Latest Innovation News: Finextra Research

Anarchists, idealists and capitalists struggle for bitcoin's soul

Anarcho-libertarians were thin on the ground at the Bitcoin London event yesterday, as the suits took over Level 39 in Canary Wharf to talk about building businesses, attracting venture capital investment and dealing with financial regulations.

03 July 2013

News/Innovation

Investment management outfit SigFig raises $15m

SigFig, a US start-up which helps users track and manage their investments, has raised $15 million in a funding round led by Union Square Ventures and Bain Capital Ventures.

03 July 2013

News/Innovation

Winklevoss twins to float $20 million bitcoin fund

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, most famous for their legal tangles with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, have revealed plans to float a bitcoin trust.

02 July 2013

News/Innovation

Monitise and Telefónica form mobile money partnership

Monitise has scored a five year deal with Telefónica, making it the telco giant's preferred mobile money technology partner.

01 July 2013

News/Innovation

B2B payments platform Licuos triumphs at Innotribe Startup Disrupt

Business-to-business payments platform Licuos has beaten off competition from more than 40 rivals to win the first edition of the Innotribe Startup Disrupt competition.

01 July 2013

News/Innovation

College start-up Clinkle raises $25m for payments app

Mobile payments start-up Clinkle has raised $25 million in a seed funding round joined by some of Silicon Valley's biggest names, including PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Intuit.

28 June 2013

News/Innovation

MasterCard aims to Simplify Commerce for smaller merchants

MasterCard is rolling out a series of APIs and software development kits designed to make it easier for small businesses to accept e-commerce and mobile payments.

27 June 2013

News/Innovation

PayPal takes one small step towards payments in space

Facing increasing competition here on earth, PayPal is planning to boldly go where no electronic payments service has gone before, Space.

27 June 2013

News/Innovation

Akbank adds video chat to online banking site

Turkey's Akbank has introduced a video chat service to its online banking site, connecting customers with remote call centre agents direct from their PCs.

27 June 2013

News/Innovation

MasterCard and EBC unveil Egyptian mobile payments gateway

MasterCard has teamed up with the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and telco Etisalat to launch what it claims is the first ever Arabic mobile money service.

25 June 2013

News/Innovation

Unicredit experiments with self-service branches

Unicredit is looking into the concept of staff-free, self-service branches, says the Italian bank's head of multichannel, Federico Sforza.

25 June 2013

News/Innovation

VocaLink unveils Zapp m-payments service for banks and retailers

VocaLink has formed a new company, called Zapp, to build a service that will let Brits link their bank accounts to their mobile phone numbers and make real-time payments through their handsets.

24 June 2013

News/Innovation

Binary option brokers bring in bitcoin trading

Binary options brokers SetOption and TradeRush have begun offering trading in bitcoin, giving speculators the chance to take advantage of the virtual currency's volatility.

21 June 2013

News/Innovation

Icap invests in portfolio reporting and data analytics firm EFM

Interdealer broker Icap has made a strategic investment in Enso Financial Management (EFM), an early-stage provider of portfolio reporting and data analytics services to hedge funds and asset managers.

20 June 2013

News/Innovation

Voicekey unveils biometric iPhone app

A UK voice biometrics start-up has launched an iPhone app it says could replace PINs as a way to validate financial transactions.

19 June 2013

News/Innovation

Barclays extends mobile payments to retailers with Buyit

Barclays customers will soon be able to use their Pingit mobile payments app to make purchases by scanning QR codes on adverts, the bank's managing director of cash management, Richard Martin, has told Finextra.

19 June 2013

News/Innovation

ERN raises $1.6m for big data loyalty platform

ERN, the UK-based start-up behind a platform that allows banks and merchants to aggregate and analyse data generated by card transactions, has raised $1.6 million in seed funding.

19 June 2013

News/Innovation

UK banking standards report: key takeaways

A government-sponsored report into falling banking standards in the UK has made a raft of significant recommendations, ranging from the jailing of senior bankers for reckless management practices, encouraging more competition from new 'challenger' banks, and placing more women on the trading floor.

19 June 2013

News/Innovation

SAP launches capital markets tech contest for students

IT giant SAP has launched a contest for American financial engineering university students, inviting them to pitch technology ideas that will help shape the future of capital markets.

18 June 2013

News/Innovation

E-commerce verification outfit Trustev wins EC start-up competition

Trustev, an Irish firm which uses 'social fingerprinting' technology to verify online shoppers in real time, has won the European Commission's Tech All Stars competition.

14 June 2013