Atom Bank Reports First post-tax Profit in Firm’s ‘strongest’ Year
Weekly news up to Monday, 24th of June 2024.
REPORT
1️⃣ Leverage APIs to foster interoperability between banks and third-party providers.
2️⃣ Ensure Regulatory Compliance by adhering to the evolving standards across various Asian countries.
3️⃣ Invest in Advanced Technologies such as cloud computing, AI, and blockchain to enhance data security, processing speed, and operational efficiency.
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Ledgers of the failed FinTech middleman Synapse show that nearly all the deposits held for customers of the banking app Yotta went missing weeks ago, according to one of the lenders involved.
A network of eight banks held $109 million in deposits for Yotta customers as of April 11, Evolve Bank & Trust said in a bankruptcy court letter filed late Thursday.
📰 ARTICLE
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🔦 DIGITAL BANKING HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Online bank bunq will still compensate victims after weeks of turmoil.
⭐️ UK Finance Reaches 150 Million Contactless Cards in Issue.
⭐️ Starling steps up legal action against debtors amid defaults and FCA probe.
⭐️ BBVA Plans to Start Digital Bank in Germany to Rival JPMorgan.
🌎 REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
UK 🇬🇧
Thought Machine has become Mastercard's first strategic end-to-end core banking partner, with the pair offering their combined capabilities to financial institutions looking to modernise their technology stacks.
The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma) is opening bankruptcy proceedings against investment banking challenger FlowBank following serious breaches of its capital requirements.
Monzo Bank is planning to go big on business customers and eyes Global Expansion after doubling the amount of business customers in a year. Monzo, which started rolling out business banking products in March 2020, has now hit 450,000 business customers, up roughly 100% since May 2023.
Atom Bank reports first post-tax profit in firm’s ‘strongest’ year. The Durham-based digital bank credited the strong results to a 39% increase in lending and its “low-cost business model”, with staff and administrative costs remaining fairly steady as income increased.
UK online trading house CMC Markets Plc has announced a new FinTech partnership with global neobank, Revolut. The partnership will see the two companies connecting via multiple APIs, with the user interface delivered directly via the Revolut app whilst trading, pricing, account systems, execution and clearing are provided by CMC Markets Connect, CMC’s institutional services arm.
Natwest has agreed to acquire Sanisbury's retail banking arm with the supermarket set to PAY Natwest £125m to take on the bank. The firms announced that Natwest expected to buy around £2.5bn of gross customer assets from Sainsbury’s, including £1.4bn of unsecured personal loans and £1.1bn of credit card balances. It has also agreed to acquire around £2.6bn of customer deposits.
EUROPE 🇪🇺
Spanish Virtual IBANs are now live at Mangopay. They are generally described as digital representations of a master bank or payment account that allow for the segregation of funds and easier transaction tracking something that a single IBAN can’t enable.
NOVA, Advanced Digital Banking Platform, is Born. The partnership between Nexi and Engineering Group will also ensure the best specialized skills by combining the experience and know-how of the PayTech, which in corporate banking already manages more than 500 thousand locations.
MongoDB modernises core banking for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. This partnership achieved substantial milestones, including a 90% reduction in development time for migrating core banking applications from legacy relational databases to MongoDB Atlas, and completing the migration at a fraction of the cost associated with traditional approaches.
Neobanks Revolut and N26 benefit from ING’s Luxembourg retail exit. Neobanks such as Revolut and N26 have seen increased interest in their services following ING Luxembourg’s decision to curtail its retail banking services in late May, leaving over 30,000 clients in need of new bank accounts.
Revolut Business is increasing its footprint in the Netherlands: Doubles Customer Base in a Year and Rolls Out Dutch IBAN to Simplify Local Payments. This impressive growth is driven by companies across various sectors, including consultancy, financial and business services, retail, manufacturing, and marketing and communication.
Revolut is targeting a valuation exceeding $40bn in a share sale that would cement its status as Europe’s most valuable start-up. The SoftBank-backed company is working with Morgan Stanley to sell about $500mn worth of existing shares, including those held by employees.
Bank-to-bank payment messaging network Swift is working to facilitate interoperability of Verifcation of Payee schemes across Europe as new research shows that 83% of SMEs across France, Germany, Italy and Spain rank upfront beneficiary checks as important to them in trading across borders.
Lunar and SAS partner for debit card. Through the new debit card, both new and existing users of the EuroBonus programme will be able to gain points through everyday purchases on the Lunar app.
FINOM, a European digital banking solution for SMEs and entrepreneurs, announced its entry into the Italian market with the local IBANs and integrated e-invoicing services with automated reconciliation.
Nationale-Nederlanden is planning a big entry into the Dutch banking market dominated by Rabobank, ING, and ABN Amro. The new bank (NN Bank), operating under the strong brand name Nationale-Nederlanden, will position itself between the major banks and so-called challengers small digital players like Bunq and Knab and will target Dutch consumers.
Vipps MobilePay launches P2P payments between Denmark, Norway and Finland. The new service means that Vipps users in Norway and MobilePay customers in Denmark and Finland can ditch Iban numbers for money transfers between the countries.
Danske Bank adds sustainable investment insights to mobile app. Danske Bank has added a new feature to its mobile app that gives customers a clear insight into how many sustainable investments they have in their portfolio.
One in four in Germany use prepaid cards to avoid debt. This Research was conducted by Opinium Research on behalf of Recharge, among a nationally representative sample of 2,000 German adults between 15th and 22nd of April 2024.
USA 🇺🇸
Brex announced that companies incorporated with Stripe Atlas can apply for Brex business accounts immediately after incorporation, making it faster for company to manage their finances and get their businesses off the ground.
CANADA 🇨🇦
Royal Bank of Canada has enlisted Nova Credit to help migrants leverage their international credit history when they arrive in the country.
Canada's TD Bank launches tech-focused banking unit. Shez Samji, a tech banker hired from the Canadian arm of failed U.S. lender Silicon Valley Bank last year, will head the new unit.
LATAM
PicPay, the Brazilian mobile banking app owned by the billionaire Batista family’s holding company, is working with Citigroup Inc in order to try to do an initial public equity offering in the US, said people familiar to the matter.
ASIA
To bring the Bank of the Philippine Island’s (BPI) products and services closer to more Filipinos, it recently partnered with the 24-hour self-service payments company, Pay&Go.
Users of Revolut in Singapore can now hold more funds in their e-wallets and spend more in a year, as the firm responds to increased demand from travellers and customers who are investing through the app.
Indonesian digital bank Superbank has officially launched its services on the Grab superapp, enabling users and partners to open bank accounts and utilize them directly for Grab services without needing an additional app.
AFRICA
Nigerian digital bank Carbon has ended debit card operations in Nigeria after launching it two years ago. The company operated a dollar-denominated debit card, which might have pressured it to quit the operation entirely.
The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) has introduced significant amendments to its open banking framework, marking a pivotal moment for Bahrain’s financial sector. These changes, informed by extensive consultations and strategic updates, aim to enhance accessibility and transparency in financial sevices across the Kingdom.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Backbase appoints Chris Shayan as head of artifical intelligence. This strategic move is set to significantly advance Backbase's AI vision and adoption across its tech offering, reinforcing its commitment to re-architecting banking around the customer.