Author: hjenkins42

Ant Group unveiled a digital bank called ANEXT Bank focused on serving SMEs. ANEXT Bank is soft launching today and will be widely available in the third quarter of this year. ANEXT Bank is collaborating with Proxtera, a Singapore company that broadens access to global trade. China tech giant Ant Group announced the launch of…

Automating data migration is key to supporting a move to the cloud. Scott Carter, chief technology officer at payments firm TSYS, shared lessons the company learned from its migration to Amazon Web Services at the recent Amazon Web Services Symposium in New York. TSYS was acquired for $21.5 billion in 2019 by Fortune 500 payments…

Cloud-native trade finance platform TradeSun has big buy-in from JPMorgan Chase. Founded in 2018, TradeSun automates cybersecurity, compliance and document processing for digital trading at banks, and counts the $1.2 trillion Lloyds Bank and technology consultancy IBM among its partners. Central to TradeSun’s growth is a partnership with $4 trillion JPMorgan Chase, which began with…

A new offering by the fintech Plaid is designed to help banks and credit unions create application programmable interfaces (APIs) that meet Financial Data Exchange (FDX) specifications. Called Core Exchange, the API offering incorporates the FDX open banking specification, “but designed to simplify where that specification is a bit opaque and allow for an easy…

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is putting artificial intelligence-based (AI) underwriting models under the microscope as more lenders and banks rely on complex algorithms in the credit-decisioning process. Specifically, the Bureau wants to ensure that lenders using AI or machine learning (ML) to underwrite loans are able to issue adverse action notices required under the Equal…

Citigroup Inc. plans to hire more than 4,000 tech staff to help move its institutional clients online in the wake of the pandemic. Photo by Bloomberg Mercury More than 1,000 of the recruits will join the markets technology team as part of an aggressive growth strategy, Jonathan Lofthouse, head of markets and enterprise risk technology,…

Finovate newcomer Aiia launched its new payment technology, Pay by Link. The new offering empowers businesses to make payments using a wide variety of common communication channels including email, PDF, SMS, and chat. Aiia was acquired by Mastercard in the fall of 2021. Leading Northern European open banking platform Aiia unveiled its new payment feature,…

In the aftermath of the recent collapse of TerraUSD, a prominent USD-pegged “stablecoin”, the UK government is consulting on new measures to bring systemic “digital settlement asset” firms within the special administration regime applicable to traditional systemic payment systems. The proposals raise a number of questions, particularly in relation to scope and objectives. Stakeholders have…

Last Friday, I visited Blender Gallery in Athens for an exhibition by Philip Tsiaras. When speaking gallery’s curator I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had created NFTs of the artist’s artwork, making them available on their curated marketplace called “Blenderverse.” It’s no secret that NFTs changed the art game. Although non-fungible tokens…

European investment and savings platform Trade Republic has topped up its 2021 Series C round with an investment of €250 million led by the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan. The funding gives Trade Republic a valuation of more than $5 billion (€5 billion), and will enable the company to “double down” on its product. “We are…