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

Salt Edge develops TPP Verification product

Open banking platform Salt Edge has developed an on-the-fly mechanisim for banks to verify the bona fides of third-party providers trying to access users’ account data.

06 April 2022

News/startups

Open insurance startup Insurely raises €19 million; signs deal with SEB

Insurely, a Swedish fintech startup that uses open banking data to help insurers personalise premium offers, has signed SEB as a flagship customer.

06 April 2022

News/regulation

UK watchdog takes on card schemes

The UK's Payment Systems Regulator (PSR) has put the card schemes on notice that it is investigating their fees and how to help merchants get better deals, including by promoting the alternative of account-to-account payments.

01 April 2022

News/payments

Klarna launches open banking business unit

Buy now, pay later giant Klarna has set up an open banking sub-brand and business unit, helping firms connect to its network of thousands of banks across Europe and the US.

31 March 2022

News/wholesale

NextGen Nordics: Danske Bank announces Trade AI app

Ahead of our NextGen Nordics conference on the 27th of April 2022, we will be putting together a weekly briefing of selected top stories that are emerging out of the region and setting the blueprint for payments innovation across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

25 March 2022

News/regulation

CMA unveils recommendations for future of Open Banking

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced a new committee – the Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC) – to oversee the continued rollout of Open Banking in the UK, among other recommendations.

25 March 2022

News/payments

Mastercard rolls out open banking payments tools

Mastercard has unveiled a pair of open banking tools designed to improve predictability and transparency in digital account-to-account payments for merchants.

23 March 2022

News/regulation

CMA writes to Barclays and Lloyds over open banking API breaches

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has written to Barclays and Lloyds about a series of failures to make accurate and comprehensive data on its products and services available through open APIs.

21 March 2022

News/regulation

CMA clarifies definition of VRPs for Sweeping

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has move to clarify what Sweeping can and cannot be used for when it is introduced later this year.

15 March 2022

News/crypto

NextGen Nordics: Green bitcoin mining farm planned in Sweden

Ahead of our NextGen Nordics conference on 27 April 2022, we will be putting together a weekly briefing of all the top stories that are emerging out of the region and setting the blueprint for payments innovation across Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden.

11 March 2022

News/payments

NatWest preps for live roll out of variable recurring payments

Following recent live tests, NatWest is to begin pilot testing of variable recurring payments with its open banking payments product Payit in the first half of 2022, with plans to scale to a commercial product ready by early 2023

07 March 2022

News/startups

Gig economy subscription app SteadyPay raises $5m

UK-based gig-economy app SteadyPay has closed a $5 million Series A funding round led by Digital Horizon.

07 March 2022

News/retail

Irish postal service takes on incumbents with Tink money management app

Irish postal services provider An Post has teamed up with European open banking platform Tink, to bring new money management services to its customers.

01 March 2022

News/payments

Open banking passes five million user milestone

There are now more than five million active users of open banking services in the UK, five hundred thousand up on January's headline total, with tax payments driving the growth in numbers.

17 February 2022

News/retail

TrueLayer enters five new European markets

UK open banking platform TrueLayer has expanded to five new European markets.

27 January 2022

News/startups

Saudi fintech Lean raises $33 million

Lean Technologies, a Saudi fintech firm whose founders include the son of the kingdom’s former oil minister, Khalid Al-Falih, has raised $33 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India.

24 January 2022

News/crypto

Numbrs converts into bitcoin vault, blaming banks for demise of original business model

Zurich-based account aggregation app Numbrs has transformed into a bitcoin storage vault after blaming jealous banks for killing off its original business model.

19 January 2022

News/retail

OBIE celebrates 4.5 million users on open banking anniversary

Marking the fourth anniversary of PSD2 becoming a regulatory requirement across the EU, the UK’s Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) has issued a statement citing substantial adoption of the initiative across 3.9 million consumers and 600,000 small businesses.

13 January 2022

News/predictions

Starling pulls Facebook advertising; preps SaaS offering

Starling CEO Anne Boden says the bank has pulled all paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram until Meta tackles fraudsters advertising on its platforms. In her annual letter, Boden also confirms the planned launch of a Software as a Service (SaaS) proposition during 2022.

07 January 2022

News/retail

Fintech founders accuse Starling's Boden of trying to stifle innovation

Starling Bank chief Anne Boden has been accused by 53 fintech founders of trying to thwart innovation in financial services, following her comments to a Treasury Select Committe that Open Banking has failed to encourage bank account switching.

04 January 2022