The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup this Thursday sees Temenos launch a buy now, pay later banking service. While IXOPAY partners with GoCardless.
Funding and investments
Fintech Personetics has raised $85million in growth funding from Thoma Bravo, a software investment firm. The company has also revealed that it secured a total funding of more than $160million in 2021. Personetics is backed by Viola Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Nyca Partners as well as Warburg Pincus.
Carry1st, the African mobile games publisher, has secured a $20million Series A extension. Led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation also from Avenir, Google and rapper Nas. Carry1st is expanding into game co-development as well as developing the infrastructure to support play-to-earn gaming.
iTrustCapital, a platform for buying and selling cryptocurrencies through individual retirement accounts, has bagged $125million in a Series A growth equity investment. The round was led by Left Lane Capital. iTrustCapital plans to use the funding to expand products and services, scale client service and development teams, explore strategic acquisitions, plus launch additional marketing channels.
Partnerships
Open banking platform Tink and sustainability fintech Cogo have formed a strategic partnership to provide personalised carbon footprint tracking services. The collaboration follows the launch of a NatWest carbon tracking feature which previously brought the two fintechs together.
Worldline’s digital payments infrastructure selected to bolster Kilo Health’s expansion plans. Kilo Health creates personalised digital health and wellness solutions for people that need help preventing, managing, and treating a variety of health conditions
Meanwhile, First Internet Bank has unveiled a formal partnership agreement with Synctera, a matchmaker for bank/fintech partnerships. The partnership provides First Internet Bank with new resources to expand its banking as a service offerings. It also says Synctera’s scalable tech stack will help it nurture fintech partnerships efficiently while mitigating risk.
Payment orchestration platform IXOPAY partners with fintech GoCardless. The partnership aims to make it easy for merchants to collect both recurring and one-off payments across more than 30 countries. GoCardless and IXOPAY automate the collection of both one-off and recurring payments, such as invoices and subscriptions, enabling businesses to receive payments from their customers on the date they’re due.
Job moves
Moneyhub, the open data and payments platform, has appointed Paul Tutton as product owner- API and connections. Cath Walls also joins the firm as product owner- platform clients. The appointments follow a year of ‘substantial’ growth for the company, with a number of senior hires and client wins in 2021.
Nium, the global payments firm, has named Robin Gandhi as chief product officer. Gandhi will define and execute product strategy to expand leadership in existing markets and pursue new addressable markets for Nium. Prior to joining Nium, Robin led the product, engineering, design and operations efforts at TripActions.
Colin Doherty is the new CEO of Neustar Security Services, a provider of cloud-oriented security services. He succeeds Brian McCann, who leaves the role following the completion of the company’s separation from Neustar, Inc. He previously served as CEO at Fuze, Dyn, BTI Systems and Mangrove Systems.
Meanwhile, The Bank of London hires Felipe Hillard as its chief customer & product officer and member of the Bank’s executive management committee. As CCPO, Hillard will be responsible for the bank’s overall client and product vision, strategy, and innovation, as well as leading the customer experience across all channels. Hillard will join the bank in February 2022.
Minna Technologies, the Swedish fintech, has unveiled Amanda Mesler as its chairwoman. Most recently, she was CEO at fintech Cashflows. Her appointment will support Minna’s wider expansion across the banking and merchant network.
Finally, Bitfrost.io, a financial ecosystem spun out of CEX and OKONTO, has announced the appointment of Alfred W. Moeckli as its new chairman. Moeckli will focus his work on strengthening the firm’s banking component based on the best Swiss practices and experience.
Mergers and acquisitions
Chargebee, the subscription management platform, has acquired customer retention platform Brightback. It follows the recent acquisition of RevLock and global expansion. Brightback’s team will join Chargebee in various offices and remotely across the world, including the addition of Brightback’s executive team to Chargebee’s leadership team.
Jumio, a provider of AI-powered identity solutions, has completed the acquisition of data marketplace 4Stop. The addition of 4Stop’s 650-plus data sources to the Jumio KYX Platform will allow the company to ‘redefine the end-to-end identity industry’.
“We are thrilled to complete this acquisition and welcome 4Stop to the Jumio family. Jumio is once again disrupting the entire identity industry and redefining what modern organisations need in order to provide complete customer lifecycle management.”
Company updates
Wise has applied minimum holiday, parental leave, and general leave policy to its 3,000-strong workforce. The move is designed to create a ‘better, more fair, global standard’, where employees have flexibility and space to do their work from anywhere.
Vertiv joins the RISE Partnership Program to develop sustainable data centre technologies. The strategic cooperation will help develop sustainable solutions such as data centre heat re-use or alternative power sources. Through the partnership with RISE, Vertiv will specifically support the infrastructure and cloud research and test environment.
Zonda, the digital currency exchange, gets regulatory approval to operate in Canada. The licence, awarded by the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC) grants Zonda the ability to operate in the country as a money services business (MSB).
Airbank has extended the free version of its liquidity planning software to ‘support entrepreneurs to in difficult times’. The company offers bank account aggregation, cash flow management, multi-user permissions and single sign-on to startups and SMBs. It will offer a free version until ‘the end of the coronavirus pandemic’.
Launches and product updates
The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Centre (FS-ISAC) has launched the Critical Providers Program designed to strengthen the security of the financial sector’s supply chain. Akamai Technologies joins the scheme as a founding member.
Bookkeep, the accounting automation platform, has announced three new integrations with Stripe, Sage Intacct and NetSuite. Bookkeep’s technology is currently used by more than 600 retailers and restaurants with annual revenues ranging between $50,000 and $250million to automate sales summaries and deposit reconciliation.
Meanwhile, payment platform Conotoxia brings Apple Pay to its multi-currency card users. When users use Apple Pay, the card number is not stored on the device, nor on Apple servers. Contoxia’s card lets users make payments in more than 160 currencies.
Temenos launches an AI-driven buy now, pay later banking service on the Temenos Banking Cloud. It helps banks and fintechs offer AI-driven variable installment loans to their customers at the point of purchase. Temenos BNPL, combined with patented Explainable AI, helps banks create ethically-driven lending programs by providing transparency into automated decisions and matching BNPL customers with appropriate credit offers based on their history.
Curve, the financial super app, has unveiled a new card with an updated design. The card redesign signifies an evolution in the Curve card branding since it launched with a blue card in 2016. The new card also features a notch on one end to make it more accessible for the blind and visually impaired.
Finally, Swarm Markets, the decentralised finance platform, announces its decentralised exchange (DEX) is now available on the Polygon Network. It is the first licensed automated market maker protocol on the layer 2 solution. Transacting on Polygon lets investors swap in and out of positions more actively to better respond to market volatility.
