Fintech, Finance, Technology, Banking Highlights – 19 October 2017
IBM and Dream Payments Expand Payment Services on the Cloud to U.S. Financial Institutions
IBM announced it is teaming up with Toronto-based FinTech company Dream Payments to bring new revenue generating mobile payment offerings to financial institutions and merchants in the United States via the IBM Cloud. Historically, financial institutions are slow to bring new products to market due to culture, legacy systems and heavy regulations within the payments industry. To stay competitive, they must be able to rapidly implement new mobile and digital payment solutions for their small business customers. Dream enables powerful partnering options by connecting banks, acquirers, retailers and value-added apps to deliver services that meet the demands of today’s mobile merchants.
IBM and Dream Payments are rolling out Dream Payments Cloud to U.S. financial institutions –a scalable platform that enables financial institutions to provide business customers with secure mobile and digital payment services that help them go to market faster and improve customer experiences. With this platform, which is delivered via the IBM Cloud, financial institutions can avoid investing in the expensive and lengthy IT projects required to build these services in-house. For example, financial institutions can leverage Dream Payments’ offering to rapidly launch solutions that work with emerging payment technologies like mobile wallets, CHIP cards and contactless payments.
M-vendr to accept Wala digital currency at mPOS
Financial platform Wala has announced a partnership with M-vendr, the provider of mobile Point of Sale (PoS) apps for small retailers and informal traders. The deal is a significant step for digital currencies in emerging markets, combining free banking services with a simple and accessible way to purchase goods within over 30,000 merchants across 15 countries.
Wala is a best-of-breed financial platform built on the Ethereum blockchain. It’s mission is to help the 3.5 billion underserved and unbanked emerging market consumers reach financial prosperity by eliminating their barriers to banking. The Dala token is the utility token of the platform, allowing users to transfer value to other users for goods and services.
Feedzai closes $50 million funding round
Feedzai, the leader in using artificial intelligence (AI) to empower enterprises to manage risk and fight fraud in real-time, announced today that it has closed $50 million in new funding including a Series C round from an undisclosed investor, in addition to funding from existing investor Sapphire Ventures.
Leading financial institutions that back Feedzai technology include Citi, Capital One, First Data, and other global brands.
“Our vision is to serve all of the leading banks and merchants that drive the majority of money movement worldwide,” said Nuno Sebastiao, Feedzai CEO and co-founder. “We’ve made major headway on our vision in the last year, and this new round of funding will help us accelerate our growth as we continue to invest in the top people, as well as the most advanced data science and machine learning technology, to make banking and commerce safe across the globe.”
Lloyds signs for SAP cash management and payments platform
SAP SE announced that Lloyds Banking Group will boost its payment capabilities and provide unmatched delivery to corporate and institutional clients with a cash management and payments platform from SAP, powered by SAP HANA.
By bringing new digitalized functionalities to its commercial portfolio, Lloyds will offer clients seamless self-service with increased performance efficiency and operational productivity. SAP technology will furnish Lloyds with a real-time banking platform to meet the complex business requirements of large commercial banks, non-bank financial institutions and corporate while also providing cost savings and enriched customer experience to clients. The announcement was made at Sibos 2017, being held October 16–19 in Toronto, Canada.
Australia’s eftpos opens to Apple Pay with ANZ
eftpos, Australia’s own debit payments network, brings ANZ Access card customers Apple Pay, which is transforming mobile payments with an easy, secure and private way to pay that’s fast and convenient. ANZ is the first Australian financial institution to make in store eftpos mobile payments available to almost 1.6 million ANZ eftpos Access cardholders.
Security and privacy is at the core of Apple Pay. When you use an ANZ eftpos Access card with Apple Pay, the actual card numbers are not stored on the device, nor on Apple servers. Instead, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in the Secure Element on your device. Each transaction is authorised with a one-time unique dynamic security code.
