COVID-19: Going cashless for health

With fears that the COVID-19 virus can be spread by handling cash, public health and safety have necessitated the use of card payments. As a result, experts now predict that global non-cash transactions will surpass the $1 trillion mark by 2024.

Even before the pandemic, cash was beginning to die out in the UK – in 2019, cash made up less than a quarter (23%) of transactions in the UK.

PrimaryBid, the British fintech platform that connects retail investors with public companies raising capital, has closed a $50m Series B investment round from a leading group of investors. The fundraising follows a period of rapid growth in 2020 during which PrimaryBid helped U.K. retail investors access billions of pounds of corporate fundraisings during the COVID-19 pandemic, including FTSE 100 Compass Group, Ocado, Taylor Wimpey and Segro.

China's leading one-stop cross-border financial services and risk management company XTransfer announced that it has completed a Series C1 round of financing. The latest round was led by Telstra Ventures, together with MindWorks Ventures and existing investors.  

Scality announces that for the fifth consecutive year it has been recognised by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant for Distributed File Systems and Object Storage¹.  

Through its unique integrated scale-out file and object storage, Scality RING increases agility and reduces risk for customers by allowing them to manage a mix of legacy and new cloud-native applications on a single platform with unbounded growth. 

It’s no secret that the way in which many firms do business is fraught with inefficiencies, and the turbulent conditions of the past six months have shone a brighter spotlight on this than ever before. 

Checkprint, part of the TALL Group of Companies, the UK leader in the provision of secure printed and electronic payment solutions, has signed a contract renewal with Metro Bank for cheque services. The decade-long partnership, which goes back to 2010 when Metro Bank was the first new high street bank to open its doors in the UK for over 100 years, has been extended for a further  six years.

Sokin has announced it will be partnering with Transact Payments Limited (TPL) as it prepares for the roll-out of its UK and European fixed-price subscription-based payments service.

Transact Payments will provide flexible European BIN sponsorship and modular payment, debit and prepaid services as part of the Sokin global service.  Through its multiple partners, Sokin offers currency exchange in 150 countries with Sokin wallets and cards in 200 countries, covering 35 different currencies.

Netacea, a provider of bot management solutions, announces that ClearScore, the UK’s leading free credit score and credit marketplace, has selected Netacea’s bot management solution to protect against credential stuffing attacks and account takeovers.

Nets Group, a leading European payment provider, today announced the acquisition of CCV Schweiz SA, a subsidiary of CCV Group based in the Netherlands.