Our hosts, David M. Brear and Simon Taylor are joined by two great guests: James Hurley, Enterprise Editor, The Times and Kirsty Grant, Investment Director, Seedrs.
First up, we've got an insight into 11:FS Foundry and our partnership with DNB. David sat down with Leda Glyptis, Foundry CEO and Rasmus Figenschou, Group EVP for New Business, and our strategic partner at DNB.
Two-thirds of Amazon Prime members would try banking with the retailer, according to Bain study. Bain surveyed 6,000 U.S. consumers recently with a simple question: If Amazon launched a free online bank account that came with 2 percent cash back on all Amazon.com purchases, would you sign up to try it? 2/3s Amazon Prime customers would sign up, 43% of non-Prime Amazon customers would, and 37% of non-Amazon customers.
Walmart and Paypal team up. PayPal users will be able to withdraw and deposit cash into their PayPal account at any Walmart store. In addition, PayPal Cash Mastercard customers can access their cash balance using Walmart service desks, ATMs, and cash registers. This is the first time PayPal users are able to transact in cash, but each cash transaction is priced at a flat, $3 service fee. The parties have not disclosed how that fee is divided between Walmart and PayPal. Walmart offers a variety of debit and credit card options, as well as services such as money transfers, remittances, check cashing, tax preparation, and billpay.
Contactless payments overtake chip and pin. Contactless payments have become more popular than chip-and-pin card transactions for the first time in the UK, according to Worldpay. Contactless overtook in June, when 51% of in-store card transactions were contactless, rising to 52% in July. Analysis of the company's data showed that use of the newer payment method jumped by 30% between June 2017 and June 2018.
Nationwide’s Open Banking for Good challenge. Nationwide Building Society is injecting £3 million in funding to encourage fintech startups and academics to develop Open Banking apps that can help to improve the lives of the one in four UK households who are financially squeezed – equivalent to 12.7 million people. Government-sponsored Open Banking for Good challenge, pairs established fintechs and start-ups with debt and money charities in a bid to develop apps that help drive financial inclusion.
FCA Opens the 5th sandbox cohort and Green Fintech Challenge. On Monday the FCA opened again for applications as part of cohort 5 for the regulatory sandbox. Also, this week is Green Great Britain Week and on Friday they are holding an event to launch The Innovate FinTech Challenge, to coincide with the new sandbox.
We also have a great interview with Anna Wallace, Head of the Innovate Department at the FCA to learn more.
RBS vs Marcus. RBS has launched a savings account paying 1.5 per cent interest, one of the highest rates currently available. It comes weeks after Goldman Sachs shook up the market by announcing its first savings account in the UK, also paying 1.5 per cent. However, the rate only applies to to the first £10,000, which is some way short of Goldman's account which pays 1.5 per cent up to £250,000.
From saving to spending. Tandem’s 2nd credit card, the “Journey Card” - targets people in the U.K. who have yet to build up a credit history at all. Credit cards are already one of the most effective ways of improving your credit score. Like Tandem’s other card, Journey Card has low FX fees, but unlike the original card it has no cashback and a higher APR.
Both cards offer integrations into Tandem’s banking app, which in turn acts as a PFM and allows you to aggregate your non-Tandem banking data.
Inspiring the tech leaders of the future. International Financial Corporation (“IFC”), a member of the World Bank Group, and Ant Financial jointly announced the 10x1000 Tech for Inclusion programme, a comprehensive programme to