Options Clearing Corporation has set a three year plan to put their business on a cloud based system; the reason for the move is concerns over cybersecurity; the company clears more than 460mn trades a month and has recently added cryptocurrency futures; cloud based servers are cheaper and more secure than in house IT systems. Source.
JoinedNov. 30, 2016
Articles1,635
Todd is the host of PitchIt: the fintech startups podcast, a weekly interview show featuring emerging fintech founders and leading venture capitalists. He is responsible for leading the content team which covers fintech through daily & weekly email newsletters, editorial, virtual events, and in-person conferences. He has been covering fintech, banking, and venture capital for more than 15 years, including speaking regularly at industry events.
Savings rates at UK challenger banks are more than 1 percent higher than their high street counterparts; research by challenger Gatehouse Bank revealed the statistics; challenger banks and digital banks are still finding wide knowledge of open banking a challenge; “Sadly too many savers still opt for products from household names as they are unaware of the best buys that exist beyond the high street,“ said Charles Haresnape, CEO of Gatehouse Bank, to AltFi. Source.
Amazon is I Talks with JPMorgan Chase to offer a co-branded Credit card for small business owners; the credit card would have rewards points for purchases and they would also look to add business insurance plans; this is first time Amazon will look to have a credit card specifically for small businesses. Source.
Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, added a provision to the bill for the FHFA to review credit scoring alternatives; the FHFA currently uses FICO’s classic scoring model for loan applicants; the provision adds a new piece to the ongoing argument occurring between FICO and VantageScore; FICO and some lawmakers say the FHFA is already going through a review process for credit scores; the FHFA did ask for input on new scoring models in December and is working through the comment process. Source.
While speaking at the Futures Industry Association event in Florida the former JPMorgan executive talked about the issues women in finance face; It is somewhat disappointing having spent the better part of three decades in financial services to move to technology and find things are even worse there,” said Ms Masters, CEO of Digital Asset, as reported by the FT; other panelists brought up the idea that education needs to be better and more needs to be done to encourage women to focus on math and science. Source.
Speaking at EthCC, an Ethereum conference in Paris, JPMorgan’s Amber Baldet talked about the concerns of private and public blockchain builders; “These problems really aren't so far apart, it's just that people are trying to solve the problems in different ways,” says Baldet as reported by CoinDesk; she doesn’t think public and private blockchain need to be so different, what everyone wants is the ability to interoperate; CoinDesk went on to interview Amber about building connectivity, feedback loops and more. Source.
UK based Tandem Bank has acquired financial management app Pariti; the app has more than 95,000 users that will now be transferred to Tandem Bank; Pariti users will still be able to access their accounts through the Tandem app. Source.
Leaders at the Federal Reserve, the OCC and the CFPB spoke at the Consumer Bankers Association annual conference about the need to be more flexible when applying oversight to bank & fintech partnerships; “We need to do a better job of educating our supervision staff, in some cases, in terms of interpretation of the guidance,” said Dan Quan, who leads the CFPB’s Project Catalyst, as reported by American Banker; they also talked about better coordination to ensure consistency in oversight. Source.
Banks have started to utilize new technology like AI as a tool to help build efficiency into their processes; one issue that has arisen is regulators questioning whether or not the bank is missing suspicious activity when using new technology; Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer at Bank of America, thinks if the technology is better explained to regulators it could help solve this issue; AI driven providers like ThetaRay, ZestFinance, Merlon Intelligence, QuantVerse and Attivio all have products that can help bring down time spent on malicious activity and better identify issues. Source.
Conversational AI provider Clinc has launched a new self service platform for banks called Spotlight; Spotlight will help financial institutions train and deploy conversational AI at their firms; the platform is available in more than 80 languages and can be integrated into contact centers, mobile apps, Alexa, Google and Facebook Messenger; they are already working with USAA and Isbank in Turkey. Source.