Finextra Research: Latest fintech news, analysis, interviews, features and opinion by industry experts

Company update/startups

Intesa Sanpaolo opens accelerator for Italian startups in Israel

This January, the first accelerator programme for Italian startups in Israel will be launched by the Italian Embassy in Israel and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, the Intesa Sanpaolo Group company led by Maurizio Montagnese.

17 December 2019

Company update/Innovation

University of Manchester receives £2.5 million fintech boost

The University of Manchester has received a £2.5million donation to boost the region’s capacity and capability in Financial Technology (FinTech).

17 December 2019

Finextra TV/payments

P27 in Action: Setting the pace for 2020

Lars Sjögren, CEO, P27 & Liz Oakes, EVP, Market Development, New Payments Platforms, Mastercard, speak at NextGen Nordics: P27 Momentum about moving the Nordics from a fragmented landscape into one platform to improve security and encourage collaboration, the ambition involved in creating this cross-border, multi-currency platform and the importance of transparency around conflicting interests between competitors.

17 December 2019

Company update/payments

Integration largest hurdle to innovation adoption in payments - survey

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to disrupt many industries, and the business payments and banking industries are no exception.

16 December 2019

Finextra TV/sustainable

Sustainable Finance.Live: Designing a green commercial bond product

Adrian Sargent, Treasury Operating Officer, Virgin Money, speaks to Richard Peers, Founder, Responsible Risk about the good of Green Bonds and their increase in demand, some of the cost constraints of issuing bonds and the complexities that come with identifying green assets, the importance of being able to extract data necessary for organisations to confidently invest and how we need to simplify the process going forward.

13 December 2019

Finextra TV/sustainable

Agrimetrics: Beyond ‘greenwashed’ ideas and toward tangible results

Matthew Smith, Chief Product Officer, Agrimetrics, speaks about the issues around agricultural productivity and sustainability in the UK, how we can address the challenges in understanding and assessing data for products necessary in sustainable finance and how AI has become the booster for accelerating us towards actionable information. He shares with Hannah Wallace, Finextra what a Green Bond is and how banks and other large organisations' willingness and confidence to invest in sustainable projects is changing.

13 December 2019

Finextra TV/payments

Building a sustainable business model from the core

Alan McIntyre, Senior Managing Director Global Banking, Accenture, speaks at Infosys Finacle Conclave in Dubai about Digital Maturity, the challenges banks face when scaling up and the importance of developing a long term plan to ensure sustainable growth.

13 December 2019

News/Innovation

Citi’s data and analytics global head departs to launch fintech firm

Industry veteran Bill Pryor is understood to have left the investment bank to launch his own fintech company, Investics Data Services.

13 December 2019

Company update/Innovation

Temenos and Adopt iT to provide graduate employment opportunities

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced it has extended its CSR initiative, Adopt iT, to deliver a scholarship program for students at Anna University in Chennai, India. Temenos will award need- and merit-based scholarships to qualifying 2nd, 3rd and 4th year students for the next three years and provide employment opportunities to outstanding scheme graduates.

13 December 2019

Company update/Innovation

Financial firms could generate $140 billion from workforce modernisation - Accenture

Financial services companies in North America could unlock up to US$140 billion in productivity gains and cost savings by 2025 if they employ new technologies that help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their workforces, according to a recent study by Accenture.

13 December 2019

Company update/Innovation

North West law firm Brabners sets up fintech practice

Growth continues with increasing pace for Brabners with the appointment of two new partners, Stephen Hadlow and Piers Dryden, to its corporate team based in the firm’s Manchester office.

12 December 2019

Company update/Innovation

Luxembourg House of Technology and Jack Welch College to launch fintech summer school

The Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT) and the Jack Welch College of Business & Technology (JWCoBT) at Sacred Heart University Luxembourg have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the 10th of December formalising their cooperation on developing and launching a Fintech Summer School programme in 2020.

12 December 2019

News/retail

Metro Bank trials digital business receipts

Metro Bank has invited a select few business customers to trial its upcoming app-based receipt manager, created following a partnership with Canadian tech firm Sensibill.

11 December 2019

News/startups

WeFox to channel $235 million total funding into UK expansion

German insurtech WeFox has closed $110 million of funding bringing its total for 2019 to $235 million and is planning the launch of a London tech hub next year.

11 December 2019

News/Innovation

Goldman Sachs enlists startup for quantum computing push

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs is teaming up with Silicon Valley startup QC Ware to investigate the use of quantum algorithms in finance.

11 December 2019

Company update/regulation

OCC lists cyber threats and emerging technologies in risk outlook

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) today reported operational, credit, and interest rate risks are among the key themes for the federal banking system in its Semiannual Risk Perspective for Fall 2019.

10 December 2019

News/devops

YES Bank launches API marketplace

India's YES Bank has launched an online marketplace where startups from a host of sectors can pitch tools integrated with the lender's APIs.

10 December 2019

Company update/Innovation

Super Processor signs for TAS USA card payments platform

TAS USA Inc., part of TAS Group, a global provider of digital payments software, today announced that it has signed a deal with Super Processor Inc., a full-service payment processor based in Hawaii, to provide its end-to-end card payments platform, CARD 3.0 I.E., and deliver innovative issuing and acquiring functionalities to cover the entire payments value chain.

09 December 2019

News/Innovation

Nets pilots pay by face

With the tagline ‘Hungry? Face it’, Nets has launched a pilot programme testing facial recognition at a cafeteria in Denamrk.

09 December 2019

Finextra TV/sustainable

Sustainable Finance.Live: Positive change through innovation and collaboration

Richard Peers, Founder of ResponsibleRisk sets the scene for Sustainable Finance. Live, the first in a series of events that sets out to provide actionable strategies, debunk the myth that value cannot be created by meeting sustainability goals and show how revenue can be generated through trustworthy implementation of ESG (environmental, social and governance) measures.

06 December 2019