The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup serves up news of a Froda and Yabie partnership, plus a new chairman for CLOWD9.
Appointments
Ido Hertz has joined the Tel Aviv office of insurtech Pattern as VP of products, as it continues its rapid growth in the global embedded insurance market. Hertz will oversee the company’s product vision, strategy, and execution. He was most recently based in Asia as the head of international travel recovery products for Agoda.
Qintess, a digital transformation business headquartered in Brazil, has appointed India Gary-Martin as a senior adviser. In her role, Gary-Martin will provide Qintess with insight and guidance to support the expansion of its global footprint and client base. Qintess has also strengthened its leadership team with six new senior hires, including a new COO, as it accelerates its international expansion into Europe and the US.
Cybersecurity firm Drawbridge has named William (Bill) Haney as CEO and member of its board of directors. Haney’s appointment follows multiple years of growth for Drawbridge. Drawbridge founder and board member Jason Elmer also becomes president.
Meanwhile, PXP Financial Group has unveiled three appointments to its senior leadership team. Katharina Richter-Weiss joins the company as chief operating officer, while Salvatore Cicero has been promoted to CTO. Dwaine Thomas is also promoted to deputy chief operating officer.
CLOWD9, the cloud native decentralised payments processing platform, has appointed Peter Selman as chairman. Prior to his role at CLOWD9, he was global head of equities at Deutsche Bank. CLOWD9’s investor base includes former partners at Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Vantage Capital Markets.
Partnerships
Swedish fintechs Froda and Yabie sign partnership to democratise small-business financing and entrepreneurship. Together they will launch Yabie Loans, a new service for entrepreneurs looking to invest in their ideas and grow their business. The service is based on Froda’s tech platform Financing as a Service.
Digital transformation tech firm Finboot and digital engineering company Nitor Infotech Pvt. Ltd have entered into a partnership agreement. Nitor Infotech can now benefit from Finboot’s blockchain MARCO platform to help its clients improve their supply chains and processes as well to support their sustainability initiatives.
Sekura and Provenir partner to fortify fraud protection for the financial services industry via mobile intelligence. The combined solution is ideal to support BNPL, SME lending, retail and POS, new customer onboarding, auto financing, as well as banking and loan origination.
HungryPanda, an Asian food delivery platform, has joined forces with Alipay+ from Ant Group to enhance digital operations and provide an integrated payment solution for overseas Asian communities. With the support of Alipay+, HungryPanda extends its coverage of digital wallets to also better serve its consumers in the UK, France, and Italy.
The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has signed an agreement with the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC). The two authorities will exchange information to fulfil their respective regulatory mandates. The agreement provides a framework for facilitating cross-border collaboration between the two bodies on supervision and enforcement actions.
Meanwhile, Mashreq Bank has signed a strategic agreement with FinIQ, the Singapore-based capital markets technology provider. Together they will streamline Mashreq’s wealth management offering with an easy-to-use, single unified solution.
More partnerships
Admiral Money, a subsidiary of Admiral Group PLC, has chosen OCR Labs Global as its digital identity verification provider. With OCR Labs Global’s technology, Admiral Money can verify the identities of people applying for loans with accurate outcomes in seconds, compared to a previous wait time of up to three days.
Open banking platform TrueLayer has partnered with Irish tipping provider StrikePay. StrikePay’s instant payment terminal uses NFC and QR code technologies to enable people to Tap to Pay with any phone. Customers who want to get paid quickly can connect and verify their bank account instantly, using TrueLayer’s Data API.
JCB partners with Nuvei to enable JCB payment acceptance across global markets. Nuvei now offers JCB acceptance to its global merchant ecosystem, enabling JCB’s more than 140 million-strong card member community to pay at Nuvei’s network of 50,000 merchants across global markets. These merchant sectors include social media, luxury retail, travel and entertainment. This will also allow JCB to provide a compelling offering for its global spenders.
Freedom Finance has integrated its platform with Experian’s Marketplace lender panel. The partnership gives customers immediate access to seven new brands, complementing its existing direct connections to lenders and paves the way for even further expansion for loans and credit cards.
Acquisitions
eToro, the social investing network, has acquired Bullsheet, a provider of portfolio management tools designed exclusively for eToro users. eToro will integrate Bullsheet’s offering into the eToro platform. Co-founders Filipe Sommer and João Ramalho Carlos will also join the eToro product development team.
