By FinSMEs
Berlin, Germany-based online lender Spotcap is launching New Zealand operations in Auckland and received A$20m in financing. (more…)
January, 2017
Archive
Spotcap Launches in New Zealand with A$20M from Heartland
What the JPMorgan-Intuit Partnership Means for the Digital Financial Ecosystem of the Future
By LTP
Last Wednesday, JPMorgan Chase and Intuit announced that they had found a solution for the “perilous” sharing of banking data through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces). The agreement will allow JPM’s customers to access their account information and plug it into QuickBooks, Mint, and TurboTax financial management applications without having to hand over their bank passwords. (more…)
Square to save sellers $350 in processing fees if they use Apple Pay
By Ken Yeung for VentureBeat
Square wants to encourage more usage of Apple Pay, and to do so, it’s cutting some of its fees. The cuts will save businesses up to $350 so they can process more than $12,000 in payments through the mobile payment technology — but only for a limited time. (more…)
Japan Could See 20,000 Bitcoin Accepting Merchants in 2017
By Samburaj Das for CryptoCoinsNews
As Japan prepares to enforce regulations upon bitcoin exchanges in the country, a development that was encouraged by the local bitcoin industry, the number of merchants accepting the cryptocurrency is expected to quintuple to 20,000 this year. (more…)
A look into the future: Here are 5 fictitious insurtech startups that might become the real deal by 2025
By Philipp Kristian for e27
2016 was the year of fintech and insurtech in Asia. Over the course of the year, I spent a lot of my time building insurance value propositions in Asia, delving deeply into the potential future of insurtech in this region. (more…)
Government-Blockchain Relationships Have Been Warming Up Since the Beginning of 2017
By Elena Mesropyan for LTP
The first month of 2017 has been surprisingly fruitful for government-blockchain relationships, given the traditionally cautious approach to anything controversial by the public sector to. In less than a month, a series of actions have been taken by progressive international authorities, central banks and governmental organizations to bring DLT closer to the public rather than simply observing boiling with initiatives private sector. (more…)
Indonesia’s Bank Central Asia bets on fintech with $15m fund
By Nadine Freischlad for TechInAsia
Indonesia’s Bank Central Asia (BCA) joins the fintech rush with a dedicated US$15 million venture fund.
BNP Paribas takes stake in AI-based compliance startup
By Finextra
BNP Paribas Securities Services has taken a minority stake in Fortia Financial Solutions, a software company which uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and business process monitoring to help the fund industry meet rising compliance requirements and manage mounting volumes of data. (more…)
Australian Federal Treasurer Pushes FinTech Agenda
By CryptoCoins News
Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison has said that the growth of FinTech and the financial sector moving into the digital space has produced a shift in how businesses operate presenting challenges and opportunities. (more…)
Digital Currencies & Blockchain to Be Discussed at IMF Dubai Fintech Summit
By CryptoCoins News
The Dubai Ministry of Finance (MoF) will co-organize a Fintech seminar with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the upcoming World Government Summit. Chief among the topics to be discussed are virtual currencies and the applications of blockchain technology and the wider Fintech services space. (more…)
Will Target’s Mobile Payments Play Have A Natural Edge With Millennials?
By
Target is not the first retailer to go to market with a mobile payments app. Walmart and Kohl’s both made big entrances in 2016 with their respective “Pay” services. But the experts think that, in Target’s case, being third may not be much of an obstacle as it carries a natural advantage with the younger consumers who are most likely to adopt a mobile payments platform to start with. (more…)
Ingenico to acquire Indian payment processor TechProcess
By Finextra
Ingenico Group announced today it has reached an agreement in principle to acquire 100% of TechProcess Payment Services Ltd (“TechProcess”), a leading Indian electronic payments services provider from its current shareholders (major global and Indian investors). (more…)
American Express Wants “Full Advantage of Blockchain”, Joins Open-Source Hyperledger Project
By CryptoCoins News
Credit card giant American Express has joined the Linux Foundation-led open-source cross-industry blockchain working group, the Hyperledger Project. (more…)
BNY Mellon backs plan for blockchain IoT protocol
By Finextra
The Bank of New York Mellon is one of several Fortune 500 firms teaming up with a host of distributed ledger technology startups to work on a blockchain-based Internet of Things protocol. (more…)
Square boosts Apple Pay with free processing for small merchants
By Finextra
Beginning today, small businesses across the U.S. will be able to process more than $12,000 worth of Apple Pay payments for free ($350 worth of savings in Square processing costs) by encouraging their customers to pay with Apple Pay. (more…)
Bitcoin Core Dev’s Blocksize Reduction Proposal Draws Ire from ViaBTC Founder
By CryptoCoins News
Haipo Yang, ViaBTC’s founder and former employee at the Chinese internet giant Tencent, expressed strong criticism in a brief interview with CCN towards Luke-Jr, a Bitcoin Core developer and Blockstream contractor, regarding his proposal to reduce the blocksize to 300kb or, alternatively, for the network to wait another 7 years before an increase of the current 1MB transaction capacity. Yang says: (more…)
Currency Capital Receives Growth Capital Investment
By FinSMEs
Currency Capital, a Los Angeles, CA-based online equipment financing exchange serving owners of small- and medium-sized companies, raised a growth capital funding.
Lovell Minnick Partners made the investment, which will support Currency Capital’s growth strategies. (more…)
France Builds its Innovative Power in Global FinTech Upon the Foundation of Talented Entrepreneurs
By Elena Mesropyan for LTP
While political uncertainties in Britain and the controversial situation in the US with the new administration may not be particularly catalytic for local startup communities, they certainly represent an opportunity for other markets to attract ‘fresh blood’. (more…)
Ethereum at a Crossroad as Corporate Interest Grows
By Andrew Quentson for CryptoCoinsNews
Following the explosion of interest in blockchain technology last year, Vitalik Buterin gave a presentation at the Hyperledger’s technical steering committee in April 2016, explaining how Ethereum could be integrated with the consortium’s protocol or, perhaps, replace it entirely. (more…)
PayPal outlook muted on mobile competition, currency trends
By The Business Times
PayPal Holdings Inc offered a subdued outlook on Thursday, as it faced unpredictable currency fluctuations and an increasingly competitive digital payments market. (more…)
Making a Difference with FinTech – Three Examples
By Elena Mesropyan for LTP
There is enough said about the scale of the FinTech industry, its inclusive agenda and massive surrounding ecosystem, but the real value of this industry is not in millions that are moving around in funding, expansion and acquisition deals. The value is measured in micro-processes, in the real, everyday difference FinTech startups make for small businesses and individuals. (more…)
Chinese Banks Want to Use Blockchain to Combat Fraud
By Fortune
Chinese banks are hiring blockchain experts as the government pushes use of the technology behind bitcoin to increase transparency and combat fraud in its financial sector. (more…)
Paxful launches virtual bitcoin kiosk
By Finextra
Paxful – a global leader in peer-to-peer bitcoin technology – has launched a new widget, allowing anyone to buy bitcoin worldwide instantly with over 300 ways to pay. (more…)
Citi adds credit card scanning to mobile app
By Finextra
Starting today, U.S. Citi credit cardmembers can scan their cards using their mobile device’s camera when activating in the Citi Mobile App. (more…)
LendingClub Chairman Launches New Fintech VC Fund
By PETER RUDEGEAIR for The Wall Street Journal
Nyca Partners, a venture-capital firm founded by veteran banker and LendingClub Corp. Chairman Hans Morris, announced Friday that it raised a new $125 million fund to invest in financial-technology startups. (more…)
How this chatbot powered by machine learning can help with your taxes
By BUSAYO OGUNSANYA for VentureBeat
Tax season is around the corner, and for most Americans, it involves dealing with the complex tax code, an accountant, and maybe friends who claim to be tax experts. According to IRS statistics, there were 507 million visitors to the irs.gov website in 2016, a 3 percent increase when compared to 2015. Furthermore, Americans spend 6.1 billion hours and $233.8 billion complying with the tax code. With complexity comes confusion and frustration, leading many taxpayers to turn to tax preparers or tax preparation software. Those who don’t are at a disadvantage because most Americans are unaware of which deductions to consider, dependents to claims, student loan amounts to deduct, or where to file. (more…)
