BFC FinTech Monitor 20th March – 3rd April

Stay up-to-date on all the all the latest FinTech news and information from around the world in the BFC FinTech Monitor.

Around the World:

Finanso, a Swedish company specialized in the field of personal finance, has release a study projecting that the volume of digital transactions in Europe will exceed USD 800 billion in 2020.
Analysts from Rosenblatt Securities are predicting that the COVID-19 outbreak could cause the value of FinTech unicorns to drop by as much as USD 80 billion in total.
BDCenter Digital has completed a market analysis of 14 non-banks, including Lunar, Monzo and Revolut.
Western Union has launched a new digital location service that will allow users to transfer money without leaving the comfort of your home. Currently, the service is only available to residents of Austria, Belgium, Italy, Oman and Portugal.
Microsoft has created an Excel-based FinTech app (Money in Excel) to keep track of personal finances.

Russia:

Russia’s tax authority is now receiving data regarding Russian citizens’ Yandex.Money, QIWI Wallet, WebMoney and PayPal e-wallets.
VTB and Rostelecom have created a joint venture to develop a single platform for exchanging Big Data about users. The platform is expected to eventually become Russia’s version of China’s WeChat.
Visa released its Future of Biometrics in Russia study, which shows that, despite being rarely used, most respondents believe biometrics are more reliable than traditional methods of identification.
Online retailer Wildberries has joined forces with Otkritie Bank to launch an online lending service for suppliers. Using the service, suppliers can apply for loans of up to RUB 10 million for a period of up to 2 years and at an annual interest rate of 9.5%.
According to material published by Frank RG, Russian financial institutions are encouraging consumers to use digital services during this time of quarantine by offering more favorable conditions for online deposits as well as cashback and fee cancellation for select services.

Ukraine:

PaySpace Magazine has published an article by the CEO of Bredley Holding discussing how the COVID-19 outbreak is likely to impact digital lending.
Ukrainian financial institutions issued UAH 27.5 billion in online loans in 2019 thanks to an increased demand for microcredit in the country.

Belarus:

Belarusian FinTech developer Aventus IT, part of the international group Aventus Group, is firing a quarter of its employees due to problems stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak.

Uzbekistan:

Uzpromstroybank is providing users with free access to its online banking features for the first six months of use.
InfinBank and UzAuto Motors have joined forces to give residents of Uzbekistan the opportunity to obtain an automobile loan online.

Kazakhstan:

Inspections of microfinance organizations, pawnshops and online lenders has begun in Almaty, Nur-Sultan and Shymkent.
The volume of non-cash transactions grew 2.5 times during the January-February 2020 period, reaching KZT 3.56 trillion in total. The majority of these were internet/mobile banking and POS-terminal transactions.

Azerbaijan:

Visa’s regional manager in the Caucasus has called Azerbaijan one of the most open countries to financial market innovations, largely due to the positive influence of the country’s regulating authorities and the willingness of consumers to use new payment instruments.

Armenia:

Converse Bank has launched a new mobile application (Card2Card) that allows users to transfer funds to foreign bank cards at any time and from anywhere in the world.
Idram and IDBank have developed a new joint digital payment platform. To use the platform, users need only download the platform’s app and use it to complete a simple remote identification process.