The Fintech Times News Roundup
Fintech Industry Roundups Trending

This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 20/07

The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 20 July sees a partnership for Paysafe and Smart Property Systems, and Pauline Becquey become MD of Finance for Tomorrow.

Partnerships

Netbank, the banking as a service platform, has partnered with Investree, the SME lender from Indonesia. Together they will expand loans to SMEs in the Philippines. This partnership also helps Investree accelerate its growth to serve more of the underserved SME market.

Sierra LeoneMFS Africa brings mobile money remittances to Sierra Leone with Afrimoney partnership. Mobile transfer operator customers that are connected to the MFS Africa hub – such as MoneyGram, World Remit and Xoom – can now send money to mobile wallets.

Qomply Partners with REGIS-TR, a European trade repository, as it expands European services. Together they will deliver end-to-end EMIR and SFTR reporting solutions for financial market participants.

Meanwhile, APImetrics has partnered with tomato pay, a QR-code-based payments app, to launch an independent production monitoring dashboard for open banking APIs. The API.expert dashboard will use tomato pay’s connections to provide performance metrics on the top 30 regulated open banking brands in the UK. This includes data on sandboxes and open data APIs.

There’s also a partnership for payments platform Paysafe and Smart Property Systems, the software as a service provider for property management. The Smart Property Systems platform will embed Paysafe’s credit and debit card, ACH and e-cash payment solutions to enable North American property managers to offer tenants digital transactions for their rent payments.

Job moves

Start-Up Nation Central, the independent organisation for Israeli tech innovation, has appointed Avi Hasson as its next CEO. He previously served as chief scientist at Israel’s Ministry of Economy and Industry, as well as founding chairman of the Israel Innovation Authority.

Lord Hill of Oareford, the former EU Commissioner for financial services, joins the advisory board for UK fintech startup W1tty. W1tty’s smart finance app launches in Lithuania and Poland this Autumn. It has also applied for an EMI licence in the UK and an EU consumer credit licence.

Khurram Hilal, CEO, Standard Chartered Saadiq
Khurram Hilal, CEO, Standard Chartered Saadiq

Jamie Walker, CEO of Elavon, succeeds Royal Cole of FIS as chairman of the payments processing organisation American Transaction Processors Coalition. Walker has been an ATPC board member for three years including as vice chair.

Meanwhile, Standard Chartered appoints CEO for global Islamic banking arm Saadiq. He has held several senior positions within the bank, including head of group Islamic products. He will look to strengthen its Islamic banking offering across its global network.

Finance for Tomorrow, has unveiled Pauline Becquey as its new managing director. Becquey will ‘spearhead the implementation of an ambitious roadmap’ to ensure that the Paris Financial Centre continues to play ‘a leading role in green and sustainable finance’.

Hong Kong asset management giant Value Partners has appointed Winnie Lam as MD, chief operating officer’s office. The appointment comes as the company seeks to capture new growth opportunities arising from the opening up of China’s financial services sector and expansion into different asset classes.

Finally, open banking platform Tink has appointed Rowan Taylor as its chief revenue officer. He joins from AWS and also previously worked at Gartner, KPMG and Accenture. He’s tasked with driving integration between all revenue related functions at Tink.

Investments and funding rounds

Cryptocurrency platform CoinBurp has raised more than $6million in private capital. The new capital will help CoinBurp extend its services within the DeFi and NFT arena as well as make it more accessible to use for the mainstream native audience. Alongside Moonrock Capital and Alphabit, CoinBurp is also backed by AU21 Capital, NGC Ventures, Morningstar Ventures, Metapurse and Ankr.

While Eka Ventures is the ‘largest impact-driven early stage venture capital fund in the UK’ as it closes at £68million. Investors in the fund include British Business Bank, BSC, Isomer, Guys and St Thomas Foundation, Planet First Partners, Draper Esprit as well as Snowball. The fund will invest early and lead rounds, making investments between £500,000 and £3million.

Klar, a digital financial services platform in Mexico, has secured a Series B funding round. Growth equity firm General Atlantic led the round with participation from existing investors Prosus Ventures, Quona Capital, Mouro Capital, International Finance Corporation as well as WTI.

Ntropy has announced a $3.2million seed round led by QED Investors. Ntropy’s API enables businesses to convert raw data into contextualised and structured information. The funding will be used to support customer growth across North America, as well as hiring key technical and commercial talent.

Launches

Prometeo, the open banking platform for Latin America, has launched Spark – a programme dedicated to providing startups with free access to API infrastructure. Startups, SMEs and fintechs are also granted $5,000 for six months to test solutions. They can also access information about their users and digitise and automate their processes.

Meanwhile, small business platform Xero launches Analytics Plus. The tool – free for Xero Business Edition subscribers  – combines an existing short-term cash flow tool with a business snapshot tool. Analytics Plus can also detect and predict regular cash expenses and income over a week, month or quarter.

LiliSarwa, the Middle East investment and personal finance platform, has launched crypto portfolios. They are globally diversified across class assets while offering a five per cent exposure to Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC. They are offered by Sarwa Digital Wealth Capital Limited and regulated by the ADGM financial services regulatory authority.

Lili, the banking app designed for freelance workers in the US, has unveiled a premium service – Lili Pro. Lili combines banking services with real-time expense tracking, tax tools and financial insights. Earlier this year, Lili became the exclusive banking service partner of the Freelancers Union in the US.

New fintech wamo wants to attract 10,000 customers before the end of 2021. In its first stage, the company will develop and consolidate its position in Malta before expanding into Europe. Last month, wamo raised a €1million investment from a group of angel investors.

Announcements

Fintech startup PayBy has unveiled a bit of festive fun for Eid Al Adha festivities with a digital eidiya. The cashless, contactless eidiya lets money be transferred instantly through the PayBy app or by way of the PayBy transfer messages on the chat apps, BOTIM and ToTok.

PayBy enables contactless Eidiya
PayBy enables contactless Eidiya

A simulation-based programme launches in Dubai with a focus on equipping Millennials and GenZs with personal finance skills. Financial Awareness Simulation Training (F@ST), delivered via Zoom and on Google Workspace apps, is curated to help people take financially responsible decisions, make informed personal finance choices as well as develop positive money habits.

Meanwhile, FINVASIA Group has acquired fintech solution provider ActTrader Technologies (formerly ActForex). ActTrader will become a subsidiary under the FINVASIA Group, while Ilya Sorokin remains as the CEO.

Author

  • Claire is an experienced editor and writer with 25 years of experience in the publishing industry. As a tech journalist, Claire has covered every subject possible over the years, from the launch of broadband and next generation mobile networks to the arrival of the metaverse and Web3.

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