DBS, the Singapore based bank with a network of 280 branches across 18 key markets in Asia, today announced a partnership with bank messaging service SWIFT to use its Global Payments Innovation service (gpi) to offer 200,000 corporate and SME clients increased transaction visibility and speed for their overseas money transfer activities. Read more ““World’s Best Digital Bank” DBS Launches Real Time Cross Border Payments Tracking Using SWIFT gpi”
Tuyyo Money Transfer App Spices Up US to Mexico Remittance By Dropping Transaction Fees
Recently we wrote about Tuyyo, a new money transfer app from BBVA bank focused on the world’s most lucrative money transfer corridor – the US to Mexico. This week we learned that the months-old app is already dropping its standard transfer fee. Read more “Tuyyo Money Transfer App Spices Up US to Mexico Remittance By Dropping Transaction Fees”
Santander Breaks The Mould For Banks With Blockchain Based International Money Transfer Service
The Spanish bank Santander has announced that it is launching an international money transfer service that will run using blockchain technology in an attempt to take on disruptive fintech startups such as TransferWise and Revolut, who have been eating into banks’ share of a market worth an estimated $600bn per annum. Read more “Santander Breaks The Mould For Banks With Blockchain Based International Money Transfer Service”
The Best Options For Sending Money To & From India
Last week we revealed that the remittance corridor between the United States and Mexico is the world’s biggest.
World bank data reveals that the US is the largest global sender of remittances, and Mexico the fourth largest receiver; but now let’s consider how to make international money transfers to and from the world’s biggest remittance receiving country: India. Read more “The Best Options For Sending Money To & From India”
Money Transfer Operator Instarem Makes Move Into European Market
Instarem, the Singapore headquartered money transfer operator that offers a unique zero-margin FX transfer policy, made waves at last week’s Money 20/20 Asia conference, held in Singapore. Read more “Money Transfer Operator Instarem Makes Move Into European Market”
5 Blockchain Apps That Offer Money Transfer Services For Crypto & Fiat Currencies
Many people consider the blockchain, and the crypto economy, to be the future of the financial industry. The ability to log transactions in a decentralised manner, i.e. without the requirement for a third party regulator, with transactions verified by a network of “miners”, has unleashed a new wave of financial services products built on the blockchain. Read more “5 Blockchain Apps That Offer Money Transfer Services For Crypto & Fiat Currencies”
The Rise & Rise Of Blockchain Based Payments Solution Ripple
Cryptocurrencies may have got off to a bad start in 2018, with valuations plummeting, but faith in its underlying technology, the blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, has never been stronger. Read more “The Rise & Rise Of Blockchain Based Payments Solution Ripple”
IMF Chief Christine Lagarde Weighs In On Crypto Regulation Debate
Bitcoin may be seen in some quarters as the answer to too much bureaucracy, red tape, and creaking, antiquated, legacy banking systems, but it can’t escape being regulated, according to IMF chief Christine Lagarde, who gave an interview to CNN Money last week. Read more “IMF Chief Christine Lagarde Weighs In On Crypto Regulation Debate”
Silicon Valley’s Hash Cash & Singapore’s United Overseas Bank Join Forces For Blockchain Based Remittance Service
Singapore and Silicon Valley are arguably the fintech industry’s two geographical titans. Both are renowned for the ability of their supremely well educated and entrepreneurial populations to become early adopters of new technologies and commercial trends, and successfully turn them into globally dominant enterprises.
In Silicon Valley’s case it tends to be technologically advanced and trendsetting media and social media companies that rule the roost, whilst in Singapore, financial acumen, international trade, notably shipping, and now, financial technology are the industries that have helped to make one in every twenty of the City state’s citizens a millionaire, if reports are to be believed. Read more “Silicon Valley’s Hash Cash & Singapore’s United Overseas Bank Join Forces For Blockchain Based Remittance Service”
Ecobank Launches Xpress Account In Nigeria To Put Banking, Literally, At Users “Fingertips”
When it comes to mobile wallets, and indeed most things instant payments related, Africa tends to be ahead of the game.
During the 80’s and 90’s, much of the continent missed out on the desktop PC revolution, and in the 90’s, internet penetration across the region was negligible. Since then, however, the pendulum has swung very much in Africa’s favour, and especially so in the last decade. Read more “Ecobank Launches Xpress Account In Nigeria To Put Banking, Literally, At Users “Fingertips””
World Bank Figures Reveals Falling Average Worldwide Cost Of Remittances
Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) is an organisation, affiliated to the World Bank, that monitors the costs incurred by those sending money abroad, across all of the world’s major remittance corridors.
Since 2009, when the average global cost of sending money anywhere in the world was calculated at a high of 9.67% of the total amount sent, the figure has been in steady decline, and the good news is that the latest figure, for Q4 2017, records another decrease in price, from 7.21% in Q3 ‘17, to 7.09%. Read more “World Bank Figures Reveals Falling Average Worldwide Cost Of Remittances”
No Fear. No Greed. No Entitlement. Paytm, India’s “Most Sincere” Bank, Lead’s India’s Fintech Charge
From mobile wallet, launched in 2014, to fully fledged bank in 2018, Paytm’s rise from fintech startup to 13,000 employees and 3 million plus offline merchants in India has been a phenomenal one; a case of right place, right time, right backers.
PayTM, which stands for Payment Through Mobile, was spun out of parent company One97 Communications Ltd back in 2010. The company was inspired by a visit founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma (pictured) took to China, where he discovered that market stall traders were using their mobiles to accept and make payments, and concluded the model could work in India, also. Read more “No Fear. No Greed. No Entitlement. Paytm, India’s “Most Sincere” Bank, Lead’s India’s Fintech Charge”
How Does Bitcoin Trading Work? A Quick Look At The Fundamentals
2018 is already being labelled the year when the “plumber and the hairdresser” started buying and selling the digital currency bitcoin.
There has certainly been an incredible uplift in the number of people learning about bitcoin – searches for the phrase “buy bitcoin with credit card”, for example, were reported by Google to have “skyrocketed” towards the end of December, when the digital currency was on its magnificent bull run.
The price of the cryptocurrency hit $10,000 in December, for the first time in its 8 years of existence, and went on to climb to above $16,000, in a little under a week. Read more “How Does Bitcoin Trading Work? A Quick Look At The Fundamentals”
$500m Crypto Heist Puts Bitcoin, Digital Currency Security Issues In Spotlight Again
Bitcoin, and the crypto-economy that it presides over as the king of the digital currencies, is enduring a tough January. Read more “$500m Crypto Heist Puts Bitcoin, Digital Currency Security Issues In Spotlight Again”
Exploding The Bitcoin Myth; The Factors Behind The Rise, & Recent Fall Of Crypto
Was bitcoin ever designed for the kind of mass adoption we are seeing today?
In theory, it was. Anybody who has read the original bitcoin white paper will know that the crypto coin was designed for one very specific purpose; to be the currency of the internet. Read more “Exploding The Bitcoin Myth; The Factors Behind The Rise, & Recent Fall Of Crypto”
The Bitcoin Phenomenon; Is It A Myth That We Are All Buying The Digital Currency?
This content is sourced and brought to you by The Money Cloud – comparing the best rates for sending money overseas offered by hand-picked, regulated brokers and money transfer agencies.
Most of us have heard of it, but are we buying it? After a rocky first few years, when it was seen as little more than a vehicle for the ill-gotten gains of drug dealers, money launderers and terrorists, bitcoin, the concept, successfully overcame the doubters in 2017, leading to a stunning hike in the price of the digital currency, from less than $1,000 dollars in January, to above $19,500 by the end of December. Read more “The Bitcoin Phenomenon; Is It A Myth That We Are All Buying The Digital Currency?”
Bitcoin’s Exchange Issues; Crypto Speculators In UK Struggling To “Cash Out”
This content is sourced and brought to you by The Money Cloud – comparing the best rates for sending money overseas offered by hand-picked, regulated brokers and money transfer agencies.
Bitcoin speculators in the UK are facing high fees for transferring their digital crypto gains into fiat currency, because digital currency exchanges are struggling to build relationships with UK based banks, the FT revealed over the weekend.
UK banks are apparently “taking a lot more time to get comfortable” when it comes to dealing with bitcoin, or cryptocurrency exchanges, than their European and US counterparts, according to Obi Nwosu, chief executive of Coinfloor, the cryptocurrency exchange. Read more “Bitcoin’s Exchange Issues; Crypto Speculators In UK Struggling To “Cash Out””
CES 2018 Takes The Hit For Tech As Some Robots Down Tools
The Consumer Electronics Show can sometimes feel more like something out of a PT Barnum freak show than a serious evaluation of the state of modern technology.
Staged annually in Las Vegas, the conference represents a first opportunity of the year for the world’s biggest, most technologically advanced and forward-thinking companies to showcase the products that they hope will put them centre stage in 2018, demonstrating that it is they who control the future. Read more “CES 2018 Takes The Hit For Tech As Some Robots Down Tools”
Top 10 US Fintech Firms Now Worth $130bn; Outperforming “Financial Incumbents” Says VC Firm
This content is sourced and brought to you by The Money Cloud – comparing the best rates for sending money overseas offered by hand-picked, regulated brokers and money transfer agencies.
Fintech firms had a stellar year in 2017.
To those of you who are thinking “well, I know about the hype, but where’s the proof?”, a new tracker from VC firm Matrix, the Matrix U.S. Fintech Index is a weighted index that tracks the performance of a portfolio of 10 of the leading fintech companies in the US.
The index reveals that, not only, in 2017, did these firms crash through the $100bn dollar mark in terms of total market capitalisation (it is closer to $130bn now), collectively, they also delivered 89% returns over the course of 2017. Read more “Top 10 US Fintech Firms Now Worth $130bn; Outperforming “Financial Incumbents” Says VC Firm”
What Does 2018 Have In Store For Bitcoin? 5 Bold Predictions
This content is sourced and brought to you by The Money Cloud – comparing the best rates for sending money overseas offered by hand-picked, regulated brokers and money transfer agencies.
Bitcoin has been the talk of the second half of 2017, but can the digital currency continue to exert the same fascination, and the same obscene (to some, to others it’s undervalued!) valuation as we enter a new year?
Try as we might to gaze into our crystal balls, it is very hard to predict what factors may affect the short term price, long term adoption, or medium term public perception of bitcoin, yet these are the very factors upon which the cryprocurrency stands or falls.
Below, we list 5 things that we think could affect bitcoin fortunes in 2018, and examine what the potential fallout might be. Sadly we cannot tell you what the price of one bitcoin will be at this time next year, but the below may help you frame your own thoughts and predictions. Read more “What Does 2018 Have In Store For Bitcoin? 5 Bold Predictions”