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This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 25/08

On Thursday 25 August, The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup brings you a range of job appointments, partnership news and more! 

Job moves

Mashreq Bank has named Muna Al Ghurair as group head of marketing and corporate communications. Al Ghurair has over 20 years of experience in a range of positions including in marketing, sales and business development.

Hinrich Pfeifer, former Cardano Foundation secretary-general, has joined Partisia Blockchain Foundation as its new chief operating officer. Having spent over two years driving blockchain adoption at the Cardano Foundation, Pfeifer will now oversee growth and operations in his new role.

Abu Dhabi Global Market-based broker-dealer, Securrency Capital, has announced two senior appointments. Neale Croutear-Foy assumes a new role as chief technology officer, while Chris Pugh joins as the new head of product delivery.

Partnerships

Binance has unveiled a collaboration with non-profit tech hub Inoni Tech, as the two companies launch a crypto education hub in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The hub will become a training centre for in-person blockchain education sessions.

Zambian fashion retailer, Les Copains Waikiki, has signed an agreement with Cellulant Zambia which enables its customers to make payments in all of its stores using Cellulant’s Tingg digital payment platform.

Chains.com, the cryptocurrency and NFT exchange platform, has joined forces with Indacoin. This partnership allows Chains.com to accept both Visa and Mastercard – making its $CHA token more easily available to millions of cardholders worldwide.

UK fintech Paysend is expanding the capabilities of Paysend Business, an end-to-end payment solution for SMEs. This comes from its newly forged partnership with Currencycloud. The partnership aims to offer an easier and more transparent method of making international transactions for SMEs.

Oddbox, a fruit and vegetable delivery service, has partnered with London-based fintech Mintago. The partnership aims to provide a financial well-being platform to all Oddbox staff.

Handshake for partnershipMore Partnerships

Bahrain Commercial Facilities Company (BCFC), the specialist finance company, has selected its two digital transformation partners. Both Codebase Technologies and Aytaf eSolutions have forged a partnership with BCFC, which aims to accelerate its digital transformation.

In the e-commerce industry, Webx, a Pakistani e-commerce platform, and Paymob, the payments gateway in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAP), have joined forces. Together they are launching Webx Pay, a service aiming to significantly cut down times for businesses to accept payments.

Online casino, Mystino, will begin accepting cryptocurrency as a form of payment for its games. This comes after it announced a partnership with Bitpace, the crypto payment gateway.

Investment platform Titanbay and financial solution provider Apex Group have partnered. The move will ensure that ESG ratings are added on all new funds to Titanbay’s platform and will also make an in-depth ESG report available to investors.

The Data City and Dealroom.co have partnered to provide a more comprehensive data set to for firms researching the high-tech growth market.

Funding and investments

Swedish sustainability platform, Worldfavor, has raised €10.2million from its most recent funding round led by SEB Private Equity. The company aims to use this recent funding boost to fuel its growth and expansion plans.

Ready Player Me, the metaverse avatar platform, has secured a total funding amount of $56million. The funding round included participation from the likes of David Baszucki, co-founder of Roblox and Justin Kan, co-founder of Twitch.

Zywa, the payments platform aimed at teenagers, has raised a $3million seed round. It aims to use this investment to focus on its growth in the United Arab Emirates and to expand into Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Finally, the micro-investing platform, Wombat, saw a funding boost of £4million after a four-week crowdfund. It looks to use this investment to support its growth plans, upcoming product launches and international expansion.

funding roundupCompany updates and expansion

Google parent company Alphabet Inc. has now launched Google Wallet in South Africa. The move sees the company trying to increase its foothold in South Africa’s digital payments space; which has seen recent rapid development.

Dubai-based proptech startup, Huspy, has announced the acquisition of two mortgage brokerages. The employees and founders of Just Mortgages and Finance Lab will join Huspy in a move to strengthen its leadership position in mortgage services.

Sumsub, a verification software company, has opened its newest office in Miami, Florida as it aims to further its global expansion in North and Latin America.

In more expansion news, the global financial services firm, Ebury, has also established two new offices in Perth, Australia and Vancouver, Canada. The expansion comes as the firm looks to better serve the increasing demand from companies in these regions.

Finally, Paysafe has announced its own expansion into Argentina. This comes after it acquired PagoEfectivo and SafetyPay, two Latin America-based payments companies.

Product launches

Pemo, a spend management platform in the MENAP region, has launched its new Pemo Cards offering. The cards allow parameters to be set by management teams and then can be distributed to company employees, reducing the need for expense reports.

Grizzly.fi, a decentralised finance company, has launched a stablecoin pegged to the Swiss Franc. This follows the recent product launch by Grizzly.fi of its liquidity mining aggregator earlier this month.

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