Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 13 June 2023.
Partnerships and collaborations
iProov, a facial biometric authentication technology company, has partnered with Undercoverlab, an Andorra-based custom software developer. As part of the partnership, iProov Biometric Solution Suite has integrated into Undercoverlab’s Tsubacheck security solution to allow faster user authentication through facial biometrics for government and financial organisations across Europe and Central America.
NayaOne, the global digital transformation platform and digital sandbox provider, now has its NayaOne digital sandbox available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. Banks and regulators can use the platform to speed up their assessment and delivery of new technology. The Azure Marketplace is an online market for buying and selling cloud solutions certified to run on Azure.
Tech Mahindra, a provider of digital transformation services and solutions, has teamed up with Espressive, a specialist in automating digital workplace assistance. The partnership will offer both their customers autonomous and cost-effective work environment assistance through Espressive Barista, an AI-based virtual support agent (VSA).
Luma Financial Technologies, an independent, multi-issuer structured products and annuities platform, has welcomed BNP Paribas to its roster of issuers connected for fully automated pricing and trading. As part of an agreement Luma is now connected to the BNP Smart Derivatives API, allowing users to access automated pricing from BNP Paribas.
Job moves
Independent invoice financier Bibby Financial Services (BFS) has appointed Colin Johnson as corporate manager – corporate north as it continues to grow its support for SMEs and their advisors across the North of England and Scotland. He most recently held the position of head of corporate sales at Novuna Business Finance.
Nottingham Building Society has welcomed two new business development managers (BDM). Avril Dugdale covers the North-East region while Rachel Bridle will focus on the South of England. Their arrival also follows recent appointments of Jennifer Curry as BDM covering the North-West and Rebecca Haith as telephone BDM.
Open banking company Yapily appoints Tanya Ziv as chief operating officer. She also previously held the role of chief compliance officer at Currencycloud, and also worked at scaleups, including Lebara and eTORO. Ziv will help to build a solid operational core and support the development of the team as Yapily scales.
CLS, a financial market infrastructure group, adds six new members to its board of directors. These are Debbie Chin (United Overseas Bank), Alberto Covin (UniCredit), Bruno d’llliers (BNP Paribas), Rodolphe Sahel (Société Générale), Jodi Schenck (Citibank) and Bhupesh Vora (Royal Bank of Canada).
Funding and investments
Omnevue (formerly ESGgen), the London-based software engine which provides ESG accounting for companies, has raised $3.1million in seed funding. The funding round was led by venture capital firms Elbow Beach Capital and Pi Labs, with participation also from Zone2boost. The company aims to become the ‘QuickBooks for ESG’.
Spanish fintech ID Finance launches a new crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube. It offers existing shareholders and clients as well as European retail investors the opportunity to participate in a €30million equity round recently closed with UK asset manager Kingsway Capital. ID Finance has also closed a $30million debt agreement with US asset manager SR Alternative Credit to reinforce its business in Mexico.
ZapScale has successfully raised $2.5million in seed funding from venture capital firms, including Blume Ventures, Veda VC, Java Capital, 100xEntreprenuers, T2D3 Capital and Arka Venture Labs. The investment will fuel the rapid development of ZapScale’s customer success platform, with a focus also on enhancing its AI-driven capabilities and expanding its presence in the US market.
