This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 24/11
welcome to Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup Thursday, November 24th!
Partnership
Volta gateway for open banking payments in Europe, UK and Brazil, has merged with the European cryptocurrency exchange platform Kryptomat. Together, they enable Kriptomat customers across Europe to make real-time account-to-account payments to buy, sell and exchange cryptocurrencies.
Moneycorpthe global foreign currency, has implemented an API and distribution agreement with BankClarity. Customers will be able to access direct market rates, aggregated from 14 Moneycorp partner banks. This will enhance banking technology provider BankClarity’s existing suite of banking and currency partners.
Klarna Kosma, Klarna’s financial technology platform for banks, fintechs and innovative retailers, has announced a partnership with Moss, the European fintech. The collaboration enables Moss to help SMEs save time and money while removing accounting errors, controlling consumption and gaining a real-time view of what is being used and where.
ABA Bank has become the first bank in Cambodia to launch instant card issuance kiosks using Compass Plus technologies solutions. This new service enables the issuance of international debit cards (Visa, Mastercard and UnionPay) and local Cambodia Shared Switch (CSS) cards via self-service kiosks, ensuring the bank’s customers receive debit cards on the spot in under two minutes.
DeltaPayan emerging fintech headquartered in Kenya, has chosen Provenanceits AI-powered data and risk decision-making platform to drive its buy-now, pay-later offering. By leveraging alternative data, including behavioral data, DeltaPay gives more consumers access to affordable and flexible credit.
There is also a partnership for peak and Ocean Protocol. The partnership seeks to add a new layer of value creation to the operation of autonomous vehicles, robots and devices by leveraging the data they accumulate. Through the partnership, Ocean and peaq will enable connected and autonomous vehicles, robots and devices to share and monetize their data in a fully decentralized manner.
Company updates
Revolut, the financial super app, has reported an increase in the ‘silver saver’. Revolut says its customers over 45 put 64 percent more into their savings boxes than customers 45 or younger. The new data comes as Revolut increased interest rates up to 2.25 per cent on its savings vault in GBP and up to 2.75 per cent in USD.
Wise has launched its first eco card. The environmental impact of the card has been significantly reduced by using polylactic acid, a sustainable plastic substitute. Wise’s design also greatly reduces the amount of ink used, resulting in the card’s plain white design and small “fast flag” logo.
Open banking platform Think has launched Balance Check, a key feature that enables Tink customers to verify account balances. Using real-time account data, Balance Check gives businesses the ability to verify how much a user has in their bank account within seconds, such as pre-purchase to check for sufficient funds, or post-purchase to check for sufficient funds before a monthly agreement giro collection.
ClearBank celebrates after reaching profitability. ClearBank Ltd. has generated £45.4m in revenue YTD and as of October has reached monthly UK profitability. The fintech bank has nearly tripled its 2022 YTD revenue compared to the same period last year. And FY2021 was also the second year in a row that ClearBank’s revenue grew by over 100 percent.
Financing and investment
Couttsprivate banking arm to NatWest Groupand BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active growth capital investor, has now raised over £80m through the UK Enterprise Fund (UKEF). This gives the bank’s customer base access to investment opportunities in privately owned scale-up and early-stage companies, as part of BGF’s nationwide platform.
Fintech in the UK Atoa Payments has secured a pre-seed funding round of $2.2 million. Lead by Leo Capital and Capital of passionround also included Moon Capital Ventures. Atoa Payments is on a mission to cut 70 percent of the fees that Visa and Mastercard charge businesses to accept card payments.
Hard bacon, a personal finance app used by more than 40,000 Canadians, has raised $819,000 in funding through FrontFund no crowdfunding portal for shares. The latest equity crowdfunding round brings Hardbacon’s total funding to more than $3.3 million since its founding. The funding is expected to fuel the company’s growth, as well as Hardbacon’s mission to be the best tool for personal finance.
Ramani, the African software company, has closed a $32 million Series A round of equity and debt. The round was chaired by Flexcap Ventures and the founder/CEO i Info scout, Jared Schreiber. With this new capital funding, Ramani will scale its network of micro distribution centers and also launch a new micro credit offering for select MDCs.
The job is moving
CAFU, the MENA region’s first on-demand car service, has appointed a new advisory board. Members include James Babb, Cenk Serdar plus Fares Akkad. In addition, CAFU aims to hire 60 new employees. The company has also launched insurance services for customers on the CAFU mobile application.
Insurtech wefox has appointed Laura Eschricht as marketing manager. Eschricht previously worked at an e-commerce retailer Zalando and global beauty brands friend and Moroccanoil. Earlier this year, wefox closed a $400 million Series D round that gave the company a post-money valuation of $4.5 billion.
Digital identity company OneID has appointed Marion King to the board as a non-executive board member. She has previously held senior roles at NatWest, Mastercard, VocaLink and Reuters. King was also the former CEO of VocaLink.
Global brokerage firm Squared Financial appoints Andreas Lazarou as its new commercial manager. The firm is also in the process of revamping its website and updating its mobile trading apps. Lazarou will be in charge of business development and marketing.
Meanwhile, private wealth and corporate services firm Praxis has appointed a specialist in business development Dominic de Mariveles as commercial director to spearhead the group’s ambition to be a leader in the delivery of high-quality administration services to its international customer base.
Bank of London has appointed Phil Knight as Group CEO for Technology and Group CEO for Information Security. He will oversee the group’s technology, information technology operations and information security globally.
