HSBC has appointed Mike Warriner, a former engineering director at Google, as chief information officer for its retail banking and wealth management digital division
O2 is trialling a system which uses a layer of artificial intelligence to identify common characteristics of scam messages and filter them out. The system is built by Croatian-based technology firm Infobip, which claims the algorithm is capable of detecting 95% of spam messages. Separately, HMRC has launched a crackdown on so-called ‘SMiShing’, under which HMRC-related ‘alpha tags’ – the words that can replace numbers at the top of text messages – have been protected to prevent criminals from using them
Santander will not renew its Formula One sponsorship of Ferrari, according to the Daily Telegraph. The bank has rejected a potential new deal worth around £36m as the primary sponsor, but could remain as a secondary sponsor
Revolut has revealed that it has acquired more than 1m customers and it is currently signing up between 3,000 and 3,500 new users per day, according to CITY AM. The UK is Revolut’s largest market with more than half of users, followed by France with 150,000 and 60,000 in the Baltic regions. It is planning to launch in the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand early next year
British Business Bank has launched a £2.5bn fund to help establish start-ups which intend to float or sell once they have established a track record. Chancellor, Philip Hammond, also said that the Government was ready to ‘step in and replace’ lending through the European Investment Fund after Brexit
Chancellor Philip Hammond has pledged to build up the UK’s challenger banks and credit unions with a package of measures to widen potential membership and increase competition. The measures, on pages 50 and 51 of the Autumn Budget 2017 document, also affirm a decision agreed with the European Commission under which Royal Bank of Scotland Group will fund and deliver a £775m package designed to improve competition in the UK business banking market
