British Business Investments, a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, today announces a commitment of up to €25 million to Wilshire’s European Venture Capital Fund II through its Managed Funds Programme. This will be Wilshire’s second European venture capital fund of funds and will target venture capital managers that are based primarily in the UK and Germany and that invest in technology companies.

GoCardless, the global leader in direct bank payments has today announced at Xerocon London it has partnered with Xero, the global small business platform, to provide its Instant Bank Pay feature to Xero’s customers in the UK. 

Ondato, a technology company that streamlines KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) processes, today announces the launch of Ondato Risk Scoring, an automated tool for companies to identify and manage customer-associated risk better and faster during onboarding. The new tool reduces high acceptance and rejection error rates associated with manual AML customer risk assessment processes.

Fraud prevention expert, SEON has helped B2B buy now, pay later (BNPL) business, Biller, reduce fraudulent transactions by 87% across its platform, while decreasing the company’s manual review times by 93% with its powerful fraud-fighting solution.

OPEN, the world’s fastest-growing digital banking enterprise on Tuesday received a go-ahead from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for its new cross-border payments product. This comes after OPEN completed the test phase of the second cohort under the RBI’s regulatory sandbox structure themed ‘Cross Border Payments’.

GVC Gaesco is reaffirming its commitment to strengthening the digitalisation process of investment services. As such, the Spanish financial group has signed a key partnership with FNZ, a leading global wealth management platform, under its unique platform-as-a-service model, to develop a new digital solution for Investment Services.

New consumer research from Europe’s leading open banking platform, Tink, reveals that over a quarter (28%) of the UK’s self-employed struggle to access the financial services they require, leading many to believe the current system works against them due to their employment status.

Marijke Koninckx, Chief Product Officer at BankiFi, explores how SMEs have been left behind for too long and how technology is helping to put this right for the banks and their customers.

Moneyhub, the market-leading Open Data and payments platform, is partnering with Pennyworth, a financial planning and banking app,   to redesign digital banking for the aspiring-affluent consumer.
 
Pennyworth, which has applied for a UK banking licence, has developed a unique planning tool powered by Moneyhub’s award-winning APIs. The tool uses a combination of Open Banking, Open Finance and machine learning to turn goals into a customised financial plan and track progress against those targets.

Starling Bank today reports its first full year of profitability. The digital bank swung to a pre-tax profit of £32.1 million for the financial year ending 31 March 2022 from a pre-tax loss of £31.5 million for the period to 31 March 2021. Revenue for the same period to 31 March 2022 was £188 million.

Starling’s previous financial year, to 31 March 2021, covered a 16-month period to reflect a change in the timing of the bank’s financial reporting.