There’s new partnerships and exec hires for fintechs including GoCardless, Thunes and Zafin in The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 16 March.
Partnerships
Cross-border payments platform CurrencyFair has teamed up with international payments company Thunes. Through this partnership, Thunes will support CurrencyFair to offer its money transfer services in 25 new currencies, including Mexican peso. The next eight currencies on their way include Vietnamese dong, Brazilian real, Colombian peso, Japanese yen, South Korean won, Costa Rican colón, Malaysian ringgit and Guatemalan quetzal.
Acquinex has selected mea to automate its submissions processing. It sees the company leverage mea’s platform to automate submissions intake process as well as increase compliance scrutiny. For Acquinex, mea’s technology will enhance its standing as a major digital MGA, providing specialist underwriting services in the global market.
Fintech lending platform Vergent LMS will now offer advanced verification services and streamlined lending processes with its partner DecisionLogic. The partnership provides lenders with the ability to verify a borrower’s identity, bank account number and balance in real-time.
Mashreq has launched its NEOBiz Connect API integration with strategic partner Virtuzone. NEOBiz Connect allows any free zone or trade licence authority to submit a full NEOBiz account application from its own platform, enabling a one-click SME account opening, subject to approval, for the first time in the region.
Forter has joined forces with Wix.com. The partnership delivers Forter’s ability to accurately assess transactions, in real-time, to Wix merchants in certain countries — increasing their approval rates, reducing fraud and delivering superior customer experience.
Saudi fintech Tamam signs an agreement with Visa to enhance microfinance capabilities. It says the partnership will contribute to the development of “innovative, efficient and reliable micro-financing solutions”. Tamam became the first Saudi company to bag a licence for consumer micro-financing in the Kingdom by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA).
More partnerships
PERX, a Norwegian P2P crowdlending platform, has partnered with Neonomics. Through this partnership, PERX enables open banking payments on its platform through Neonomics’ open banking Checkout solution, to increase efficiency and security in its payments. Through open banking, PERX can provide end users an easier way to deposit money that they are investing in loans on the PERX platform.
Liminal, a digital wallet infrastructure platform, is appointed by an Indian investigation agency to manage seized digital assets in a non-custodial manner securely. As a part of this association, Liminal will empower the agency with secure storage of digital assets, which it impounds under investigations.
GoCardless has integrated with Zapier to help businesses save time and energy when managing their payments. Businesses can now build Zaps — Zapier’s automated workflows — for GoCardless. This eliminates manual labour for routine and repetitive tasks, such as creating a new payment mandate or tracking failed payments. Zapier’s platform includes over 5,000 apps.
Meanwhile, Swiss software company Netcetera is supporting the Digital Payments Group (DPG) with digital solutions to secure the servicing of its issuing bank customers. This future-focused partnership aims towards easier customer adoption of the PSD2 ready-made solutions.
There’s also a partnership for IT company Trifork and modular core banking technology provider Tuum. Together they will provide a bespoke card and financing platform to the Danish financial institution Sparxpres, part of Spar Nord. The agreement covers the creation of the platform and five years of subsequent development and operational support.
Appointments
Socure, a provider of digital identity verification and fraud solutions, hires Ayesha Prakash as head of public sector partnerships. Prakash will lead and grow Socure’s alliance and partnership ecosystem. Most recently, she served as global vice president of technology partnerships and alliances at KELA.
Claus Schünemann has joined Zafin, the SaaS cloud native product and pricing platform. He is the new president of EMEA and India. Schünemann will lead growth and customer acquisition efforts across the region, as well as overseeing customer onboarding and engagement. Prior to joining Zafin, Schünemann served as vice president of sales EMEA at ActiveViam.
Alternative finance provider Accelerated Payments names C Ray Hines as vice president of business development. The fresh hire continues Accelerated Payment’s expansion into North America, bringing onboard local expertise in the area. Laurie Ford also recently joined the team as vice president of business development in Canada.
More hires
Salad Projects Oversight Body, which advocates on behalf of applicants for consumer credit, has appointed two new joint chairs. Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Labour) and Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Conservative) join up. The Body’s mission is to work in the interests of all applicants to Salad Money, a social enterprise fighting financial exclusion and exploitation of NHS and public sector workers by providing an alternative to high-cost lending.
Ingenico, a payments acceptance solutions company, appoints Laurent Blanchard as president and CEO, as well as a member of its supervisory board. Prior to joining Ingenico, Blanchard served as the chief operating officer of Cegid. He will lead Ingenico’s efforts to accelerate its transformation and drive its products forward.
Cashflows names Philip Harding as account development director. He joins Cashflows following more than 12 years at Barclaycard Payments, where he rose to the Director of International Corporates. In this role, Philip focused on financial services and insurance, following various roles in issuing and acquiring. Philip also has previous experience working at FedEx, where he held the position of National Business Development Executive.
Company updates
Australia’s climate action ecosystem Greenhouse is granted $29million from the City of Sydney to support the opening of the Greenhouse Climate Tech Hub across three floors of the new Salesforce Tower in Circular Quay, Sydney. Applications for membership to the Greenhouse Climate Tech Hub (which opens its doors in July) are now open.
The Financial Technology Association (FTA) has welcomed banking-as-a-service company Synapse as its newest member. It is also the first BaaS leader to join the Association. FTA represents digitally-native financial services leaders providing credit, payments, data aggregation, digital investment advisory, and other financial products to consumers and businesses.
Archie, a next generation payments and data platform, has launched with a promise to support UK’s businesses, including underserved SMEs, while educating consumers on the vast potential of open banking. Archie’s platform powers a user-friendly solution that enables its partners, including SMEs and larger corporations, to create consent-driven payment and data experiences.
The Sharjah Research and Technology Innovation Park Accelerator, established to incubate businesses, has opened an office in Dubai. SRTIP is a free zone mandated to set up companies with a special research-based focus in six areas: water management, renewable energy, environmental technology, transport and logistics, digitalisation and smart manufacturing.
Funding
Flat6Labs, MENA’s leading seed investor, launched a new $95million Seed Fund to nurture the growth and development of early-stage tech startups on the African continent. Flat6Labs has invested more than $16million in startups, as well as raised $191million in follow-on funding. It has also created more than 2,500 direct jobs and 80,000 indirect jobs through its first two funds in Egypt and Tunisia.
Mergers and acquisitions
Synalcom, the French electronic payment solutions and services provider, has merged with mobile-first payments fintech Qori. The new firm – Sylq – provides businesses with an integrated payments offering, supporting purchases by card, bank transfer and crypto currencies on any payment terminal or Android and iOS device, while also enabling remote and online payments. Sylq will also supply, personalise, support and maintain terminals across Europe.
