Tech Talk: Risky partnerships, ML failures, digital banking solutions, and more!

• Risky fintech partnerships
• Suspicious transactions slip by bank
• Challenger bank under regulatory fire
• Enhanced digital banking solution
• Digital banking for financial advisors
• Bank-backed blockchain cash settlement
• Cloud-based instant card solution
• Pangea pushes into banking
• Rideshare banking services
• Spam, Scams & Breaches
• Updates, Patches & Alerts
• and on the lighter side...

Risky fintech partnerships
In its Spring 2019 Semiannual Risk Perspective report published May 20, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency singled out financial innovation and rapid developments in fintech as emerging risks to the banking industry. In its report, the OCC urged banks to conduct proper due diligence and ensure that effective oversight and controls are in place when using third-party vendors. Failing to properly manage fintech and other third-party relationships can result in elevated reputational, strategic, operational, and compliance risks. Financial Regulation News has the details.

Suspicious transactions slip by bank
Reports surfaced this week that suspicious financial transactions have gone undetected by global investment bank Deutsche Bank for nearly a decade. A software glitch in one of the bank's anti-financial crime systems designed to scan corporate clients' transactions prevented potentially suspicious transactions from being reported to law enforcement authorities since 2010. It's unknown at this time what, or how many, suspicious transactions were processed during that time. MarketWatch has the details.

Challenger bank under regulatory fire
Deutsche Bank isn't the only financial institution under fire for money laundering inefficiencies. In the wake of several complaints – including reports that a customer's account was hacked and emptied of nearly $89,144 USD – German banking regulator BaFin ordered challenger bank N26 to bolster its anti-money laundering (AML) controls and improve its systems for detecting illicit transactions. The regulator has tasked the bank with reidentifying some existing customers, catching up on a backlog of IT monitoring, documenting workflows, and putting adequate personnel and equipment in place to maintain compliance with money laundering laws, reports PYMNTS.com.

Enhanced digital banking solution
To help banks deliver tailored digital banking solutions that connect customers virtually anywhere, across any device, Deloitte developed a pre-configured digital banking accelerator powered by the Salesforce Financial Services Cloud platform. The global financial consulting and advisory firm has enhanced their Digital Bank asset with Salesforce Einstein Analytics technology to unlock customer insights that will provide banks with increased upsell opportunities and integrated a new Private Banking segment for enhanced productivity and greater customer engagement. PR Newswire has the details.

Digital banking for financial advisors
Bringing innovation to the wealth management space, fintech firm Galileo has developed a white-label digital banking product exclusively for financial advisers. The Galileo Money Plus accounts enable financial advisors to offer their clients traditional banking services, including interest-bearing accounts, debit cards, direct deposit, online bill pay, mobile check deposit, ACH transfers, and other features that allow their clients to access all their funds in one place. Payments Journal has the details.

Bank-backed blockchain cash settlement
To reduce costs and streamline complex international settlement and payments transactions, banks and other financial institutions are investing millions of dollars on blockchain's distributed ledger technology. Some of the world's largest banks are putting their money on a blockchain-based digital cash system that will facilitate the settlement of financial transactions. Around a dozen major banks are investing $50 million in Fnality – a new entity that will run the utility settlement coin project that will be backed by cash assets and paired with a fiat currency. Reuters has the details.

Cloud-based instant card solution
Technological advances have increasingly led today's consumers to expectations of instant gratification, from accessing on-demand services to ordering items online and picking them up hours (or even minutes) later. Payment cards are often the keys to the gateway for consumers getting what they want when they want it, and when a card is lost or stolen it hinders their ability to do so. To ensure customers have immediate access to their card and funds, Entrust Datacard has launched a cloud-based solution that enables banks to instantly personalize and activate customer payment cards. ATM Marketplace has the details.

Pangea pushes into banking
Setting its sights on the challenger banking market, money transfer company Pangea – which currently offers low-cost international money transfers via its mobile app – is launching a branded checking account. The US-based firm has teamed up with fintech and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider Green Dot to expand its services and become the first digital remittance company to offer a branded checking account closely tied to its core product, reports Banking Technology.

Rideshare banking services
It seems like everyone is driving in the financial marketplace lane these days. In partnership with Mastercard, drivers with ridesharing firm Lyft will have access to a Lyft Direct Mastercard Debit card (issued by Stride Bank) that will not only give drivers immediate access to their pay, but will include access to 20,000 ATMs, identity theft protection, and no account fees, reports ATM Marketplace.

Spams, Scams and Breaches

• Krebs on Security: Hackers online forum has been hacked
• Security Week: BEC (business email compromise) scams prevail
• Help Net Security: Attacks are bypassing web application firewalls
• Krebs on Security: Phishers reeling in victims with bogus legal threats
• Help Net Security: Monster-sized breaches that caused irreparable damage
• Security Week: Menacing malware targets more victims and maximizes attackers’ profits

Updates, Patches and Alerts...

• US-CERT: Current Activity
• Sophos: Mozilla fixes bugs, improves privacy in latest Firefox release
• Security Week: Microsoft adds live response capabilities to Defender ATP
• Threatpost: Windows 10 update bricks PCs, Microsoft offers workarounds

See what other current hot cyber and technology topics affecting financial institutions BOL users are discussing in the Technology Forum.

And on the lighter side...

It's that time of year as high school and college students don caps and gowns, and pomp and circumstance marches take place across the country. It's not easy impressing a teenager with techie gifts these days. But here are some tech gadgets they may not have, or even have seen before, that would make great gifts for the special grad in your life.