Tesco invests in banking tech

Retail giant Tesco is investing heavily in its banking technology, as it looks to become a major player in the UK financial sector, according to CIO.

Tesco finance director Laurie McIlwee said new technology was being put in place to increase the rate of growth within the Tesco banking business.

He also said it plans to become a significant provider of mortgages and current accounts. In its interim management statement for the third quarter Tesco said: "Tesco Bank is making good progress in developing its own systems infrastructure, with partners now selected for both its insurance and banking platforms."

Temenos Group, a provider of integrated core banking systems, and Microsoft have formed an alliance for delivering core banking solutions with Temenos T24 and Microsoft SQL Server, states

PRNewswire.

Temenos is seeing significant customer demand for the Microsoft platform, says the company. Already, 21 banks have selected Temenos Insight, the business intelligence (BI) suite announced in March, demonstrating strong demand for BI in core banking operations.

Leveraging the BI capabilities of SQL Server, Temenos Insight enables T24 users to analyse and track financial performance, understand customer profitability, and manage risk.

As the mobile phone becomes part of the daily lives of people, mobile phone manufacturers are now providing additional services including financial services, says Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.

According to Nokia vice-president of devices category management, Alex Lambeek, increasing the service portfolio for mobile phone users will cater for the unbanked who can not access conventional banking service.

According to statistics, of the six billion people in the world, four billion already own a mobile phone, yet a large number of them do not still have access to banking services, let alone financial services.