The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 28 July brings you the latest industry movers as well as investment updates.
Job moves
VoxSmart, the communications surveillance firm, has appointed Robert Forrest as chief financial officer as well as Morgan Martins as chief marketing officer. VoxSmart designs, develops and deploys cloud-based communications surveillance technology for global financial institutions.Xsolla X
Xsolla, the video games industry payments company, has hired Sebastien Totté to drive its operations in the UK. Totté joins following more than seven years at Meta on both the mobile and publisher sides of the business. The new senior country manager for the UK, France and Benelux will build relationships with games studios in the region.
Susana Esteban, a blockchain and digital assets advisor, has joined FTI Consulting’s London office. The firm says it has seen a ‘significant uptick in interest’ from clients looking to explore opportunities in blockchain and digital assets, as well as how to build resilience around the risks, impending regulations and volatility.
Personal finance app HyperJar has announced two new senior hires to help drive the firm’s growth plans. Nicola Longfield is named chief commercial officer while Amabel Polglase is now chief marketing officer. Hyperjar also plans to develop both its product and business this year.
Fintech challenger bank Allica Bank has appointed Ian Flaxman to the newly created role of head of growth finance. He will help launch a new working capital funding solution in the final quarter of 2022. Flaxman has previously held leadership roles within working capital, credit, commercial and invoice finance sectors.
PayU, the online payment service provider, has named Attila Kulcsar as its global payments chief financial officer. PayU also plans further industry heavyweight hires, new product launches and investments across emerging markets including Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe.
More job news
EQOS, a digital assets financial services company, is investing in its asset management business with new senior appointments in key regions earmarked for growth. Nick Cogswell is now head of sales, asset management, while Franklin Heng is head of asset management Asia.
Policy Expert, the UK insurtech, names Kevin Chidwick as chief financial officer. He was previously CFO of Aspen Insurance Group. His appointment follows the retirement of Paul Gildersleeves after a 40-year career in financial services, including 10 years establishing Policy Expert as a profitable insurtech.
Chris Lewis, head of solutions at data insight specialist Synectics Solutions, is appointed to the executive board of the Open Identity Exchange (OIX). The OIX is a non-profit trade organisation dedicated to creating a world where everyone can prove their identity and eligibility anywhere through a universally trusted ID.
Renata Caine, previously SVP at publicly-traded Marqeta, has joined Justt as the fintech startup’s first-ever chief commercial officer. Lissa Andrews also joins as VP of global marketing. The two female fintech veterans will spearhead the company’s rapid expansion into new markets including the US.
Finally, fintech Trovata has appointed Vladimir Pintea as VP of open banking engineering. While Lisa Gutu is named VP of business development. Trovata plans to broaden its reach from the US to the UK and EU marketplace.
Funding and investments
Genesis Global, the low-code application development platform, has unveiled $20million in new investments from Bank of America, BNY Mellon and Citi. These strategic investments follow the firm’s $200million Series C funding announced in February
Goparity has raised €1.2million in an hour through equity crowdfunding in a funding round led by Mustard Seed Maze. The Portuguese impact finance platform’s goal was to reach €1.2million in equity, but is now accepting ‘overfunding’. The funds will be used to further develop the platform and to expand into Europe and Canada.
Fintech Dbank has raised $17.6million in a seed round to expand the reach of financial services in Pakistan. The funding round was co-led by Sequoia Southeast Asia and Kleiner Perkins. Nubank, RTP Global, Rayn and Askari Bank also joined the round. Dbank has applied for a digital retail bank licence in Pakistan.
Reltime AS has secured a $50million investment partnership with digital investment firm GEM Digital Limited. Reltime has developed ‘the world’s first global Layer 1, Proof of Authority (PoA) blockchain and Web3 financial ecosystem’. GEM Digital’s commitment provides Reltime with the opportunity to scale up, while bolstering its activities in 150 countries.
Meanwhile, Quasar Finance has raised $6million from investment firms, including Polychain Capital, Blockchain Capital, Figment Capital, Lightshift Capital and Galileo. Quasar Finance’s vision is to create a range of accessible, structured investment products within the DeFi ecosystem, that investors and liquidity providers alike can benefit from.
Partnerships
One Inc, the digital payments network for the insurance industry, is helping Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company (GFBMIC) improve its claim payment experience. GFBMIC has selected One Inc’s ClaimsPay digital payments platform to work alongside an existing partnership with Sapiens Insurance.
Purpl, a remittance and cash out aggregator combined with a digital wallet for Lebanon, has selected Mambu to scale operations in the region. Mambu’s cloud platform will underpin the fintech’s offering as it evolves products and services based on customer needs.
Investment platform Further has forged a new partnership with digital identity provider Yoti Digital identity. It will streamline its customer onboarding process, making it faster and easier for people to invest in their chosen funds.  Further’s platform offers investors a selection of venture capital fund investment opportunities.
Global payment orchestration platform BlueSnap partners with Dalenys, part of Groupe BPCE, to help businesses achieve higher authorisation rates in the EU and France. The partnership enables businesses with a customer base in France to process digital payments as a local transaction.
Company updates
Mashreq, a financial institution in the UAE, is expanding the latest instalment of its Advanced Certificate of Excellence (ACE) program across the GCC and into North Africa. Mashreq ACE 3 is for recent graduates, specialising in finance, accounting or business to pursue a career in corporate and investment banking.
TrueLayer, the open banking platform, has announced the availability of TrueLayer Payments for WooCommerce plugin, enabling ecommerce SMBs to seamlessly add instant, secure account-to-account payments to their website. Luxury watch retailer BQ Watches is one of the first businesses to implement payments powered by TrueLayer using the plugin.
