Every Wednesday, we delve into the latest fintech updates from across the UK. This week we see how the cost of living crisis continues to take precedence in the UK fintech scene and more.
Personalised digital payments hit Google Pay
ImageNPay‘s digital wallet is now available on Google Pay. The wallet lets customers of the digital payments platform to personalise a digital prepaid Mastercard with images and animations.
ImageNPay plans to reduce the use of plastic cards to positively impact the environment and to change the way consumers interact with digital payments.
Michael Donald, CEO of ImageNPay, commented: “The ImageNPay app brings payments to life with customised images, sounds and video in order to make purchases quick, convenient and secure. You can choose to pay with images that reflect who you are and the things you love”.
Credit partnership aims to support the under-served
Credit app TotallyMoney has added the services of credit provider Drafty to its current selection of features.
This partnership focuses on customers with poor credit profiles after TotallyMoney and PwC released a report titled Overlooked and Financially Underserved. The research found that since six years ago, the number of people struggling to access mainstream credit has risen from 13.6 to 20.2 million.
Drafty can send eligible customers money to their banks in under 90 seconds after approval. The integration also allows customers to see their chances of approval before they apply.
Alastair Douglas, CEO at TotallyMoney, said: “At TotallyMoney, we have a goal of enabling fintech for everyone. Yet our research with PwC found that over 20 million adults struggle to access mainstream credit. In addition to this, we found that 16 million adults would struggle to cover an unexpected £300 payment”.
Revolut launches hardware for UK businesses
UK-based fintech company Revolut Business has launched its new card reader to offer greater flexibility to smaller UK businesses. The Revolut Reader will let customers to accept payments anywhere.
In the near future, Revolut plans to provide a POS solution. This is aimed at larger merchants if they need to integrate the card reader with POS systems that are already in place.
Maria Garcia Marti, product owner at Revolut, explained: ”When designing new products, our team always has customer needs in mind: a fast and easy to use solution that will not slow business down, easy access to funds, and receiving payments faster than the industry standard of two to three business days”.
Food delivery partners with finance provider
Food delivery app Foodhub has partnered with embedded finance provider YouLend to support its partner restaurants and providers during the cost of living crisis.
These partners will now be able to access additional funding from YouLend, which offers zero interest cash advances to SMEs that have been turned away by traditional banks; alongside other financial offerings.
Ardian Mula, CEO of Foodhub, said: “We’re positive that this ethical financial support will help a number of our partners navigate these choppy financial waters – allowing them to come out stronger than ever on the other side”.
Financial trends caused by new attitudes
Investment research journal, the Investor Index, has announced the results of its later annual survey. The results show the differing attitudes to finance between the younger and older demographics.
The survey was conducted with 1,080 adults, with the aim of understanding the impact Covid-19 has had on the UK investment scene. Investor Index found that 82 per cent of investors aged 18 to 34 would willingly take a hit on their returns if it meant a guarantee of ethical investments. In comparison, only 36 per cent of those aged 55 and over would make this decision.
Christian Barnes, head of strategy at AML Group, said: “Especially among younger investors, we’re seeing a pattern of breadth and variety not only in asset types but in sources of influence and ‘advice’, in attitudes to risk, ‘retirement’ and ‘ethical’ investing. This broadening of range extends beyond investing into employment trends, income sources, even signs of crisis fatigue.”
