In Thursday’s edition of The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup, BankiFi announces a new board member. While US fintech Alloy arrives in the UK.
Partnerships
Uplift, a BNPL solution for travel and retail brands, has partnered with Margaritaville at Sea to offer customers installment payments on all bookings. Through Uplift’s pay over time option, customers can also upgrade to a larger cabin class or add on-board amenities or shore excursions.
Banxa and MetaMask partner to make it easier to access Web3. Partnership will simplify crypto purchasing for MetaMask users in Canada, Netherlands, Australia, South Africa, and Turkey and reduce fees globally. Banxa provides a straightforward process to MetaMask’s users and takes on all regulatory compliance legwork.
InvestGlass, the Swiss fintech, has entered into a partnership with Arab Bank (Switzerland). The private bank has chosen InvestGlass’s solution for its digital onboarding, client life cycle management, portfolio management and client portal.
Cloud-native financial services platform Pismo has worked with Drona Pay, a cloud-native risk-scoring platform, to integrate both solutions. Both collaborate to increase real-time protection against fraud, scams and laundering in payments and lending.
EverC, which provides AI-driven merchant and marketplace risk intelligence and insights for e-commerce and payment providers, has entered a strategic partnership with KPMG. The partnership will leverage the financial advisory expertise of KPMG alongside EverC’s technology-focused innovation in the e-commerce risk domain.
InvestCloud has teamed up with 55ip, the tax-smart investment platform. The partnership will see 55ip’s tax-smart investment technology integrated into the InvestCloud Financial Supermarket. The integrated offering expands the products, strategies and tax optimisation options available to advisors to discover and add to client portfolios.
More partnerships
International money transfer system Tempo France partners with Nairagram to launch remittances to Africa. The completion of the integration project enables the clients to send money through Tempo’s application to Uganda and Mozambique, Zambia and Senegal, Ivory Coast and Guinea, as well as Cameroon and Burkina Faso.
The International Chamber of Commerce United Kingdom has launched a new initiative to strengthen the UK finance industry against the impacts of duplicate financing fraud. The Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation-led initiative will leverage ICC United Kingdom’s convening capabilities to deliver the flagship project under the C4DTI’s Shutting fraudsters out of trade workstream in partnership with MonetaGo.
iwocaPay becomes the first invoice checkout integration with buy now, pay later option for businesses that integrate with QuickBooks. New integration between iwoca’s B2B payment solution – iwocaPay – and accounting software package – QuickBooks – provides businesses with the option to offer BNPL to their business customers.
Adyen, the financial technology platform, is now the exclusive payment solution partner of FC Bayern Munich. It will handle the club’s payment processing across all sales channels. Adyen also works with Facebook, Uber, H&M, eBay and Microsoft.
Bungii has adopted workforce payments platform Branch to streamline and accelerate payments. Drivers that sign up with Bungii will onboard with Branch to receive fast, easy access to payments. Bungii offers same-day delivery services.
Everi Payments, a subsidiary and fintech business of Everi Holdings, has entered an agreement with Bluefin to bolster security for its casino gaming customer base. Bluefin is Everi’s PCI P2PE solution provider and has listed its own tailored solution for Everi.
Funding
GlossAi raises $8million seed round to accelerate adoption of its AI-driven video generator. Led by New Era Capital Partners with participation also by Guidestar ventures, 97212 Ventures and MindCET Ventures. The investment will help GlossAi to further expand its global presence and develop more advanced AI capabilities.
Partech, the technology investment firm, has closed Partech Africa II at €245million. This second iteration of Partech’s Africa-focused strategy is backed by major development finance institutions, as well as institutional and commercial investors. The fund will provide $1million to $15million initial tickets from seed to growth to support tech entrepreneurs.
Cenoa, the borderless super wallet, has raised $7million in seed funding. The fund raise was led by Quiet Capital as well as Human Capital, Ulu Ventures, Acrew Capital and Collective Spark. Proceeds from the fund raise will be used to grow Cenoa’s operations. It plans to expand both beyond its core product as well as to new markets in Latin America, Africa, Southeast Asia and Europe.
British Business Investments, a commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, is providing a £25million facility to Tower Leasing Limited. The facility will let Tower Leasing support increased lending volumes using its diversified funding base.
UK clearing bank The Bank of London has raised $40million in a Series C extension round at a sustained valuation of $1.1billion. The funding round was co-led by Mangrove Capital Partners and 14W Venture Capital, with follow-on investment from ForgeLight. The extension follows the company’s $90million Series C funding round.
More funding updates
IMPACT46 announced its new SAR500million fund to invest in technology startups in Saudi Arabia and the MENA region. The fund is the third and largest fund by IMPACT46. Through its funds, IMPACT46 aims to localise proven technologies to support local solutions. The fund also seeks to invest in tech startups in fintech, e-commerce and SaaS.
Moonfare, a digital private equity investment platform, has capped the extension of its Series C financing round at $15million. It brings the total capital raised in the Series C funding round to over $130million. Following the raise, Moonfare also welcomes 7 Global Capital (7GC) as an additional institutional investor. It will use the funding to fuel its growth plans.
London-based fintech firm kennek has raised a $4.5million pre-seed funding round. The funding round was led by Dutch Founders Fund, ffVC as well as Plug and Play Ventures. The company has developed an end-to-end operating system designed to streamline the operations for lenders, credit investors, corporates, and servicers in the alternative credit sector.
Ireland and Austria have joined the African Development Bank’s Africa Climate Change Fund (ACCF) with contributions of €2million and €1million. The ACCF is a multi-donor trust fund that backs the African Development Bank Group’s target of tripling its climate financing and advancing Africa’s climate resilience.
Mazepay, the Danish fintech platform, has raised a €4million growth round, led by Scale Capital. Participants in the round include international investment firm Hambro Perks, as well as Outward VC. Mazepay will use the latest funding to expand further across Europe. Mazepay’s payment solution platform has also been integrated within the Mastercard ICCP (In Control Commercial Payments).
Job moves
Corserv, a company that helps banks and fintechs with payment card issuing programs, appoints Anil Goyal as CEO. Former CEO Jerry Craft will now serve as chairman of Corserv. Goyal co-founded Corserv in 2009 with Craft and was previously named president in 2020.
Embedded banking provider BankiFi has plumped for Steve Ellis as its newest board member. Ellis was formerly the executive vice president and head of the innovation group at Wells Fargo. BankiFi is on a mission to help over two million SMBs globally by 2024.
Enjinstarter, a Web3 launchpad and advisory company, names Vasseh Ahmed as its MD for MENA. Ahmed will help companies reach their Web3 ambitions and position Enjinstarter as the ‘go-to provider for Web3 adoption’ in the region.
Core banking platform Tuum has appointed Edgardo Torres-Caballero as chief revenue officer. The appointment is part of Tuum’s wider strategy to support continued and accelerated growth. He was most recently vice president global partnerships at Feedzai.
John Woods is the new chief revenue Officer at US digital bank Zenus Bank. Woods will take responsibility for driving client acquisition and revenue growth for the retail, corporate and banking-as-a-service business units within the bank.
Australian hospitality tech platform HungryHungry has bolstered its senior leadership team with the appointment of Narelle Yacoub as managing director. HungryHungry also has plans to launch several new, industry-first products and features. Yacoub was most recently general manager at OrderMate.
Visa has unveiled two senior leadership changes in the Asia Pacific region. Chris Clark moves from regional president to chairman Asia Pacific, while Stephen Karpin his named his successor as regional president. Clark will also continue his role as a non-executive director of the Visa Europe Board.
More appointments
Cybersecurity firm Drawbridge appoints Nick Pastoressa as chief product & technology officer. He will oversee the company’s technology strategy and platform evolution. Pastoressa will also look after product innovation and lead the product and technology teams.
Luke Voiles will become the new CEO of Pipe, creator of a trading platform for revenues. The company has also appointed Albert Periu, CEO of Zilch USA Inc, to its board of directors. Voiles joins Pipe from Square, where he served as general manager of Square Banking.
Stavtar Solutions, a software company for the alternative asset management industry, has named Jeffrey Gelfand as its first advisor. Gelfand will leverage his extensive experience to help Stavtar drive innovation and expand its premier software and services.
Cygnetise has bagged investment from 1414 Ventures as the company scales. The funds will be deployed to grow the team to manage the sales pipeline, accelerate new and existing client growth, continue international expansion and enter new sectors. Cygnetise offers a blockchain-powered SaaS solution.
Olaseni Alabede has joined Global Technology Partners (GTP), an MFS Africa company, as chief technology officer. Acquired by MFS Africa in June 2022, US-based GTP is a processor of prepaid cards in Africa, with more than 80 banks – including UBA, Ecobank, BIA, Stanbic, Coris, NSIA and Zenith Bank – using its platform.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has selected Kristen Baldwin as the agency’s chief information officer. As CIO, Baldwin will lead all OCC IT programs, supporting the agency’s mission of ensuring that “national banks and federal savings associations operate in a safe, sound, and fair manner”.
Matt Kingston joins Nottingham Building Society as national sales manager for its intermediaries business. He joins from LiveMore Capital. The appointment follows a slew of recent hires including Paul Howley as The Nottingham’s first ever chief technology and transformation officer.
Company updates
Open banking provider Neonomics has expanded the launch of its open banking powered Checkout solution to Finland. The solution boasts seamless account-to-account payments via a frictionless front-end user interface that delivers higher conversion rates than card payments at a significantly lower cost.
StartupOS has revealed that over 1,500 startups have signed up to use the platform since launch 10 weeks ago. The platform is for early-stage startups and provides free access to the business tools, guidance, mentors, and investors that founders need to accelerate the growth of their company and raise capital.
Xsolla, a global video game commerce company, has expanded its Digital Distribution Hub to connect game developers and telecommunications carriers. The Digital Distribution Hub solution is a single portal for online and offline distribution channels and brands that create and distribute entertainment content for their users.
London-based green fintech ekko has unveiled a series of product updates. It has also opened up its service to employers, banks and payment providers for the first time. The startup’s technology combines real-time carbon tracking, carbon offsetting, reforestation and plastic waste removal with banking and payment services into one multichannel.
Temenos gets validation on its Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions reduction targets following approval from the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi). The SBTi validated Temenos’ commitment to reduce absolute scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions 50 per cent by 2030 from a 2019 base year.
US fintech Alloy has launched in the UK, strengthening its presence in EMEA with key senior hires and office space in London. Alloy’s former COO Edwina Johnson has relocated to London to head up global expansion, while James Baston-Pitt, former vice president at Onfido, will spearhead commercial initiatives as the EMEA director of growth. The UK team is also currently hiring for roles across sales and partnerships.
Acquisitions and rebrands
Inter&Co acquires YellowFi, a Miami-based mortgage originator and fund manager focused on democratising access to real estate investing. The acquisition will enable Inter’s customers to invest in the US real estate sector through YellowFi’s managed fund. It follows the acquisition of US-based remittances company USEND last year.
DT Corporation, a provider of fintech services, is rebranding its Africa-based Leaf Wallet app. It comes under IDT’s flagship financial services brand, BOSS Money. The rebranding is part of a broader initiative to leverage the key technologies of Leaf Wallet to gradually expand across Africa.
