Anti-fraud and authentication specialist Pindrop has unveiled a new method for users, toungueprinting; tongueprinting is meant to stop fraudsters from taking over legitimate accounts by spoofing the call centre with automated bots, social engineering, and knowledge-based authentication questions according to Finovate; Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and cofounder of Pindrop, tells Finovate: “Tongueprinting not only adds an extra layer of security and authentication, it increases the opportunities to generate additional antibodies leading to a healthier user over time.” Source.
Dodd-Frank requires banks to disclose information about employee wages and the data shows a mixed bag for banks; banks like Goldman Sachs lie on the high end of the pay scale while small banks in locations like Houston are at the bottom of the spectrum; what the data also shows is banks are finding it hard to compete with big tech firms for talent as companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon tend to pay premium wages; wages overall look to be rising as lower skill, lower wage jobs are becoming less frequent across the industry. Source.
JPMorgan Chase ran a pilot last year which offered bonus rewards to customers of their Sapphire credit cards if they closed a mortgage; JPMorgan experienced significant demand from the pilot with homes purchased doubling for those who owned the Sapphire cards; the bank is now expanding the promotion to other credit cards they offer; Business Insider shares more on JPMorgan’s market opportunity and the millennial demographic. Source
Credit Karma is positioning itself to be more than just a place to check your credit score; the company currently has 80 million customers and currently has advantages in significant scale and the data it houses; they are now looking at using chatbots with their acquisition of “Penny” to further their relationships with their customers. Source
Amazon has been in the news lately for their continued push into banking related services but they are not the only ones making the push; TearSheet looks into three big name retailers also pushing their businesses into finance; Rakuten is Japan’s largest e-commerce site as their footprint includes video on demand, mobile messaging and they also operate the largest online bank in the country; Overstock.com has been building a marketplace for financial services named the FinancHub; two of the U.K.’s largest grocers, Sainsbury and Tesco, have opened banks via joint ventures. Source.
Blockchain payments company BitPay has raised more than $40mn in their most recent funding round; the new funds will help the company to support B2B payments and expand to new markets; "We brought on these new investors who can help BitPay scale globally to meet customer demand,” Stephen Pair, BitPay's CEO, said in a press release reported by American Banker. Source.
CoinDesk reports that an internal memo at JPMorgan Chase states that blockchain lead Amber Baldet is moving on from the bank to start her own firm; Christina Moy, senior product manager of Quorum, will take over Amber’s position; JPMorgan spokeswoman said in a statement, "Amber is extremely talented and helped build the outstanding team we have today. We respect her desire to start her own venture and we wish her nothing but the best." Source.
Enterprise blockchain company Ripple was one of 14 companies top join the Hyperledger consortium last week; Ripple and NTT Data partnered on Hyperledger Quilt, a java based interledger protocol that they submitted to Hyperledger; Hyperledger Executive Director Brian Behlendorf explained to Finovate that this growth is beneficial to the future of the blockchain. “The accelerating pace of growth and adoption of Hyperledger across industries and geographies underscores the power of our community and the technologies it is building,” he said. “It also reflects a global awakening to the impact of blockchain for business.” Source.
The settlement totaled $2 million with a Massachusetts banking regulator stemming from claims of making unlicensed loans; LendingClub made over 46,000 loans in the state since 2011 after surrendering their small loan company license; according to a LendingClub spokesperson, “We worked cooperatively with the State of Massachusetts to resolve a licensing dispute. Resolving this is another step in putting the legacy issues behind us and moving forward to concentrate on building the business. There will be no disruption to any operations as a result of this resolution, and we look forward to continuing to provide attractive financing opportunities to residents, patients and students in the State of Massachusetts.” Source
As real time payments have begun banks are finding it a challenge to implement them; how much should banks charge corporate clients for the service and how best to handle legacy infrastructure are two of the main questions they are grappling with; “Banks need to understand how they monetize these services,” Vinay Prabhakar, head of markets strategy for payments at Finastra, said to TearSheet. “Most banks have lucrative credit card programs, so how do they roll out RTP without cannibalizing their credit card models?”; Christopher Ward, PNC Bank’s head of treasury management product management, believes progress is being made and 90 percent of banks will have implemented real time payments by end of 2019. Source.