Card giant Mastercard and digital bank bunq are teaming up on open banking and AI, the companies announced this week at Money2020 in Amsterdam.  

The partnership breaks down “how open banking is helping to provide the next generation of financial insights to their users,” Bart Willaert, executive vice president of open banking international markets at Mastercard, said at the event.

With Mastercard’s open banking capabilities, bunq users will have access to a full overview of their finances in one app, Bianca Zwart, chief of staff to bunq’s chief executive officer, said.  

Additionally, “we’re adding AI to the mix,” Zwart said, noting that through bunq’s app users can ask the digital bank’s AI-driven assistant questions, including where they spend the most money and when they will become a millionaire. 

The digital bank is live in 30 European markets, Zwart said. 

Bunq selects Nvidia to fight financial fraud 

Bunq has also selected Nvidia’s AI technology to fight fraud, according to a June 3 release.  

Bunq is looking to Nvidia’s generative AI to flag fraud and money laundering through an automated transaction-monitoring system.  

“AI has enormous potential to help humanity in so many ways, and this is a great example of how human intelligence can be coupled with AI,” Ali el Hassouni, head of data and AI at bunq, said in the release. 

Western Union selects Plaid for open banking 

Global payments provider Western Union is teaming up with data transfer network provider Plaid to useits open banking platform for account verification and cross-border payments, according to a May 30 release from Plaid. 

Working with Plaid will allow Western Union to streamline its remittance payments offering, the release stated. 

“In Europe, open banking payments are used broadly, and the use cases continue to expand through newer technologies such as variable recurring payments,” a Plaid spokesperson told Bank Automation News. 

Plaid will enable customers to connect their financial accounts to Western Union through APIs in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Italy, the spokesperson said, adding that Western Union aims to roll out the solution all across Europe in eventually. 

“Open banking account verification is a secure connection to ensure personal information is accurate and reliable, making transfers safer,” the spokesperson said. 

LGT teams up with Finastra for instant payments 

Global private bank LGT has selected Finastra’s instant payments solution to future-proof its payments network, according to a May 23 release. 

All banks and payment providers in the EU must offer instant payments to their customers by Jan. 9, 2025, Neil Macro, vice president, managing director of sales in EMEA mid-markets at Finastra, told BAN. “With the regulatory deadline fast approaching, institutions are under great compliance pressure to transform their payment systems.” 

The FIs must also implement anti-money laundering and fraud prevention frameworks, Macro said. 

“This transition is challenging, particularly for banks still managing legacy systems,” Macro said. “This is why we’re seeing many financial institutions turning to payment-as-a-service solutions and cloud-native architectures based on microservices.” 

LGT will also use Finastra’s treasury management system, Finastra Kondor, the release stated. 

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