AI ‘only scratching the surface’ of potential in financial services - Financial services companies are becoming hooked on artificial intelligence, using it to automate menial tasks, analyze data, improve customer service and comply with regulations. Read more
Insurance start-up Lemonade shares double after IPO - Lemonade CEO commented in the FT that the firm had deliberately floated at an earlier stage than many other tech companies. He added "Seeing the companies that have IPO’d in the last few years after they’d done all their growth in the private market . . . I’m not sure that did any great long-term favours for those enterprises.” Read more
TransferWise is set to launch an investments feature - In 2018, the London based fintech made a deeper push into banking by offering a "borderless" multi-currency account tied to a debit card. Now, TransferWise plans to launch a service that lets users of the account invest passively in investment funds from third-party providers. Read more
Digital payments rules must be updated now - The scandal at Wirecard has not only exposed a multibillion-dollar fraud in the accounts and profound failures of oversight. It has also raised fresh questions of whether payments regulation in Europe has kept pace with the huge changes in the industry. Read more
Specialty lenders face funding challenge as Covid-19 boosts defaults - Some specialty finance companies that lend to midsize businesses are confronting the threat of a funding squeeze just as the coronavirus pandemic is causing defaults to rise, a potential one-two punch that could curtail their activities. Read more
US challenger bank Chime launches Credit Builder, a credit card that works more like debit - Chime wanted to develop a new kind of credit card experience due the growing popularity of debit cards in the U.S. In 2018, the U.S. Federal Reserve said debit cards represent 50% of all non cash transactions, the company noted. Read more
Rappi & Banorte: JV aiming to offer financial services on a massive scale - The joint venture announced by Rappi and Banorte is on a hiring spree and working to roll out its first financial product by late September. Read more
Société Générale acquires freelancer challenger bank Shine - The deal will add to the bank’s fintech ecosystem and will support SocGen’s small business and entrepreneur customers. According to reports, SocGen paid €100m for the French fintech startup, which has built up a customer base of 70,000 entrepreneurs in the two years since its launch. Read more
Venmo begins piloting ‘business profiles’ for small sellers - Mobile-payments app announced it’s piloting a new feature which offers small sellers and other sole proprietors the opportunity to have a more professional profile page on its platform. Read more
Senate approves extending small-business program - Senate voted Tuesday evening to extend a federal loan program by five additional weeks, a surprise move that would allow small businesses weathering the pandemic to continue receiving aid. Read more
The 416 quadrillion reasons why Japan’s supercomputer is number 1 - Covid means Japan can’t host the Olympics this year, but this is a fine lockdown consolation prize! The great processing might of "Fugaku" will be focused on parsing earthquakes, weather patterns and coughs. All helpful for insurance underwriting, but other parts of financial services will, of course, be taking note. Read more |
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