The issue of how to tackle financial inclusion has long been a part of the conversation in banking and financial services circles. Regulations have ledto the UK’s biggest banks having to provide ‘basic bank accounts’ to cater for those who do not qualify for regular current account products. Many fintech and prepaid players have spotted an opportunity to provide products and services to underserved communities, whether it be payment cards without the need of a bank account, or financial wellness tools that help with budgeting and basic personal finances.

An interview with  Lyndon Hedderly, Director Customer Solutions at Confluent.

Can you please tell us more about Confluent and your background?

To understand Confluent you first need to understand Apache Kafka® -and for that, cast your mind back to 2007-08 when at five years old, LinkedIn had grown to 10 million users and was introducing features such as "who's viewed your profile" and "People You May Know."

Onfido, Deloitte and Evernym today announced the positive results of their Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulatory sandbox pilot, confirming that their reusable digital identity solution has been proven with market participants.

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that the Norwegian State Housing Bank, Husbanken, will replace its legacy IT system and deploy Temenos Transact to digitalize and optimize its lending operations. Temenos’ partner, Syncordis, will support the implementation. Temenos’ cloud-native core banking product will drive operational efficiencies across the bank’s back-office operations and reduce cost and complexity. Temenos’ technology will automate and accelerate the processing and delivery of vital housing loans and grants.

UK tech startup Temporall, founded by a former Google global director, has developed a world class AI and analytics-based platform to give key performance insights to leadership teams. The company has announced a £1m seed+ funding round from UK-based VC Luminous Ventures on June 1st.

Tink will now support PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) across Europe as it leverages opportunities with PSD2 and open banking. This extended work together is supported by a second strategic investment from PayPal. 

," FSS (Financial Software and Systems) a globally leading digital payments technology provider and a payment processor, announced today that it has enhanced its e-Commerce Payment Gateway with added value service capabilities to bring more merchants online and deliver smart, secure commerce experiences, especially for the great payment gateway software it has."
 

The enhancement provides the following benefits:

Data-driven business operations are a multi-year plan for two-thirds of finance professionals (66%). Only 7% think their own organisation is already data-driven, while 14% think they will achieve this within a year, with 43% expecting to become data-driven within two to three years.