Wiktor Schmidt, the founder and CEO of Netguru, argues that banks will fail, not because of the economy, but because they can’t attract and retain developer talent.

The Bank of England and Accenture have rebuilt and modernised a core component of the payments infrastructure in the UK, marking a major milestone of a multi-year transformation programme.

Plumery, a component-based banking technology startup founded by Ben Goldin, former CTO and CPO of Mambu, has raised $4.5 million in seed funding.

Monument, a new digital-first UK bank for the mass affluent, is heading for a 2021 launch after securing a Series A investment and restricted banking licence from UK regulatory authorities.

Boston-based Eastern Bank has partnered with former members of PerkStreet Financial to create a new innovation laboratory that will use the bank’s data assets to rapidly prototype and launch new technologies for use within the bank and onsale to other financial institutions.

US bank-backed P2P payments service Zelle says it will use stablecoins to enable users to make cross-border payments.

US bank Fifth Third has moved to scale its cash management operations through the acquisition of DTS Connex. Terms were not disclosed.

Swiss bank UBS has replaced plastic with corn for a new environmentally-friendly credit card and also introduced a purely virtual card.

Two hundred ING employees and 100 external developers/IT students from Romania are expected to participate in the bank’s annual 24-hour coding event, competing to create innovative ideas for a ‘next generation digital bank’.

German banking giant Deutsche Bank has agreed a multi-year partnership with Google Cloud for the provision and joint development of cloud services.

Authorities from Malaysia and Singapore have signed a memorandum of understanding to build a blockchain-powered cross border digital trade network.

The financial services industry has long required compute-intensive calculations for risk management, regulatory compliance, product development, pricing, trading, clearing and surveillance. However, the volume and timeliness of these calculations have increased.

Payments professionals from across Europe are gathering in Munich this week for EBAday 2018, hosted by the Euro Banking Association and Finextra. We’re liveblogging events here.

Mollie has agreed a deal to acquire GoCardless, marking a new wave of consolidation in the venture-backed fintech payment sector.