Latest Innovation News: Finextra Research

Scotiabank preps $25k hackathon

Scotiabank is inviting Toronto's geeks to take part in a hackathon designed to find creative ways to help Canadians manage their debt.

28 January 2016

News/Innovation

Cambridge Blockchain wins Santander DL Challenge

Massachusetts-based Cambridge Blockchain has walked away with a £15,000 cash prize and the promise of future angel investment after winning a distributed ledger challenge organised by Santander InnoVentures in partnership with OneVest, CoFoundersLab and 1000 angels.

28 January 2016

News/Innovation

Bank of England to develop blueprint for overhaul of UK payments system

The Bank of England is developing a blueprint to modernise the UK's 20-year old real-time gross settlement system to deal with changing payment habits and the emergence of distributed ledger technology.

27 January 2016

News/Innovation

South African fintech hub opens

A South African investment giant is building a fintech hub modelled on London's Level39, offering office space and support to entrepreneurs bidding to build digital financial services.

26 January 2016

News/Innovation

DTCC calls for industry coordination on distributed ledger tech

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has pitched itself as the coordinator of an industry-wide investigation into whether distributed ledger technology is the answer to "certain limitations" in the post-trade process.

25 January 2016

News/Innovation

Make way for the banks: Barclays welcomes inhouse team to accelerator programme

An internal blockchain-focused unit of Barclays Bank has made the cut to participate in the bank's 2016 accelerator programme, a space usually reserved for innovative startups that threaten the banking status quo.

25 January 2016

News/Innovation

Regulatory overhaul needed to make the Netherlands a fintech hub - report

The Netherlands has the potential to become a fintech hub, but only if the country's regulatory framework is overhauled and banks, startups and government improve cooperation, according to a new report.

22 January 2016

News/Innovation

Financial industry giants join $50m Digital Asset Holdings funding round

Digital Asset Holdings, the blockchain startup helmed by former JP Morgan luminary Blythe Masters, has raised more than $50 million in a funding round joined by some of the biggest names in financial services, including Citi, Deutsche Börse and Santander InnoVentures. One of the investors, the ASX, has also handed Digital Asset a contract to design a post-trade settlement system using distributed ledger technology.

21 January 2016

News/Innovation

PwC establishes blockchain team

Professional services giant PwC has set up a blockchain team at its Belfast office as it seeks to exploit and commercialise the technology behind cryptocurrency Bitcoin.

21 January 2016

News/Innovation

International co-operation essential to manage virtual currency risks - IMF

Virtual currencies and their underlying technologies are seen as a important advance for the financial services sector, but achieving a balanced regulatory framework that guards against risks without suffocating innovation is a challenge that will require extensive international co-operation, says the International Monetary Forum (IMF) in a report presented during the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.

21 January 2016

News/Innovation

Financial services go modular

The financial services industry is going modular, with technology making it easier for customers to buy from multiple providers, opening up a multi-billion dollar opportunity for new entrants, according to report from management consultancy Oliver Wyman.

21 January 2016

News/Innovation

BBVA gets agile as scrum teams tear up the bank IT rule book

Spanish bank BBVA now has 500 staff members working in small scrum teams to rush through the development of new projects, representing a five-fold increase over the past year.

21 January 2016

News/Innovation

UK regulators set up unit to help bank startups

Britain's financial watchdogs have set up a unit designed to help the country's slew of new challenger banks navigate the regulatory waters and win approval to take on the high street giants.

20 January 2016

News/Innovation

R3 runs blockchain proof-of-concept with eleven banks

Bank-backed blockchain collaboration outfit R3 has announced the completion of a distributed ledger experiment involving eleven of the world's largest financial institutions.

20 January 2016

News/Innovation

Saxo Bank takes robo-advisor route with Blackrock

Saxo Bank has moved into the fast-expanding robo-advisory market with a full-scale digital investment platform for retail investors in partnership with BlackRock.

20 January 2016

News/Innovation

ING invests in Asian marketplace lender WeLab

Fresh from its investment in US marketplace lender Kabbage, Dutch bank ING has taken a stake in WeLab, a non-bank provider of consumer loans in China and Hong Kong.

20 January 2016

News/Innovation

It's time to take a stand against all the blockchain crap out there

With the blockchain hype machine at full throttle, David Birch of Consult Hyperion pleads for some rationality in the reporting and discussions of the shared ledger concept and its associated technologies.

20 January 2016

News/Innovation

Commonwealth Bank to create global innovation network

Commonwealth Bank of Australia is to launch an innovation lab in both Hong Kong and London to create a joined-up global approach to new tech initiatives across the bank.

19 January 2016

News/Innovation

HSBC app gives customers a 'nudge' if they're spending too much

HSBC is applying lessons learned from behavioural science with the launch of a new app designed to 'nudge' its customers into making better financial decisions.

19 January 2016

News/Innovation

India's Paytm preps sound wave-based mobile payments

Indian mobile commerce giant Paytm is trialling the use of ultrasonic sound waves for instore payments.

19 January 2016