Ep. 245. News: Everybody's suing everybody

Our hosts, Sarah Kocianski, Simon Taylor, and David M. Brear are sat down with three great guests: Lesley-Ann Vaughan, Director at MiLA Consulting, Andrew Nelson, Vice-President, Banking & Financial Markets at CGI, and Emily Nicolle, Technology Reporter at City AM to talk about the all the latest news in fintech. Including:

UK Financial Conduct Authority creates Global Alliance for Fintech Innovation Collaboration. The FCA’s new alliance, the Global Financial Innovation Network (GFIN), is a collaboration between 11 financial authorities and related organization.
It will have three functions: A network of regulators collaborating and sharing experience of innovation including emerging technologies (eg AI and DLT) and business models; provide a forum for joint policy work and discussions; and provide firms with an environment in which to trial cross-border solutions - we also have great insight into the story from Anna Wallace, Innovate Head of Department at the FCA.

US fintechs are nervous about the fintech federal charter. Fintechs in the US are “cautious” about the specialist fintech charter announced last month. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it would accept applications for special purpose banking licenses for some types of fintech that do business outside the traditional banking system. They then could operate nationwide under one license rather than a patchwork of state-specific regulations.

Standard Chartered Bank sees Hong Kong’s virtual bank licence as ticket to new business worldwide. Standard Chartered which was the first traditional bank in the city to apply for the license, hopes it will open up new areas of growth both in the city and overseas. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is poised to issue the first virtual licences by the end of the year as part of a bid to promote fintech and tap into the growing trend for online finance.

Beijing to ban new online lending platforms. Chinese authorities laid out 10 measures to increase restrictions on the online peer-to-peer lending sector, state-run news agency Xinhua reports. Planned steps include banning new online lending platforms and increasing legal punishment on operators of fraudulent schemes, the report says.

Neo-bank Xinja to implement SAP core to take on Australia's Big Four. Australian mobile banking startup Xinja has selected the SAP Cloud for Banking platform to try and take on AUS’ Big Four. The contract with SAP will give the challenger a technology backbone which it says will enable rapid customer onboarding and real time risk and financial assessment.

Square's stock jumps to all-time high after Cash app downloads surpass PayPal's Venmo. Cumulative downloads of Square's Cash app are now greater than those of Paypal's Venmo for the first time after a monster July, 33.5 million downloads vs 32.9 million. In June 2018, Cash app customers spent $250 million with Cash Card, nearly tripling since December 2017 and representing $3 billion on an annualized basis.

And finally, Playboy is reportedly suing a cryptocurrency platform. Playboy's parent company Playboy Enterprises is suing a Canadian based cryptocurrency company called Global Blockchain Technologies (BLOC) alleging fraud and breach of contract. Playboy Enterprises is alleging that BLOC failed to live up to its end of the contract as in the three months since the deal was made, BLOC has yet to integrate its tech into Playboy's platform, and that it also hasn't paid the $4 million it promised to Playboy as a part of the deal.

All this and so much more on today's episode of Fintech Insider!

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This week's episode was written and produced by Laura Watkins and edited by Holly Blaxill and Michael Bailey.

Special Guests: Andrew Nelson, Anna Wallace, Emily Nicolle, and Lesley-Ann Vaughan.

Links:

• UK Financial Authority Creates Global Alliance for Fintech Innovation Collaboration
• 'Fintechs' sound cautious note on offer of U.S. bank charter | Reuters
• Standard Chartered Bank sees virtual bank licence as ticket to new business worldwide | South China Morning Post
• Peer-to-peer outcry: China says will ban new online lending platforms
• Aspirant neo-bank Xinja to implement SAP core to take on Australia'...
• African economy: the limits of ‘leapfrogging’ | Financial Times
• Square jumps to all-time high after Cash app downloads surpass Venmo
• RBS comes bottom of bank league tables - BBC News
• Playboy sues cryptocurrency platform BLOC: Report - Business Insider
• Teenager Hacked John McAfee's 'Unhackable' Crypto-Wallet, Used it to Play Doom | Gizmodo UK