It’s been a while since JPMorgan announced to launch its digital banking offer, through their consumer brand Chase. That was in January and to this day, over 400 people have worked on this project. Gordon Smith, CEO of Consumer & Community Banking and co-President of JPMorgan Chase announced it with these words: “We are bringing Chase to the UK because we want to provide customers with a new banking choice – one that will enable them to benefit from a simple and exceptional banking experience, built on the significant capabilities of JPMorgan Chase.”
Chase is expected to offer retail bank accounts through a digital app with plans to build out full consumer banking services over time. Will it succesfully compete with Monzo, Revolut and Starling? Only time will tell.
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Cash is not king anymore. Now, even children and teenagers understand the benefits of using digital payment solutions. Parents see it, too. More and more families decide to start distributing pocket money with apps, as Finder‘s report shows: “3 in 5 (61%) of children in the UK between the ages of 10 and 15 use an app to manage their money according to a new report from the personal finance comparison site finder.com, titled When pocket money goes digital: How the children’s account sector is evolving. his includes half of 10 year olds (49%), while the figure rises to over two thirds of 15 year olds (68%) and 71% of 14 year olds. ”
The researchers also found out that up to this day, the main source of knowledge about money an managing personal finances are parents and 85% of children save some of what they receive. Good job, kids!
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bunq claims to be the bank of the free. What does it mean in practice? This neobank offers its services throughout Europe, it bases on a versatile app, where you can do everything. Soon, it will also offer better cash deposits. Thanks to the new partnership with Paysafe, bunq’s customers will be able to use 190,000 new payment points across continent to deposit their cash. The procedure is going to be very user-friendly and fast. After scanning a barcode generated by the app and depositing money in the terminal, it’s going to take only a few minutes to have it transferred to the account.
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The Bank of England is working hard to keep all financial institutions in the UK secure and make sure their customers can sleep tight. Unfortunately, there still are some banks that need to be reminded about procedures. As it turns out, some banks fail to send all reports needed by the regulator. These are complete and accurate regulatory returns on things like capital, assets and operations. As BoE wrote in the newsletter to CEOs of banks, the institutions was “disappointed to find significant deficiencies in a number of firms’ processes used to deliver accurate and reliable regulatory returns.”
The firms warned in the letter have been told to fix their issues and warned that “where individual firms fall short of our expectations, we will consider the full range of supervisory responses and enforcement powers at our disposal.”
We hope that not many banks actually have problems, but it’s also good that BoE actually cares about the customers and keeps making banking in the UK better.
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It’s actually quite funny that both major neobanks Monzo and Curve, both had the same idea for a new service at the same time and both decided to go for the same name – Flex. Maybe they’re planning a merger? But jokes aside, the neobanks are entering the buy-now-pay-later industry and compete with Klarna, the biggest player there.
Nathalie Oestmann, Curve’s COO, claims she didn’t know:
“Well, it’s a bit like spending months planning a killer outfit and then turning up to see someone wearing the same thing. But with a lower APR and the power to Flex a lot further back in time, we think we wear it best,” as she told AltFi.”
Curve’s founder and CEO, Shachar Bialick is also pretty confident: “Why settle for a rigid copy when you can have the real thing? Curve Flex is almost certainly the most flexible credit solution in the market. With no limitations on merchants and the ability to accommodate all Mastercard, Visa, and Discover cards, Curve Flex will provide customers with access to easy and affordable credit.”
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Matt Collinge, Chief Technology Officer of Curve, will leave the company after almost four years.
The CTO writes on social media: “Some of the highlights during my time at Curve that will stay with me include completing two successful funding rounds [and] scaling the team in the technology and product functions from fifteen to over 200.” He adds: “It has been an exciting and challenging time but most of all it has been great fun, which is largely due to the awesomely talented, stoic and most hard-working people that I have had the pleasure of working alongside.”
We wish you all the best, Matt. Congratulations on so many successes with Curve!
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