Zand, UAE’s first digital bank to provide both retail and corporate services, announced that it has been granted a banking licence from the Central Bank of UAE to become Zand Bank.

The digital bank is now authorised and regulated to operate as a fully independent commercial lender.

Revolut, the super-app with over 18 million retail customers globally and more than 500,000 corporate clients, is launching Revolut Reader in the UK and Ireland. A fast and powerful lightweight card reader, the new product is designed to allow merchants of all kinds to accept payments anywhere, whether their business is in-person or on the go. The launch marks Revolut’s move into in-person payments, as the super app continues to diversify its offering for business customers.

The finance department has been leading the charge for enterprise analytics for over a decade. What started as reactive, descriptive analytics relating to financial performance, inventory management and treasury holdings has now evolved to more predictive and prescriptive analytics that support risk, credit and financial business modelling.

Infinigate Group, the pan-European value-added distributor (VAD) of Cyber Security solutions today announced the intended acquisition of Nuvias Group’s Cyber Security and Secure Networking business to create a pan-European Cyber Security powerhouse. The merging of the two highly successful businesses establishes Infinigate’s place as a leading VAD focused on Cyber Security in Europe with an anticipated 1.4 billion Euro in revenue. Subject to regulatory approval, closing is expected in the fourth quarter. 

Elisa Polystar acquires Cardinality Ltd, a UK-based supplier of cloud-native data management (DataOps), service assurance and customer experience analytics for communications service providers (CSPs) globally.

Pismo, one of the world’s fastest-growing banking and payments Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firms, announces Ross Larter as its new Engineering Director. Based in Bristol, UK, Larter will be responsible for structuring the technical team, expanding the company’s solutions, and supporting processes related to Pismo’s globalisation strategy.

The Lithuanian fraud prevention and digital identity verification startup, iDenfy, partnered with Backed, a platform that allows users to speculate on the future of private companies. iDenfy will provide Backed with remote identity verification services to ensure a smooth and frictionless onboarding process. 

Although IT resiliency has long been a common theme and practice for financial institutions, the rapid digitalisation of financial services is underscoring its importance.

IDnow Group, a European leader in identity verification and digital identity, appoints Jean-Marc Guyot as Vice-President of Research and Development (R&D). His main responsibility will be the further unification and development of one joint platform for the European market. 

Sentinels, a Fenergo company and Europe’s leading intelligent transaction monitoring platform, has appointed Adrian Jenkins as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), aiding the company’s expansion in the UK – a dominant global financial hub and a hotbed for fintech innovation.