Every fortnight, The Banker will showcase the interesting insights from the world of ‘fintech’ that caught our eye. Liz Lumley collates.
Fintech is a wide-ranging, multi-sector global industry, whose growth influences not only the banking world, but society at large. Our deep dives, interviews and coverage looking at the evolution of payments, finance and banking are fuelled by constant updates, news and commentary on deals, funding rounds and partnerships.
The eagled-eyed among you may have noticed Fintech Fortnightly took a well-earned break two weeks ago. Never fear, we are back (and getting ready for Money20/20). This fortnight, fintech sees Starling’s CEO step down, further progress for the digital euro, three fintech partnership announcements, a Fintech Fringe coming to London and the continued dominance of embedded finance.
The best revenge is success…
Anne Boden, founder of Starling Bank, is to step aside as CEO on 30 June and will remain on the board as a non-executive director. John Mountain, Starling’s COO, will take over as interim CEO to lead the digital bank into its next phase of growth.
The move comes as Starling reports:
- revenue of £453m for the year to 31 March 2023, more than double last year’s figure of £216m;
- record pre-tax profits of £195m for the year to 31 March 2023, a sixfold increase on the previous year’s figure of £32m;
- total lending of £4.9bn, versus £3.3bn previously; and
- a customer deposit increase of 17% to £10.6bn.
It isn’t Fintech Fortnightly without a little digital currency action…
The European Central Bank (ECB) and Nexi have provided an update on the EU digital euro prototyping exercise.
Today the European Central Bank (ECB) has published two reports on its market research and prototyping exercise, which were both conducted as part of the investigation phase of the digital euro project.
The Eurosystem invited market participants to take part in the market research to gain an understanding of the industry-specific knowledge and the ongoing experience of building potential technical solutions for a digital euro. The research indicates that there is a sufficiently large pool of European providers that are able to develop digital euro solutions. It also suggests that different types of architectural and technological design options are available to build a technical solution for a digital euro.
You’re not a client, you’re a partner!
Mambu revs up Thai auto leasing company Next Capital
Leading Thai technology-driven auto leasing company Next Capital Public Company has partnered with Mambu, launching a suite of lending products on Mambu’s SaaS cloud-native core banking and lending platform in just four months, enabling Next Capital to transform into a next-generation full-service digital lender.
Bud Joins Google Cloud Marketplace
Bud Financial Limited (US) is now available in the Google Cloud partner directory. Bud’s presence allows companies to work with the data intelligence fintech as part of their annual spend, unlocking the benefits of a single commitment to Google Cloud. It also enables current and future clients to launch engagements with cashflow, AI-powered lending solutions with speed, since they do not require additional budget approvals.
Bud’s platform will provide Marketplace users with end-to-end solutions, enriching financial data to meet key financial outcomes so they can better understand their customers, optimise lending and underwriting, monitor their loan portfolios and personalise every customer touch point.
Why partner when you can join forces…
RBI and TIS join forces to offer customers enhanced API and connectivity services
Vienna-based Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) and Treasury Intelligence Solutions (TIS) with headquarters in Germany and Boston, have joined forces to provide mutual customers in the corporate cash management area with state-of-the art treasury solutions. Among many other benefits, corporate customers will be able to seamlessly connect to application programming interface-powered products of RBI and other financial institutions via the TIS platform and manage their treasury operations centrally using their preferred system.
…but a strategic collaboration is good as well
SymphonyAI announces strategic collaboration with Microsoft Azure AI for generative AI
SymphonyAI’s newly launched Sensa Copilot is a vertical application that integrates Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Cognitive Search to support customers in financial crime prevention and regulatory compliance.
Sensa Copilot provides sophisticated AI assistance to financial crime investigators by automatically collecting, collating and summarising financial and third-party information. Sensa Copilot for financial crime investigators is the first of a series of strategic applications from SymphonyAI to provide transformational generative AI applications across its six vertically focused divisions. SymphonyAI will integrate Microsoft Azure Cognitive Services including Azure OpenAI Service and Azure Cognitive Search, and Azure Applied AI Services, along with Azure API Management and Azure infrastructure, in additional forthcoming vertical use cases and SaaS software as part of its strategy to deliver solutions to customers.
Meet me at the Fringe…
Fintech Fringe launches to help fintech scale-ups accelerate UK growth
Fintech Fringe, an official London Tech Week Fringe Event, today launches its inaugural programme that aims to accelerate the growth of homegrown and overseas fintech scaleups in the UK. The event takes place from June 12-15 in London in partnership with the Department for Business and Trade, Barclays Rise, Fintech Alliance, Innovate Finance, Level39, London & Partners, and Tech Passport, as well as a host of fintech giants and luminaries.
To showcase the UK, Fintech Fringe is focused on providing solutions for high-growth fintech scaleups looking to expand in the UK. This includes overseas scaleups looking to assess the UK as their next key market for international expansion and UK-based fintech scale-ups looking to access the expertise and support they need to fuel their next phase of growth.
Embedded finance continues its march
“Banks in the background”: four in 10 UK SMEs to increase use of embedded financial services
Small and medium-sized (SMEs) are turning to services including lending, payments and collections through non-financial platforms such as e-commerce platforms, loyalty apps or accounting software. Temenos’s new research has found that this is being driven by factors including improved customer service, cashflow and efficiency, which come amid financial concerns from SMEs including rising costs, cashflow, growth and the increased cost of borrowing.
Four in 10 UK SMEs have plans to increase the use of embedded financial services in the next year, turning to services such as buy now, pay later, lending, payments and insurance through non-financial platforms such as e-commerce platforms, loyalty apps or accounting software.
Of the 43% of SMEs that have used at least one embedded financial service in the past 12 months, improved customer service is the biggest benefit (cited by 40%), followed by improved cashflow (38%), getting paid faster and increased sales (both 34%). SMEs also claim to benefit from embedded finance products through more efficient internal operations (31%), a reduced amount of money spent on bank fees (27%); faster customer onboarding (25%) and time saved on financial admin (24%).
The study also reveals that younger SME decision-makers are much more likely to be using embedded finance products, with 78% of respondents aged 18 to 34 having done so in the past year compared to 46% of those aged between 35 and 54 and just 16% of those aged 55 or over. And we can expect to see a growing use of integrated financial products within this generation, with two-thirds (65%) of those aged between 18 and 34 planning to use them more in the next 12 months.
