FinTech Daily News

Markets

Payments

TransferWise Launches The Borderless Account In Canada

Market Watch

TransferWise is launching the Borderless account, introducing a new way for Canadian businesses and freelancers to manage their money internationally. It's the next step in the fintech company's plan to lead the new wave of financial services.

FAO: “Borderless” reaches Canada….The “Borderless” service was launched earlier this year - we reported this in May, during our soft launch.

Alibaba To Cash In On Japan's Nascent E-Payment Market

Nikkei Asian Review

The Japanese unit of Ant Financial Services Group will offer a version of the Alipay digital payment system tailored for the Japanese market under a new brand.

FAO: Let’s see how fast will Japan embrace this service. Alipay has about 450 million users worldwide.

Lending

Behalf & FinWise Bank Team To Boost SME Lending Options

Banking Technology

Utah-based FinWise Bank, a subsidiary of All West Bancorp, has partnered with alternative small business lender Behalf.

FAO: A new win-win. The list of partnerships is growing rapidly. Is consolidation the next step? A growing number of voices in the industry are expecting this.

Zoot & Credit Kudos Forge Credit Scoring Alliance

Finextra

Zoot, a global provider of advanced instant credit decisioning, risk management, loan origination and workflow management solutions, announced a partnership with Credit Kudos, a technology start-up that uses consumer transaction data to build highly accurate and transparent credit scorecards and affordability metrics.

FAO: There you go, another one reported.

Wealth & Personal Finance

Startup Robos Beating the Big-Name Firms on Client Experience

Wealthmanagement.com

Having the most assets hasn’t necessarily translated into the best service. According to a new analysis by Corporate Insight, many hybrid robo advisors, including Vanguard’s, aren’t keeping up with the startups in terms of providing a seamless, modern website for their digital customers.

Retail banking

Data-Sharing Debate Grows Contentious As Fintechs Vent Grievances

Penny Crosman - American Banker

A recently formed group representing 31 data aggregators and fintech companies, called Consumer Financial Data Rights, says banks still aren’t forking over as much data as they should be. The group is meeting with bank regulators to plead their case and trying to get consumers to petition regulators on their behalf.

FAO: HAH! This lines made my day: “Both sides of this debate support the use of open APIs for sharing data between banks and third parties. But they seem to have different interpretations of the word “open.” Data aggregators and fintechs would like “open” to mean, open to everyone. Banks want it to mean, open to anyone they approve.” That’s hilarious!

Data Centers

Equinix Invests $32 Million to Expand Footprint in Hong Kong with New Data Center Opening

PRNewswire

Built in close proximity to financial data center hubs and subsea landing stations, the new US$32 million facility is tailor-made to meet demand for interconnection from the city's financial services firms and other industries. It is scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 2017.

FAO: Equinix pushes on with its investments. We have reported several new developments this year - expansion in Singapore (July), new data centers in Amsterdam (June) and Frankfurt (May).

FinTech People

Via FNLondon - John Crompton, HSBC's former global head of corporate finance, has been named chairman of the advisory board at Issufy, which sells an electronic data management tool that lets banks gather investor feedback online as well as handle tasks such as the allocation of shares.

Via Bloomberg - Goldman Sachs hired Andrew Trout, from Square, for a new post leading engineering recruitment.

Australian FinTech Opens Fintech Jobs Platform

Finextra

The team behind the highly successful Australian FinTech website have soft-launched their FinTech employment marketplace platform, Australian FinTech Jobs.

FAO: This might be useful for some of you folks.

Regulation

A Peek Into the CFTC's Fintech Innovation Lab With Director Daniel Gorfine

Stephanie Forshee - Corporate Counsel (subscription)

Gorfine was appointed back in July to help run LabCFTC, an initiative that brings fintechs to the commission to discuss regulations and innovation.

FAO: CFTC acting chairman Christopher Giancarlo announced the innovation lab in May.

Other news

Why Fintech Startups Love Advertising On The New York City Subway

Tanaya Macheel - TearSheet

TransferWise's messaging has changed from one that charged at the legacy banks to one that empathizes with its customers.

FAO: Interesting article describing TransferWise’s marketing strategy change.

FAO: Florin Adrian Oprea, Editor-in-chief FinTech Daily News