Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 15 December 2022.
Partnerships
Paysafe’s cash arm viafintech has forged a new partnership with Germany’s third-largest bank ING Germany. More than nine million ING customers can make cash deposits or withdrawals from their current account at participating retailers across the country. The new cash feature, known as ‘ING Cash’ (locally known as ING Bargeld), is available within ING’s ‘Banking to Go’ app.
Fennel Financials turns to Eventus for trade surveillance on new ESG focused equity investing platform. Fennel launched its mobile investing app for equities in mid-November, providing in-app ESG data and rankings. The firm has chosen to deploy the Eventus Validus platform for all of its trade surveillance activities.
Phos has added open banking as a payment option to its software-only payment acceptance solution following a partnership with Nuapay. It enables phos partners to provide instant bank transfers within its SoftPoS application for merchant customers. Nuapay is EML’s open banking business.
Zurich-based digital financial services provider bob Finance has migrated its full lending portfolio to Mambu’s cloud-native banking platform. This migration included a move to a locally-based Google Cloud. As bob Finance further establishes itself in the lending market, it needed a platform hosted in Switzerland that meets internal and external partner standards.
Primer, the no-code automation platform for digital payments, partners with New Look, the fashion retailer. With Primer, New Look can onboard, maintain and automate dozens of new payment tools ranging from payment service providers and fraud tools.
More partnerships
Tempo France, a Paris-based money transfer company, has partnered up with Sumsub, a global all-in-one verification platform. The partnership helps Tempo France stay fully compliant with regulations while offering its global customers a seamless onboarding experience.
Cashfree Payments partners with eUPP, a fee payment management system for schools and colleges. Cashfree Payments enables eUPP to provide educational institutions with instant and secure payments for parents and students.
There’s also a new partnership for Rivero and Paymentology. New partnership sees Paymentology deploy Rivero’s scheme compliance tool Kajo to digitalise its compliance processing requirements and to make it easier to scale with guaranteed quality control for all its compliance needs.
Digital lender MONEYME has partnered with Australian youth cancer charity Canteen to help young cancer patients with education and career aspirations. Canteen’s Education and Career Support Service programme helps cancer patients aged between 15 and 25 stay connected to study and work both during and after their cancer treatment.
Funding and investment
Bondaval, a London-based B2B insurtech, has raised a $15million Series A Round. The round is led by Talis Capital, with participation from venture firms, such as Octopus Ventures, Insurtech Gateway Ltd and Broadhaven Ventures. It will use the financing to continue building its team and progress its global expansion. It will also expand into additional sectors and use cases for the platform.
SwissBorg launches a Series A equity fundraise on its Multi-Asset Launchpad. The company hopes to place “the power of ownership back in the hands of the community”. The Series A Community Fundraise is available to people who are able to invest a minimum of $100.
Oyster has raised $3.6million in Seed funding to launch a modern personal insurance platform for seamless point-of-sale and post-purchase experiences. Investors including New Stack Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Conversion Capital and Cambrian Ventures joined the latest funding.
Opensee has raised €11million in a Series A funding round led by Omnes Capital. Additional investors Laurion Capital and Societe Generale Ventures also took part. Opensee has plans to expand in North America and SE Asia as well as to broaden the range of data intensive use cases powered by AI analytics.
Consumer fintech company Taxd receives pre-seed funding to aid in its mission of helping people and businesses efficiently complete tax returns. The investment gives the company the opportunity to go to market at an increased pace.
Job moves
Dinara, a startup that is reimagining enterprise financial services for crypto businesses, hires Yanire Martes as general counsel as well as Victor Guerra as head of compliance. Martes and Guerra will help build Dinara’s legal and compliance function.
Traceable, an API security and observability company, appoints Stephen Jahn as chief financial officer and John Schwan as VP of channel and alliances. The company, which also reported record growth in 2022, says the hires will help drive its 2023 expansion into new markets.
Banking Circle Group announces Jim Snabe is now chair of its advisory board. Snabe will work closely with Banking Circle Group CEO & co- founder Anders la Cour and the majority shareholder EQT VIII, to continue the rapid profitable growth of Banking Circle Group. Snabe was previously the global co-CEO of SAP as well as chairperson of Mærsk.
SunTec appoints Madhav Dabke as VP banking industry as well as Amit Bhat as VP engineering and technology. SunTec is scaling up its capabilities in the banking industry vertical significantly as well as introducing new engineering features into its product.
Appital, the equity markets technology solution, names Matthew Jefford as business development executive. He will help accelerate Appital’s growth strategy, specifically working with the asset management community to deepen platform liquidity. Jefford will also support the firm’s mission to bring innovation and automation to equity markets.
Cryptocurrency-based fintech services group SG Veteris has appointed Tautvydas Sūnelaitis as money-laundering reporting officer (MLRO) for its Lithuanian office. The company also recently announced that it has opened new offices in Estonia and Lithuania. It is now authorised to provide exchange services for cryptocurrency against fiat currency, as well as being a cryptocurrency wallet service provider.
More job moves
Accelerated Payments appoints Siobhan Jones to manage business development in the North of England. Jones will support the company’s growth and customer acquisition strategies for alternative financing services in the region. More recently, Jones worked as corporate partnership manager for a North-West based cancer charity.
Taskize, a provider of inter-company workflow to the financial services industry, hires James Pike as head of business development. Most recently, Pike held the role of EMEA head of client operations and global head of institutional client services at Morgan Stanley. Pike’s role is seeking opportunities to continue the growth of the Taskize network.
Meanwhile, UK-based payments platform Transact365 has appointed Scott Major as its new chief commercial officer. He first joined Transact365 in 2020 as its director of business development. A key part of his role will be ensuring new businesses and merchants can take advantage of safe, fast, and flexible payment gateway options.
S64, a provider of private markets access solutions for private wealth, unveils Rakesh Pabari as head of investment advisory and fund selection. The appointment follows a series of strategic hires earlier this year, further bolstering the company’s expertise as it continues on a trajectory of rapid growth.
MISSION+, a technology building firm, has gained Ned Lowe as the company’s CTO as it accelerates its efforts to support fintechs and insurtechs across Southeast Asia. Under Ned’s leadership, MISSION+ will introduce fresh technical and strategic support for companies developing tech solutions for the financial services and insurance sectors.
Payment processing fintech VizyPay has promoted two current employees to its new learning & development department. Director of learning & development Alex Schaeffer and principal trainer Marj Chaffin will build out the department and develop educational materials to prepare for the onboarding of 120+ new team members during its next hiring blitz in 2023.
