Blockchain
- Visa (FD14) partners with blockchain innovator Chain (FD15) to develop a “near real-time,” high value, fund-transfer system between banks and corporate customers called Visa B2B Connect. The technology is expected to pilot in 2017 and could add much needed transparency and security, as well as speed, to B2B payments.
- SBI Securities of Japan teams up with IBM (FD16) to deploy blockchain technology in bond trading. The current goal is to measure the impact of blockchain’s “complexity” on the firm’s existing operations and will rely on the Hyperledger distributed ledger technology presented last week at FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016.
- Five banks including Credit Suisse, Barclays, and Citi announce successful test of smart contract prototype developed by blockchain startup, Axoni. The project specifically tested ways to manage and synchronize single stock, index, and portfolio swaps.
Go East, Young Developer
- Mizuho announces new innovation lab in Tokyo supported by Mitsubishi Estate and Dentsu. Remember that Finovate is headed to Hong Kong on 8 November for FinovateAsia 2016. Check out our FinovateAsia information page for details.
Payments
- CVS Pharmacy launches mobile payment technology CVS Pay nationwide. The technology, part of CVS’s mobile app, incorporates payment, prescription pickup, and the pharmacy’s loyalty program.
- Ingo Money unveils its Instant Payments, a white-label, API-based, push payments technology. According to Ingo founder and CEO Drew Edwards, the solution “makes it easy for any company to implement push payments quickly and begin originating real-time, guaranteed payments to any customer or employee within their own proprietary user flows and branded experience.”
- Australia introduces the New Payment Platform (NPP), a version of the U.K.’s Faster Payments service. The real-time bank transfer service that works with just a phone number or an email address is expected to debut in 2017.
- Android Pay goes live at more than 5,000 retail locations in Hong Kong, including 7-Eleven, McDonalds, and Circle K. The technology also supports gift and loyalty cards.