#BankMobile, a #mobile-first U.S. bank, has partnered with digital identity security firm #Vasco Data Security for more secure mobile #transactions through the use of multifactor authentication. BankMobile customers will route their transactions through Vasco’s Digipass for Apps solution as well as its RASP (Runtime Application Self-Protection) solution, both of which areRead More
Bank Innovation
With 23 #robo-advisors, Germany is Europe’s most #crowded market when it comes to automated, algorithm-based portfolio management advice services.
According to reports from Techfluence, there are currently some 64 robo-advisors in Europe, with the two predominant markets being Germany and London, with 23 and 13 platforms respectively. The two locations are followed by Zurich and Paris, with four platforms respectively.
In Germany, the rise of robo-advisory has been largely fuelled by incumbents which have been deploying numerous products to serve retail investors. Notably, the launch of VisualVest by Union Investment was one of the first independent moves by one of the established institutions into the robo-advisory field.
Launched as a corporate startup, VisualVest provides a platform offering retail investors access to more than 13,000 investment funds via 14 different portfolios: the so-called VestFolios.
Other examples include Fintego, a service provided by Commerzbank&8217;s subsidiary ebase, as well as comdirect, which started offering automated portfolio advice as well.
As for Deutsche Bank, the financial institution has entered into a cooperation with FinCite to offer its maxblue AnlageFinder. AnlageFinder offers a selection of securities in the respective asset class based on criteria selected by the client, such as rating, product costs and performance.
In the space, Germany&8217;s prominent players include Cashboard, Scalable Capital, Vaamo, and Growney, among others.
Not far from Germany, Swiss bank UBS is set to launch a new online wealth manager in Britain in early 2017. The service, called SmartWealth, will target a younger audience.
UBS is the largest wealth manager in the world, managing US$ 2 trillion in client assets. Initially, UBS SmartWealth will be available to a small number of UK residents.
UBS&8217; Shane Williams, the co-head of UBS SmartWealth, told Business Insider in a recent interview that the decision to launch in the UK was influenced by the relative high affluence of the population, favorable local regulation and the advice gap.
But the firm plans to expand internationally in the future.
“We&8217;ll look at where the best places in the future are to go but we&8217;ve not decided yet. But the design of the platform is there ready to move, whether that&8217;s language or different regulatory requirements,” Williams said.
UBS SmartWealth was created especially for those who don&8217;t meet the £2 million asset minimum of UBS&8217; current wealth management clientele. With £15,000, an investor can sign on to SmartWealth. Similarly to other robo-advisors, the platform culls the investor&8217;s goals, assets and risk threshold before suggesting an investment portfolio.
One of UBS SmartWealth&8217;s unique features is that the platform offers users a choice between an active or a passive investment approach. The active approach scours the globe for investments and strives to outperform the market. This strategy makes changes based upon UBS corporate research that includes economic and other factors. The passive approach employs lower cost UBS index tracker and smart beta funds.
As of the fees, UBS SmartWealth is set to charge 1.7%! of assets under management for the actively managed approach and 1%! for the passive one.
It took a year to build the SmartWealth platform, Williams said. Today, the team is made of 80 people based in London.
&8220;What we tried to do with SmartWealth is to be like a #fintech, to go at that pace but within a large organization,&8221; said Williams. &8220;It&8217;s trying to get the best of both worlds.&8221;
UBS is one of the numerous #banks that are looking to tap into the growing popularity of robo-advisors. In the UK, still, Barclays has recently launched a digital investment product that promises lower fees than historical investment services. Lloyds and Santander UK are also reportedly developing their own robo-advisors.
UBS also formed a strategic alliance with US based Wealth management #technology company Sigfig in May 2016.
The post Germany&8217;s Robo-Advisory Sector Is Getting Crowded appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
U.S. #Bank’s #transactions are now 60% #digital, Chief Operating Officer Andrew Cecere said at the Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference this week. But that doesn&8217;t mean the Minneapolis-based bank is giving up on branches. It has around 3,000 branches and 80% of its sales activity still takes place thereRead More
Bank Innovation
What’s the best thing about startup demo days? You get to peek behind the curtains, #before #they scale (or fail). Five #startups, in five minutes each, took the stage at the Empire Startups #Fintech December Demo Day yesterday with their latest and greatest. Bank Innovation has the lineup, in case youRead More
Bank Innovation
Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher of the 5th century BC, is quoted as saying “#Change is the only constant in life.” His doctrine was around change being central in the universe. This has also been translated to “the only constant is change.” And this exactly why #Regtech, the cross-sector #Fintech category, #thrives and will continueRead More
Bank Innovation
#Wells Fargo has had a rough several month. While the bank is focused on “the hard work that’s necessary to restore trust in Wells Fargo,” it is not planning to slow down on new product launches, Tim Sloan, president and chief executive, said at the Goldman Sachs Financial Services ConferenceRead More
Bank Innovation
The #European #Commission’s Start-up and Scale-up Initiative aims to give #Europe&8217;s many innovative entrepreneurs every opportunity to become world leading companies. It pulls together all the possibilities that the EU already offers and adds a new focus on venture capital investment,insolvency law and taxation
There is no lack of innovative ideas and entrepreneurial spirit in Europe. But many new firms don&8217;t make it beyond the critical first few years, or they try their luck in a third country instead of tapping intothe EU&8217;s potential 500 million customer base. The European Commission is determined to change that and help start-ups deliver their full innovation and job creation potential.
Via Pixabay
Vice-President Jyrki Katainen, responsible for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness, said: “Today&8217;s local start-ups could become tomorrow&8217;s global success stories. We want to help start-ups stay and grow in Europe. By helping them navigate the – often perceived – regulatory barriers to fully benefiting from the Single Market. By making it easier for them to have a second chance, without being stigmatised if their idea doesn&8217;t succeed the first time around. And by improving access to funding by boosting private venture capital investment.”
Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, responsible for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, said: “Today start-ups do not fully take advantage of the opportunities of the Single Market. Starting and scaling up a company across Europe has to become simpler. Europe needs to become the first choice place for great business ideas to grow into successful companies. This is about new jobs, innovation and competitiveness for Europe.&8221;
The Initiative brings together a range of existing and new actions to create a more coherent framework to allow start-ups to grow and do business across Europe, in particular:
Improved access to finance: The Commission and the European Investment Bank Group are launching a Pan-European Venture Capital Fund of Funds. The EU will provide cornerstone investments of up to a maximum budget of €400 million and the fund manager(s) must raise at least three times as much from private sources, triggering a minimum of €1.6bn in venture capital funding. It will be managed by one or more professional and experienced fund managers ensuring a real market approach. This complements existing EU funding instruments such as the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), Europe&8217;s programme for small and medium-sized enterprises COSME and the EU&8217;s research and innovation funding programme Horizon 2020.
Second chance for entrepreneurs: The Commission has tabled a legislative proposal on insolvency law. It will allow companies in financial difficulties to restructure early on so as to prevent bankruptcy and avoid laying off staff. It will also make it easier for honest entrepreneurs to benefit from a second chance without being penalised for not succeeding in previous business ventures, as they will be fully discharged of their debt after a maximum period of 3 years.
Simpler tax filings: The Commission is also working on a range of taxation simplifications including the recent proposal for a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), which proposes to support small and innovative companies that want to expand their business across borders. Other initiatives include plans for a simplification of the EU VAT system and broadening the forthcoming guidance on best practice in Member States tax regimes for venture capital.
The Initiative also puts emphasis on helping navigate regulatory requirements, improving innovation support through reforms to Horizon 2020, and fostering ecosystems where start-ups can connect with potential partners such as investors, business partners, universities and research centres. Changes to Horizon 2020 will pave the way towards a European Innovation Council and include using €1.6bn over 2018-2020 to provide bottom-up support for breakthrough innovation projects by start-ups with potential to grow. The Startup Europe network will be reinforced to connect clusters and ecosystems across Europe.
In 2017, the European Commission will put forward proposals for a Single Digital Gateway that provides easy online access to Single Market information, procedures, assistance and advice for citizens and businesses. The Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) provide specific advisory services – through scale-up advisors &8211; for #startups including on funding opportunities, partnering and how to access cross-border public procurement. The Commission will adopt a set of measures to support the use of Intellectual Property Rights by SMEs and take action to support access by start-ups to the €2 trillion European public procurement market.
Over recent years, the European Commission has proposed a number of policies, such as the Capital Markets Union, the Single Market Strategy, and the Digital Single Market to benefit start-ups in Europe. Together with Member States&8217; actions, this has led to the creation of a number of market leaders, such as Spotify, Klarna, Adyen, #Blockchain, Jobandtalent, N26, Algolia, Intercom, Cabify or Deliveroo.
The Initiative addresses three main obstacles to starting up and scaling up in Europe identified in a recent public consultation:
&8211; Access to finance is the biggest problem for entrepreneurs whether starting up or scaling up;
&8211; Complying with regulatory and administrative requirements diverts too much energy from growing the business &8211; particularly cross border;
&8211; Connecting to right business partners, markets and skilled workers, despite the availability of 500 million people European Single Market is still too difficult.
Featured Image: via Pixabay
Original Press-Release here
The post European Commission Gives Boost To Startups In Europe appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
  #Traditional #Fintech is so boring – and so profitable. The question is whether these vendors will use some of those profits to transform themselves or let nimble startups with modern #technology and new business models eat their lunch. Two years ago, in December 2014, we took a look atRead More
Bank Innovation
A new report by Swisscom’s think tank e-foresight and the Institut für Finanzdienstleistungen Zug (IFZ) found that the vast majority of #banks are #falling to #meet consumers&8217; #digital #needs, notably when it comes to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The report points out how banks can fill the gap between their digital offerings and the real needs of their #corporate #clients.
The research program compares the digital offerings of 50 retail banks and the needs of 473 SMEs. Most particularly, it focused on five specific areas: e-banking, communication channels, payments, financing and banking-related products.
The study found that 66% of the surveyed banks are late followers, 29% are followers and only 5% are considered as being first movers.
Late followers are those that haven&8217;t launched any digital initiative or that has only launched isolated initiatives in terms of offerings to SMEs.
Followers have proposed their first products and are serving customers.
First movers have advanced rapidly toward digitalization and are at the forefront in term of their digital offering to SMEs.
For e-banking, although a number of banks are already offering solutions, the level of innovation remains low and corporate clients are demanding more digital solutions and functionalities.
80% of banks are offering push notifications via email or text message and 26% are offering personalized homepage. Only 8% are offering accounting software solutions, although 62% of clients said they considered these solutions as being important or very important.
Another area where banks are falling behind is the communication channels. Despite clients claiming that web chat, the ability to book meeting appointments online and video format advisory are important or very important, only a few banks are offering these services.
SMEs are also demanding various digital payments solutions including online and mobile payments solutions, which a number of banks are already providing.
Alternative financing solutions is expected to grow in popularity, and SMEs are requesting online onboarding processes notably to open business accounts (54%), but also for online mortgage applications (29%) and renewal/extension (43%). Less than 10% of banks surveyed are currently offering any of these solutions.
Finally, as for banking-related products and services, SMEs said that are interested in online factoring (17%) while only 2% of the surveyed banks are actually offering this service. 21% of SME clients said they are interested in the possibilities to bundle through business networks, but only 4% of banks are proposing this. Finally, 10% of the banks said they offer insurance products online, while only 5% of SMEs believe this is actually important or very important.
The report advises banks to start considering SMEs as an entirely separate segment in their strategy. Banks should focus on building and delivering solutions that SMEs are actually demanding and offerings that effectively help them, notably in areas that include e-banking and online assistance and advisory. Banks should also develop “an intelligent combination of banking and non-banking services” to build customer loyalty.
&8220;Globally, banks are only at the beginning of their digitalization efforts in products for SMEs,&8221; the report says. &8220;Most of them have been primarily focusing on the retail banking segment.&8221;
&8220;Digitalization is not an end in itself, it must be put in place to better and/or more easily serve clients&8217; needs. (…😉 Corporate clients consider the most relevant areas as being solutions and functionalities related to transactions and auto-administration in e-banking, which simplify their daily activities or improve their processes. These aspects demanded by corporate clients are currently not provided by any of the banks.&8221;
Featured image by IFZ
The post Swiss Banks Are Falling To Meet Corporate Clients and SME Digital Needs appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
#Fiserv, a leading banking #technology company, has signed on as the headline Diamond #sponsor of #Bank #Innovation 2017. Bank Innovation 2017 is this blog’s annual gathering on ideas and opportunities in #fintech. The sixth annual Bank Innovation will take place March 6-7 in Silicon Valley, at the Glasshouse in SanRead More
Bank Innovation
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