Changing your name from Mondo to Monzo does not warrant a news story – unless a rival challenger bank makes some fun out of it. A trademark dispute with another Mondo entailed the new moniker and much unnecessary fanfare. While Monzo revelled in its new name and ignored media queries, Starling Bank decided to do […]
With digital financial services sharply on the rise in the UK, who is leading among the UK lenders? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online lending sites in the UK for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). We’ll be publishing regular updates on a monthly basis, to track the changes, […]
ING Wholesale Banking has launched Virtual Cash Management (VCM), a digital solution for corporates to centralise treasury functions. The firm says VCM enables treasurers to rationalise and simplify account structures and to set-up or “enhance” in-house bank structures with capabilities including invoice matching, reconciliation, internal transfers, and an intercompany loan administration. Dick Oskam, global head […]
Nordea’s Oslo office will welcome 35 start-ups as the bank prepares to assist the firms in fintech innovation. During the week, the best projects (around 20 teams) will be selected to take part in Nordea’s Accelerator programme, which kicks off in the autumn in Stockholm and Helsinki. In total, over 200 companies applied to the […]
Eurobase International has acquired the Parity Treasury Management Software from Manex Treasury Systems, its flagship product. Parity clients and Manex staff will move to Eurobase as part of the deal. Parity users will continue to be supported but will be encouraged to move to Eurobase’s own offering, Siena. Manex is a long-standing software supplier to the […]
Private banking software vendor ERI has completed the implementation of its flagship core system, Olympic, at SEB in Norway. This is the vendor’s first site in the country. Olympic manages SEB’s onshore private banking business and associated transaction processing for Norway. The project commenced in 2013. SEB – already a long-standing Olympic user in Luxembourg, […]
If you’re curious, then it’s been fast and furious. Spending on UK contactless cards in the first half of 2016 has already outstripped contactless spending for the whole of 2015, according to the UK Cards Association. Some £9.27 billion was spent using contactless methods between January and June of this year, more than the total […]
Temenos has officially confirmed it is implementing its software at British Arab Commercial Bank (BACB). As reported by Banking Technology back in February, BACB opted to replace its legacy core system, Misys’ Midas, with T24. Temenos is also supplying its digital channels (Temenos Connect) and analytics (Insight BI) products to the London-based corporate bank. Temenos […]
With digital banking sharply on the rise in the UK – according to the latest figures released by the British Bankers Association – who is leading among the UK retail banks? We have put together some nifty stats for the top ten online banking sites in the UK for the past month (data courtesy of SimilarWeb). […]
A UK-based investment firm, Octopus Investments, is looking to onboard fintech start-ups for its 12-week accelerator programme with Octopus Labs. “We’re rebuilding financial services,” states Octopus Labs. “The financial services sector is broken. We’re on a mission to rebuild it.” The programme will provide mentoring, office space in central London, plus potential access to Octopus […]
The importance of a stable deposits base has increased exponentially in the post-financial crash era. Since the 2007/8 crisis, retail banks have been forced to address huge balance sheet deficit, brought about by the freezing of mechanisms such as wholesale funding. The reaction amongst the major banks has been to stabilise income sources, growing retail […]
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. […]
Rakuten will open its Rakuten Blockchain Lab (RBL) in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 22 August to develop applications in the fintech and e-commerce sectors. The establishment of RBL follows the acquisition by Rakuten of the IP assets of Bitnet Technologies, operators of a blockchain-powered digital payments platform. Yasufumi Hirai, group executive vice-president, CIO, CISO and […]
NCR Corporation has introduced “a completely new concept” – NCR Innovation Experience Room – an “experimental playground” for financial institutions to “build digital literacy among employees and customers”. Germany-based Volksbank eG Schwarzwald Baar Hegau has become the first taker. It has introduced an experiential room where customers and employees can discover and experience new technologies. […]
The proposed sale of Vocalink to MasterCard, threatens to “kill innovation” in UK payments. This is the damning verdict of AccessPay CEO, Anish Kapoor, who is calling on payments experts to come together to voice their opinions and thoughts, before a final decision is reached. In the time it takes you to read this blog […]
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 […]
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says it has “provisionally” found Intercontinental Exchange’s (ICE) acquisition of Trayport may give rise to competition concerns. ICE is the largest operator of exchanges and clearing houses in the trading of European utilities. It has its own proprietary software which allows trading of energy commodity and utility derivatives […]
UK-based Yorkshire Bank and Clydesdale Bank – which together form CYBG – have introduced Apple Pay to its customers. The payments service is also available to its “B” customers. In May, CYBG unveiled a new digital banking platform, called B, as it gets ready to become a standalone challenger bank. Helen Page, chief marketing officer […]
UK-based challenger Mondo is looking for another £15-20 million in funding as it looks to launch as a “full bank”. Last week, Mondo got its banking licence from the Bank of England. However, Tom Blomfield, CEO at Mondo, say that “authorisation comes with restrictions”. It can only hold a maximum of £50,000 of deposits in […]
Berlin-based start-up Cookies has launched its peer-to-peer (P2P) payment app in Germany. The app is in its beta phase and currently in invite-only mode. Everyone who registered on its website in the past few weeks and months gets a personal invite code, allowing them to use the Cookies App. It says anyone who’s not yet […]
Nationwide Building Society has “successfully” tested UK start-up Cutover’s release management software during digital banking maintenance releases this month. Cutover’s software provides a platform for teams to plan, rehearse and execute events and gives real-time communications to those involved. Matt Cox, head of insight and innovation, Nationwide Building Society, says Cutover’s prototype “clearly demonstrated the […]
UK-based Route Trading is to unveil Money Router – a solution designed to tackle the problem of “illicit money transfers taking place” in London. Launching on 27 September, Route Trading says the new software enables banks to reduce the risks involved in home remittance. The firm says the solution can “strengthen the safety of global […]
UK-based challenger bank Mondo has got its banking licence. The bank kindly passed the news to the Financial Times first rather than informing anybody else. It then issued a tweet saying it’s an “exciting day” which caused some confusion to its followers. According to the Financial Times, Mondo’s founder Tom Blomfield (formerly chief technology officer […]
UK-based Raphaels Bank has become the “first new fully operational participating financial provider” of Faster Payments, the UK’s 24/7 real-time payment service. The bank says it is the 12th direct participant of the Faster Payments Scheme (FPS), and the first new bank to connect directly to the payment system since it was launched in 2008. […]
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has unveiled its plans to make banks “work harder for customers” and ensure the “benefits of new technology are fully exploited”. The CMA’s final report on its retail banking market investigation concludes that “older and larger banks do not have to compete hard enough for customers’ business, and […]
Wirecard is working with O2 Czech Republic to offer a unified payments solution to retailers in the country. O2, as the “largest” telecom provider in the Czech Republic, will offer merchants “eKasa” – an online tablet-based fiscal till system together with credit card payment transaction services. This year, a new till system law has been […]
UK-based challenger bank Mondo has reached the £20 million mark for money spent through its service. Since its last spending announcement, published at the end of April, the bank has gone from around £80,000 spent daily to over £200,000. Of the £20 million spent, around a quarter has been spent abroad, with its customers (called […]
Royal Bank of Scotland has scrapped its plans to carve out the Williams & Glyn (W&G) subsidiarity – and instead it is likely to be sold to Santander. W&G has a network of 300 branches, 1.4 million retail and 200,000 SME clients – effectively the country’s seventh largest bank. It has been dormant for a […]
Danish blockchain payment service provider Coinify has raised $4 million in series A investment round from SEB Venture Capital, an entity within the SEB Group and SEED Capital Denmark. Mark Højgaard, co-founder and CEO of Coinify, says it plans to use the investment to sustain its position in Europe and “expand” its blockchain payment and […]
A new challenger is coming to the burgeoning UK banking market – Copernicus Bank. It is founded and backed by Danela Ventures Partners Limited, a London-based advisory firm set up in 2010 by Aidan Brady and Michael Rossman. Danela Ventures Partners “focuses on financial services innovation”, according to Brady’s LinkedIn profile. It is “currently building […]
TransferWise has become the “first” tech firm to get direct access to the UK’s Faster Payments Scheme (FPS) as technical partner to Raphaels Bank. TransferWise and the bank sent their first Faster Payment as part of pre-launch test activity. Later this summer, TransferWise customers’ transfers will be “processed instantly” after the firm has received the […]
Inter-dealer money broker Tullett Prebon has opened a new tech centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to boost innovation and increase its IT capacity. The centre will serve as a global hub for the group’s IT operations and is also designed to “accelerate the introduction of new products to market”. It is expected to be fully […]
Mitratech, a provider of legal, compliance, and operational risk solutions, has acquired Hitec Laboratories, a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software provider. This is the firm’s fifth acquisition in the past year and the “second major” one in the GRC market. It recently bought CMO Software in June. The financial terms of this latest deal […]
Innovation accelerator Startupbootcamp FinTech has announced the nine finalists selected to join its London programme. The firms come from across Europe, America and Asia-Pacific, and are Enterprise Bot – offering an AI-customer relationship tool; EuropeOne – a pan-European mobile bank; Kyolab – providing mobile compliance for regulated institutions; MoBILLity – designed to let customers switch […]
Czech bank ČSOB and Italian payments firm SIA have launched the first mobile wallet for NFC payments in the Czech Republic. The new app, NaNákupy (literally “go shopping”), supports both MasterCard and Visa, and enables ČSOB’s customers to make contactless payments by smartphone. Petr Hutla, member of the ČSOB board of directors in charge of […]
Passwords are past it, as Barclays plans to launch voice recognition technology for phone banking. From tomorrow (2 August), customers will no longer need to answer a variety of questions to gain access to their accounts on the telephone. Steven Cooper, CEO personal banking and executive director at Barclays, says: “We have been testing it […]
Accenture has acquired 100% of the shares in Amsterdam-based start-up Mobgen. Mobgen says with Accenture it can expand its “end-to-end mobile approach”. The Dutch firm will be part of Accenture Digital, but will keep the same brand, culture and operate from its offices in Amsterdam, London, and A Coruña and Malaga in Spain. It has […]
BPCE, the second largest banking group in France, has acquired German challenger bank Fidor. Fidor will remain as an independent business and says it will “capitalise on the support” of BPCE to expand and continue the development of its proprietary digital banking technology. Founder and CEO Matthias Kröner will continue as the chief executive of […]
UK-based start-up Monizo is planning to launch the “first” banking service targeted solely at freelancers. In an exclusive interview with Banking Technology, CEO and co-founder Samuel O’Connor says the firm caters for the particular needs of freelancers across the UK. He says: “The rules are getting more onerous for freelancers and by the end of […]
The UK’s Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) says the nation’s payments infrastructure needs to undergo reform to increase competition and to better meet consumer needs. The announcement was made as the PSR unveiled the final conclusions of its market review into the ownership and competitiveness of the infrastructure that supports three payment systems – Bacs, Faster […]
