U.K.

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.

Wyre has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the majority of its retail money transfer business to WorldFirst, giving the seller a chance to focus more on its cryptocurrency strategy.

Starling Bank, a U.K.-based digital-only bank, is among the latest European banks offering the benefit of its full banking license and its technology to companies that want to offer white-labeled banking products and debit or credit cards but don’t want to invest in a banking license or technology.

As part of the modernization of the U.K.’s payments systems, the new Image Clearing System is now being phased in. All banks and building societies across the U.K. are connecting their deposit channels into the central infrastructure, a process that will be completed by the end of 2018.

After a slow start, order-ahead payment services will begin to achieve more widespread adoption in U.K. corporate catering, encouraging the transition to the high street in the near future.

CommuterClub provides loans so consumers can purchase annual season passes online, instead of monthly or weekly passes and spread the cost over monthly installments.

A legal battle is being waged between a U.S. bank and its insurer over the insurer’s refusal to pay out on a cyber policy, in the wake of hacks on the bank which led to a loss of over $2.4 million. The case flags the problems of insurance in the fast-moving world of digital security.

London-based fintech Flux is leveraging open banking and PSD2 to work with U.K. banks and retailers to give their customers paperless receipts, digital loyalty stamps and digital cashback offers.

The U.K.’s Food Standard Agency completed its first successful blockchain pilot this month, with plans to expand the test in August.

Airborne drone delivery is becoming e-commerce's version of self-driving cars: A promising but troubled technology that's nonetheless creating opportunities to change the way people make payments.

Mastercard's strong performance is dampened by threats from trade disputes and Brexit, both of which could cause the company pain in the future.

The hack's core trick highlights an area of cybersecurity which is often neglected: hardware connected to computer networks which laymen wouldn’t normally consider a computer.

The U.K.’s Starling Bank markets itself as a digital bank that’s too modern for branches, and now it’s seeking an edge by offering a vertical payment card with all of the account details moved to the back.