The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup sees new hires for fintech Indebted while Tesco Bank unveils a partnership with Onfido.
Job moves
Global fintech InDebted has named Pierre Bergamin as vice president of engineering, while Roger Almeida joins as head of product. The appointments are part of InDebted’s investment in its product and engineering functions. The new hires also reflect InDebted’s rapid growth, with the business growing its headcount by 360 per cent in 2021.
WEALTH at work appoints Jerome Gudgeon as its new chief information technology officer. The company says Gudgeon’s expertise in implementing digital transformation strategies will be essential to ‘further unlocking the company’s long-term value proposition for workplace savers across the UK’.
Delta, the pension administration technology firm, hires Billy Chalk as managing director. He takes over from Michael Power who continues as an adviser during the transition process. Chalk joined Delta in 2018 and played a role in the deployment of its SIPP~Pro and SSAS~Pro products.
Meanwhile, Plum, the employee health insurance platform, unveils Aditya Bagarka as head of strategy and innovation. Bagarka joins from ICICI Lombard, where he spent over a decade and last served as deputy VP. In his new role at Plum, he will focus on product innovation and work with insurer partners to simplify and digitise the customer experience.
More job appointments
Annie Morris has joined ACA Group as chief product officer. She was most recently head of product strategy for the asset servicing business of State Street Bank. Morris will help further ACA’s mandate to help clients develop and manage their governance, risk, and compliance programmes.
MetaVerse Green Exchange (MVGX), a digital green exchange licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, names Eddie Hui as its new chief operating officer. Most recently, Hui served as the COO for the Equity Market-Making desk in Hong Kong. In this role, he leads crypto-related initiatives with the aim of creating a bridge between traditional finance and the digital asset world.
MillTechFX, the fintech affiliate of Millennium Global Investments, has appointed Stuart Gulliver to its international advisory board. He joins others members including Sir Ronald Cohen, Vikram Gandhi and chairman Alan Eisner. Gulliver is the former CEO of HSBC Holdings.
Funding and investments
Shares, the social and investing app, has launched, coinciding with the close of a $40million series A funding round. Investors including Valar Ventures, Singular and Global Founders Capital, takes the total investment in the startup to $50million. Shares’ mission is to break down the barriers for first time investors, democratise and demystify investment and give its users access to their network.
European venture capital firm Digital Horizon has led a $5million Series A investment into fintech firm SteadyPay. Digital Horizon is joined by other investors including Ascension Ventures and the UK government’s Future Fund. The company plans to enhance and deepen its product and service offer, including embedded B2B specific offering.
Meanwhile UAE-based fintech and BNPL provider tabby has raised $54million in an extension round to its initial $50million Series B closed in August 2021. Investors include Sequoia Capital India and STV, as well as Arbor Ventures, Mubadala Investment Capital and Global Founders Capital.
There’s also funding success for Currencies Direct, the provider of digital FX and international payment services. It has agreed a £140million strategic investment from funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities to accelerate growth through further acquisitions.
Partnerships and collaborations
BankiFi, the Manchester-based tech company, has joined Visa Fintech Partner Connect in Europe. The partner programme focuses on Visa’s clients who have shown an interest in improving their digital proposition for SMEs.
The City of Lugano in Switzerland and Tether Operations have commited to building a centre of excellence for blockchain adoption in Europe. Lugano will lets citizens and companies use Bitcoin, Tether and the city’s own LVGA stablecoin to pay their annual taxes, parking tickets, public services and student tuition fees. Polygon is also joining the effort as an infrastructure partner.
Cadana, a salary on-demand startup, has expanded operations into Nigeria following a strategic partnership with Flutterwave. Following the partnership, the African payments technology company processes payments for employers and employees on Cadana.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence partners with trade finance technology firm Traydstream. Clients can now access Lloyd’s List Intelligence vessel information when reviewing trade documents for Letters of Credit, Collections and Open Account transactions from within the Traydstream platform.
Tesco Bank forges a partnership with Onfido, the global identity verification and authentication provider. Onfido provides a secure application process for new Tesco Clubcard Pay+ customers, following the launch of the new product in January. Onfido first checks that the ID is genuine and then matches it with the user’s face.
Company updates
Fintech provider finova fully migrates its servicing solution to the cloud using cloud computing service, Microsoft Azure. The enhanced product has built-in security controls, advanced self-serve features and leverages finova’s API gateway for rapid third-party integration.
Silverlake Axis Ltd has formed Fermion Group, an entity headquartered in Singapore. Fermion builds insurance ecosystems to meet the contemporary needs of the banking, financial services and insurance sectors, delivering technological solutions to establish insurance value chains.
Kingswood Holdings, the wealth and investment management group, has launched ‘Kingswood Go’, a new online portal for clients, in partnership with technology designed by wealthtech firm moneyinfo. Kingswood Go lets clients access and track their investments, pensions and savings from one place.
