U.K.

Counter to the trend — pioneered by Amazon — of launching cashierless technology in small stores to keep traffic under control, the U.K. supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has launched a trial of cashierless mobile shopping in one of its busy London stores, Clapham North Station Local.

A credit union in Swansea, Wales, has collapsed and will cost the UK's Financial Services Compensation Scheme nearly $647,000 to reimburse members' insured funds.

The DirectRemit service will enable the large British population in the UAE to send funds to family members' Lloyds Bank accounts in less than 60 seconds and to other U.K.-based banks within an hour.

A letter supposedly sent to U.K. bank customers warns that Barclays debit cards could explode. The letter then urges recipients to mail their cards, along with their PIN codes, to an address in Bangalore. But is this really happening?

Remitly’s moves are clearly in response to the growing competitive pressure being placed in a key U.S. outbound corridor.

The best thing a banker can do today is regard the U.K. as a real-world fintech laboratory, track developments closely and seek opportunities to capitalize on change, writes Naomi Bowman, managing director for Berkeley Research Group in London.

A more open approach to banking will bring major changes, with quality data on banking services and IT security now becoming a significant factor for consumers in selecting a provider.

Our phones are rapidly becoming a massive single point of failure in our digital lives.

Seven months have passed since the U.K.’s biggest banks were mandated to release open APIs for their customers’ account information under open banking and European Union PSD2 regulation. The process was completed by mid-April, but it fell short of creating a truly open system for data sharing.

To date, payments companies have feared common biometric methods such as fingerprint or iris scanning are unreliable and susceptible to hacking. However, there’s growing evidence that finger vein ID could prove more palatable.