UBS has partnered with Amazon to utilize Amazon's Alexa artificial intelligence (AI) for a pilot program with wealth management clients in the UK; Alexa will provide answers on inquiries about wealth management topics and the economy for clients through several devices; the partnership follows a trend toward use of artificial intelligence in the wealth management industry and a deal by UBS with robo adviser SigFig for account services; Alexa's AI capabilities offer a cost efficient way to provide information and standardized advice for wealth management clients. Source
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
Every day the Fintech Nexus news team scours the globe for the most important stories of the day to include in our daily newsletter.
Then every Saturday we bring you our weekly news roundup of the top 10 fintech stories of the week with commentary from Peter Renton.
To join our newsletter community please subscribe here.
The World Economic Forum has elevated its interest in blockchain technology by forming a working group featuring two dozen prominent executives and innovators; the group meets in Dubai for the first time this week; it will begin with issues of governance of the technology's direction and development protocols; members include the chief economist for the People's Bank of China's research group, the head of the Bank of England's fintech startup accelerator, the former President of Estonia and representatives from startups including BitPesa, Everledger, Ripple and Chain as well as Barclays and Deutsche Bank. Source
Citi announced the launch of a new global API Developer Portal (developer.citi.com) to connect with developers and enable them to build innovative client solutions; the open architecture will help facilitate collaboration and partnerships with fintech companies and consumer brands worldwide; Citi will grant developers access to APIs across six usage categories: account management, peer to peer payments, money transfer to institutions, Citi rewards, investment purchases and account authorization; Citi plans to add more categories over time and developers are encouraged to register with Citi to use this portal. Source
In its first Fintech Conference, New York University's Stern School of Business discussed some key topics in the industry including regulations to public policy, equity crowdfunding, marketplace investing and blockchain technology; Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal, was the keynote speaker; panel discussions included, "Marketplace Investing Versus Venture Capital" and "Beyond Blockchain and the Decentralized Autonomous Organization." Source
Monexo plans to hire 30 to 40 people in a new office in Salt Lake Sector V; company plans to first start with personal loans and has already tied up with CIBIL for credit scores of borrowers; according to Monexo, good borrowers will receive a rate as low as 13%; Monexo has been in operation for 18 months and has offices in Bengaluru and Chennai. Source
UpLift, a new fintech startup offering a point-of-sale financing service for travel purchases, has partnered with Golden Nugget Hotel and The Mark Travel Corporation; the companies will utilize UpLift's financing solutions at the point-of-sale making installment payments an option for customers; UpLift also says it offers the industry's lowest rates for the payment services. Sources
Real estate crowdfunder, Fundrise, has made its investment division into an independent company, RSE Capital Partners; the goal was to separate and focus on the two functions of capital raising - via Fundrise with its eReit platform - and capital providing to real estate projects; RSE will focus on financing real estate deals from $20 million to $100 million, while they examine ways to make terms more flexible. Source
The Central Bank of Russia has created a working group with experts from the country's crowdfunding platforms in order to develop a regulatory framework for the crowdfunding industry; the working group will develop regulatory proposals for submission to regulators during the regulatory framework development process; the Russian market appears to be taking a proactive approach as the industry is emerging with 500 million rubles (USD 7,748,755) in total liabilities. Source
A new fintech hub has opened in Copenhagen, Denmark; the Financial Services Union Denmark, City of Copenhagen and Danish Bankers Association provided support for the new fintech hub, Copenhagen Fintech; the membership association will focus on five areas of fintech including 1) fintech entrepreneurship 2) platforms, payments, and usability 3) cybersecurity in finance 4) digital processes and 5) financial computation; Thomas Krogh Jensen will lead Copenhagen Fintech as the CEO. Source
According to Hong Kong regulatory officials, two banks have applied to trial biometric technology under a recent fintech sandbox initiative; Hong Kong Monetary Authority Chief Executive Norman Chan notes that the companies want to use biometrics to authenticate securities trading; the fintech sandbox was launched in September; other banks are considering utilizing the sandbox for other areas such as blockchain and artificial intelligence. Source