24/04 – Weekly Fintech Recap

  • Artificial Intelligence , Blockchain , Insurtech , RegTech , Security and Compliance , Payments , Banking , M&A Deals , People Moves
  • 24.04.2023 09:00 am

Partnerships 

Aevi and XAC Partnership Brings Future-proof Payment Solutions to ISOs

Aevi, a leading in-person payment expert, announced its partnership with XAC Automation Corporation (5490 Taiwan OTC). This collaboration will deliver future-proof payment solutions to Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) looking to provide entry-level, ready-to-go merchant solutions that combine payment acceptance and white-labelled light-weight POS application in a highly integrated, compact way.

OxPay and CIMB Bank to Collaborate to Enhance Digital Payment Solutions

OxPay Financial Limited announced that a non-binding strategic collaboration agreement with CIMB Bank Berhad, Singapore Branch. The non-binding agreement will form the basis for further discussions which may require parties to enter into separate definitive agreements. The proposed collaboration will improve CIMB Bank's merchant services for card transactions through the Card Networks while also strengthening OxPay's presence in Singapore as the exclusive payment gateway collaboration partner for CIMB Bank.

Concordium Partners with Digitalsocial.ID to Build a Safer Digital World through Non-transferable Reputation for Digital Identities

Concordium announces its partnership with Digitalsocial.ID Ltd helps users authenticate their digital actions and enhance confidence in digital interactions using blockchain technology. The partners will co-development and launch a novel user-centric identity management solution called Digitalsocial.id (DSID). DSID will allow users to collect digital attestation tokens to prove their reputation and aggregate them into a measurable and comparable personal score.

Νexi Greece Collaborates With Greenpeace To Provide Highly Secure Digital Payments

Nexi Greece, a member of Nexi Group, the leading PayTech in Europe, has entered a partnership with Greenpeace, one of the largest environmental organisations in the world. Nexi Greece will provide payment security services that meet the highest standards of data security and compliance to ensure the protection of Greenpeace supporters’ payment data. The solution replaces the valuable payment data of Greek Greenpeace supporters with unique identification symbols (tokens) across card, remote and mobile payments.

Montonio Partners with Episode Six to Expand Open Banking Offering

Montonio, an e-commerce checkout orchestration platform, announced a partnership with payments technology company, Episode Six, to bolster its open banking offering in the Nordics. Leveraging Episode Six’s Tritium® platform, Montonio is creating a modern, future-ready payments ecosystem that breaks the barriers of traditional card processing and acquiring. It will enable Montonio’s merchant customers to reduce the cost of payments and dramatically reduce payment times.

Alipay+ E-wallet Partnerships Power iQIYI’s Fast Asia Expansion

Popular Asian e-wallets are helping iQIYI, a leading international streaming platform, accelerate its expansion through Alipay+ that helps digital and entertainment (D&E) platforms reach young middle-class consumers looking for quality online video contents. Introduced by Ant Group in 2020, Alipay+ is a suite of cross-border digital payment, marketing and merchant digitalization solutions connecting global brands with mobile-savvy consumers worldwide, aimed at enabling businesses. 

Knoma Partners with Fuse to Automate Credit Decisioning - Unlocking Accessible Education for Millions Across the UK

Education lender, Knoma, has selected Fuse by Pave as its Open Banking partner, to enable it to improve decision-making on applications from borrowers seeking education finance. Knoma, which offers fee-free and interest-free finance solutions to support people to enrol on education courses, will use the income, expenditure, and risk insights provided by Fuse by Pave’s Open Banking platform to enhance its affordability and creditworthiness checks for prospective borrowers.

Intergiro and Incharge Join Forces to Make Banking Easier for Students in Europe

Intergiro, a Banking as a Service (BaaS) platform, has partnered with financial service provider Incharge to launch a new banking app designed to make financial services easier and more accessible for students in Europe. The Incharge app is free of charge and will offer students the convenience of managing their finances from their smartphones. Students can effortlessly open an account through the app, eliminating the need for paperwork and long wait times — all that is required is a passport or national ID card.

TUHF Partners with nCino to Improve Its Competitive Edge and to Scale Efficiently

nCino, Inc., a pioneer in cloud banking for the global financial services industry, announced that TUHF has selected nCino’s cloud banking platform to improve the lending process for its customers and support the entire credit lifecycle journey across its commercial loan book. By partnering with nCino, TUHF will modernize its operations to achieve key business goals including increasing efficiency, driving growth, and reducing costs.

GiftRound and Mangopay Strengthen Partnership to Offer Cutting-edge Payment Experience for Online Group Gifting

GiftRound, the specialist platform for group gift collection announces their strengthened partnership with Mangopay, platform-specific payment infrastructure provider, to process all of the platform's payment flows. This partnership began in 2018 at GiftRound’s inception, who so far has processed over £10.5M via more than 75,000 money pots using Mangopay. GiftRound provides a secure, reliable and easy-to-use, online service that helps people collect money for group gifts.

Kyckr and Blacksmith KYC Partner to Enable Plug-and-play Client Onboarding

Kyckr, the corporate Know-Your-Customer company and Blacksmith KYC, the RegTech venture of ING Bank, have partnered by giving Blacksmith’s clients access to Kyckr's real-time data retrieval and registry connections - simplifying onboarding and review processes that would otherwise take months. Kyckr provides its customers and partners real-time access to aggregated corporate Know Your Customer (KYC) and Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) data from over 300 company registries and primary regulated sources worldwide.

illimity Enters a Long-term Industrial Partnership with the Engineering Group for The Commercialisation and Further Development of The Bank’s IT Platform

illimity Bank S.p.A. (“illimity” or the “Bank”) announces that it has reached a long-term industrial agreement with the Engineering Group (hereinafter "Engineering"),  concerning illimity's IT platform, its distribution to third parties and its future development. Since its foundation, illimity has invested in the development of an innovative technology platform,  fully digital, modular and in-cloud, and which combines state-of-the-art models, architectures and standards.

Finastra and Plaid Collaborate to Give Account Holders Streamlined Access to Fintech Apps

Finastra announced that Plaid, the leading open finance provider, is now integrated within Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. The partnership, delivered via Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud open APIs, provides financial institutions of all sizes within the Finastra ecosystem with account verification tools, making it easier and more secure for consumers to link their account data from their main financial institution with external financial apps and services.

 

Launches 

Intellect Launches eMACH.ai - Open Finance Based Core Banking Platform on Cloud with Pre-integrated Marketplace for UK and Europe

Intellect Global Consumer Banking, the consumer banking arm of Intellect Design Arena Limited, announcedthe launch of eMACH.ai, the world’s largest Open Finance based Core Banking Platform On Cloud with a pre-integrated Marketplace for the UK  and Europe markets. The platform is hosted on AWS cloud and empowers financial organisations to design signature products and deliver contextual experiences for their customers throughout their life journey. 

MoneyHero Launches Free Credit Score-Checking MoneyHero App Set to Popularise Consumer-initiated Credit Enquiries

MoneyHero, Hong Kong's largest and most visited digital personal finance platform, has launched its game-changing MoneyHero App, a mobile application that provides Hong Kong consumers free and ready access to individual credit score reports powered by Hong Kong's leading consumer credit reference agency, TransUnion, to make better and informed financial decisions.

Armalytix Launches New Tools to Help Firms Avoid Fraud & Punishment

Armalytix, a cutting-edge fintech company that streamlines financial insights for financial crime and risk checks to the professional, financial services and gambling sectors, announced the launch of Income and Risk Insights. The new set of tools will allow firms to break down and understand their clients’ income and streamline their risk management processes. These tools will be invaluable to firms facing increasing pressure from government and regulators to get AML, financial risk and affordability checks right.

Knox Wire Announces the Launch of Trustless Gold-Backed Currency

Knox Wire, the global payments and real-time financial messaging network, announces plans to launch its trustless gold-backed currency, PMBC. The new product enables governments, corporations and financial institutions to hedge against the instability of the financial system while at the same time keeping funds extremely liquid. Holding the precious metals-backed currency provides an entity with the security of physical metals while being able to instantly convert and send cross-border payments to over 20,000 institutions in nearly 200 countries.

Airwallex Launches Global Payments in Canada, Further Building on Expansion in Americas

Airwallex announced the launch of its global payments services in Canada. The launch will empower Canadian businesses to tap into Airwallex’s global payments and financial platform, offering a faster, more cost-effective and transparent alternative to traditional banks. Businesses in Canada can now access Airwallex’s key offerings including local currency accounts in over 12 currencies, a multi-currency wallet in 44 currencies and payouts to 150 countries with its proprietary local payment network.

NICE Actimize Launches New AI-Based AML Transaction Monitoring Innovation With Multilayered Analytics to Better Detect Suspicious Activity

NICE Actimize, a NICE business, announced the launch of its breakthrough Suspicious Activity Monitoring (SAM-10) solution. Built to detect more suspicious activity while reducing false positives, NICE Actimize’s SAM-10 introduces significant enhancements to its award-winning anti-money laundering solution, incorporating multiple layers of defense which strengthen the others and offer comprehensive coverage and detection of suspicious activity for financial institutions.

finova Launches New Product Switch Functionality within its Apprivo2 Origination Platform

finova, the UK’s largest cloud-based mortgages and savings software provider, announced its new product switch functionality within its cloud-first origination platform, Apprivo2. Apprivo2 supports lenders with digital customer onboarding and facilitates complex affordability modelling for lenders. As a configurable SaaS banking originations platform, it is designed for lenders operating a multi-sales channel model.

HeavyFinance Launches Green Loans to Generate Carbon Credits in European Agricultural Land

HeavyFinance, a European climate tech investment marketplace for the agricultural industry, has launchedGreen Loans to tap into a rapidly growing carbon credit market. This new debt instrument enables both retail and institutional investors to get returns from the sale of CO2 removal credits generated in European farmland. With the urgent need to take an action on climate change and the high demand on the voluntary carbon credit market, investors in Green Loans can now expect up to 30 per cent annual returns with an investment period of 4 years.

Aevi Launches First TSYS Pilot Merchant, Revolutionizing In-person Payments in North America

Aevi, a top player in the integration of digital and physical payment channels, has successfully launched its first pilot merchant on the TSYS processing platform in collaboration with Vivid Payments. With its expertise in streamlining checkout processes and providing access to transaction data, Aevi is revolutionizing in-person payments and providing a seamless payment experience for merchants and customers alike.

OneStream Launches Solution Exchange to Accelerate Delivery of New Business Solutions to Customers

OneStream Software, a leader in corporate performance management (CPM) solutions for the world’s leading enterprises, announces the launch of the OneStream Solution Exchange. The Solution Exchange builds on the success of the OneStream MarketPlace and the inaugural OneStream Wave Developer conference to further enhance the OneStream platform development experience with the addition of partner-built and community-shared solutions.

Fintech Lanistar Moves to Full Banking Solution in the UK and Prepares for Launch

London-based Fintech Lanistar Limited is preparing for launch in the UK, which is expected to take place this Spring, 2023.  Over the last two years Lanistar has invested heavily in building a winning proposition in Latin America (LATAM) and has successfully launched in Brazil with over 20,000 customers on-board.  This is the result of important investments in both their technology but also the team now headed by Jeremy Baber a financial services veteran (ex-GE Capital, Aldermore Bank and Link Financial).

PaySprint Launches SprintVerify

PaySprint Private Limited has launched SprintVerify, a revolutionary document verification solution. SprintVerify is a complete Verification APIs stack with 100+ APIs covering every major Indian document that both individuals & entities hold, making it the most comprehensive document verification solution in the market. SprintVerify’s suite of products are crafted such that they simplify the onboarding process for enterprises by providing real-time ID verification through A.I-driven APIs, Digital KYC, Document OCR, and other APIs.

 

Merger & Acquisition

STICPAY Acquires Mauritius FSC and Labuan FSA Licences to Drive Global Expansion

STICPAY, a leading global e-wallet service provider and payment gateway, has acquired two new financial services licences that enables it to extend its services to clients across more than 200 countries. In Malaysia, STICPAY has been granted a Labuan Financial Services Authority licence, and has been registered as a money brokering and payment system operator that’s compliant with Labuan IBFC laws.

 

Job Moves

ClearBank Appoints Spiros Theodossiou as Chief Product Officer

ClearBank, the enabler of real-time clearing and embedded banking for financial institutions, announced that it has appointed Spiros Theodossiou as Chief Product Officer (CPO). An industry figure with over 20 years of experience, Spiros previously served as CPO at cloud accounting platform DEXT. Before this, he was SVP of Product Management at WorldPay and his professional history includes various lead and executive product positions for other industry stalwarts such as PayPal, Skrill, and Vouchercodes.com.

TransUnion Appoints Mark Molyneux as UK Strategy and Planning Director

TransUnion has appointed Mark Molyneux as its new strategy and planning director for the UK and Europe. As part of the UK executive team, Mark will be responsible for identifying and developing new growth opportunities that align to TransUnion’s strategy, both in the UK and globally. Having joined TransUnion in 2019, Mark has made significant contributions to the business, including supporting TransUnion’s recent investments,i as well as defining and tracking execution of its organic growth strategy.

InsuranceDekho Onboards IRSS Founder Kuldeep Trivedi and Team to Accelerate Insurance Penetration Across the Country

InsuranceDekho, the leading Indian Insurtech that recently raised $150Mn, the largest Insurtech series A funding in South East Asia, has onboarded IRSS founder Kuldeep Trivedi and his team. Kuldeep is an industry veteran with more than 25 years of insurance distribution experience in Western India. Kuldeep has multiple innovative insurance distribution ventures to his credit including the largest institutional insurance distributor in the Gujarat state.  

Copper Strengthens Team with New Executive Leadership Appointments

Copper.co, a leading provider of institutional digital asset custody, collateral management and settlement solutions, announced the appointments of Stefano Maestri as Chief Technology Officer, Sam Goh as Chief Financial Officer and Sam Brown as General Counsel. These appointments are effective immediately. Stefano has over 25 years’ experience working in building technology divisions, specializing in capital markets.

New CEO for NeoXam as Eurazeo Completes Investment

NeoXam, a leading financial software company, has announced a senior leadership promotion, with Florent Fabre stepping into the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO). With over two decades of experience in the financial software industry, Florent has served in various roles including NeoXam Chief Operating Officer and Group Managing Director since 2015. His promotion coincides with a recent investment made by Eurazeo in NeoXam, which has made the international leading private equity company the majority shareholder in NeoXam.

FV Bank Appoints Chief Risk Officer

FV Bank, the U.S. licensed global digital bank that offers a vertically-integrated suite of traditional and digital asset banking and custody services, announced the appointment of Luz Mabel del Valle as new Chief Risk Officer (CRO) and Deputy Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), effective immediately. As CRO, del Valle will serve on the executive team and lead all risk management functions including financial, product, operational, and enterprise risk.

Brightwell Hires Robert Berris as Chief Innovation Officer

Brightwell, a payments technology company that builds financial products to send money securely anywhere in the world and one of the leaders at the forefront of innovative fintech solutions, announced that it has hired Robert Berris as the company’s first Chief Innovation Officer. An accomplished leader in business strategy, marketing, user experience, and corporate innovation with over 20 years of experience, Berris most recently served as Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Three Five Two, Inc. (352), an innovation and growth firm.

Themis Appoints New Chief of Staff

Robin Morris-Weston has joined award-winning digital financial crime platform Themis, as its Chief of Staff. Following January’s announcement of successful overfunding in its Pre-Series A round, in which the company raised a total of £3.1 million, Morris-Weston has been brought on with responsibility for Themis’ scale-up mission. Themis aims to reduce the global impacts of financial crime through a powerful combination of Innovation, Insight and Intelligence.

Lord Chris Holmes MBE to Join Ecospend as an Adviser to Support its Growth Plans

Ecospend, the UK’s leading Open Banking technology provider recently acquired by Trustly, announces the appointment of Lord Chris Holmes of Richmond MBE, as an adviser to support the company as it grows in the UK and overseas. As well as being Britain’s most successful paralympic swimmer, Lord Holmes is a passionate advocate for the potential of technology and the benefits of financial inclusion.

SME Bank Appoints Virginijus Doveika The New CEO

SME Bank, the bank making life simpler for small- and medium-sized enterprises, announced that Virginijus Doveika has been appointed as the company's new CEO. Doveika joined the company in February 2023, bringing with him a successful 20-year track record in banking, which began with Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB (SEB), a Swedish incumbent. SME Bank, the first Lithuanian capital neobank that enables small- and medium-sized businesses to grow and sustain themselves.

Former META Payments Head joins CleverCards

CleverCards, the global payments platform provider, announced the appointment of Gaurav Khurana as the company’s Senior Vice President of Marketing. Khurana joins CleverCards at a period of hypergrowth and market expansion across Europe, and his appointment will accelerate the launch of the business into new regions. Prior to joining CleverCards, Gaurav served as EMEA Head of Commerce Payment Partnerships at Meta, where he was responsible for driving Strategic Payments Partnerships.

Myriam Buzy appointed Managing Director at InterCloud

InterCloud, a leading software-defined cloud interconnect (SDCI) provider, has announced the appointment of Myriam Buzy as Managing Director. Myriam’s appointment shows InterCloud’s commitment to bolstering its executive team to strengthen its focus on delivering excellent support across the entirety of the organisation’s support services, as well as maximising new and exciting growth initiatives.

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