Natwest Partners With OpenAI as FTSE Giant Scales up Tech
Weekly news up to Monday, 24th of March 2025
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Natwest announced it has entered a partnership with OpenAI to focus on “bank-wide simplification”.
The FTSE 100 lender said it would leverage AI to meet customers’ needs faster and more effectively, whilst increasing productivity and efficiency across operations.
The firm said it would deploy “some of the latest and most powerful developments in generative AI” through its access to OpenAI’s latest technology and insights.
😎 SPONSORED CONTENT
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🔦 DIGITAL BANKING HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Revolut started rolling out Joint Savings Accounts.
⭐️ Many neobanks saw incredible customer growth.
⭐️ Chime Introduces Instant Loans.
⭐️ Nubank gave notice with its credit card interest rates that put customers in celebration.
🌎 REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
UK 🇬🇧
Monzo develops backup bank to cover outages. Called Monzo Stand-in, the replica platform enables customers to make payments, withdraw cash, freeze their cards, and send and receive bank transfers even if the main Monzo app goes down. Read more
Allica Bank to double accountancy partnerships team to meet demand for banking expertise. Allica’s accountancy partnership team was set up to help accountants step into the gap that high-street banks have left when it comes to business support and expertise.
Bank of London changes its name as accounts now nearly six months overdue. The company, formally The Bank of London Group Holdings Limited, changed its name to Oplyse Holdings last week. The reason is unclear, though ‘oplyse’ appears to mean ‘inform’ in Danish. Read on
Lloyds Banking Group expands collaboration with Oracle. This allows Lloyds to deploy Oracle database services either in Azure data centers or on-premises, offering consistent capabilities and an efficient operating model. The move enhances Lloyds' ability to serve customers with increased speed and agility.
Revolut is the fastest-growing bank brand in the world, skyrocketing nearly 800%. The total brand value of the world’s 500 most valuable banking brands has surged by 13% YoY to reach USD 1.6 trillion, according to the latest report by Brand Finance.
EUROPE 🇪🇺
Vivid launches First Crypto Earn Account for SMEs. Business owners first purchase eligible crypto assets within their crypto earnings account. These assets then automatically generate staking rewards with weekly payouts, offering businesses a new way to grow their funds effortlessly.
Lunar and Fortnox partner to streamline business startups. The Commercial Manager at Lunar, stated, "The collaboration with a well-established player like Fortnox reflects the company's focus on creating modern and digital solutions for entrepreneurs, marking another strategic step toward becoming the best everyday bank for small businesses and individuals."
USA 🇺🇸
Verizon & Santander Bank partner to bring Openbank’s digital banking experience. The partnership brings together industry leaders in mobility and banking to provide a secure, seamless digital banking experience to Verizon customers with no fees, low minimum deposits, and 24/7 access to funds.
LATAM
Nubank launches Boleto Compartilhado functionality in the app. The new tool is being gradually made available to customers and allows the sharing of bank payment slips with others, making it easier to pay bills in groups or split expenses. This feature is exclusively available to Nubank customers.
Latin American neobank Ualá boosted its Series E round by $𝟲𝟲 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 in a second close bringing the total raised to $𝟯𝟲𝟲 𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 USD. The funds raised through the equity sale will be used to continue growing across Latin America, with a special focus on Mexico.
AUSTRALIA 🇦🇺
Bud Financial uses DataStax AI and NVIDIA to drive real-time financial insights for ANZ. By integrating NVIDIA Triton Inference Server and DCGM Exporter, Bud has supercharged its real-time financial data classification and enrichment service, significantly lowering latency and costs compared to CPU-based solutions.
AFRICA
Tyme Bank hit 10.7 million customers in December 2024, a 7% increase in 3 months. The digital bank, which became Africa’s ninth unicorn with a $250 million Series D funding round in December that valued it at $1.5 billion recorded a 10 million customer base in October 2024.
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Monzo appoints Andy Smart as the new CPO. Andy joined in 2016 as one of Monzo’s first 20 employees and during his career has served in several significant positions across the technology platform including being appointed Monzo’s first Vice President of Engineering, and acting as Interim CTO.