This Tuesday’s The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest international fintech stories. Eight innovative startups graduate from Flat6Labs Bahrain’s latest cycle, while there’s funding success for insurtech firm Insurely.
Partnerships
Global consulting firm Sionic and onboarding utility The ID Register have joined forces to provide investor onboarding and compliance support. The partnership offers a ‘one-and-done KYC approval’ through The ID Register’s global hub, backed by Sionic’s client focus.
Synechron and RavenPack partner in order to give buy-side firms access to advanced analytics. Following the partnership, Synechron’s ESG Booster can access news sentiment data produced by RavenPack from 254,000 global sources.
Swiss fintech PrimeXM has welcomed investment firm Accuindex into its XCore trading community, where traders and investors benefit from low latency execution with liquidity providers. Accuindex plans to increase its market share and grow its business in Europe and the Middle East throughout 2021.
Saudi fintech Tweeq has signed exclusive partnership agreements with Mastercard and Paymentology. Tweeq, which provides a spending account for individuals and SMEs, says the partnerships will lead to a range of innovative financial digital solutions. The long-term plan is to launch Tweeq initially in Saudi Arabia and also expand it throughout the Middle East and Africa.
Meanwhile, insurance software provider Sapiens International Corporation has supported a Tier 1 South African bank with its personal and commercial lines of business. The financial institution utilises Sapiens’ CoreSuite for Life & Pension for its bancassurance business.
Finally, Jordan International Bank (JIB) has instructed BEP Systems to deliver its mortgage and buy-to-let lending platform. The bank has permission to carry out regulated home finance lending in the UK. BEP says it has developed systems to cater for first charge and buy to let lending with complex affordability modelling across multiple asset classes.
Funding and investments
UK fintech Valour Group has secured a £5million investment from Growth Lending. The company, made up of multiple fintech brands including consumer lending platform Savvy.co.uk, experienced exponential growth in 2020. The £5million revolving credit facility is provided by Growth Lending, as part of the alternative lender’s CBILS product suite.
Flat6Labs Bahrain has invested in eight promising startups taking part in a four-month acceleration programme. The MENA region’s most active seed investor and startup accelerator programme received more than 200 applications from more than 50 countries. The lucky chosen eight received an investment of $32,000 each.
While VoM, a Saudi Arabian cloud-based accounting and e-invoicing platform, has closed a $670,000 pre-seed funding round. Led by a group of angel investors, VoM aims to provide the ‘value of money’ to small companies by facilitating the management of their financial data.
There’s further funding success for insurtech firm Insurely. It has secured €2.5million in a financial round led by Swedish venture capital firm Luminar Ventures. The new funding will support Insurely’s continued growth by recruiting new talent, as well as expanding operations to more markets in Europe.
Personetics has raised $75million in growth funding from private equity firm Warburg Pincus LLC. The fintech software company has plans to expand its global footprint with new partners and clients, and also support its existing customers with innovative business solutions.
Fintech appointments
Nick Williams, the CEO of IFX Payments, is stepping down after 16 years. He will transition to the role of executive chair at the fintech, while COO Will Marwick becomes CEO. Marwick’s appointment follows the launch of IFX’s multi-currency, virtual IBAN account ibanq.
Investment firm Capital Group has appointed Marta Zarraga as global chief information officer overseeing technology and cybersecurity. Zarraga has previously worked at Aviva, as well as Vodafone and British Telecom.
Meanwhile, Encompass Corporation has added Daryn Edgar to its board as a non-executive director. She has previously led digital, advisory and SaaS businesses.
Dana Averbouch is on the move to Panaya as chief marketing officer. She will also join the company’s executive leadership team. Panaya, which provides cloud-based application delivery and testing solutions, said Averbouch will help it accelerate change intelligence processes.
AI-powered investment manager Quantumrock has named Thomas Kemming as head of institutional client relations. Kemming will be responsible for obtaining and keeping mandates with large family offices and institutional clients.
Payment firm Transact is celebrating recruitment success after the company’s IT product development hub in Chennai, India hits 70 people. The development team includes software engineers, QA specialists and development managers who work with their global counterparts to collaborate on innovative development.
Launches
Personal banking tool VIALET selects Moorwand as the issuer and BIN Sponsor for its new credit product. Moorwand will issue virtual and physical cards, on behalf of VIALET, across Europe, with a particular focus on Poland, Spain, Lithuania and Latvia. It will also provide VIALET’s credit line with a single compliant connection to the Mastercard payment scheme.
Meanwhile, Banco Promerica El Salvador launches digital account Cuenta Inicia. The commerical bank has teamed up with Veentrix, a local partner of Mobbeel – a digital onboarding and biometric authentication company – for the launch.
Fintech Origin has unveiled Airbrush, an interface data standard that will aim to act as a universal language for bond issuance market participants. The initiative has the support of Clearstream and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE), and follows Origin’s $7million Series A funding round. The aim of Airbrush is to foster seamless data exchange between market participants.
Digital Transaction Limited, the company behind quantum-leap enterprise blockchain ParallelChain, has launched a native utility token. XPLL is now available for pre-sale and will be available on exchanges this year. XPLL will also be issued as a fungible ERC-20 token – held in conventional ERC-20 compatible wallets or in the ParallelWallet.
Other news
The Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDBG) and the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD) sign an agreement that provides support against Covid-19. The agreement was inked by Bandar Hajjar, president of IsDBG, and Ayman Amin Sejiny, CEO of ICD. They hope that collaborative partnerships between communities among its 57 member countries will drive economic and social progress at scale.
Morocco’s central bank Bank-Al-Maghrib (BAM) is investigating the benefits of launching a central bank digital currency. An exploratory committee will probe the pros and cons of such a currency, according to reports. Although Bitcoin was banned for use in Morocco four years ago, the cryptocurrency continues to thrive in the country.
Finally, SHAREit, the file sharing and gaming platform, has released a patch to address alleged vulnerabilities in the app. According to TrendMicro, the vulnerability could have been abused to leak a user’s sensitive data, execute arbitrary code, as well as lead to remote code execution. SHAREit said it is committed to protecting user privacy and security and adapting its app to meet security threats.
