The FinTech world is buzzing about PSD2. Should banks be worried?

European banks are finally realizing the magnitude of the revised Directive on Payment Services (PSD2), which will force them to provide account information to third parties via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that cut out transaction intermediaries.

PSD2 aims to:

Remitly closed a $38.5 million Series C funding round. Stripes Group led this round and was joined by Vulcan Capital, both new investors in Remitly. Existing Remitly investors also contributed to the round including DFJ, DN Capital, Bezos Expeditions and Trilogy Equity Partners, among others. Stripes Group partner Ron Shah will join Remitly’s board of directors as part of the financing. The new capital will be used to grow Remitly’s team and continue the company’s global expansion.

 Visa unveils the opening of its Singapore innovation center, the first in a network of new regional innovation centers that Visa is launching globally. The new 7,000 square foot Singapore facility will serve as a destination for clients, partners and developers, across the region, to work alongside Visa experts and jointly create the next generation of payment and commerce applications.

Infosys Finacle a product subsidiary of Infosys and Samsung SDS, a global ICT service provider, today announced a global partnership that will provide end customers with a more secure, fast and convenient way to use mobile banking and payment services.

International Private Banking Systems  the specialist provider of wealth management software for the private banking sector, today announced a partnership with eShore, a trusted IT service provider to offshore international banks and financial services organisations. The agreement will see eShore market and sell the IPBS system in a number of international offshore financial centres where they have an established presence.

 Icon Solutions, the independent IT payment consultancy and specialist technology provider, today announced the worldwide launch of its Instant Payments Framework (IPF). IPF is an agile yet robust software product that expedites financial institutions’ transition to instant payments. IPF was designed specifically to meet the needs of national banks and global bank subsidiaries who regularly find the cost and complexity of current payment hubs excessive.

 Fiserv  announced a partnership that will bring the industry-leading commercial lending capabilities of Automated Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS) to Fiserv bank core account processing clients. The integration of AFSVision^® with account processing platforms from Fiserv will enable clients to efficiently expand their lending services to support complex commercial lending demands.

The week starting April 25 through April 29 was full of interesting product releases in the sphere of blockchain and trading systems. The most significant events include Misys’ Cloud solutions as well as Nasdaq Validator launching for trading quality assurance. Financial IT summarized the top deals in fintech industry for this week below:   

PRODUCT RELEASES OF THE WEEK