Citi Fintech launched in the fall of 2015 to build the bank of the future, but it has yet to release a product. Now Citigroup‘s innovation unit has lost its CEO. USAA announced today that Citi Fintech CEO Heather Cox was joining the bank as chief technology and digital officer, a new role at USAA. Specifically, Cox will lead all of USAA’s IT, digital and member experience design teams. Cox will report to Stuart Parker, USAA’s CEO. Christopher Cox, currently USAA’s chief digital officer, will...

Call it another vote of confidence for the blockchain. Hyperledger from Hyper, which provides private blockchains to financial institutions, was bought by Digital Asset Holdings, Bloomberg reported yesterday. San Francisco-based Hyperledger won a place in Bank Innovation‘s 2015 DEMOvation Challenge, and was a semi-finalist at Innotribe’s 2015 Startup Challenge as well. At Innotribe, Hyper CEO Dan O’Prey stated his company was piloting an offering for a consortium of Tier 1 banks. DAH has a...

Year-old Citi Fintech, the digital banking sub-brand of Citigroup Inc., has launched its first product. That may seem like a long time by startup reckoning, but it’s not so bad for a (gigantic, regulated, global) bank. The unit announced Monday that it had built a new mobile experience for Citigold card members that allows them to buy and sell funds and equities. It also allows login via Touch ID and voice, transfer funds between Citi accounts (including international accounts), and...

Banks are entering what could well be a Golden Age — deregulation, rising interest rates, and a bevy of fintech startups eager to hop into bed with them. Will they take advantage of this fintech opportunity? “Banks now have the capital to put to work and invest in growth after a long period of cost-cutting,” Alvi Abuaf, SVP and head of financial services consulting at Capgemini, told Bank Innovation. “They can now use the capital to fuel growth.” Capgemini–a global tech consultancy–advises...

Y Combinator’s Winter 2016 Demo Days just wrapped up, with 159 startups taking the stage and making their play for funding. Just under 10% of the companies — 15 to be exact — were fintech-related. This is about average for a YC incubator class, with the 26% from Summer 2015 being an aberration. (UPDATE: Jim Bruene, who has tracked this percentage for years on the Finovate blog, points out that the previous post was in error. The Summer 2015 percentage was 13% — above average, but only...