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This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 18/08

The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup this Thursday brings news of partnerships for Enfuce, Vyne, Rassure and Currencycloud.

Job moves

Insurtech Pie Insurance appoints Ekta Aggarwal as chief product officer and Erin Mesick as vice president of finance. Both Aggarwal and Mesick will leverage their unique experiences at industry-leading companies to fuel innovation and support Pie’s next phase of growth.

FinaMaze has appointed Nikhar Patel to the position of chief operating officer. He will support and consolidate the firm’s journey to becoming a global organisation. FinaMaze connects machine learning with human behavioral science to provide personalised investment solutions.

Elavon Merchant Services, one of Europe’s largest payments processors, has hired Hemlata Narasimhan as its president in Europe. Most recently, Narasimhan led the merchant and acquiring business for Visa in Europe.

Meanwhile, secure digital payments firm Shieldpay names Chris Andrews as head of sales. He previously worked at Payoneer as regional enterprise sales director, EMEA. His sales team will pursue emerging opportunities to service the complex payments needs of new market.

Jason Jhonson has joined Genesis Global, the low-code application development platform, as chief marketing officer. Jhonson has previously worked at Improbable, GitHub, PayPal and Yahoo. He will help Genesis engage with software developers throughout financial services to drive brand strength and business growth.

Jobs roundup

More job news

Maxwell Partners, the algorithmic trading, blockchain and digital asset investment firm, has appointed Mikkel Mørch and Angus John MacCormick as strategic advisors. Mørch is the founder and chairman of the Cyprus-based digital asset investment fund ARK36. While, MacCormick is managing partner at the Belgium-based blockchain technology company SettleMint.

OakNorth Bank has strengthened its board of directors with the appointment of Timo Boldt as a non-executive director. Boldt is the founder and CEO of recipe box firm Gousto. OakNorth is looking to gain from Boldt’s ‘deep experience in data, technology, automation, and marketing’ as well as his entrepreneurial experience.

Ion Fratiloiu has joined Channel Capital Advisors LLP as its new chief commercial officer. Fratiloiu will drive Channel’s new digital lending proposition for SMEs via partnerships, lending platforms and intermediaries. Fratiloiu has previously held roles at Deutsche Bank, Thought Machine and Yobota.

Meanwhile, IMMO, the residential investment platform, names Himai Mandali as its new chief technology officer following a $75million Series B round. Mandali joins from Solarisbank AG. He is responsible for further developing and enhancing IMMO’s in-house technology-driven investment platform.

Finally, Brite Payments has appointed Jan Plasberg, formerly CTO of SOFORT and VP engineering at Klarna, to its board. Plasberg joins the board to support the payment firm’s continued product launches and ambitious expansion plans.

partnerships roundup

Partnerships

Rassure, a revenue rescue service provider, is supporting airline Etihad in automating its sales audit process. The collaboration assists Etihad in recovering revenues to high levels of accuracy and with short turnaround times, making a positive impact on cash flows.

Mastercard and Atome have partnered to launch the Atome Card in the Philippines. The card can be used to pay online and in-store retailers. Atome launched in the Philippines in October 2021, when it also announced its celebrity brand ambassador, K-pop group ASTRO.

There’s also a partnership for Vyne, the account-to-account payments platform and SaaS platform Wix. Wix merchants in the UK can now access Vyne’s full stack pay with bank payment solutions. In addition, Vyne’s SCA complaint account-to-account solution will help reduce the chance of fraud for Wix’s merchants and their customers.

Synapse, a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform, has forged a partnership with Lineage Bank, a community bank based in Tennessee. The partnership will enable fintech companies and other non-banks to build and deliver innovative financial apps and services.

Currencycloud has teamed up with Future FinTech Labs (FTFT Labs) to launch the remittance app Tempo to offer US-based immigrants a secure way to send money. Tempo currently serves money transfers to North America (Canada, Mexico), Europe (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the UK), India and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, Enfuce partners with Mastercard to expand its card as a service platform in the Nordics. This enables Enfuce’s customers to launch and issue their own physical and virtual Mastercard payment cards in just weeks.

Funding news

Agora, a vertical SaaS company, has raised a $20million Series A round led by Insight Partners, with participation also from Aleph. The funding round will be used to further enhance Agora’s real-estate investment management platform. It will also be used to continue to expand the industry-specific financial products offered to customers, and to capture a larger market share.

Super, the payments startup, has raised a ÂŁ22.5million funding round to empower businesses and shoppers to keep more of their money. The oversubscribed round was led by Accel, with participation also from Union Square Ventures and LocalGlobe. Super has also opened a waitlist at superpayments.com for shoppers and businesses to join ahead of the official launch in the UK later this year.

funding roundup

Launches and product updates

Arab Financial Services (AFS), the digital payment solutions provider and fintech enabler in the Middle East and Africa, has launched a new digital wallet and upcoming payments super app offering, BPay. BPay aims to make Bahrain cashless and supports the Kingdom of Bahrain’s government initiatives to drive digital transformation.

L3COS, the blockchain based operating system, is launching the world’s first ever Fiat-on-Chain (FoC). It will be used for payments by launch partners AgriDex and ENT Global. The total value of FoC deposits is safeguarded with central banks.

Company updates

Stubben Edge Group, the products and technology specialist, has acquired Genesis Special Risks, the specialist international insurance firm, and has incorporated Guernsey-based company 1Edge Insurance. Both strategic developments will help the company to expand its capabilities for IFAs and brokers.

Commercial Bank of Dubai recently held its third CBD Innovation Challenge. DIFC FinTech Hive, the fintech accelerator in the MEASA region, hosted the Challenge. More than 90 cross-functional teams participated in the challenge.

Author

  • Claire is an experienced editor and writer with 25 years of experience in the publishing industry.

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