Loan origination is a critical part of any lending business. The whole subsequent process depends on origination: collecting the right data about customers, analyzing it carefully and quickly enough, selecting only the eligible borrowers, evaluating risks, etc. For many businesses, origination is what makes the loan issuing process lengthy and stressful both for loan officers and for their clients. Traditional banks who haven’t yet fully embraced FinTech advancements are the best examples here. And borrowers, who have a choice now, find an alternative.

Following the announcement on 17 June that NatWest is to offer the market’s first SONIA (Sterling Overnight Index Average) loans, the bank has today announced it has delivered the first SONIA loan for its corporate customer, National Express Group PLC.

Ingenious today announces that it has led an investment round into Over-C Limited, a London-based analytics company focused on operational performance in the workforce management market. Ingenious helped raise an additional £5.5 million in equity funding, bringing the total raised to £10 million.

Signicat, a leader in verified digital identity solutions, has today announced the acquisition of Idfy, a fast-growing provider of secure identification and electronic signature solutions. Founded in Bergen, Norway in 2012, Idfy is today one of the fastest growing players within digital trust services in the Nordics. The deal will see Signicat acquire 100% of the shares in Idfy, with a substantial reinvestment in the combined entity by active Idfy shareholders.

Fintech startup SmartPay has launched a financial inclusion wallet in Vietnam. It targets 25 million consumers and 6 million small and medium merchants. User onboarding is fast and easy – after downloading the SmartPay app and completing your KYC, you can become fully enrolled and able to make your first transaction in a matter of minutes.

User-side security monitoring system Feroot today released its 2019 User Security and Privacy Report examining the hidden behaviors of external third- and fourth-party tools on the user-side for websites and web apps. Of the 13 different industries and government agency websites worldwide reviewed, the report found that:

GDP grows by 0.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics quarterly national accounts out today.

The largest contributors to this increase are the 5.7 million small businesses in the UK today – making up 99 per cent of businesses in the UK economy. SMEs continue to be the main driving force behind employment and innovation – providing 16.3 million jobs in 2018 alone, 60 per cent of all private sector employment in the UK.

A common belief in the financial services industry is that traditional banks are under fierce threat from challenger banks, fintechs and global tech corporations, alike. With competition growing by the day, take Facebook’s recent Libra announcement as just one example, many banks are searching for a way out of the struggle.

The huge proliferation of sensitive data, increasing technological complexities and a continually evolving regulatory landscape mean data handling is more difficult than ever in the financial world. Cloud-computing has, to some extent, provided solutions and eased some of the pressures of working with big data but there is still a long way to go. Multi-cloud is gaining traction, with standard suite offerings from a growing number of cloud providers tackling many hurdles. Simultaneously, this is presenting new challenges.