Wirecard shares soar as head office cleared of wrongdoing following fraud allegations March 26, 2019 Shares in payment firm Wirecard soared today after a law firm cleared the company’s head office of wrongdoing following allegations of fraud and false accounting. An independent investigation by law firm Rajah & Tann found that local staff at the company’s Singapore office may have committed crimes but these were not material to the German [...]
Challenger banks Oaknorth and Monzo team up to launch savings accounts March 21, 2019 Fintech banks Oaknorth and Monzo have launched a partnership that will allow Monzo users access to a high-interest savings account for the first time. The challenger bank tie-up will allow customers to open a range of savings accounts, with rates of up to 1.55 per cent, within minutes in the Monzo app. An easy-access cash [...]
US-based FIS buys Worldpay at $43bn valuation, creating payments giant March 18, 2019 British payment processor Worldpay was snapped up this morning by US-based Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) in a deal which values the firm at $43bn (£32bn). Excluding the target’s debt, the valuation comes to $34.83bn, the companies said. Read more: BT names payment services veteran as its new CEO It creates a company which had [...]
Mobile bank N26 targets UK expansion with general manager appointment March 14, 2019 European mobile bank N26 has appointed a new general manager to drive forward UK expansion as it steps up competition against rivals such as Monzo and Revolut. Former Morgan Stanley investment banker Will Sorby has joined the Berlin-based digital bank, which operates in 24 markets across Europe, following its UK launch in October last year. Read [...]
AI’s success story still has a few missing chapters March 11, 2019 This article is not written by robots – we promise – but apparently the day when they could be is already upon us. We have just finished reading about the GPT-2 text generator which, according to this Spectator piece, “not only does text analysis and augmentation, but generates highly sophisticated content”. “It can effectively write articles,” [...]
Revolut fights back: Nik Storonsky on negative press, growing pains and what’s next March 11, 2019 Revolut has endured a torrid start to 2019. Drawing the City watchdog’s attention after causing concerns by temporarily shutting down its sanctions screening system last year, the fintech starlet was revealed to have lost its finance chief, and drew further negative publicity when a customer complained of a bungled £70,000 payment. Its woes were compounded [...]
Klarna rival Laybuy partners with Footasylum in UK launch March 10, 2019 Klarna rival Laybuy, which offers a “buy now, pay later” service, has launched in the UK today in a partnership with shoe shop Footasylum. Online Footasylum customers will be given the option to pay using Laybuy from today, and it will be rolled out in the brand’s 70 high street stores later this year. Read [...]
Draper Esprit leads £7m funding round in deep tech firm Hadean March 7, 2019 Venture capital firm Draper Esprit has led a £7m funding round in London deep tech firm Hadean. Hadean has created the world’s first cloud-first operating system to allow programmers to scale up their code and reduce the manpower and time wasted on engineering. Read more: London-listed Draper Esprit to double down on Europe with £100m [...]
UK and Turkey launch joint initiative to develop Islamic fintech March 7, 2019 The UK and Turkey have launched a new joint initiative to develop digital financial technology in the Islamic world. Firms hope to open financial services to the “unbanked population” through cooperation in the Islamic fintech market. Read more: Five fintech trends to watch in 2019 A report by the UK-Turkey Islamic Finance working group, which [...]
How to use an Isa to invest in peer-to-peer loans March 6, 2019 Since peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms began to enter the market in 2005, savers have used the services to hand out more than £10bn to borrowers. Aside from providing a significant boost to the UK economy, P2P offers attractive interest rates to lenders by cutting the banking sector from the borrowing process. The Innovative Finance Isa [...]