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.
There is no smoke without fire. The “big smoke”, as London is colloquially known, has been creating a fire of innovation in the financial technology space for years, but there are other UK fintech centres in the Southwest; Cardiff; Manchester/Leeds; and Edinburgh/Glasgow that create their own heat.
Congressional Republicans hoping to hobble the CFPB and unwind the law that supports it, the Dodd-Frank Act, have another tool at their disposal.
The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority gave its blessing April 11, enabling Mastercard to complete its acquisition of 92.4 percent of VocaLink Holdings for $920 million. The deal, which is expected to close within weeks, gives Mastercard control of a large portion of the U.K. transaction processing market.
Payments industry practitioners in the European Union are understandably obsessed with the implications of the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). This was evident at the recent European Payments Summit, held in the Netherlands, where PSD2 dominated many of the discussions.
The CFPB accepted comments on its proposed delay of the effective date for its final rule on prepaid accounts through April 5. Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) likes the idea of a delay so much, he’s proposing giving the industry even more time.
Dr Andreas Dombret, member of the executive board of Deutsche Bundesbank, ponders why fintech innovation is such a hot topic now, of all times, what exactly innovation in banking means, and whether banks are even capable of being innovative.
Students gain financial literacy and banks develop important relationships with the community and new banking customers as shown in the FDIC’s Youth Savings Pilot.
Billing disputes and fraud, identity theft and embezzlement are among the most common complaints that consumers have about their credit cards, according to the CFPB.
The states weigh in on the CFPB leadership structure with two amicus briefs. A group of 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, has sided with the agency as it fights a court ruling that says the president should have the authority to fire the head of the CFPB. Meanwhile, 15 other states have taken an opposing stance.
As the U.K. moves ahead with plans to implement the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2), the Prepaid International Forum (PIF) has asked regulators for more clarification on certain aspects of how the framework will be applied in the country.
A proposed class action lawsuit was filed by a former prisoner who claims he had no choice but to receive a prepaid card upon his release instead of the cash he arrived with, minus any card fees he was charged.
The Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision finding that a New York law prohibiting merchants from disclosing surcharges to cover the costs of credit card processing while allowing for discounts in the case of cash transactions regulated speech
Facing charges by the Federal Trade Commission that Netspend deceived cardholders and denied or delayed their access to funds, the TSYS subsidiary agreed to a $53 million settlement, which consists of $40 million on deposit in customer accounts and $13 million in refunded fees. Netspend doesn’t admit any wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement.
With the growth of “mobile working” and an increasing number of business applications migrating to the cloud, the corporate perimeter has become more porous and vulnerable, driving demand for solutions that manage access and user identities securely and efficiently. This is where identity access management (IAM) technologies come into play. ING’s Sicco Boomsma explores.
A little after noon in Brussels March 29, a British ambassador delivered a letter to EU Council President Donald Tusk that set the wheels into motion for the U.K.’s exit from the EU. Today’s announcement makes official the results of the historic vote June 23, when 52 percent of voters in the U.K. stunned many around the world when they opted to leave, or “Brexit,” as it’s commonly called.
Wells Fargo will pay $110 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by U.S. consumers over a scandal about fake accounts its employees set up for customers without their knowledge. But the trouble continues for the financial institution, which has received a dim evaluation from a federal regulator.
A legal battle between merchants and payment networks over interchange fees that has been raging for more than a decade will continue now that the Supreme Court has declined to restore a $5.7 billion settlement agreement that was tossed out by a lower court.
A federal judge has dismissed an unfair practices lawsuit filed by the CFPB against a North Dakota-based payment processor. The federal agency had accused Intercept Corp. of permitting unauthorized and other illegal withdrawals from consumer accounts by its clients.
What can banks learn from the fintech community when it comes to fostering a culture of innovation against a backdrop of regulation?
Art Gillis, a seasoned banking technology consultant (working in the computer industry since 1958 – and listed as a top 25 tech consultant by the American Banker) and author, presents his latest “Automation in Banking” report (#31!), which looks at the US core banking and ancillary software market.
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.
The Securities and Exchange Commission denied the application of Internet entrepreneurs and venture capitalists Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to create an exchange-traded fund for the virtual currency bitcoin.
The Department of Justice files an amicus brief filed with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that the president should have the authority to fire the head of the CFPB, but stopped short of calling for the bureau’s leadership format to be changed.
House bill 1009 would require the CFPB and other independent federal agencies to submit regulations annually to a White House office for review, in the latest push to reform the CFPB and otherwise reduce regulatory burdens for the financial and payments industry under the Trump administration.
Professor Michael Mainelli, executive chairman of Z/Yen Group, and Vinay Gupta, founder of venture capital firm hexayurt.capital, discuss mutual distributed ledger economics.
The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has become the first U.S. regulatory agency to join the R3 Consortium, a global partnership of banks and other parties working to develop distributed ledger-based applications for financial services. The agency oversees the regulation and licensing of banks and financial institutions, among other businesses, in the state.
The top Democrat on the U.S. House Financial Services Committee wants to interview executives from Wells Fargo over a scandal about fake accounts its employees set up for customers. Last year, the CFPB announced a $100 million fine against Wells Fargo for what the agency called “widespread unlawful sales practices.” The agency said the fine was the largest such penalty it has ever issued.
Art Gillis, a seasoned banking technology consultant (working in the computer industry since 1958 – and listed as a top 25 tech consultant by the American Banker) and author, presents his latest “Automation in Banking” report (#31!), which looks at the US core banking and ancillary software market.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is moving forward with its plan to enable fintech companies to become special purpose national banks (SPNBs), releasing a licensing manual draft supplement which provides guidance on how the OCC “will apply the licensing standards and requirements in its existing regulations and policies to fintech companies applying for [SPNB] charters“ and another document that summarizes public comments about the plan to allow SPNBs for fintech companies. The special purpose charter has no shortage of critics, but perhaps the most vocal—New York State—has turned up the dial on its opposition.
With federal and state payments regulation in near-constant flux, compliance strategy continues to be of utmost importance, especially for issuers. Amid this landscape, The Bancorp has named Bill Neurohr to head its compliance operations and serve as the point man for the company’s interactions with regulators.
Banking Technology puts the banking innovation in the US under the spotlight. The market is not short of digital offerings: Simple, Moven, Kabbage, Acorns, Earny, Debitize, MagnifyMoney and more – take your pick!
Prepaid stakeholders scrambling to meet the Oct. 1, 2017, effective date for the CFPB’s final rule on prepaid accounts can take a breath. The CFPB has proposed delaying the effective date by six months—and has signaled it might be open to tweaking some aspects of the rule.
The CFPB, on March 7, released a guide for preparing short-form disclosures for prepaid accounts, which is intended to assist providers with implementing the agency’s final rule on prepaid accounts issued last year and set to go into effect Oct. 1, 2017.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) have signed an agreement to assist fintech entrepreneurs and support financial services innovation in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, according to Paybefore sister publication Banking Technology.
Payments pundits for years have been saying consumers need incentives to use mobile wallets, and a new survey report from Auriemma Consulting Group has numbers to back up the claim.
Consumers are expressing interest in and enthusiasm for emerging payment methods in their social media conversations, according to a new report. Mastercard’s fifth annual Digital Payments Study analyzed more than 3.5 million public interactions in 2016 between consumers on social media channels—including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter—to glean insight about consumer attitudes toward new payment technologies worldwide.
In the immediate aftermath of the 2007/8 financial crisis, measures to promote better conduct and improve customer protection and the resilience of the financial system dominated the regulatory agenda. More recently, regulators in many countries have added competition and innovation objectives to their agenda.
Complaints about prepaid products went down again from November 2016 through January 2017, with the CFPB reporting a monthly average of 206 prepaid-related complaints in that period, down from 237 per month during the same period a year earlier.
Developing new services, adopting the latest technologies and collaboration are the top priorities among payment schemes worldwide, according to a new study.
