FinTech News Issue #36 October 7th, 2015

This week we continued last week's podcast with our guest Steffen von Blumröder from BITKOM. After a quick recap, we talked about issues of regulation in the fintech world for about one hour. Tune in.

The UN Global Goals outline 17 goals to End Poverty, Fight Inequality and Injustice, and Fix Climate Change. As you wonder about each of them, you realize that all of the goals are interdependent.

Over the past couple of decades, Israel has developed a strong fintech ecosystem thanks to continued overseas interest, a local commitment to innovation, and a community that’s dedicated to addressing the emerging needs of this industry.

Securing cards is no easy feat since it is a given that there is an innovative, evolving and increasingly professional legion of cybercriminals actively seeking to grab as much user data and as many card numbers as possible.

Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and PayPal, the Gang of Five in the words of Mary Monahan, EVP at Javelin Strategy & Research, are more trusted than banks.

So much emphasis is now placed on our world being digitised, from our social interactions to how we browse and purchase items, to capturing our experiences via live streaming apps and photo-sharing sites to mention just a few. It was only a matter of time until money also went digital.

SAN Innoventures, the venture arm of the Santander Group, one of the world’s largest banks, announced today that it has put $4 million into Ripple’s Series A funding round, which now totals $32 million.

The Chicago Federal Reserve bank’s task force on improving the US payments system yesterday released a check list of criteria a new solution should meet.

TAS Group today announced that Cashless 3.0 has achieved Oracle Exadata Ready, Oracle Exalogic Ready, Oracle Database Appliance Ready and Oracle Big Data Appliance Ready status through Oracle PartnerNetwork.

We’ve been working with bitcoin at Glenbrook for a few years now, teaching about it in our boot camps, and holding one-day workshops on math-based currencies and blockchain technology.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley are teaming with SmartStream to create a new reference data utility, providing validation across all asset classes while sharing operations and technology costs.

Barclays has launched a new high-end banking service that lets its largest customers stay secure by using biometric security.

Alessandro Hatami considers four scenarios when it comes to the future of banking.

Kristo Kaarmann, one of the founders of peer-to-peer money sending firm TransferWise, has a glint in his eye as he recounts how the business he created with his friend Taavet Hinrikus has grown.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss were among a group of investors who put $1.5 million into BitInstant, a bitcoin exchange founded by a guy named Charlie Shrem.