Paul Schulte, Advisor, Banking and Financial Services
August 22nd, 2019
Paul Schulte is the Founder and Managing Editor of Shulte Research based in Singapore. Paul's roles[...]
UK banks publish fintech collaboration toolkit
Finextra | Nov 7, 2018
A collective of top UK banks and and financial technology firms have helped to craft a set of guidelines designed to improve engagement between fintech startups and financial institutions.
The new guidelines have been developed by the British Standards Institute through sponsorship from the government-backed Fintech Delivery Panel as part of HM Treasury’s Fintech Sector Strategy.
The document has been jointly created by the UK’s top retail banks - Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, and Santander - and vendors, such as MarketInvoice, The ID Co., and iwoca, with the aim of addressing the issues that prevent fintechs and financial institutions from becoming successful allies.
The Publicly Available Specification - PAS 201:2018 - will be freely available not only to the 1,600 fintech companies currently operating in the UK but also to those international startups wanting to engage with UK-based financial institutions.
See: Fintech Reports and Research
The PAS provides a number of pointers for companies to bear in mind when pitching to banks, and an explanation of both the commercial considerations and the necessary checks and controls that need to be satisfied to meet business and regulatory demands. This includes recommendations on preparation, data gathering, due-diligence, on-boarding, commercial and contractual processes, as well as data protection and information security considerations.
John Glen MP, economic secretary to the Treasury says "We need to make it as easy as possible for newcomers to collaborate with the bigger players. That’s why we helped to set up the Fintech Delivery Panel, and thanks to the guidelines published today the industry will be able to work closer together, benefiting customers across the country.”
MarketInvoice, which struck a deal with Barclays Bank to roll out its online invoicing platform to the bank's SME client base earlier this year, says the guidelines provide a lot of learnings for startups to marshal their relationships with banking partners.
Anil Stocker, CEO and co-founder at MarketInvoice, says:
"There is a lot of guidance that can really help young fintechs. For me, culture is key.
Continue to the full article --> here
Download the toolkit and guidelines --> Now
The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Read More
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Read More
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Read More
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Read More
Read More
Crowdfund Insider | JD Alois | Oct 21,2019 The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF), part of the Judge School of Business at Cambridge University, has partnered with the World Bank to publish a report on the global regulation of alternative finance and innovative Fintech firms. According to the new report, the regulation of alternative finance will increase significantly over the next two years, as indicated by a global survey of 111 regulatory jurisdictions. Equity Crowdfunding, Peer to Peer Lending & Initial Coin Offerings As various forms of alternative finance emerge, typically regulators are slow to update or create new rules as they research and dissect digital services. More specifically, access to capital platforms such as equity crowdfunding, peer to peer (marketplace) lending and initial coin offerings (or token offerings), have digitized investment opportunities and the capital-raising process. These three types of finance are the focus of this report. The CCAF study seeks to better comprehend alternative finance via empirical information gleaned from regulators and other public authorities. Alongside AML/KYC requirements, regulators’ main priorities are said to be: “… protections against misleading promotions or the misuse of client money. Depending on the activity in question, between 93% and 100% of ...
Read More
Read More
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Read More
Read More
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Read More
Read More
Financial Post | Business Wire | Oct 21, 2019 MONTREAL — Mako Fintech, a tech startup delivering next-generation software for securities transfer and administration, announced today that it has received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to operate as a securities transfer agent in the United States. The transfer agency space has long been overdue for modernization. Legacy systems, low availability, high service costs and transaction delays have created a significant opportunity to move the industry forward through innovation. Mako is entering the transfer agency market with a streamlined, cloud-based SaaS service, offering centralized online voting, engaging investor communications and superior availability through smart automation. “Speaking with customers, we realized that there was a huge disconnect between the service clients expected and the current standards in the transfer agency industry. We created Mako in order to close this gap and the reaction so far has been phenomenal,” said Raphael Bouskila, founder of Mako. Mako’s transfer agency platform—available today to US public and private issuers—is designed to provide shareholders with modern reporting and easy, interactive service, while helping issuers reduce their risks, costs and reliance on external proxy voting and reporting services. See: A Digitized Staff Compliance Platform is a ...
Read More
Read More
CNBC | Hugh Son | Oct 17, 2019 Key Points The bank set aside 35% of its revenue for staff compensation and benefits this year, the lowest that ratio has been in at least a decade, according to an analysis of Goldman’s data. Put another way, the average Goldman employee earned $246,216 for the first nine months of 2019, less than half the $527,192 at the same point in 2009. “As we grow more platform-driven businesses, we expect compensation to decline as a proportion of total operating expenses,” CFO Stephen Scherr says. Goldman Sachs is on track to pay its employees the lowest of any year in at least the past decade, and executives warned that the trend will continue as software consumes more of the firm’s businesses. The bank set aside 35% of its revenue for staff compensation and benefits so far this year, the lowest since at least 2009, according to an analysis of Goldman’s data. See: Silicon Valley VCs Are Planning to Get Bankers Out of the IPO Business Put another way, the average Goldman employee earned $246,216 for the first nine months of 2019, less than half the $527,192 at the same point in 2009. That ...
Read More
Read More
AltFi | Luke Lang | Oct 21, 2019 Something special is happening at the intersection of retail investors and financial technology, writes Crowdcube's Luke Lang. It became clear that fintech companies began to prize crowdfunding three years ago. Monzo crashed our servers in 2016 when it raised £1m in 96 seconds. Last December, the now-serial crowdfunding neobank raised £20m from retail investors. The staggering thing about Monzo’s raise – and it speaks volumes about where crowdfunding and fintech have reached – is that it did not need to raise the £20m from any of us on the street. In October – i.e. just two months shy of the raise – the bank had closed an £85m round led by VC firm Accel. Raising £20m is no walk in the park. You need to build a prospectus, which is a lengthy and expensive process. Monzo’s crowdfunding raise capped all investments at £2,000, meaning the team chose to have more investors to look after. See: Canada Update: Alberta Updates Crowdfunding Regulations but Where Does Canada Stand in the National Harmonization of Rules? What about Fintech Development? The world’s leading fintechs are using crowdfunding to cement and enhance their relationship with their customers ...
Read More
Read More
Investment Executive | Maddie Johnson | Oct 16, 2019 C.D. Howe calls for more regulatory barriers to be removed For years, Canada’s productivity growth has lagged many of its international peers, according to an upcoming report from the C.D. Howe Institute. And the financial services sector could play a vital role in reversing the trend. The report, to be released Thursday, examines the financial services sector and its overall contribution to productivity in Canada. Authors Farah Omran and Jeremy Kronick link long-term sustainable economic growth with an improvement in productivity, saying advanced economies need to do more than just increase their traditional inputs, such as labour and capital. The financial services sector has the ability to improve its productivity, which would in turn enhance Canada’s overall productivity growth, the report says. Despite its potential, the sector falls short, and its overall contribution to Canada’s productivity growth is “underwhelming.” The report discusses how three main channels — competition, attracting capital and the allocation of capital — are hindered by restrictive regulation, hurting Canada’s overall productivity growth. “Canada’s current regulatory framework has improved over the past decade; however, more could be done to remove regulatory barriers that hamper competition, the progress of innovative ...
Read More
Read More
Forbes | Andrea Tinianow | Oct 18, 2019 Fnality, a London-based company is banking on blockchain technology to usher in an era of digital financial markets. They are betting that the financial markets are going to tokenize. Fnality intends to be there when that happens. In fact, they intend to spur the transformation. According to Fnality’s chief executive officer, Rhomaios Ram, “if the markets are moving to a new model, they will need a secure infrastructure for digitizing payment and settlement on a global basis. We are creating a new financial market infrastructure, a new payments system [for wholesale banking].” Wholesale banking refers to lending and borrowing between banks, or with large customers such as the government, pension funds, and big corporations. Ram continues, “our two areas of focus right now are establishing a digital currency capability in each currency, and coordinating and orchestrating with business applications, such as tokenized exchanges, issuance platforms, collateral and trade finance, that want to use this new payment functionality.” Backed by a consortium of financial institutions, including some of the world’s most important banks: Banco Santander, BNY Mellon, Barclays, CIBC, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, ING, KBC Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., ...
Read More
Read More
NCFA Guest Post | Oct 18, 2019 During the history of the stock market its value has typically climbed. This has seen the most successful investors profit by buying shares in stocks at a low price and seeing their value increase steadily over time. Playing the markets can be risky however, as entire investments can be lost. But with the right set of circumstances stock prices can increase in value greatly over the years. This reward and risk trade off is appealing to lots of investors. However, it is sometimes the case that investors believe that the value of a certain stock will decrease rather than increase. In such instances, buying these shares will result in the investor losing money. Short selling provides investors with the opportunity to profit from the price of a stock decreasing in value. This practice is also sometimes referred to as going short on a stock and provides the investor with a profit should the price of a stock decrease. However, if the price of the stock goes up then the investor will face losses. How is shorting a stock done? This process involves lending shares of a stock that you wish to sell from ...
Read More
Read More
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