Delve into the latest The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup for industry announcements from around the globe.
Open banking payments platform Token.io has appointed two new executive hires as it continues to strengthen its leadership position in Europe. Charles Damen joins as chief product officer while Artashes Torosyan is named chief technology officer. They will build out the firm’s account-to-account payment platform, which open payment and data connectivity across 16 European countries.
Property investment and financing platform Estateguru appoints Judith Tan as new head of capital markets. She will support Estateguru’s UK launch, in addition to maintaining the company’s existing presence across Europe. Tan will also be responsible for securing funding for the UK and Germany, with a target of originating €5billion in three years with a majority from the German entity.
The Bank of London hires Tom Wood as deputy-chief executive officer UK. He also joins its UK bank board. In this newly created role, Wood will drive the strategic and commercial success of the bank. Launched in November 2021, The Bank of London says it is the world’s first purpose-built global clearing, agency and transaction bank.
Meanwhile Plaid, the open finance data network and payments platform, has appointed Ripsy Bandourian as its first head of Europe. Based in Amsterdam, Ripsy leads business strategy and operations. Plaid also recently added open banking payments capabilities for Italy, Ireland and the Netherlands.
More appointments
FIntegrate Technology, a data-driven analytics company for the financial industry, unveils Jason Alfano as chief technology officer. His appointment is part of an expansion of FIntegrate’s executive team in response to increased market demand for its predictive intelligence and automated risk scoring solutions. In his new role, Alfano will oversee the research and development of all FIntegrate’s in-house and SaaS-based products and services.
AxeTrading, the fixed income trading software company, names Greville Lucking as its new CEO. Greville has been with the firm since 2018 in the role of head of customer support & integration. He has also previously held senior roles at Formicary and prior to that was with WestLB.
Muse Finance, the business finance startup, has hired Tarek AbdelKader as its chief technology officer. He will lead on the migration to a fully serverless architecture model. He will also oversee the integration of technologies for Web3 implementation on the backend ledger and use of AI for Muse’s credit decisioning.
Company updates
Nigerian fintech Kudi has changed its name to Nomba as it transitions into an omni-channel payment platform. The company has also expanded its range of services to help businesses accept, process and manage payments online and offline. In addition, the firm has unveiled Jeffrey Williams as vice president, business and Toluwani Ijogun as vice president brand, marketing and communications to help accelerate its expansion.
Dubai Chambers has rebranded and unveiled its new corporate identity reflecting the organisation’s restructuring. Under the new structure, three chambers of commerce operate under Dubai Chambers, namely Dubai Chamber of Commerce, Dubai International Chamber and Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy – each of which have their own individual brands, strategies and specialised approach.
Funding and investments
Latina-founded banking-as-a-service provider NovoPayment raises $19million in a Series A. The round was led by Fuel Venture Capital and IDC Ventures. The fintech pioneer is currently strengthening its footprint across the Americas to serve even more financial institutions, fintechs, neobanks, digital merchants and acquirers.
Fintech startup Leatherback, a UK-based cross-border payments platform, secured $10million in a pre-seed round led by pan-African investment firm ZedCrest Capital. It will use the funding to elevate its profile within the fintech area in addition to prolong its capability within the countries it’s licensed in.
Product news
Bread Financial has unveiled a new consumer credit card – the Bread Cashback American Express Card. Cardholders earn two per cent cash back rewards on all purchases as well as zero annual fees. Cardholders will also have access to premium American Express offers and benefits.
International cryptocurrency technology solution company IN4X Global has introduced a new cryptocurrency payment solution to boost the financial economy of businesses. The payment platform is directed towards empowering businesses to accept cryptocurrencies as an additional payment mode.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency platform Gemini announces that the Gemini Credit Card is now available across the whole of the US. The crypto rewards credit card offers up to three per cent back from 60+ cryptocurrencies supported on Gemini. More than 500,000 people signed up to a waitlist for the card, available in partnership with Mastercard and WebBank.
Partnerships
Fi91, the dispute specialist and sister brand of Chargebacks911 has partnered with Alpha Fintech. APAC regional acquirers and PSPs will be able to leverage the unrivaled Fi911 SaaS dispute management platform delivering turnkey intelligent automation and end-to-end processing.
Banque Saudi Fransi (BSF) has teamed up with Backbase, the engagement banking platform provider, to transform BSF’s digital customer experiences. The partnership comes in line with BSF’s overall strategy to upgrade its digital proposition and ambitions to lead the digital banking revolution in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Mercuryo, a crypto payments company, has launched open banking payments within its wallet. The real-time account-to-account payments will be facilitated by open payments gateway Volt. It provides Mercuryo wallet users, alongside its business partners, with single-click payment solutions via fiat.
eCurrency, a security technology solution provider that enables central banks to issue central bank digital currency, has announced a joint commitment with cLabs, a service organisation dedicated to growing and developing the Celo ecosystem, to integrate decentralised finance and Web3 with CBDC. Both cLabs and eCurrency plan to create the most digitally connected, secure, efficient, and financially inclusive financial infrastructure.
Fintech company Thunes has partnered with SaaS firm Handprint to launch an impact programme to drive sustainability globally. The programme ‘Turning Transactions into Actions’ focuses on sustainability, responsibility, diversity and equality. The two companies have a shared vision to spread a positive impact through regenerative actions around the world.
Insight and research
A new report from CoinJournal.net has predicted that cryptocurrency scams and stolen funds can be expected to drop by 66 per cent in 2022. The report explores cryptocurrency crime to fraud seen in the trad-fi space, and also takes a look at how these rates have been trending over the last few years in order to predict what will happen to crypto crime rates in 2022.
