The Fintech Times News Roundup
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This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 31/08

The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup delivers the latest fintech headlines from around the world.

Appointments

Epos Now, the cloud-based payments provider, has hired Imran Anwa as its new chief financial officer. Anwa previously served as deputy group CFO at The Hut Group. Epos Now said Anwa’s knowledge will be invaluable as it accelerates growth plans towards its anticpated IPO.

Geraldine Goh
Geraldine Goh joins Vantage FX

Vantage FX has appointed Geraldine Goh as global marketing director as part of its global expansion strategy. She will focus on introducing high profile partnerships, promotions and programmes to cover the whole client lifecycle at the multi-asset trading platform.

Meanwhile, ELEMENTARYb, the intelligent financial management platform, has unveiled Shuab Akhtar as director of product. Akhtar will drive the development, delivery and ongoing evolution of the company’s business management software platform. Most recently, he was senior business analyst at Handelsbanken.

John Madsen, chief architect for technology at Goldman Sachs, and Russell Green, head of cloud architecture at Deutsche Bank have both joined the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) governing board as chairman and vice-chairman respectively. Dietmar Fauser, chief information officer at Symphony, and Traci Robinson-Williams, head of marketing insights at GitLab, have also joined the board as directors.

Fintech IFX Payments has appointed Tony Brown as its new head of compliance and MLRO. Joining from PayPerform, Brown will continue his role on the advisory board of The Association of Foreign Exchange and Payment Companies. IFX has also reported a 3000 per cent increase in the number of payments it handles monthly, as well as a turnover of £20million.

Research and Insight

Skurio has developed an interactive slider to show a comparison of the financial damage of fraud and how that cash could have been spent, if it was not stolen. Fraud costs the UK economy more than £176,000,0000 each year, it says. That’s the equivalent of 294,106,823 Netflix monthly subscriptions, or 260,992,574 cinema tickets.

Funding and investments

Exclusible, the luxury NFT platform, has closed a €2.2million seed round. Tioga Capital, White Star Capital and Indico Capital Partners co-led the round, with additional participation from Shilling. Once purchased, an NFT can be displayed in the user’s gallery, shared on social platforms, or sold on a secondary market.

Investment analytics platform Aumni has secured $50million in a Series B funding round. The round was led by JPMorgan Chase & Co, with significant participation from Pelion Venture Partners too. Existing investors SVB Financial Group, DLA Piper, Next Frontier Capital, Kickstart Fund, First Trust Capital Partners and Prelude also participated in the round.

TiPJAR, the cashless tipping platform, has raised £1,000,000 from more than 800 investors on Crowdcube. It will use the funds to invest more into its US team as well as ‘turbo charge its trajectory for expansion across the globe’. TiPJAR has now launched in more than 1650 venues across four countries.

Islamic crowdfunding group Ethis Global Sdn Bhd has announced the closure of a RM6.8million pre-Series A fundraising round. The investment follows the appointment of Amran Bin Mohd as chairman. In 2022, Ethis intends to expand its offerings in Indonesia and Malaysia to include agriculture and Waqf issuers and projects.

UAE-based insurtech Hala has closed a Series A round at $5million. The round was led by Entrée Capital, with participation also from Mubadala Investment Company, EQ2 Ventures, Global Founders Capital, 500 Startups and Hambro Perks Oryx Fund. Hala plans to use the funds to expand its new products, as well as grow the company further in the rest of the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia.

Partnerships

Yieldly announces NFT partnership with BOOM Esports and Fact Revolution. BOOM and Fact Revolution fans gain entry to Yieldly’s staking products and no loss lottery. They can also earn customised NFT-based rewards for participation.

There’s also a partnership for payments firm InComm Payments and doxo, the bill pay directory. doxo users can now pay household bills with cash at more than 60,000 retail locations throughout the US. The collaboration lets customers pay bills at retailers, including 7-Eleven, Dollar General and Family Dollar, alongside their regular purchases.

Halal Angel Network partners with Let’s invest in Maldives in order to boost halal, startups and entrepreneurship in the region. The key focus areas include tourism, fintech, foodtech, ethical finance and future technologies. Both partners are open for strategic partnerships with the government departments and local organisation.

maldives

Company updates and launches

Cryptocurrency exchange EQONEX has launched cross collateral functionality across its platform. It enables traders to more effectively manage their collateral when trading derivative products. Traders can use US dollars, USD Coin and Bitcoin as margin for derivatives trading. EQONEX also intends to expand the assets eligible to be used as margin including EQO.

Open banking platform TrueLayer has been authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) as a payments institution. The company has now established a European headquarters in Dublin. The Irish operation will be led by Joe Morley, TrueLayer’s VP and general manager for Europe, and new COO for Europe, Leigh-Anne Cotter.

Financial hub Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has formally engaged with the UK department for data protection law. The aim is to reinforce data flows between the jurisdictions and help build better trade relationships. It will also promote high standards of accountability and transparency in businesses that deal with DIFC entities.

LINE Tech Plus has launched a LINE FRIENDS non-fungible token (NFT) collection using LINE Blockchain. LINE FRIENDS NFTs will be given to 600,000 users in Japan who successfully answer a quiz event held on the LINE de Oubo platform

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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