The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup sees a partnership for SunTec Business Solutions and Mambu, while Credorax rebrands to Finaro.
Mergers, acquistions and rebrands
Arteria AI, an enterprise digital documentation firm, has acquired selected financial services assets of H4, the contract lifecycle management platform. As part of the agreement, H4’s chairman and co-founder Joe Seifert will also join Arteria AI’s team as a senior advisor. Ateria AI helps large banks to accelerate their client documentation processes at scale.
Payments provider and merchant acquiring bank Credorax has unveiled a new company identity – Finaro. Founded in 2009, the company is based in Israel and Malta, with presence in China, Hong Kong, the US and Europe.
Our evolution from Credorax to Finaro reflects the revolution our business has undertaken since joining the payments world 15 years ago and our rebranding is the next step in our growth as a company and on our path towards realising our vision of commerce, untethered.
Meanwhile, Fortnox, a cloud accounting platform, has acquired 78 per cent of the shares in Capcito Finance AB, in a deal that values Capcito (including Monto) at SEK413million. Capcito’s subsidiary Monto is a modular platform for data-driven credit scoring and monitoring. Two of Capcito’s founders, Michael Hansen (CEO) and Henrik Dyberg (CTO), will keep their stakes and continue to lead the companies.
Republic, the US-based private investment platform, is to acquire Seedrs, the online private investment platform, in a deal that values Seedrs at $100million. The acquisition of Seedrs follows Republic’s recent $150million Series B financing announcement, led by Valor Equity Partners. As part of the new structure, Jeff Kelisky will join Republic’s leadership team and continue as Seedrs CEO.
Job moves
Finitive unveils engineering and software hires to drive expansion and growth of its private credit marketplace. Steve Yampolsky is appointed head of engineering while Chris Benjamin is named principal software architect. Last month also saw the appointments of Jon Burlinson as chief information officer and Joshua Masia as chief product officer.
Tenet Group, the UK financial adviser support network, has announced Julie Woolmer as compliance operations director. At Tenet, Julie will be responsible for the first line of oversight of teams, with a focus on implementing and embedding the firm’s supervision and oversight plans.
NYMBUS, a provider of banking technology solutions, adds fintech advisor David Rabkin to its board of directors, representing Financial Services Capital. Currently, Rabkin serves fintechs and financial services firms, both directly and as a McKinsey Senior Advisor.
Meanwhile, digital transformation firm Excellarate has named Rob Howe as the company’s chief financial officer. Howe will be responsible for all elements of finance and accounting, business intelligence and overall business operations. Excellarate launched from the merging of Synerzip and Prime earlier this year.
Broadway Technology, a provider of fintech solutions, has promoted three staff to its leadership team. The promotions follow a number of executive hires, the expansion of Broadway’s global business development team plus a corporate rebrand. Eitan Reich is chief technology officer while Misha Weinberg is named VP of Engineering. Dario Gatta is also promoted to chief information officer.
Appital, the equity capital marketplace, has appointed Mike Wharton as head of product. The appointment follows the latest round of funding which will accelerate the development of Appital’s technology infrastructure. The company also recently unveiled a partnership with Turquoise as well as an integration with FlexTrade.
Partnerships
SunTec Business Solutions has partnered with Mambu to integrate its complete revenue management solution with Mambu’s cloud banking platform. As part of the partnership, SunTec’s pricing, billing and benefits management solutions will be available to banks for integration into the core banking platform.
Yapily, the open banking infrastructure provider, has partnered with checkout platform Sprinque. Sprinque lets merchants settle invoices via a B2B payment experience built into the Sprinque checkout. Using Yapily’s open banking infrastructure, customers can now pay outstanding invoices using their online bank account.
Crypto.com Exchange is working with Silvergate to introduce USD deposits and withdrawals to its institutional clients. This integration is an additional on/off ramp solution on the Crypto.com Exchange.
Global payments companyThunes has teamed up with Brazil’s Bexs Banco, an international digital payments firm. Together they will help global businesses and customers make real-time payments to Brazil, including payments to Pix, the instant payment system developed by Brazil’s Central Bank.
Reward has announced the extension of its partnership with Visa to cover all the markets across Asia-Pacific. Building from their partnership in Europe, this deal now lets Visa cardholders benefit from Reward merchant offer content, through Visa Offers eXchange. Reward aims to give £1billion in rewards to customers through bank customer engagement programmes by 2022.
Meanwhile, Finologee, a digital platform operator, has chosen Konsentus Verify to protect the institutions it serves with its ‘PSD2 for Banks’ platform. Konsentus Verify is an infrastructure platform enabling financial institutions to transact safely and securely within the open banking and open finance ecosystems.
Hub71 joins forces with Hewlett Packard Enterprise to accelerate development of Abu Dhabi’s tech startup community. The new partnership embeds Hewlett Packard Enterprise in Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem’s value-driven programmes and initiatives to increase commercial viability of Hub71 startups and tech talent.
Further partnerships
Scienaptic has collaborated with the Dakota Credit Union Association (DakCU) to let the company offer its AI-based credit underwriting technology to credit unions throughout North and South Dakota. DakCU serves 69 credit unions with more than 520,000 members.
Blockpass has forged a partnership with FireStarter. FireStarter will use Blockpass’ proprietary KYC solution. Through its recent work with Animoca Brands, Blockpass is also developing the ability to provide KYC where the delivery of the verification result is provably sent and shown on a blockchain without sharing underlying data.
CSE, CBI and Nexi sign a partnership enabling payment service providers to offer a wider range of financial services. The first service stemming from this partnership is a solution that will allow CSE’s bank users to access all their bank accounts in different banks under a single platform.
Point Nine, a dedicated regulatory reporting firm, has announced a partnership with FIS. FIS Trade and Transaction Reporting Manager with Point Nine offers an end-to-end, cloud-based solution for improved trade and transaction reporting efficiency.
Meanwhile, TrueLayer, the open banking platform, has unveiled a collaboration with Spanish broker Ninety Nine. With instant payments delivered by TrueLayer, Ninety Nine’s customers can connect their primary bank account to the trading app. As a result, they can fund their investment account in a matter of seconds.
Finally, identity verification service provider iDenfy establishes a partnership with e-scooter company Wind. The aim of the partnership is to implement a solid age and ID verification method. iDenfy will now provide Wind with an ID verification service.
Funding and investments
De Nederlansche Bank has approved a €193million funding round between bunq and Pollen Street Capital, a private equity firm. The deal values the challenger bank at €1.6billion and also sets a new record for a series A investment in a European fintech company. bunq will use the injection of funds to fuel the company’s growth across Europe. The funds will also let bunq incorporate M&A into its business growth strategy.
Fintech startup Lamaa has secured a $5.5million seed round led by Raed Ventures and Saudi Aramco’s entrepreneurship arm Wa’ed. The investment comes in line with Saudi Arabia’s commitment to SMEs’ financial inclusion part of the kingdom’s vision 2030 push.
Abacum has closed a $25million Series A round that brings its total funding to $32million. The round was led by Atomico with additional participation from Creandum, FJ Labs and S16VC. As part of the investment, Atomico principal Terese Hougaard will join Abacum’s board.
Anchor, the autonomous billing platform, raises $15million in seed funding, led by Rapyd, Entrée Capital and Tal Ventures. It will use the funding to expand its team as well as extend its partnerships and marketing efforts. Anchor connects businesses and their clients through a ‘live online agreement’.
Launches
Tech firm cheqd has launched a mainnet network. The mainnet network is built for self-sovereign identity (SSI) vendors to disrupt established identity paradigms and create new authentic data marketplaces. cheqd’s mainnet is a public permissionless network built on interoperable and open standards so anyone can utilise the network to develop solutions.
Identity verification company iDenfy creates ‘Magic Link’ to further enhance its ID verification process. Using the tool, iDenfy’s partners can send one unique but universal link to every client. The client will then be instantly redirected to iDenfy’s identification page to follow the necessary steps.
While Nordigen has launched a suite of six new products designed to help developers build open banking-powered applications. The suite assists with data cleaning, enrichment and insights, and also allows developers to make sense of open banking data using APIs.
Company updates
Global payments platform Transact365 has shifted its Asian headquarters to Singapore as it focuses on its international expansion. Transact365’s business development and Asian management compliance teams will be based out of the new office, located at Singapore Land Tower.
