 20022 standards requirements of high value payments systems (HVPS) providers. Swift says it is a “key component” […]
Thomson Reuters has teamed with Oddup to launch a new app that rates fintech start-ups in Asia. The “first of its kind in Asia”, the app is now available on Thomson Reuters’ Eikon App Studio and provides ratings, which Thomson Reuters says enables people to “stay on top” of the growing Asia fintech scene. James […]
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 […]
Mizuho Bank has carried out testing for new banking services through the Facebook bot and Amazon Echo. The tests took place in Silicon Valley, California, in partnership with two other Japanese firms – Information Services International – Dentsu and Nomura Research Institute. The companies are looking to use CUI (conversational user interfaces) to develop platforms […]
Kyc.com is partnering with Dow Jones, Exiger and Regulatory DataCorp (RDC) to drive standardisation and compliance for Know Your Customer (KYC) processes. The alliance plans to deliver an end-to-end KYC process integrating compliance, onboarding, sanctions, screening, negative media searches and client risk assessment across regulatory regimes and multiple jurisdictions. Joel Lange, managing director of Dow […]
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. […]
