●      Included VC is a 9 month Fellowship that enables individuals from backgrounds that are underrepresented in VC to access a comprehensive curriculum, a network of mentors, and opportunities to find investment roles within the industry.

●      Fellows from previous Included VC cohorts, who were actively looking for roles in VC, are now in VC investment roles at firms including Octopus Ventures, Atomico, M12, KAYA VC and Founders Factory.

Muhammad Aurangzeb, President & CEO – HBL (sitting on left) and Andreas Andreades, Executive Chairman – Temenos (sitting on right) signing the agreement. Senior Members from both the organizations were also present at the occasion.     

Temenos, the banking software company, today announces that HBL, Pakistan’s largest bank network is to adopt the Temenos core banking platform to provide domestic and international operations with a cutting-edge banking experience.

1Spatial (SPA) announced a three-year contract worth c $0.8m with the State of Montana for its Next Generation 911 solution. The Montana contract, along with recent large contract wins, the accelerating pace of new business, the transition to a higher-margin SaaS business, increased collaboration among data users and success with the 'Land and Expand' strategy should support a c 6% CAGR through FY23 and improved margins. We remain encouraged by the long-term potential of the geospatial industry and see scope for further acceleration.

Recently, ChainUP, the world's leading blockchain technology service provider, launched the NFT trading platform solution -MetaBazaar software package. The system aims to provide NFT technical infrastructure services for people who love NFT, build a one-stop NFT (non fungible token) trading platform, quickly reduce the industry entry threshold and improve the industry efficiency. MetaBazaar provides transactions of collectibles, artworks, valuables, assets and securities supported by NFT concept and blockchain technology.

Mark Dankworth, President Business Development Africa at Ukheshe, shares his thoughts on how mobile money, cross-border payments and ‘buy now, pay later’ are transforming the financial sector, particularly in emerging markets, for the better.

• Experienced fraud management expert Mike McGirr appointed to Vice President of Compliance at Reach to build and lead a new risk and compliance team
• In line with its ambitious growth targets, the appointment will secure Reach’s global compliance across markets and enable retailers to make the most of cross-border ecommerce opportunities

Over the past two years, the pandemic has placed numerous hurdles in front of companies trying to do business. But even before the Covid crisis began, some departments had to scale obstacles daily to accomplish their tasks. This is most true of the finance department. Accomplishing these vital financial duties - from payroll, to cashflow - is proving more and more complicated as challenges mount on a daily basis. 

 OpenPayd, a leading global payments and banking-as-a-service platform has today announced the appointment of Daniel Belda as its Head of Product Strategy. Belda will define the go-to market approach for OpenPayd’s embedded finance and BaaS product suite, oversee the continuous improvement of its services and build new fintech propositions for its diverse set of clients. 

The UK’s largest coach operator, National Express, has partnered with Clearpay, a leader in “Buy Now, Pay Later” payments known as Afterpay outside the UK and Europe, to offer increased flexibility and choice to customers purchasing tickets.