Latest Innovation News: Finextra Research

ASB launches augmented reality recruitment app

New Zealand's ASB has unveiled a 3D augmented reality app aimed at job candidates looking for positions in its corporate banking team.

27 March 2014

News/Innovation

Former Visa president Morris launches fintech venture fund

Financial services veteran and former Visa president Hans Morris has set up a fintech-focused venture capital and advisory firm.

27 March 2014

News/Innovation

Estimize raises $1.2m; unveils crowdfunded M&A predictions platform

Estimize, a US start-up that pools members' forecasts for earnings results at listed companies, has raised $1.2 million in funding and launched a crowdsourced mergers and acquisitions predictions platform.

27 March 2014

News/Innovation

Former Swift CEO Schrank joins Circle funding round

Digital currency start-up Circle Internet Financial has closed a $17 million funding round, including an investment from former Swift chief executive Leonard Schrank.

26 March 2014

News/Innovation

London enjoys fintech investment boom

The UK and Ireland has emerged as the world's fastest growing region for financial technology investment over the last five years as London establishes itself as the fintech capital of Europe.

26 March 2014

News/Innovation

US tax man says bitcoin is property, not currency

America's Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says that it will treat virtual currencies such as bitcoin as property, rather than currency, for tax purposes.

26 March 2014

News/Innovation

£1m London tech startup competition ditched

A high-profile technology startup competition backed by London mayor Boris Johnson and promising a £1 million equity investment to the winner has been shelved.

26 March 2014

News/Innovation

Budding entrepreneurs push pre-paid cards to weed sellers

America's stoners will soon be able to pay for their cannabis using a special pre-paid debit card.

26 March 2014

News/Innovation

BBVA creates digital banking unit

Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) has established a digital banking unit in a bid to boost the development of its various technology-led businesses.

24 March 2014

News/Innovation

Virtual currency exchange Vircurex freezes customer accounts

Beijing-based virtual currency exchange Vircurex has frozen customer accounts because it does not have the reserves to cover withdrawal requests.

24 March 2014

News/Innovation

Pebble smartwatch scores hat-trick of finserv apps

Just a month after opening its apps store to developers, the Pebble smartwatch has scored a hat-trick of financial services-related applications in a week, with the latest coming from credit card rewards loyalty start-up Wallaby Financial.

21 March 2014

News/Innovation

Zapp confident of signing more banks but no word on retail partners

UK mobile commerce outfit Zapp says it is hopeful of bringing more major banks onboard ahead of its launch later this year but has still not gone public with any retail partners.

20 March 2014

News/Innovation

Coinbase hires Facebook's Ryan McGeehan to build security programme

Bitcoin wallet outfit Coinbase has hired Facebook's director of security incident response Ryan McGeehan to build its own security programme.

20 March 2014

News/Innovation

Orange and mBank team on Polish mobile bank

Telco Orange has joined forces with Commerzbank-owned mBank to build a mobile-based retail bank in Poland.

20 March 2014

News/Innovation

UK to explore legislation to make banks refer small businesses to alternative platforms

Proposals by the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer to explore legislation that will force banks to refer small businesses that they turn down for loans to crowdfunding and P2P platforms have been cheered by the alternative lending industry.

19 March 2014

News/Innovation

Fidelity unveils Pebble smartwatch app

US financial services giant Fidelity Investments has developed a Pebble smartwatch app which lets wearers check market information with a flick of the wrist.

19 March 2014

News/Innovation

Big Data start-up ERN hires former ANZ CIO Ian Rae

ERN, a start-up promising to help banks and merchants aggregate and analyse data generated by card transactions, has hired former ANZ Bank CIO Ian Rae as its chief operating officer.

19 March 2014

News/Innovation