The Fintech Times News Roundup
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This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 04/03

The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup puts the spotlight on international fintech stories. This Thursday sees Diogo Simões join Banxware from Klarna and  funding success for fintech startup Rewire.

Mergers and acquisitions

IDnow, the provider of identity verification solutions, has agreed to acquire German firm identity Trust Management AG. It is IDnow’s second acquisition in six months. identity Trust provides digital and offline identification solutions, as well as certified identification processes for individuals and legal entities.

Fintech platform Airwallex has snapped up Hong Kong’s UniCard Solution Limited. It received consent from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to become a shareholder controller of the stored value facilities licensee. Airwallex has plans to launch card payment products to support multi-currency, cross-border transactions in 2021.

Treasury software provider GTreasury has acquired Coprocess, a provider of intercompany netting solutions. It says the deal will drive growth of the GTreasury platforn, which saw record transaction volume flow though its treasury management ecosystem in 2020.

“Coprocess brings expertise in multilateral netting that is second to none, and we’re extremely excited to welcome the Coprocess team, learn from them, and jointly build new and fully integrated solutions that will directly benefit our customer base.”

Renaat Ver Eecke, CEO, GTreasury

Finally, men’s health startup Numan has acquired Vi-Health, a Swedish medtech company. It says the additional technology accelerates the company’s journey towards becoming a holistic, full-stack, digital health provider.

Launches

JordanFintech OpenCBS has launched a new project to improve digital financial inclusion for low income people in Jordan. It is working with FINCA Jordan to digitalise the account opening and loan application process of its clients. Using the OpenCBS tablet application, FINCA loan officers can onboard clients quicker, as well as improve the turnaround time before loan disbursement.

Contactless payment software developer Paymob Technologies is rolling out its contactless payment app to Norwegian IT services provider Tæpp AS‘s consortium of 600 merchants. The smartphone-based solution is accredited by Visa and Mastercard.

Hex Trust has launched ‘NFT Safe’ custody support for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) within its licenced and insured custody platform Hex Safe. The integration puts Hex Trust as the first licenced global custodian to provide NFT custody for collectors and investors.

Partnerships and collaborations

Cryptocurrency hedge fund Tyr Capital Arbitrage SP has teamed up with HedgeGuard, a provider of services for asset managers, to increase greater operational efficiency across its fund activities. Tyr Capital says it is a pre-emptive step to address an increasing number of large institutional investors that are considering a move into digital assets.

MYHSM has transitioned ATM service provider RedBlu from one redundant hardware security module to accessing three fully licensed payShield 10Ks in two geographically separate data centres. It has also enabled the deployment of 46 new ATMs in the first eight months of a partnership for the pair.

While, Piraeus Bank launches NFC mobile payments service in Greece through Antelop Solutions’ digital card platform. Greece’s largest card issuer has also selected Antelop Solutions as its long-term digital payments partner. Piraeus Bank customers can now digitise their Visa or Mastercard cards and perform seamless NFC mobile payments from an app.

Cloud banking firm nCino has announced that Citadele, the second largest bank in Latvia, will adopt its banking operating system to help modernise its corporate lending in the Baltics. The digitisation of
its workflows means Citadele can concentrate on servicing clients, while implementing automation to back-end processes.

QR CodeDonations platform Evershare has unveiled a solution that combines QR code technology with open banking payments to allow donations to be paid directly from a mobile banking app to a charity’s bank account. It has partnered with Swiftaid to automate the creation of Gift Aid declarations and the submission of Gift Aid claims to HMRC.

Meanwhile, fintech TrueNorth has joined forces with Mambu, a SaaS banking platform. The partnership helps regional banks, credit unions and community banks integrate with a cloud-native, modern core processor. Mambu’s core processor has also been chosen by Santander, ABN Amro, N26 and OakNorth.

More collaborations

Virgin Money has expanded its partnership with fintech data firm Life Moments. The company will now work on digitising and capturing customer responses to an ESG benchmarking tool, developed by Virgin. In addition, it will integrating the results into the Bank’s new Business Current Account Wellness Tracker.

There’s a partnership for fintech Paynetics AD and promotional campaign expert Benamic. They’ve joined forces to develop a mobile first, digital corporate card programme. The app solution, with a rewards engine and Apple Pay and Google Pay enabled, will initially run with an electricals brand.

Payments firm Paysafe has expanded its partnership with RentMoola, the North American online rent payment platform. RentMoola has added the Paysafecash e-cash alternative payment method for US tenants.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has partnered with consultancy NRD Companies to digitally transform the Palestinian economy. Part of the Innovative Private Sector Development Project, the new initiative will focus on digitising and automating the existing business registry.

A new instant payments service that lets European financial institutions transfer money in real-time up to €100,000 is on the way following a partnership for SIA and Fidor Solutions. The SIA EasyWay platform operates as a hub to simplifying the integration of instant payments with the internal systems of financial institutions.

Finally, independent financial advisory firm CIGP has hooked up with Helsinki-based cloud portfolio management platform provider FA Solutions in order to streamline its global operations and consolidate its multi-country systems into one single platform efficiently. CIGP will consolidate global wealth management operations across key global financial hubs in Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Dubai, and Milan.

Funding and investments

Axonius has raised $100million in Series D funding, led by Stripes, the New York-based growth equity firm. Additional participation came from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), OpenView, Lightspeed and Vertex.

Payment processing provider Episode Six has secured an additional $30million of investment. It brings its total capital raised to $40million. This additional funding comes nine months after the company secured $7million of its Series A funding. Episode Six’s investors include HSBC, Mastercard, SBI Investment Co and Anthos Capital.

Monite has raised €1.1million in pre-seed funding from investors including Tomahawk VC, signals Venture Capital, InVentures and Runa Capital. The announcement coincides with the launch of a fifinance management platform that automates the admin and accounting processes for SMEs.

countingupMeanwhile, fintech startup Rewire has unveiled a Series B funding round of $20million, in addition to a ‘significant line of credit’ from a leading bank. The round, led by OurCrowd, included new investors Renegade Partners, Glilot Capital Partners and AME Cloud Ventures. They were joined by current investors Viola Fintech, Opera Tech Ventures, Moneta Capital, as well as private angel investors.

Fintech Countingup closes £9.1million Series A investment. Framework Venture Partners led the round, joined by Gresham House Ventures and Sage. It will use the funding to drive its product roadmap, including the launch of a digital tax filing service.

Announcements and updates

Lusha, the crowdsourced data community for B2B salespeople, has opened its first US based office in Boston. The new location will serve as the North American arm of the business and will also play a crucial role in its 2021 expansion plans. Henry Spitzer, Lusha’s new vice president of sales, will build a globally-aligned sales team.

Prepaid Financial Services is now known as EML Payments following its acquisition by the payments firm last November. Despite the rebranding, all payment cards currently in circulation do not need to be replaced and will work until their natural expiration date.

“As part of our integration of PFS, we have been planning the migration of the PFS brand for the past several months, allowing us to go to market in Europe under one brand.”

Tom Cregan, MD & group CEO at EML

LuLu International Exchange, a financial services provider in the UAE, has chosen MEA cloud service provider Taeknizon to transform its operations, including the migration of IT infrastructure to the cloud. Taeknizon’s Taekni cloud services include infrastructure, backup, disaster recovery, security, as well as wireless, delivered with an ‘as a service’ model.

Meanwhile, five fintech innovators have joined the latest cohort of investment management accelerator programme Engine. Acin, Auquan, ESGi, Jacobi and Net Purpose have secured a place on the six-month programme, currently scheduled to conclude in September 2021. Since the launch of the IA’s FinTech accelerator and innovation hub in 2018, the Engine has worked with three cohorts of innovators.

Bank VTB is implementing the Tarantool platform for fast processing of data in RAM in its infrastructure. Developed by specialists Mail.ru Group, the platform can withstand a load of up to one million requests per second. In addition, VTB Bank has connected to the blockchain platform Smart Fuel provided by Gazpromneft-Aero.

Job moves

Payment service provider Mollie has appointed Shane Happach as its new CEO. He joins Mollie from Worldpay, where he was EVP and head of global e-commerce. He will drive Mollie’s international expansion, as well as product innovation.

Enterprise search firm Sinequa has hired board member Mark Williams as chief financial officer. In addition to supporting its international expansion, Williams is charged with driving Sinequa’s growth. He joins Sinequa from global service provider JDX Consulting Ltd.

Nigel Le Quesne
Nigel Le Quesne at Enness

Meanwhile, Nigel Le Quesne is now non-executive chairman of mortgage broker Enness Global Mortgages. In addition, he acquires an equity stake in the business. Le Quesne, CEO of fund management service provider JTC PLC, will provide guidance and support to the firm’s international growth plans.

Diogo Simões is ‘adamant’ in enhancing the Banxware platform with the capacity to quickly onboard new partnerships after joining the embedded financial service provider as CTO. He joins from fintech Klarna Bank AB. Banxware recently raised €4million in seed funding and has additional plans to hire more employees in the coming months.

VizyPay, the payment processor, has promoted Jon Choda to the newly formed position of director of strategic partnerships. He will lead the recruitment of sales partners, independent software vendors and bank referral relationships, as well as identify and manage new business partnerships.

Jennifer Geary is ‘extremely excited’ to be joining cloud banking firm nCino. Geary’s appointment to the general manager EMEA position coincides with the launch of nCino Germany GmbH. Newly appointed in-country lead Jens Treskatis will also help scale nCino’s German operations.

Finally, ApexEdge, a partner-enablement platform, has promoted Laura Beaulieu to vice president of marketing. She will oversee the development and implementation of the company’s overall marketing strategies, as well as build relationships with affiliate partners and consumers.

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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