Latest global banking news

June 1, 2022 10:24 AM

This week in global news, U.K. banks suffer an online and mobile outage, Wordline enters the metaverse, a new cross-border payment option comes to Ukraine, and more.

Here's what's happening around the world.

A pedestrian passes outside a Barclays bank branch in London.

Bloomberg News

U.K. banks suffer internet outage

Customers of the U.K.'s largest financial institutions reported being locked out of their accounts on Wednesday, according to the Manchester Evening News and dozens of other news outlets. The banks include Barclays, Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds, HSBC, Santander, Nationwide, NatWest, Monzo and Yorkshire Bank. The affected services included transfers, access to online banking and mobile apps. Halifax and Santander reported unspecified problems with access to Faster Payments, a U.K. system that supports settlement in a few seconds. Santander reported that service had been restored as of 1 p.m. local time. The outage was similar to a series of glitches that impacted card networks and banks in Europe in 2018, leaving some consumers unable to access mass transit or pay for groceries. —John Adams

Bess Adler/Bloomberg News

Bank of New York Mellon to sell European credit manager

The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. said Tuesday it would sell its London-based credit and private debt manager BNY Alcentra Group Holdings. to Franklin Resources. The $474 billion-asset Bank of New York Mellon said the buyer, which operates as Franklin Templeton, would pay $350 million in cash and up to another $350 million depending on certain performance thresholds over the next four years. Should the deal close as planned early in 2023, Franklin will manage nearly $257 billion of alternative assets. —Jim Dobbs

Adobe Stock

Till acquires restaurant payment processor

Australia-based Till Payments has acquired Zips, the payments-processing unit of Dallas-based restaurant-tech platform Ziosk. As part of the deal, Till will sell Ziosk’s payments and labor-management software to its international network of merchants. Till, which launched in 2012 providing payments acceptance for parking, transit and specialty retail, will leverage Zips’ North American sales force to expand its services in the U.S. and Canada. The firm, headquartered in Sydney, raised $90 million in Series C financing last year and now operates in 500 global cities. —Kate Fitzgerald

Worldline opens metaverse showroom

Amsterdam-based digital payment platform provider Worldline has opened a virtual showroom enabling merchants to explore Web 3.0 commerce. The showroom includes a virtual stage where featured merchants may display metaverse-based products, plus a “coffee” area for informal meetings powered by Germany-based merchant services provider PayOne. Through a partnership with Bitcoin Suisse, consumers may buy virtual goods and services through Worldline’s showroom with or without owning cryptocurrency. One of the first programs is a virtual commerce program for supporting Ukraine charities. —Kate Fitzgerald

Trustly buys U.K. account-to-account payments startup

Trustly, a 12-year-old Stockholm-based global payments platform, has acquired U.K.-based open banking technology provider Ecospend. The move aims to expand Trustly’s existing digital account-to-account payment capabilities in the U.K. via Ecospend’s reach to 80 U.K. banks. Ecospend last year began supporting payments flowing directly from consumers’ accounts to the U.K.’s tax authority . The London-based firm, launched in 2017, has processed more than US$6.3 billion in account-to-account payments within the past year. —Kate Fitzgerald

Clear Junction sets up cross-border payments in Ukraine

London-based payment company Clear Junction is partnering with NovaPay to support international transactions to and from Ukraine. NovaPay is part of the Nova Poshta group, a logistics company that is headquartered in Ukraine. NovaPay hopes to improve settlements between shippers in the European Union and Ukraine, where the Russian invasion has hindered supply chains. While dozens of payment companies have halted service to Russia to comply with sanctions following the invasion, financial institutions that operate inside Ukraine or provide service to Ukraine have continued to operate, often facing dangerous conditions. —John Adams

Singapore, JPMorgan Chase launch decentralized finance initiative

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has commended Project Guardian, a collaboration with banks that is designed to determine the economic potential and feasibility of asset tokenization and decentralized finance. Tokenization is a digital representation of assets or items of value through a smart contract on a blockchain. A smart contract automatically triggers an action when certain conditions are met. Smart contracts enable decentralized finance transactions such as borrowing, lending and trading without the requirement of intermediaries, improving speed and affordability, according to MAS. Project Guardian's first pilot includes JPMorgan Chase and Singapore's DBS Bank, which will use a blockchain and smart contracts to support secured borrowing and lending. —John Adams

HSBC offers U.K. staff chance to lease Teslas with pretax pay

HSBC Holdings is offering U.K.-based employees the chance to lease electric vehicles with their pre-tax paychecks, as the lender introduces a popular way for workers to cut their travel emissions. All of the London-headquartered bank’s 35,000 U.K. employees are eligible for the perk, which started this month, according to people familiar with the matter. It gives employees the option to lease a new, all-electric car for between two and four years, with the option to buy it from HSBC at the end of the contract. —Harry Wilson, Bloomberg News

Russia’s biggest lender Sberbank targeted in EU sanctions plan

European Union countries are set to cut Russia’s largest lender Sberbank off the SWIFT international payments system, as the bloc readies a sixth package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The proposed restrictions also target Credit Bank of Moscow and the Russian Agricultural Bank, according to people familiar with the discussions. The EU, the U.S. and the U.K. have already banned several Russian banks from using SWIFT. —John Follain and Alberto Nardelli, Bloomberg News

Canadian credit union trade organization names new boss

The Canadian Credit Union Association has named Jeff Guthrie as its president and chief executive, effective July 1. Guthrie, who was most recently president and chief operating officer of the Toronto-based financial technology firm Hank Payments, will succeed Martha Durdin after her eight-year tenure leading the group. “Credit unions play an important role in the financial services industry by providing Canadians with more choice in how they bank … I welcome the opportunity to join a sector with co-operative values that align closely with my own,” Guthrie said in a press release Tuesday. —Frank Gargano