Latest Innovation News: Finextra Research

Simple brings 40k customers on-board in first year

A year after opening its virtual doors to the public, American digital banking platform Simple says it has 40,000 customers and is processing more than $1 billion in transactions annually.

16 July 2013

News/Innovation

Predictious lets gamblers bet bitcoins on royal baby sex

Gamblers with a predilection for decentralised and anonymous currencies finally have a place to place their bets thanks to the opening of bitcoin-based prediction market, Predictious.

12 July 2013

News/Innovation

Swift draws a veil over failed community network

Inter-bank co-operative Swift is to shut down its proprietary social network Swiftcommunity.net, after the forum failed to gain traction among users.

12 July 2013

News/Innovation

Fintech start-ups get chance to wow Wall Street

Financial technology start-ups have been showing off their wares to top executives from Wall Street at the third annual FinTech Innovation Lab 'Demo Day' in New York.

12 July 2013

News/Innovation

PKO Bank Polski launches online account for kids

PKO Bank Polski has unveiled an online bank account for young children, where they can receive pocket money, set savings goals and top up their mobile phones.

11 July 2013

News/Innovation

Braintree signs Simple to one-touch mobile payments tech

Braintree has begun offering its Venmo Touch mobile payments tool to banks, signing up Simple as the first partner to integrate the technology into its app.

10 July 2013

News/Innovation

UK govt opens midata innovation lab

The UK government has opened its 'midata' innovation lab, enabling businesses to collect consumer data and use it to build apps that will help Brits manage their money.

10 July 2013

News/Innovation

Standard Treasury bids to ease commercial banking pain

A US start-up called Standard Treasury has developed a series of APIs designed to ease access to commercial banking services for small businesses.

10 July 2013

News/Innovation

Kipochi integrates bitcoin wallet with M-Pesa

Kenyan bitcoin wallet Kipochi has launched a service which enables people to send and receive the virtual currency and convert it to and from an M-Pesa balance.

08 July 2013

Finextra TV/Innovation

What part do banks play in the mPOS market?

Tim Corke, VP mPOS at Monitise discusses the emerging mobile point of sale market.

08 July 2013

News/Innovation

PayPal lets French users top up friends' mobile phones

PayPal is targeting the remittance market with a new service that enables French users to top up the mobile phone pre-paid credit of friends and family around the world.

05 July 2013

News/Innovation

Polish banks prep mobile payments system to take on card schemes

A group of six leading Polish banks have agreed to come together to define a common standard for mobile payments, creating a system that could threaten the dominance of Visa and MasterCard.

05 July 2013

Finextra TV/Innovation

Banks have a place in the bitcoin economy

Stefan Thomas, senior developer at Ripple, a peer-to-peer payments network that supports bitcoin, told Finextra that he sees not just big business getting in on the act but the banking industry, too.

05 July 2013

News/Innovation

Germany's Wüstenrot Bank pilots retailer cashback loyalty platform

Germany's Wüstenrot Bank is piloting a new cashback loyalty programme from Red Zebra Analytics which presents targeted retailer offers to customers whenever they log in to their online bank account.

04 July 2013

News/Innovation

Bank economists warn of disruptive threat from mobile and crowdfunding

Banks that fail to invest in mobile technology and crowdfunding platforms risk being swept away by a wave of disruptive innovation warn economists at US bank BBVA Compass.

04 July 2013

News/Innovation

MasterCard Canada plans app developer challenge

MasterCard is inviting Canadian coders to participate in a two-day developer challenge, building payments-related apps for cash prizes.

04 July 2013

Finextra TV/Innovation

Bitcoin businesses need 'adult' supervision

Shakil Khan, angel investor and founder of Coindesk told Finextra that there are three types of bitcoin enthusiasts: the anarchist, the idealist and the capitalist. Khan says that the environment is still too immature for big venture capital but that once bitcoin businesses evolve past their nascent stage, most companies will be a combination of 'idealists' and 'capitalists' and that they will also need the "adult supervision" of seasoned business players to hit the big time.

04 July 2013

Finextra TV/Innovation

Zapp set for 2014 launch

Peter Keenan, CEO of Zapp lays out the plans and goals of the new mobile payments start-up.

04 July 2013

News/Innovation

Anarchists, idealists and capitalists struggle for bitcoin's soul

Anarcho-libertarians were thin on the ground at the Bitcoin London event yesterday, as the suits took over Level 39 in Canary Wharf to talk about building businesses, attracting venture capital investment and dealing with financial regulations.

03 July 2013

News/Innovation

Investment management outfit SigFig raises $15m

SigFig, a US start-up which helps users track and manage their investments, has raised $15 million in a funding round led by Union Square Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures.

03 July 2013