UnionPay International signs long-term partner agreement with global payment innovator Verrency
Verrency today signed a long-term agreement with UnionPay International (UPI), a wholly owned subsidiary of China UnionPay (CUP), to offer Verrency’s innovative value-added services to Union Pay’s issuing banks across Asia. Verrency’s services will be delivered via the UPI Wallet, Union Pay’s innovative API service. Signing the formal agreement were David C. Link, Chief Executive Officer/ Executive Chairman, Verrency, and Shuan Ghaidan, Product Director, UnionPay International. Shuan Ghaidan said: “We are very glad to be working with Verrency to offer further control, service, convenience and security to our customers. Verrency’s innovative services will further enhance the value of the UPI Wallet and the value that Union Pay enables for its issuers. […]
Standard Chartered creates fintech investment unit
Standard Chartered said on Wednesday it had established a business unit to invest in financial technology and promote innovation. Dubbed SC Ventures, it will include internal consultants to help the rest of the group solve problems with technology and a team to sponsor and oversee new disruptive technology ventures owned by StanChart. Another part of the new unit will focus on managing the bank’s minority investments in ‘fintech’ and seeking new ones to back. “As new technology continues to play an ever more important role in banking, there is a huge opportunity for us to promote more innovation,” said Michael Gorriz, group chief information officer. StanChart already backs Ripple, a […]
London fintech Curve closing in on $10M Series A
Curve, the London fintech startup that offers a platform that lets you consolidate all your bank cards into a single Curve card and manage your money, is on the verge of closing $10 million in Series A funding. According to sources, the round, which could be announced as soon as this week, is being led by Connect Ventures, with participation from Santander Ventures, the venture arm of Spain-headquartered bank Santander Group. A number of other investors from the fintech and banking world are also participating, although I haven’t been able to pin down who they are. It is also not clear if this Series A includes an earlier bridge round […]
Three regional fintech winners unveiled at Citi Tech for Integrity Challenge in Dublin
Citi has unveiled three winners from its regional Tech for Integrity Challenge (T4I) Demo Day held in Dublin last week, garlanding Aid:Tech, Paycode and Pole Star with the T4I Award for innovation. The global program aims to promote accountability and transparency in the public sector and beyond by supporting the effective use of financial technology (fintech) solutions and monitoring technology. It is run by Citi’s internal fintech team, treasury and trade unit, and Citi Ventures, its technology accelerator, investment and collaboration arm. Facebook, IBM, MasterCard, Microsoft and PwC are some of the other partners involved in judging the competition. The idea is to support small start-up companies’ applications on beneficiary […]
Lendy hits £300m investment mark
The slowdown in bank lending prompted by the Brexit vote has helped Lendy hit the £300m investment mark in April, having channelled £50m to property borrowers in the last 100 days alone. With new loans on the peer-to-peer platform often up to five times oversubscribed, the firm was able to add three larger-size loans over the last three months, it told Peer2Peer Finance News. It directed £7.5m to the purchase and redevelopment of a commercial building in Marylebone, £5.7m to the development of a major residential building on Liverpool’s waterfront and £2.4m to the development of a major student accommodation complex in Huddersfield. The firm said it was able to […]
MarketInvoice secures £45m from Banco BNI Europa
UK-based MarketInvoice has signed an agreement with Banco BNI Europa (BNI), which will now provide £45 million annually to fund working capital for SMEs on the platform. MarketInvoice is now the world’s largest peer-to-peer online invoice finance marketplace, having funded over 70,000 invoices worth more than £1.2 billion since its launch in 2011. Today, the UK business has signed an agreement with Banco BNI Europa (BNI), which will now provide £45 million in funding annually on the marketplace to fund working capital for MarketInvoice customers. BNI trialled an investment last year of £28.3 million, which went into funding SMEs on the platform seeking invoice finance. After the success of that […]
Barclays is building Europe’s biggest fintech workspace in London
Next week banking giant Barclays will cut the ribbon on what it’s calling Europe’s largest co-working space dedicated to financial technology. More than 40 companies will be housed across the vast 30,000 sq ft of workspace, spread over seven floors, with four balconies and two mezzanines. The site is already being called a clear sign of London’s continued dominance in the financial technology sector, despite the dark cloud of Brexit over the capital. This newly refurbished Shoreditch block will soon become the new home of Barclay’s Rise in London. Rise is Barclays’ ‘fintech’ innovation arm which includes workspaces. The bank runs seven Rise workspaces around the world, in cities like […]
Peer-to-peer lending bosses split on whether to become a bank
UK’s largest peer-to-peer/marketplace lender CEOs outline two very different visions of the future. Funding Circle and Zopa don’t disagree on much. But when it comes to whether or not to launch a bank, CEOs Samir Desai and Jaidev Janardana have reached a divergence point. Both delivered keynote speeches at last week’s AltFi Europe Summit. Desai’s – which was entitled: “To be or not to be a bank” – left the audience in little doubt as to Funding Circle’s intentions. “We at Funding Circle have no plans to launch a bank,” said Desai. He went on to identify the three types of bank collaboration that have sprung up across the marketplace […]
