The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | March 18th

By Gaia Lamperti

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

Banco Santander has been forced to compensate customers on the account of basically forcing them to conduct online banking via mobile phone. The Financial Ombudsman has ruled in favour of customers who registered complaints about the lender, as its changes to account access back in 2019 entailed sending customers a text code via SMS or clicking a link in the bank’s mobile app.

While the changes were made to comply with new regulations on banking fraud, Santander offered no alternative means of access, such via email, landline phones, or portable cards. This made it almost impossible for customers who did not have a mobile phone or lived in an area with patchy mobile coverage to access the services without having to visit a branch.

The bank has been forced to pay out hundreds of pounds in compensation to customers who complained under age discrimination laws.

Santander made changes to its systems to enable customers to verify themselves via email in 202, but the ruler’s decision teaches us that while the shift to digital is the bank’s priority they should never trade off with accessibility of their services.

Deals of the week

• Novel Capital came out of stealth with $115 million
• Encompass Corporation raises £25 million in funding to accelerate global growth
• EarnUp closes $31 million Series C funding round
• Bazaar, a Pakistani B2B Platform, raises $70 million in Series B
• doxo raises $18.5 million to transform the bill pay experience
• Chipper raises $5.6 million to eliminate student loan debt
• Onuu raises $6 million Seed A to serve Americans lacking financial security

Be on the lookout for

Banks moving to the metaverse! HSBC is officially the second global bank to announce a move into the metaverse after JP Morgan. The banking brand has partnered with virtual gaming specialists The Sandbox to snap up some virtual real estate from which to build a virtual stadium offering shared screen experiences for gamers, sports enthusiasts and entrepreneurs.

“We’ll likely see other giant banks and fintechs jumping in, but smaller ones may find it very tough to justify the development cost vs. higher-priority items like modernising operating systems and transitioning applications to the cloud,” David Ritter, Financial Services Strategist at digital transformation partner CI&T, commented on the announcement. “There are also no meaningful benefits until a critical mass of consumers is spending significant time on metaverses – not just to play games and socialise, but shopping for real-world products and services.

Events & Appointments

• The Payments and Lending market is expected to reach $9.8 trillion worldwide by 2025. Digitisation of the banking industry and developments in new technology have led to customers demanding a seamless experience and real-time payment services. To truly understand what these changes mean for you, join us at the inaugural IBS Intelligence Payments & Lending Conference 2022 l in Mumbai on March 24th. You can register here.
• IBS Intelligence is a research Partner of Finovate Europe, held on March 22nd-23rd  at Intercontinental O2, London, focusing on the future of FinTech. The event includes 50+ live demos of innovative FinTech solutions, expert advice from 70+ key influencers, and unparalleled networking opportunities.