Certified FinTech Practitioner MENA is a new programme developed jointly by The London Institute of Banking & Finance and LendIt Fintech, and delivered in partnership with ADGM Academy in MENA, which aims to help bank and fintech executives get to grips with this new world of fintech. It’s open for registrations now, with the course starting this September.

• 55% likely to buy from Western Europe and 45% from Northern Europe
• Londoners are the most willing to buy from overseas versus those in the South West who are the most reticent
• Despite ‘support local’ movements in the wake of the pandemic, buying from local retailers only matters to 14% of British shoppers, and only 8% prefer to buy from the UK 

Paydock, an enterprise-grade payments orchestration platform appoints Jenela Gunasekaran as its Chief Product Officer. This significant appointment emphasises the increasingly recognised role of payments orchestration as well as Paydock’s leadership in the sector.

Regulation in the crypto industry is a topic we in the UK cannot afford to ignore. Binance, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, is now the subject of a consumer warning from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Others, such as Wirex, have been forced to suspend onboarding of UK customers altogether while they continue conversations with the regulator. And across the whole wider ecosystem, we are seeing the signs of continued and sustained regulatory scrutiny.

Technology platforms TruNarrative and Canny form partnership to help firms access the latest in RegTech innovation 

Technology platform Canny have integrated the TruNarrative solution into their financial services marketplace. Delivering Canny’s current and future customers access to  TruNarrative’s financial crime decision engine and extensive third-party app store for regulatory compliance and customer onboarding. 

Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments technology company, has appointed Mr.

• The economic outlook has improved, but risks to the recovery remain.
• Banks have the capital and liquidity to be able to support the economy. 
• Risky asset prices have continued to increase, partly due to higher risk taking.
• New monetary tools being explored to stop a ‘dash for cash’.
• Bank of England testing financial sector’s resilience to climate change.
• Spotlight turned on digital money.

Ecommerce driving link based payments in metros; groceries in non-metros

Payment links via SMS or WhatsApp have emerged as the front runner in contactless payments in the second wave of the pandemic with Mswipe registering a record 6X growth in Pay By Link based (PBL) transactions. PBL transactions grew from 2.37lakh in March 2020 to 12.55lakh in March 2021. 

A high adoption has been observed across metro cities including Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Chennai and Hyderabad, and non-metros such as Kanchipuram Tiruvallur, Coimbatore, Vadodara and Goa. 

Retail banks have been issued a warning by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) about continuing weaknesses and failings surrounding their financial crime controls.

• 182m securitised derivatives traded in Q2 2021 compared to 98m in Q2 2020
• First half volumes increased 146% year-on-year
• Most traded underlyings were OMX 30, DAX 30 and S&P 500

Spectrum Markets, the pan-European trading venue for securitised derivatives, has released its latest Quarterly Business Update, revealing continued positive momentum as its business matures.