Peruvian mobile wallet BIM, described as “the world’s first fully-interoperable national mobile money platform”, will launch new services in H2 2017. It will enable customers to pay electricity, water and telephone bills, as well as have access to micro savings and loans, and micro-insurance.
Prepaid providers are at a crossroads: They can create products that carry relative high fees, or craft consumer-friendly programs that promote financial health. Here’s a case for doing the latter.
Myanmar’s First Private Bank (FPB) has chosen the Misys FusionBanking Essence core banking system for a major tech revamp. The bank, which received the first banking licence in Myanmar in 1992, will upgrade its retail, corporate and digital offerings. FusionBanking will replace the bank’s “partially computerised distributed branch system”. Dr Sein Maung, chairman at FPB, […]
Cachet Financial Solutions is working with Central Bank of Kansas City again. The two companies, which in March announced a partnership to bring mobile-optimized prepaid programs to community banks, now are working with Rebar Interactive to provide Select Mobile Money-Express, a platform that includes a Mastercard-branded prepaid card.
In a bid to reach unbanked consumers as well as those who prefer cash, Amazon has debuted a new service that enables consumers to load cash to Amazon accounts at U.S. brick-and-mortar merchant locations and then use those funds to make online purchases through Amazon.
Grab, a ride-hailing and mobile payments platform in Southeast Asia, will acquire Indonesia-based O2O (online to offline) ecommerce platform Kudo. The Kudo team and platform will be integrated with Grab’s proprietary mobile payments platform, GrabPay. According to Grab, Kudo’s O2O platform allows Indonesia’s unbanked consumers to shop online by connecting them with merchants and service […]
Enjoy a word-lite delight with our brief fintech funding round-up. Features Clarity Money, The Glue and OOjiBO. US-based Clarity Money, a personal finance app, has announced a $11 million Series B funding round led by RRE Ventures and Citi Ventures. This financing comes three months after Clarity Money launched its product and eight months after […]
Hoping to bring “digital cash to everyone,” Samsung has introduced a chip platform that can enable contactless payments in watches, wristbands, key fobs and perhaps even clothing.
It’s good to do good but it’s even better to do good and make a profit was my takeaway from a lively discussion around financial inclusion at the recent Citi Digital Money Symposium held in London.
In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the CFPB proposed pushing back the effective date of the final prepaid accounts rule to April 1, 2018. The six-month delay provides industry participants more time to handle the difficulties of complying with certain provisions of the rule and for the CFPB to assess whether any additional adjustments to the rule are appropriate. Comments are due by April 5, 2017.
Pakistan-based Mobilink Microfinance Bank (MMBL, formerly Waseela Microfinance Bank) is implementing a new loan origination system, supplied by Path Solutions.
With the worldwide prepaid market set to hit $3.1 trillion by 2022, providers need to have a firm handle on who those prepaid consumers will be, and how they will shop.
Seeking to increase its foothold among customers who prefer cash, PayPal will spend approximately $233 million to buy Vancouver-based bill payment firm TIO Networks. The acquisition is not PayPal’s first move to gain the business of consumers using cash.
With mobile money technology widely available, and so many citizens having access to a mobile phone, how many are actually banking in this way? What are the benefits available to them when using mobile money? And what does the future hold for this fintech innovation?
Africa is becoming a very interesting fintech innovation hub (in particular South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt). As much as 80% of the continent is unbanked, opening the door to a breadth of opportunities for fintech companies to seize market share.
There was an interesting discussion at the recent Finance Disrupted event in London, organised by The Economist, that highlighted the opportunity for regtech to support financial inclusion.
In an attempt to take its share of the exploding cross-border payments market, which hit about $600 billion last year according to some estimates, Wirecard is launching a new mobile money remittance service in Europe, targeting consumers including unbanked migrants sending funds home.
U.K.-based Starling Bank has become the “first of the digital-only challengers” to join Faster Payments this week. The 13th direct participant of the Faster Payments Scheme, Starling says its customers will be able to see where their money is flowing and when in real-time, 24/7.
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.
Airtel Payments Bank, India’s “first” payments bank, has started national operations with services now live across the country. As Banking Technology reported in July 2016, telecoms giant Airtel was planning its own bank. It says it is a “fully digital and paperless” bank, and from today (12 January), over 250,000 neighbourhood Airtel retail stores across […]
More than 138 million Europeans do not have access to formal banking services, says Mastercard in a new report—news that could present an opportunity to prepaid providers and so-called “challenger banks.”
The number of households without bank accounts fell to its lowest level since the FDIC first began conducting its biannual survey in 2009. Seven percent of U.S. households were unbanked last year, according to the FDIC’s 2015 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, released Oct. 20.
Peru’s new nationwide mobile money network has launched with the goal of bringing 5 million of the country’s unbanked citizens into the financial system over the next five years.
In Uber’s latest move to expand its services to emerging markets, the San Francisco-based company has formed a partnership with Mumbai-based Paybefore Awards winner ItzCash Card Ltd. to reach unbanked consumers in areas outside India’s major cities.
Using Sibos as a springboard into the wider financial services community, mobile technology giant Ericsson is hoping to persuade more banks to join Peru’s La Asociación de Bancos del Perú (Asbanc). The Association connects unbanked consumers, telcos and banks together to offer a full range of services across the globe.
Credit unions play a critical role in local economies of countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, serving as a vital savings and credit conduit to vast numbers of people, especially those in the lower rungs of the income pyramid who are in many cases, priced out of the traditional banking system
The world’s unbanked population plummeted by 20 percent between 2011 and 2014, as 700 million adults became account holders, according to a new report from the World Bank.
Mobile money is expanding rapidly as global smartphone penetration grows. This year, many providers are looking to expand their range of mobile money services to areas such as credit and savings – but operators must be wary of the remaining challenges, including regulation and market sizes, according to a new report by the GSMA.
FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion will meet this week to discuss the results of the 2013 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Direct Express Debit MasterCard program now serves nearly one-quarter of the nation’s entire unbanked population, a recent cardholder survey confirms.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Direct Express Debit MasterCard program now serves nearly one-quarter of the nation’s entire unbanked population, a recent cardholder survey confirms.
T-Mobile USA Inc. this week became the first major U.S. mobile carrier to enter the GPR prepaid arena with Mobile Money by T-Mobile, a new smartphone application and accompanying Visa prepaid card.
Senior transaction banking executives have called for a political discussion to resolve the issue of emerging market access to banking services caused by the reduction of the correspondent banking services network.
Amex, home of that object of envy, the Black Card, is expanding in an unexpected direction – to provide services to the unbanked and underbanked.
Globally, around 50 per cent of the population do not have a bank account. Whether that is perceived as a surprisingly large or surprisingly small ratio is questionable; what is certain is that there is a potentially significant opportunity to provide those financial services
MasterCard and Entrepreneurial Finance Lab (EFL) have announced a global partnership to promote small business growth in developing countries. The partnership, agreed yesterday at Sibos, provides international issuers in developing markets with new tools to help to improve credit underwriting for unbanked small businesses.
Aug. 20, 2013 A mobile payments network aims to bring financial services to Colombia’s unbanked consumers and move the country’s economy away from cash. The Miami-based network, known as YellowPepper, thus far has signed up 12 Colombian banks for its system, which includes a virtual payment card, P2P and mPOS capability, according to a report […]
May 30, 2013 Vesta Corp., an Atlanta-based electronic payments services provider with offices in Ireland and China, has teamed up with three firms to develop Vesta PayMobile, a white-label e-wallet to help MNOs provide financial services to their prepaid customers. The smartphone application will launch with, yet unnamed, major mobile operators in the U.S. in […]
South Africa’s Standard Bank has introduced a new mobile banking tool called AccessBanking, which aims to reach unbanked customers in the country.
