Financial institutions are investing heavily in technology to improve the onboarding process. But as they digitally transform their processes, many organisations are struggling to accommodate risk and compliance on the one hand, and customer convenience and innovation on the other. Josje Fiolet, Digital Customer Onboarding Lead at consultancy for digital transactions INNOPAY, discusses here how the European Supervisory Authorities, supporting new customer due diligence technologies, have provided a pragmatic guide for organisations considering how to strike the right balance, with the release of their Opinion ‘on the use of innovative solutions by credit and financial institutions in the customer due diligence process.’ / read more

The Royal Bank of Scotland (‘RBS’) launched on 20 November 2017 an automated online investment service - the NatWest Invest platform - which it claims makes it the first high street bank to offer a robo-advice service in the UK. NatWest Invest will charge £10 plus fees to invest, and will be open to customers with the relatively low amount of £500 to invest as a lump sum. “This signals the long-awaited entry of incumbents into a developing market that is being supported by policymakers and legislators,” comments Adrian Shedden, Head of FinTech at Burges Salmon LLP. “Of course, this all coincides nicely with PSD2 and Open Banking going live in January 2018. A cynic might say this is high street banks making a last minute play for customer retention before platforms are armed to facilitate their services using Open APIs.” / read more

Sweden’s central bank - Sveriges Riksbank - is investigating the possible issuance of a digital complement to cash, which it has termed the ‘e-krona,’ to address some of the problems facing the payments market as Sweden continues to reduce its use of cash. The Riksbank published its first interim report on the concept of the e-krona in September 2017. Simon Fuller spoke to Eva Julin, Project Manager of the e-krona project, and Frida Erlandsson, Coordinator for the project, about e-krona, how it could work in practice, and the Riksbank’s findings so far. / read more

The UK has a reputation for being a FinTech hub, larger than competitors such as Germany and Singapore. But while global FinTech investment increased in 2016, in the UK investment in FinTech fell. With Brexit and its associated concerns for the UK’s FinTech sector on the horizon, Chris Finney and Jonathan Segal, both Partners at Fox Williams LLP, analyse the extent to which the UK Government is supporting the country’s FinTech sector, and what more it could do. / read more

In Hungary, the country’s Competition Office has begun an investigation into the use of so-called ‘cash substitutes’ such as mobile payments and cards for the making of payments, with the main goal of such investigation appearing to be to explore the conditions applicable between traditional credit institutions and retailers. Dr Szabolcs Mestyán and John Fenemore of Lakatos, Köves and Partners discuss this investigation in the context of regulatory and policy developments surrounding payment infrastructure in Hungary, and analyse why the Hungarian Government is paying particular attention to the retail payments sector. / read more

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (‘ASIC’) has issued regulatory guidance for providers of robo-advice, a fast-growing area involving the provision of financial advice through digital platforms without the direct involvement of a human adviser. In issuing this regulatory guidance, ASIC is aiming to ensure quality advice, and, as Stuart Walton of HWL Ebsworth Lawyers explains, the guidance raises a few issues that robo-advice providers in Australia should consider urgent action on. / read more

The Australian media (principal among them The Australian Financial Review) has been chronicling a dispute between Bitcoin start-ups and some of Australia’s biggest banks. The start-ups, having had their accounts closed by the banks for reasons of ‘risk’ or ‘policy,’ contacted the media, inferring that the accounts had been closed for anti-competitive reasons. This publicity attracted some political support, which prompted the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (‘ACCC’) to investigate. It was reported in February 2016 that the ACCC had concluded its investigation, declining to pursue the banks for anti-competitive conduct under the cartel provisions of the relevant legislation, as each of the banks had independently acted in order to manage risk. / read more

The UK Government is to introduce the Innovative Finance ISA (‘IFISA’), which will enable an investor to pay into a tax-free ISA wrapper payments made by a borrower under a loan facilitated by an authorised P2P platform. An individual will be able to lend up to the ISA allowance threshold (currently £15,240). Lucy Frew and Chris Boylan of Kemp Little discuss the IFISA. / read more

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published on 3 February a review of its regulatory regime for investment and loan-based crowdfunding, following the regime’s implementation last April; the review inter alia highlights the FCA’s concerns around disclosures made by crowdfunding platforms about risk. / read more

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on 6 November that it will proceed with a full ‘Phase 2’ investigation of the retail banking market in regards to the supply of personal current accounts and of banking services to small and medium-sized enterprises. / read more