The Fintech Times News Roundup
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This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 28/01

The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest international fintech stories. There’s the launch of personal finance app Charlie, a partnership for Nuapay and Beam, as well as the first first female CEO for First Abu Dhabi Bank.

Partnerships

Open banking firm Nuapay has unveiled a partnership with payments service provider Beam. Nuapay’s technology will enable Beam to provide open banking payments to its clients on WooCommerce – the e-commerce plugin for WordPress.

Meanwhile, Finastra and HCL have joined forces to provide digital treasury as a service in the cloud. Their partnership will focus on smaller banks across Northern Europe, North America, India and the Philippines. They say the service will ensure that banks are future-proofed and also improve their risk management.

PassFort announces new partnership with card consolidation platform Curve to deliver know your business due diligence. The customer lifecycle management solution provider will automate Curve’s processes for onboarding and monitoring business clients in 31 markets in Europe.

Specialist banking provider Cynergy Bank has partnered with nCino, the cloud banking and digital transformation solutions firm, to support its SME lending processes. The UK lender utilises cloud-based nCino bank operating system to provide an omnichannel and agile customer experience.

The Big Exchange
The Big Exchange

While, Marqeta, the global modern card issuing platform, has hooked up with responsible credit card provider Tymit to power its credit card programme. Marqeta’s open API platform underpins Tymit’s processing function, allowing instantly issued virtual cards as well as dynamic and bespoke spending limits.

The Big Exchange, a social, environmental and impact investment platform co-founded by The Big Issue, has partnered with Moneyhub. The partnership will support The Big Exchange’s mission of creating, promoting and advancing a more inclusive financial system to deliver positive social and environmental impact.

Finally, moneycorp Group is working with supply chain risk specialist Achilles Information. The partnership will enable Achilles customers to access cost effective expert advice on international payments and currency exchange.

Fintech appointments
Iain McDougall
Yapily appoints Iain McDougall

Iain McDougall has joined Yapily as chief commercial officer. Prior to joining the enterprise connectivity platform, McDougall worked at Stripe, as well as Google Cloud. He will drive Yapily’s mission to become the leading infrastructure platform for open banking.

First Abu Dhabi Bank has appointed Hana Al Rostamani as group CEO. She is the first female CEO of the lender and takes over from Andre Sayegh. Al Rostamani is currently deputy group CEO and head of personal banking.

Wealth management technology provider Finantix has named Guillaume Namur as delivery product manager and Fabien Guy as senior project manager in Switzerland. The appointments follow the acquisition of Swiss based AI specialists InCube Group AG.

Digital currency platform Zumo has appointed Tim Sabanov as its first chief technology officer. Sabanov, previously Zumo’s lead technical architect, will oversee the development of new products, including a debit card that converts cryptocurrencies to traditional currencies.

Fintech veterans Sruthi Lanka and Stephen Sikes have joined investing social network Public.com. Lanka takes on the role of chief financial officer and Stephen Sikes is chief operating officer. They will drive the growth of Public.com following the company’s $65million Series C fundraise.

Meanwhile, First Derivatives – a consulting company for capital markets – has appointed Sean Andany as head of data. He will assist clients in accelerating the way they use data in order to enable their transformation into fully data-driven organisations.

IoT platform provider DIGISEQ has appointed digital financial services specialist David Birch as its board chair. In addition, fintech communications expert Angela Yore joins the board as non-executive director. DIGISEQ says the pair’s experience will complement its plans to deliver mass market identity for the internet of things.

Cross-border payments platform xpate has unveiled multiple senior hires. David Backshall joins as chief commercial officer and Viktorija Raizina as head of card operations. While, Anna Zotova is hired as the company’s chief risk officer. Furthermore, xpate has expanded its Visa and Mastercard offering to new regions, including Canada and India.

Susanne Guntermann as head of Synechron Netherlands
Susanne Guntermann at Synechron Netherlands

Enterprise software company Epicor has appointed Samuel Monti as chief financial officer. In his new role, Monti is responsible for all aspects of the company’s financial organisation.

Finally, digital transformation consulting firm Synechron has unveiled Susanne Guntermann as head in the Netherlands. She is the first woman to lead the Dutch business unit of Synechron.

Mergers and acquisitions

Consultancy Bain & Company has announced the acquisition of Pangea, an Italian data science boutique. Pangea’s team will join Bain & Company’s existing Advanced Analytics Group based in its Milan Digital Innovation Hub. Its aim is to support clients who understand and leverage data to enable their digital transformation.

Funding and investments
Reimagine
Remagine secures €20million in seed investment

Financial platform Remagine has secured €20million in seed investment. It will use the funding to grow its team and client base as well as invest further in its technology development. Its investor portfolio includes former global head of Google Payment, Jonathan Weiner and former COO of Venmo, Michael Vaughn.

While, data engineering firm Crux Informatics has closed a $36million round to accelerate dataset onboarding and new product launches, including Crux Protect and Crux Wrangle. The company’s clients include hedge funds, asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, commodity trading advisors, as well as cloud data warehouse providers and analytics platforms.

Accounts payable automation company Paymerang has announced a second round of financing from Aldrich Capital Partners. The $10million injection follows its initial 2018 investment of $26million. It will use the new capital to expand sales and marketing efforts, as well as build new finance automation solutions for mid-market organisations.

Zbooni, a digital enabler for SMEs in MENA, has raised $5million in Series A funding. The investment, led by a London-based fund, will be used to expand the Zbooni team across its current core markets of United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

While, Gig Wage has announced an extension to its Series A funding round with The Foundry Group. After raising a $7.5million Series A round in October, the payroll platform for the gig economy, has raised an additional $2.5million.

Open banking payments platform Token has secure $15million in Series B financing, welcoming investment from SBI Investment and Sony Innovation Fund by IGV. As well as from existing investors Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures and the venture arm of BNP Paribas, Opera Tech Ventures.

Fast has announced a $102million Series B funding round led by Stripe. Additional participation came from Index Ventures, Susa Ventures, Sugar Capital and Jaren Glover. It brings total funding for the payments startup to $124million.

Finally, Jordanian fintech Gocash has announced a $300,000 pre-seed funding round, from undisclosed angel investors. The startup is currently developing software that will enable small stores to become ‘cashpoints’. The new investment will fund the acceleration of product development, as well as the expansion of the Gocash network.

Launches and announcements

Zafin, a SaaS product and pricing platform, has launched a cloud-based product and pricing solution for community banks and credit unions. Zafin Community Advantage can integrate into a financial institution’s core and front-end systems in four months or less.

MYHSM, the global provider of payment hardware security modules (HSM) as a service, has revealed results of its partnership with Nigerian financial technology solutions provider Global Accelerex. A full case study highlighting the details of the partnership can be found online.

eMoney Advisor has introduced a rebranded digital marketing solution, Bamboo. Formerly known as Advisor Branded Marketing, Bamboo helps financial professionals accelerate growth of their financial planning business. The name change and rebrand follows extensive research and is intended to signify growth.

Charlie
Charlie launches to help people get out of debt faster

Meanwhile, payment service provider Omise has implemented the Netcetera 3-D Secure Server to secure online payment transactions in Asia Pacific. By implementing the latest EMV(R) 3DS 2.2 protocol, Omise says it can increase approval rates and reduce fraud.

Finally, Charlie – the personal finance app helping Americans get out of debt without lifestyle sacrifices – has launched a revamped app. Charlie supports users spending money on what they desire, while simultaneously setting money aside for them automatically to pay off debt. The company previously operated as a chat-bot app but now provides a full suite of money management tools.

Author

  • Claire is an experienced editor and writer with 25 years of experience in the publishing industry. As a tech journalist, Claire has covered every subject possible over the years, from the launch of broadband and next generation mobile networks to the arrival of the metaverse and Web3.

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