Barclays has launched a new fintech focused unit to help develop new business lines for the bank; Barclays UK Ventures will work with fintech firms through partnerships or by taking equity stakes, helping the bank make further inroads into fintech. Source.
Chris Skinner’s new book called Digital Human will be launching this month; he sat down with Ashok Vaswani, CEO of Barclays Bank UK, and Li Wang, Head of Alipay and Ant Financial for EMEA at his London book launch; in this blog post he shares video of the panel which took place; some of the highlights include Ashok sharing how Barclays has been able to adapt over the 300 years it has been in business and the certainty he has that they will be able to adapt going forward; Li shares how each employee at Ant generates RMB100 million or over £10 million in revenue per year, a stark contrast to efficiency at banks. Source
Lloyd’s Banking Group and Virgin Money recently banned customers from using their credit cards to buy cryptocurrencies; customers will still be able to use their debit cards to buy cryptocurrencies but for fear they could go into debt they do not want credit cards being used; other card issuers like Barclays and Mastercard say they are reviewing the crypto space but no decisions have been made. Source.
A little over a year ago Goldman Sachs launched their consumer lending platform Marcus as part of a digital strategy...
American Banker’s Penny Crossman volunteered as a mentor for Barclays New York Accelerator and found that succeeding as a fintech startup is quite a challenge; she was tasked with helping entrepreneurs deal with the media, she found that most were looking to be featured in the WSJ or FT; she also sat down with Jon Zanoff, managing director, recruiter and top coach of the program to discuss the program; interesting tidbits from the interview include 4 of 9 company founders are female, the program is a lot more in depth than other bank accelerators and the challenge the program presents on a daily basis. Source.
clients about starting a crypto trading desk; no plans are set yet but the bank is talking to clients, including institutional clients, about opening the desk as more banks explore the emerging market. Source.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority has granted Coinbase an E-Money License; Barclays is also allowing Coinbase to access the UK’s Faster Payments Scheme which is the core payment infrastructure in the UK; Coinbase’s Zeeshan Feroz stated, “There is no other exchange today that has access to domestic banking. UK consumers today have to jump through all sorts of hoops around sending money to European accounts using euros in order to get money in and out." Source
Lend Academy shares recent initiatives from Barclays and PNC Financial Services as traditional banks move into the online consumer lending space. Source
JPMorgan Chase and Barclays have joined IBM’s quantum computing network as they look to use the technology to assess risk and stay secure; Barclays is beginning to test potential uses and JPMorgan Chase is looking to leverage quantum computing for trading, portfolio optimization and risk analysis; there is a lot happening in quantum computing these days as big tech firms look to master the technology seen as potentially 100,000 times faster than classic computers; while there are clear benefits to quantum computing banks are also looking at protecting themselves from the cyber threat that hackers could exploit using the same technology. Source.
Barclaycard is rebranding as Barclays in the US and launching a digital only bank in 2018; they have been testing the market since last year and plan to fully launch their offering next year; Barclays is more of a household name in the UK but has been offering credit card services under the Barclaycard name in the US. Source.