- AIB and Frontline Ventures have launched the second AIB Discovery Programme, which will provide 15 high-potential technology start-ups with up to €200,000 in funding
- Lloyds Bank has agreed to let Intuit QuickBooks customers in the UK automatically import transactions from their bank accounts. Intuit now offers direct feeds with three of the top four retail banks in the UK and has also recently signed data sharing agreements with Wells Fargo and Chase in the US
- NatWest has opened an Entrepreneurial Spark hub in London and released research showing that a third of the population believe London is the best place in the UK to start a new business because of its good transport links and a strong local economy
- Monzo has now posted debit cards to approximately 2,500 customers as part of the pilot of its current account service
- Monzo has decided to end free overseas ATM withdrawals and is asking customers to vote on how it should charge them. Its says the cost of providing this facility more than doubled to nearly £16 per active user per year between June 2016 and August 2017, more than half of the total cost per customer on the current account, and that some people are signing up specifically to use the Monzo card abroad
- Starling Bank has gone live with its Marketplace ecosystem, enabling customers to tap into third-party services from fintech firms direct from its mobile app. Flux, rewards and receipt platform, is the first integrated partner to sit within Marketplace
- Raisin has launched a business term deposit service in Germany using its panel of banks. Banks providing the accounts via Raisin’s online platform are Banco BNI Europa from Portugal, Younited Credit from France, and Greensill Bank from Germany. Businesses in Germany normally receive on average rates of -0.14 when they invest in a term deposit. The new service will offer rates up to 0.7%.
