Equity management platform Vestd has announced its latest offering to provide founders with the easiest way to apply for advance assurance from HMRC for the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS).

In the September mini-budget, the Chancellor announced the extension of EIS beyond 2025 and major changes to the SEIS from April 2023.

Smart money app Plum has secured £1m from investors in the first eight hours of its crowdfund, achieving its initial target.

More than 3700 people have invested so far, from nationalities spanning the UK, Greece, Cyprus, France, Bulgaria, Belgium and Spain.

Apple has joined forces with Goldman Sachs to add a high-yield savings account feature to its credit card.

Apple Card users will be able to automatically deposit their Daily Cash cashback rewards into the new savings account, set to roll out in the next few months. There will be no fees, no minimum deposits, and no minimum balance requirements for the account, provided by Goldman Sachs.

Astra, a leading provider of instant card-to-card funding as a service in the U.S., today announced a $10 million Series A funding round led by FPV Ventures, with participation from Slow Ventures and Allegis Capital, as well as a $30 million line of credit through CoVenture to support the company’s rapid expansion in the payments industry.

Financial wellness benefit platform for employees Northstar has raised $24.4 million in a funding round joined by PayPal Ventures and Thomson Reuters Ventures.

GGV Capital led the round, with participation from Canvas Ventures, M13, Workday Ventures, Parade Ventures, Foundation Capital, Designer Fund, and RRE.

NorthOne today announced it has raised $67 million in Series B funding. With participation from new and existing investors, NorthOne is poised to further expand the reach of its business banking and financial management platform across all sectors of the small business community.

NorthOne is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by The Bancorp Bank, N.A., Member FDIC.

Profile Software, a leading financial solutions provider, has announced today that UBCI (Union Bancaire pour le Commerce et I’Industrie) has selected Acumen.plus, the internationally implemented Treasury Management solution, to effectively cover the entire spectrum of treasury and streamline their operations in the most efficient way.

Forter, the Trust Platform for digital commerce, today announced the launch of Smart Claims, a new product offering designed to help businesses manage chargebacks more effectively. By connecting order and claims data across different payment systems into a single, consolidated view, Smart Claims enables merchants to resolve chargeback disputes more intelligently and efficiently, improve win rates and recover lost revenue.

The latest version of B2Trader, an ultra-fast matching engine designed for cryptocurrency exchanges, market makers, spot brokers, and MTF brokers, has been released, and we are excited to share the news with you. Following this update, the number of pairs that may be accommodated has been increased to 100, while the order book depth has remained at 100 × 100.

Remitly Global, Inc., a leading digital financial services provider for immigrants and their families, today announced the expansion of its relationship with Visa by making Visa Direct, Visa’s real-time push payments platform, available to Remitly customers in Canada.^[1] According to the World Bank, more than $6.5 billion in personal remittances are s