Every Wednesday, we delve into the latest fintech updates from across the UK. This week brings updates from Paynetics, Tide, OKX, Manchester City, Smart Data Foundry and tapeeno.
Paynetics receives EMI licence from the FCA
E-money fintech Paynetics obtained its Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the UK regulator Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The licence enables Paynetics to offer its full range of products and consumer-based programs in the UK. Paynetics hopes this will give its customers enhanced confidence to expand their businesses.
Mike Peplow, CEO of Paynetics UK, explained the significance of the news: “Securing the UK EMI license gives our customers and partners the confidence to expand their business with Paynetics. We believe that by having dual license capability Paynetics is the natural partner for UK-based organisations who want to deploy in Europe or European-based organisations who want to enter the UK market. We are already building out the UK team and will offer the full range of our embedded finance capability to the UK market.”
Tide calls for support of UK businesses amidst climate issues
Digital business financial platform Tide has called for UK businesses to “kickstart” a global carbon removal movement by taking advantage of underutilised marketplaces to deliver net zero.
The news comes shortly after Tide became the first fintech in the world to remove 100 per cent of its emissions with durable carbon removal last month.
Ian Sutherland, CFO and head of net zero at Tide, discussed the financial platform’s own journey: “Saving the planet requires immediate collective action from all businesses. Our own net zero journey has also highlighted durable carbon removals as an instant and effective way for businesses to manage their carbon emissions. To unlock a more sustainable future faster, we’re urging all UK businesses to kickstart a global carbon removal movement by taking full advantage of the innovative, yet underutilised marketplaces.”
Manchester City in the metaverse
Crypto exchange and Web3 technology company OKX has partnered with reigning Premier League champions Manchester City, launching a new immersive metaverse experience – enabling fans to attend an exclusive tactical football masterclass with Manchester City captain İlkay Gündoğan, ‘Make Your Play‘.
The metaverse initiative sees Gündoğan step into the OKX Collective metaverse to guide fans through pre-planned drills, as well as explain his in-game decision-making processes.
Haider Rafique, global chief marketing officer at OKX, said: “Hot on the heels of Rúben Días taking to the metaverse to show us how he maintains top performance for matchday, I’m very excited to get insights into İlkay’s tactical approach in the same forum. İlkay is also an incredible football mind, and this chance to benefit from his expert knowledge in an interactive virtual environment provides a glimpse into how Web3 stands to overhaul the ways we connect and interact in the future.”
Synthetic data providing a spark
Smart Data Foundry also unveiled its new synthetic data engine aizle, the old Scots word ‘spark’. The launch looks to provide innovators across the UK with quality, artificially generated data to solve real-world problems.
aizle does this without the need for any real-world input data to generate its synthetic data sets, removing risks related to and concerning privacy issues and other data risks. The synthetic data can also be used to build a rapid prototype, train an AI model, or run scenarios on the strategic impact of a new initiative.
Bryn Coulthard, chief product and technology officer at Smart Data Foundry, explained the power of synthetic data: “We exist to unlock the positive power of financial data to improve people’s lives – and believe the creation of data using our aizle synthetic data engine will drive innovation, as well as help solve issues facing financial services and the wider society. We know that data access, permissions, and security are the biggest factors holding innovators back.”
Contracts and monthly fees a sticking point for business owners
Ninety-seven per cent of small business owners are put off by using card payment machines due to contracts and monthly fees; revealed card payment app tapeeno this week.
Fintech Tapeeno surveyed over 550 small business owners in the UK; who cited that contracts and monthly fees were their main headache when it came to using the majority of card payment devices.
Jaime Lowe, sales director at UTP Group and the developer of tapeeno, discussed the findings: “It’s true that traditional card payment technology has been extremely prohibitive for small business owners who turnover less than much larger companies and have to keep a close eye on cashflow. This is the reason we developed tapeeno – an app that can turn smartphones into a card reader without needing additional hardware and has no fixed term contracts or monthly fees.”
