The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest fintech stories from around the world on Thursday 30 January 2025.
Partnerships and collaborations
Banco Sabadell has unveiled a strategic alliance with Snowdrop Solutions, a geolocation-based technology services company, to enhance the customer experience within the bank’s app. By integrating Snowdrop’s transaction data enrichment technology, Banco Sabadell enables its customers to accurately visualise the locations of their card transactions on a map. This helps customers track their in-store purchases.
Raisin, a global fintech platform for savings and investment solutions, joins the American Fintech Council (AFC). According to Raisin, joining the AFC provides an opportunity to deepen its impact in the US and collaborate with like-minded organisations to create a more inclusive and innovative financial ecosystem.
London-based fintech Sikoia has forged a new partnership with brokerage Simple Financial Planning (Simple), to boost broker workflows through secure AI-driven automation and seamless integration. This collaboration will see Sikoia’s document processing technology embedded into Simple’s CRM platform, tackling key challenges such as manual review inefficiencies and accuracy issues.
atNorth, a Nordic data center services company, has become a signatory of the United Nations’ Global Compact, as part of its commitment to business sustainability. The UN Global Compact is a voluntary initiative that enables members to align their operations and strategies with 10 principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.
Euroclear has teamed up with Microsoft in a seven-year strategic partnership, leveraging Microsoft’s technology, expertise and cloud services. Microsoft will support Euroclea in key growth areas like funds and client experience as well as its long-term vision to evolve into a digital and data-enabled financial market infrastructure.
More partnerships
DOO Clearing, the UK-based foreign exchange broker and liquidity provider as part of the global DOO Group, has chosen next-generation reconciliation software specialists, Aurum Solutions, to automate its reconciliations. The integration of Aurum’s automation software enables DOO Clearing to comply with Client Asset Sourcebook (CASS) regulations by reconciling transactions with greater speed and accuracy.
Aviva, a UK insurance, wealth and retirement business, has plumped for AutoRek, an automated reconciliations company, as its reconciliation and CASS tool. Aviva will leverage AutoRek’s end-to-end platform to implement a fully audited, rules-driven reconciliation process, for complete transparency for CASS auditors and internal stakeholders.
ThetaRay, a cognitive AI financial crime compliance company, has joined forces with IDB Bank, a New York-based private and commercial bank. By integrating ThetaRay’s Transaction Monitoring solution, IDB Bank hopes to continue to demonstrate its commitment to being a trusted partner in the global financial ecosystem and the fight against financial crimes.
Industry hires
Sterling Trading Tech (Sterling), a global provider of technology in order management, risk and margin, and trading platforms, has welcomed Chris Contrino to the company as part of its global expansion plans. Most recently he served as customer service manager at Trading Technologies.
Tradu, the multi-asset trading platform, appoints Philip Manning as its new chairman. He is also chairman of the audit and risk committee at Stratos Markets Limited, trading under the FXCM and Tradu brands. Manning is also non-executive director of The Valesco Group, a UK and European specialist real estate investment and asset manager.
The Bank of America Corporation board of directors has appointed Maria Martinez as a director. Martinez has more than four decades of experience in the technology and telecommunications industries including leadership positions at Salesforce Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Motorola Solutions and AT&T Bell Labs. Most recently, Martinez was also a senior executive at Cisco Systems, from 2018 to 2024.
Allfunds, a B2B wealthtech platform for the funds industry with €1.5trillion in assets under administration, has named Pascal Duval as senior advisor for France and Benelux. Duval brings more than 35 years of experience in asset and wealth management, having held key leadership roles at Amundi as deputy head of solutions and services, and Russell Investments, where he served as CEO for EMEA.
More appointments
EFT Corporation has appointed Farai Tigere to head up its Zimbabwean operations to drive the organisation’s strategy of fostering financial inclusion, digital transformation and economic empowerment in the region. Tigere  joined EFTCorp initially as implementation engineer, before shifting focus in 2018 to business development and solution architecture.
Global carbon ratings agency BeZero Carbon appoints Sophie Corby as its new chief financial officer. Corby previously held leadership positions across commercial operations, corporate development and finance at private equity-backed Houseful, owner of Zoopla, Alto Software as well as Hometrack.
Funding and investments
Kodesage, a startup specialising in AI-powered solutions for legacy software modernisation, has raised €2.3million in pre-seed funding led by PortfoLion Capital Partners, and with participation from investors, including former UiPath executives. The funding will accelerate platform development as well as support the company’s mission to empower enterprises to enhance their most complex legacy systems.
UK payments firm Sokin has secured $15million debt funding from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, enabling the business to continue its rapid growth trajectory. The funding comes just months after Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital acquired a stake in the business with a strategic investment worth $31million. Sokin also recently acquired Norwegian fintech Settle Group AS, gaining a European EMI licence.
OneVest, a wealth management technology platform, has closed a $20million Series B equity funding round. The round was led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from new investors Allianz Life Ventures and TIAA Ventures. Returning investors include OMERS Ventures, Deloitte Ventures, Fin Capital, Luge Capital, and Pivot Investment Partners.Â
Finout, the finops-for-enterprise platform, has bagged a $40million Series C funding round led by Insight Partners, with participation also from Pitango, Team8, Red Dot Capital and Maor Investments. This investment, secured at double the valuation of its Series B, brings Finout’s total funding to $85million and $66million in eight months.
Formance, the open source financial infrastructure provider, has closed a $21million Series A funding round co-led by PayPal Ventures as well as Portage. It also saw participation from Y Combinator, Hoxton Ventures and AXC. This milestone comes on the heels of a 10-times increase in Formance’s revenue over the past 12 months. This new funding will fuel Formance’s expansion across the US and Europe.