This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 18/04

welcome to Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup Tuesday, April 18.

Appointments

Eco usethe UK provider of open banking technology that was recently acquired by Reliableappoints Lord Chris Holmes of Richmond MBE, as an advisor to support the company as it grows in the UK and overseas. Lord Holmes is a passionate advocate for the potential of technology and the benefits of financial inclusion.

Innovative wealth app Chip hires Gina Sylvester as its new COO. She joins Chip from TriplePoint, where she was responsible for leading the company’s operational and strategic initiatives. Before that, she held senior management roles Handelsbanken. Silvester replaces Sharon Mileswho becomes CEO of OakNorth Bank.

Lucie Shawan executive search consultant, has been promoted to managing partner at Amrop Great Britain. She leads Amrop’s global consumer and retail practice, while working with a range of national and international clients.

Christian Saunders have joined Linklaters as a senior consultant in banking practice in the Middle East. He has over 20 years’ experience in advising creditors, companies and other stakeholders on financing transactions and restructurings. He was a partner with Allen & Overy in the UAE for over 14 years, until his retirement in 2021.

Additional employment

CleverCards, the global payment platform provider, has named Gaurav Khurana as senior VP of marketing. Khurana joins CleverCards in a period of market expansion across Europe. Prior to joining CleverCards, Gaurav served as EMEA Head of Merchant Payment Partnerships at Meta.

EBANX has appointed Wiza Jalakasi as director of African market development across the continent. He most recently served on the global merchant enterprise team at Chipper Cash. He also currently serves as a mentor to Google for Startups Accelerator Africa (Launchpad) and technical partner at Rally Cap Ventures.

Fintica AIa provider of next-generation AI for the financial industry, has announced a new advisory board. Thomas Zeeb has been appointed chairman, while René Karsenti and Dr. Yanming Xiao also join as members. Earlier this year, Fintica AI closed an A funding round with a diversified global investor base from Asia, the Middle East, Europe as well as the US.

Partnership

radical bank ag has chosen Swiss fintech NetGuardians‘ software for enhanced payment protection. NetGuardian’s software forms customer profiles through its behavioral analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Radicant says it is the first digital sustainability bank in Switzerland that is strategically aligned with the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

ImaliPay, a fintech-as-a-service provider, has chosen Centropy PR to manage its global communications. The news follows ImaliPay’s successful $3 million funding round to provide financial services to underserved gig workers across Africa.

Optima Partnersa UK insight-led business consultancy, has teamed up with the AI ​​cloud company H2O.ai. The partnership sees the two organizations working together to produce a range of specialist resources and solutions for financial services organizations that aim to overcome the challenges of operationalizing advanced machine learning in credit risk and strong fraud defences.

Looker, the company’s KYC company, and Blacksmith KYC, the retech venture to ING Bank, has also announced a partnership. Blacksmith said the integration gives customers access to real-time data from over 300 primary regulated sources.

Additional partnerships

The bottom line has joined the marketplace of Data dog, a monitoring and security platform for cloud applications. This extends the availability of the company’s Record and Replay user monitoring solutions. Joint customers can reconstruct user sessions, as well as capture performance metrics and security logs to protect against fraud and data breaches in critical IBM environments.

Pidgin, a real-time payment platform, has partnered with US Century Bank. Miami-based US Century Bank is dedicated to serving business owners, professionals and entrepreneurs in their South Florida community. Following the collaboration, US Century Bank can support faster payments across different use cases.

The Qatar Financial Center Authority (QFCA) have signed an agreement with R3 to accelerate the development of Qatar’s fintech industry. Under the agreement, QFC and R3 will collaborate to create a potential lab environment catering to commercial banks and fintechs in Qatar.

Financing and investments

VoxSmart, a communications monitoring and financial AI solutions company, has raised an additional $12 million. In its latest round of funding, the cash infusion comes from existing investors, including UK-based ones ToscaFund, as well as existing US investors. It follows Toscafund’s $25 million investment in March 2021, as well as VoxSmart’s acquisition of GreenKey Technologies in November 2021.

Globant Ventures has invested in SaaS financial industry platform Fivvy. The investment includes a planned investment of $4 million over a two-year period to help accelerate Fivvy’s vision to revolutionize the financial services industry while positioning the company as a “top SaaS platform in America.”

Challenger Credit Card Over there announces an increase of £12.5m in equity and £50m in debt following its Series A funding round. The round was chaired by The North Zone and RTP Global together with angel investors. The funding has resulted in a post-money valuation of more than £70m. Yonder plans to use the investment to accelerate growth by doubling its team, expanding its credit rewards offering into new verticals as well as launching in new UK cities.

Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds has invested in Canadian fintech company Now way. Reynolds’ latest investment comes less than a month after it was announced Mint Mobilethe low-cost wireless provider partially owned by Reynolds had been acquired by the telecom giant T-Mobile US Inc. for 1.35 billion dollars.

Company updates

TON Foundation, a non-profit association that exists to promote The Open Network (TON), has announced the launch of a trustless, two-way bridge TON Bridge that enables the seamless transfer of ERC-20 tokens from Ethereum to natively wrapped fungible tokens (Jettons) on TON. Designed to provide a seamless transactional interface between Ethereum and TON, the bridge marks a significant milestone in the development of the TON ecosystem.

OCR Labs Global has renewed an ISO 30107-3 conformance for its Presentation Attack Detection (PAD) accreditation from BixeLab, a NIST-accredited testing laboratory. Second, it has demonstrated that its verification techniques are robust through compliance with NIST 800-63A Enrollment and Identity Certificate Guidelines, achieving an Identity Assurance Level 2 (IAL 2).