General News

May 1, 2020 @ 10:36 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Blockchain security company CipherTrace announced this week the launch of its new feature, Armada. According to CipherTrace, Armada was created to support banks and financial institutions in achieving AML compliance by providing critical visibility into risky cryptocurrency blind spots so know your customer (KYC) processes… Read More

May 1, 2020 @ 8:17 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Wise, a U.S.-based fintech, announced this week it secured $5.7 million through its latest seed funding round, which was led by Base10 Partners’ Principal, Rexhi Dollaku, with participation from Abstract Ventures, Backend Capital, The Fund, Two Culture Capital, and notable angels such as Michael Vaughan,… Read More

May 1, 2020 @ 1:14 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has reportedly shut down its mobile-app banking group Bó just six months after launching to the public. Bó is described as a small business with big ambitions. “We’re an app, a card, but most importantly a small change in your… Read More

May 1, 2020 @ 12:39 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Digital banking group Monese recently announced its users may now log into their Monese accounts from their desktop with the new Monese for Web services. Monese reported that it designed the web version of its banking services to provide users with more tools and “better”… Read More

May 1, 2020 @ 10:33 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Spain-based Banco Santander (Santander Group), a multinational commercial bank and financial services company, announced this week it has completed its purchase of a 50.1% stake in Ebury, a UK-based Fintech firm that offers corporate banking services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that trade internationally,… Read More

April 30, 2020 @ 2:20 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

U.S. fintech Galileo Financial Technologies announced on Thursday it has received its Mastercard certification in Mexico and has formed a new partnership with Mexican fintech Klar. The announcements come just weeks after SoFi acquired Galileo for $1.2 billion in both cash and stock. Galileo also… Read More

April 30, 2020 @ 11:50 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Flutterwave, an African fintech firm, announced this week the launch of its new e-commerce platform “Flutterwave Store.” The platform was created for African merchants to create digital shops to sell their products online. According to Flutterwave, the Flutterwave Store allows merchants to upload products, set… Read More

April 30, 2020 @ 11:11 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

ClearScore, a UK credit checking service, announced on Thursday it has launched ClearScore Protect, a free anti-fraud dark web monitoring service. Along with the service, ClearScore released nationally representative research that reveals a third of adults in the UK have been victims of online fraud…. Read More

April 30, 2020 @ 10:08 am By JD Alois  |  

The Federal Reserve Board has announced it is expanding the scope and eligibility for the Main Street Lending Program. The Federal Reserve developed the Main Street Lending Program to help credit flow to SMEs that were in sound financial condition before the pandemic but have… Read More

April 30, 2020 @ 8:49 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

FIS (NYSE: FIS), a financial services technology firm, announced on Thursday it has joined forces with neobanking group Bambu to power a new digital solution for the U.S. unbanked and underbanked. According to FIS, Bambu has created the solution to provide banking for underbanked Hispanics… Read More

April 30, 2020 @ 8:04 am By JD Alois  |  

UK Finance has posted its weekly update as to the amount and number of loans distributed to SMEs impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the data, £4.157 billion has been approved under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) for 25,262 loans. 52,807 applications… Read More

April 29, 2020 @ 2:12 pm By JD Alois  |  

  The US Federal Reserve issued a statement today indicating its intent to leverage all of its tools to help prop up the COVID-19 infected economy. The Fed said it is “committed to using its full range of tools to support the U.S. economy in… Read More

April 29, 2020 @ 12:57 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Celsius Network, a cryptocurrency lending, and borrowing platform, recently announced that more than 50,000 BTC have been deposited into Celsius apps since its launch in August 2018. This latest milestone comes just months after Celsius reported crossing 20,000 BTC deposits in its first year. Founded… Read More

April 29, 2020 @ 10:49 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Novae, a U.S.-based fintech and insurtech firm, has formed a new partnership with Latin American airline loyalty program LifeMiles to launch a new travel protection program called Miles Care. According to the duo, the program will enable travelers’ protection for trip cancellation and interruption, delayed… Read More

April 29, 2020 @ 10:36 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

XTM, a Canada-based fintech that provides mobile banking and payment card solutions, announced on Wednesday it has listed its common shares for trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Deutsche Boerse AG) under the “7XT” symbol. XTM reported its shares will now be cross-listed on the… Read More

April 28, 2020 @ 4:33 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Samsung announced on Monday that TRON now has a dedicated section in the Samsung Galaxy store that features apps built using its blockchain. According to Samsung, app store users in the U.S. and Europe who are using Samsung smartphones are able to experience the “next-generation… Read More

April 28, 2020 @ 3:13 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has processed $48.5 billion in the first 24 hours of the second round of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The SBA lending platform has struggled to maintain pace of the demand and crashed during the early hours as banks and… Read More

April 28, 2020 @ 2:07 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Fintech Europe, Plug and Play’s fintech-focused innovation platform based out of Frankfurt, Germany, announced on Tuesday the ten startups selected for its fifth batch. The platform revealed that after screening applications from all over the world and intensive weeks of reviewing preselected startups with the partners,… Read More

April 28, 2020 @ 2:01 pm By JD Alois  |  

This is an interesting discussion. Todd H. Baker and Kathryn Judge, both from the Columbia Law School, posted an article earlier this month on banks and Fintechs in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. As most people recall, during the last big financial crisis, policymakers fumbled… Read More

April 28, 2020 @ 12:04 pm By JD Alois  |  

We have all read the articles about how physical cash is pretty gross. This has been a well-known fact for years. A study from 20 years ago on the bacterial contamination of paper currency showed that 94% of dollar bills tested carried many pathogens including… Read More