{"id":29055,"date":"2013-07-14T23:58:11","date_gmt":"2013-07-14T22:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.adendavies.com\/?p=29055"},"modified":"2013-07-14T23:58:11","modified_gmt":"2013-07-14T22:58:11","slug":"fintechbot-roundup-week-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adendavies.co.uk\/?p=29055","title":{"rendered":"FintechBot Roundup Week 28 – 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing that I would like to see more of in the Fintech world, especially the newer players, is a greater level of integration between companies. I wrote about the lack of it in the PFM space<\/a> a while back. This week I was very pleased to read about the integration of Braintree<\/strong> acquisition Venmo Touch<\/strong> and its slick one touch payments technology with online neobank favourite of mine, Simple<\/strong>.<\/a>\u00a0Simple are also integrating with Dropbox<\/strong><\/a> to allow customers to attach documents to purchases.\u00a0Much more of this kind of thing please all you cool Fintech startups. Simple also published a nice blog post on their security tech<\/a>, I am a sucker for a look behind the scenes of banking.<\/p>\n

Talking of cool Fintech startps, Standard Treasury<\/a><\/strong> sounds like a dull US bank but it is actually an interesting startup, backed by the YCombinator<\/strong> folk. It is effectively an API layer for commercial banks. The founder had this to say;<\/p>\n

\u201cThe existing model for bank-enterprise relationships hasn\u2019t changed since the 1970s,\u201d Kimerling said. \u201cBanking is really painful. We have customers that ask \u2014 why can\u2019t banking be like Stripe or Braintree?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apple will sell the new <\/span>Square<\/strong> stand directly from Apple Stores<\/strong><\/a>. The photo of the device tells you all you need to know, slick design for markets that have not heard of EMV.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Just a hat trick of Bitcoin<\/strong> stories this week. German bank Fidor<\/strong> will offer Bitcoin accounts<\/a>, Those that know Fidor will not be surprised as they already deal with multiple currencies including World of Warcraft gold<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Interesting read on Bitcoin and whether governments and banks could kill it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, Bitcoin could soon be in the hands of one third of Kenyans<\/a> as it will become integrated into the wildly successful M-Pesa<\/strong> mobile money platform.<\/p>\n

Countries and continents without traditional banking infrastructure continue to be fascinating areas of growth for new forms of ‘banking’. The telcos know this is a great opportunity for them. Orange<\/strong> have announced a new mobile money transfer service<\/a> aimed at cross border transfers between Mali, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.<\/p>\n

The front cover of last weeks Bloomberg Business Week<\/strong> is a stonker…<\/p>\n

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Mastercard<\/strong> published an interesting set of survey results<\/a> on some of the most niche and valuable user of banking technology, corporate treasurers. They have very complex needs and are becoming more demanding in their technology needs just like every other segment.<\/p>\n

The Fintech Innovation Lab<\/strong> held an event in NYC last week<\/a>. It gave an overview of the progress of the current crop of companies on the program. One company that caught my eye are Narrative Science who aim to turn data in English. The Fintech market in the US is certainly growing, a study published last week showed it is on course for $2.5 billion of investment this year<\/a>. Momentum.<\/p>\n

Third study of the week looks at Australian attitudes to Big Data<\/strong>, with 88% of respondents being comfortable with banks doing transaction analysis for security reasons<\/a>. This leads me on seamlessly to the scariest security themed banking ‘advert’ of the week. Terrifying and also lacking in key details on how the data actually gets stolen.<\/p>\n