Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 7 February sess Afterpay reduces fraud risk with Cloudera while Metaco expands senior leadership team.
Appointments
Metaco, a provider of mission-critical digital asset custody and orchestration technology, has appointed a number of key new executives to its leadership team. Peter DeMeo joins the company as chief product officer, while Angel Nunez Mencias is named chief customer officer. Other appointments include Katrin Koller as head of advisory; Rebecca Aspler as head of product; as well as Mei Li Powell as global head of marketing & communications.
Direct Trading Technologies, the financial services provider, hires Fred Scala as its new managing director, overseeing the company’s professional and institutional business division. Scala joins DTT with more than 40 years of proven track record in the financial services and fintech sector.
Crypto bank SEBA Bank has appointed Amy Yu as CEO of its APAC division. The appointment demonstrates SEBA group’s commitment to expand across the region and Yu will initially be located in Singapore. To cater for the group’s expansion plans in Asia Pacific, SEBA Bank also recently opened a Hong Kong office for its Hong Kong subsidiary.
BCB Group, a provider of business accounts and trading services for the digital asset economy, has appointed two new executives to its leadership team. Jean-Jacques Le Bon joins as chief strategy officer, while Ian Moore is appointed as chief banking officer.
Additional job appointments
Avelacom, the IT infrastructure and data solutions provider, names Timothy Wong as VP of sales for APAC. The appointment enhances the firm’s APAC growth strategy, which includes new customers, new points-of-presence and new products. In addition, Avelacom has taken on new office space in Hong Kong.
Conferma Pay appoints Jason Lalor as its CEO to lead the company’s plans to power the travel economy with virtual cards. Most recently chief executive of Square’s European business, Lalor will join the leading virtual card provider, whose technology is currently integrated with over 50 banks worldwide.
The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), a UK body charged with unblocking barriers to growth for fintech, has named Ezechi Britton as its first CEO. Britton will work with Charlotte Crosswell (CFIT Chair) to deliver on the mission to support the next stage of scaling for UK-based firms.
Accelerated Payments appoints Laurie Ford as vice president of business development in Canada. Ford is responsible for acquiring customers and implementing effective growth strategies in North America. It also follows the appointment of Carolyn McClure as vice president of business development in the US.
Partnerships
Hybrid data company Cloudera has revealed BNPL Afterpay is using its Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) to run streaming analytics and advanced machine learning for real-time fraud detection. CDP helps Afterpay identify, access and reduce business risk relating to fraud for its 3.6 million customers.
Embedded insurer Companjon and European challenger bank bunq join forces. The strategic partnership brings bunq users in European markets an end-to-end embedded insurance solution that automatically compensates for financial loss incurred.
Paymob, a financial services enabler in MENA-P, teams up with Khazna, an Egyptian financial super app. The new partnership will expand access to digital financial services, benefitting merchants and consumers in Egypt. Merchants in Paymob’s network can also now offer Khazna’s services via their integrated POS devices to Khazna’s customers.
TONOMUS, a subsidiary of NEOM, has collaborated with Oracle as well as NVIDIA. The collaboration is aimed at boosting the delivery of groundbreaking AI capabilities across NEOM and Saudi Arabia. TONOMUS will provide customers with direct access to NVIDIA’s advanced AI, digital twin solutions that take advantage of the planned Oracle Cloud Region to be located at NEOM, hosted by ZeroPoint DC hyperscale data center and via TONOMUS’ digital cloud platform.
Tarabut Gateway, MENA’s open banking platform, announces a new partnership with Tamam, a Shariah-compliant micro-lending service provider based in Saudi Arabia. As part of this latest fintech partnership, Tarabut Gateway will provide Tamam with Account Information Services (AIS) through its TG Connect product.
Additional partnerships
Experian partners with Zopa Bank to give customers better credit options. Experian Boost data will now be included in Zopa Bank’s credit decisioning process, giving boost users access to more favourable credit options.
Meanwhile, Trustly partners with PointsBet, an online gaming operator, to offer its players instant payouts in the US. In partnership with Cross River Bank, Trustly’s platform will let PointsBet provide players with instant withdrawals of winnings into their bank accounts wherever sports betting is available.
Taulia, a provider of working capital management solutions, teams up with Aramco, the energy and chemicals companies, on supplier financing solutions. Taulia is undertaking a program in collaboration with J.P. Morgan and Manafa Capital.
Funding and investments
Human chat-based US CPA SaaS product Inkle has bagged a $1.5million pre-seed funding round to help these companies handle bookkeeping, tax, and compliance filings through its software solution for US cross-border companies. Picus Capital, Saison Capital and Force Ventures participated in the funding round.
The Zero Fund, a climate fintech startup, announced today it has secured €400,000 of pre-seed investment in a funding round led by Hellen’s Rock Capital. The investment will enable the company to scale up its commercial operations to make the carbon offsetting more accessible to organisations of all sizes.
Fintech Snab closes €1.1million investment round. The Spanish payment platform will use the funding to further develop its technology as well as offer new innovative functionalities. YCombinator led the round, with contributions also from 4Founders Capital, Glenfarne Group, Kantox as well as Belvo.
Company updates
Klarna has launched a global multimedia campaign starring Paris Hilton, in collaboration with Hilton’s next-gen media company, 11:11 Media. The campaign features Paris in a series of films responding to Klarna’s flexible payments and shopping app features with her newest catchphrase ‘That’s Smoooth’.
Mondu, the B2B payments company, has announced MonduSell, a new solution for B2B merchants offering flexible payments on every sales channel. MonduSell provides popular B2B payment methods and flexible terms while processing orders from any sales channel in real-time.
Carbon footprint management fintech Cogo is now listed on AWS Marketplace. The listing will give more than 325,000 active AWS customers around the world access to Cogo’s cloud-based carbon footprint technology that enables individuals and businesses to measure, understand, and reduce their impact on the climate.
HolyWally, a B2B2C wallet-as-a-service platform in Singapore, has opened an office in Portugal, its first base in the EU. The move also coincides with HolyWally joining other high-growth companies for the first cohort of the scaling up programme run by the Unicorn Factory Lisboa.
Oxbury Bank – the UK’s only dedicated agtech bank, reveals breaking even in December 2022 after rapid growth during the past year. Oxbury has been lending to SMEs in the rural economy since March 2021. To continue its growth plans, Oxbury has also launched a new Asset Finance product.
