Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 2 February.
Appointments
Céline Dufétel is appointed president and COO of Checkout.com. She was formerly CFO and COO. In this role, she will oversee all operational and go-to-market teams, including finance and marketing. Nirupam Sinha will be taking on an expanded role as CFO. The leadership changes are the latest development in Checkout’s US expansion plans.
Global payment company BPC appoints Furrukh Ali Baig as managing director for Pakistan. Ali Baig has been at the helm of BPC’s business development team for the last six years. He will also help focus BPC during its expansion across this region.
Detected, the London based fintech, hires Mike Ainslie as chief financial officer. He previously served as COO of World-Check and more recently as CFO at Yell. Ainslie has been a director in several fast-growing companies and has served as head of audit, CFO and COO for the First National Bank of Chicago.
Deko, the multi-lender BNPL platform, has appointed James Bradley as head of sales. He will oversee the sales process, as well as set the strategy for growth. Bradley most recently built the sales operation at DivideBuy, the point-of-sale credit payment technology vendor and led sales operations at BNP Paribas.
Payments solution provider Monneo hires Steve Wilson as its new head of compliance. Wilson was previously head of compliance and VP of risk at Visa Europe for nine years. He also held roles at JCB and consultancy roles for various European fintech companies.
Former Mastercard executive and payments industry veteran Gilles Novel has joined mx51 as the company’s new chief product officer. Novel recently held the role of vice president / head of acceptance at Mastercard. Prior to this, Novel held senior payment roles at Verifone, Optus and Idemia (Morpho).
Partnerships
Global Screening Services (GSS) and Silent Eight have joined forces. Silent Eight’s flagship AI technology will power sanctions adjudications in the GSS platform. By implementing Silent Eight’s machine-learning platform (Iris), GSS will adjudicate false positives while at the same time surface potential true risks quicker.
Worldline has extended its long-standing relationship with MSC Cruises. Worldline has committed to supporting MSC Cruises in its expansion plans with a plug and play solution. It also provides the cruise company with flexible payment options and increased back-office efficiency.
TransferMate and Fyorin forge a strategic partnership to provide a single global payments solution for digital businesses. The collaboration will enhance Fyorin’s proposition and global presence to provide digital business customers with a single global payments solution through TransferMate’s international network.
Cashflows has been selected by Shawbrook Bank to process a selection of payments. The news comes as Cashflows marks another year of growth with a pipeline of new products and innovations set to launch in 2023. Cashflows will process Shawbrook’s e-commerce business finance collections through its virtual terminal for over the phone payments.
Company updates
LexisNexis Risk Solutions is celebrating after recognition by two global analyst firms for its identity verification (IDV) capabilities. The data and analytics firm was ranked as a top three vendor, alongside Microsoft and Thales, in Juniper Research’s Digital Identity Verification Competitor Leaderboard 2022-27. It was also recognised as a leader in The Forrester Wave: Identity Verification Solutions, Q4 2022 Report.
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) announced the licensing of Raqamyah; a new fintech finance company specialised in debt-based crowdfunding. The licence was granted to the company after successful testing of its solutions in SAMA’s Regulatory Sandbox; an experimental environment dedicated to innovative financial products and services in Saudi Arabia.
FinTech Australia has launched a new award celebrating social impact in fintech, as it calls for entries for its seventh annual awards. The new Positive Impact award will examine the social, environmental and economic impact of fintechs, aimed at celebrating work on this within the sector.
Funding and investment
Digital bank Zopa has raised £75million to drive its next phase of growth, as it plots to become Britain’s best bank. The funding will be used to meet the capital requirements of Zopa bank’s growing balance sheet. It will also support M&A dealmaking that could kick off as early as this quarter.
Lulalend, the South Africa-based digital lender catering to underserved SMEs, secures $35million.The Series B was led by new investor Lightrock. The capital raised will be used to grow Lulalend’s loan book, bring new solutions to market, invest in digital capabilities, secure new talent as well as accelerate the rollout of Lula, the company’s new digital business banking product.
