Starling Bank is starting the new year with a trio of significant achievements. The digital bank tops the Current Account Switch Service (CASS) leaderboard, is named Britain’s best current account by Finder.com, and makes the top ten in its debut entry to the UK Customer Service Index.

ECOMMPAY, a leading international payment service provider and direct bank card acquirer with its own fintech system, has hired Moshe Winegarten as its Chief Revenue Officer. The appointment comes as the fintech leader prepares to tackle the main challenges for merchants this year through continued innovation in payment technologies and solutions and integration with strategic, third-party vendors. 

DailyPay, a leading financial technology company, today announced it has secured $260 million of capital to fuel growth domestically, expand internationally and further invest in product innovation. The funding is divided between revolving credit facility capacity provided by Barclays and Angelo Gordon, and new term loan funding from SVB Capital and a fund managed by Neuberger Berman.

In 2016, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states signed the Value Added Tax (VAT) agreement paving way for the introduction of the general levy on consumption across the region. The United Arabs Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia became the first member states to adopt the treaty in 2018, and its implementation meant that for the first time businesses in these territories were required to file VAT returns periodically.

PayEm, which offers spend and procurement management services, has raised $220m in a mix of equity and credit financing.

The funds were supplied by Viola Credit, Mitsubishi Financial Group, Collaborative Fund and others.

With this fresh equity, PayEm plans to scale its credit cards operation and support larger customers with its payments platform. Funds will also support the continued development of the platform.

Revolut is to roll out a new super-premium membership plan targeting ambitious, affluent individuals interested in a luxury lifestyle.

The new top-tier plan, Ultra, offers users free lounge access at 1200 airports, cashback, and low fees on Revolut investment products. Coming in the Spring, Revolut is inviting new and existing customers to join a waitlist to unlock 5% cashback on purchases made in their first month with Ultra.

Halifax has launched a suite of digital accessibility tools on halifax.co.uk to provide an even more inclusive experience for customers on their website. 

14.1 million people in the UK live with some form of disability and often face barriers when using the internet.  

Form3, the cloud-native account-to-account platform, today announces that it is sponsoring the Payment Association’s Project Financial Crime Working Group this year, to address the challenges of tackling increasing levels of digital and financial crime in the UK.

Going into 2023, we expect to see continued difficulties for businesses, but hopefully less severe than in 2022 as inflation reduces and central bank tightening eases. With businesses now adjusted to the pound’s lower level, they should better understand how to mitigate market volatility. 

We highlight three predictions that businesses should watch out for in 2023.

Appreciation in high-risk currencies 

A majority of financial services firms now view digital transformation as essential to their business and are already looking to the next wave of technology to help get ahead, according to a new report by Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. In the 2023 Digital Transformation and Next-Gen Tech study of 500 C-suite executives and their direct reports across the buy side and sell side globally, 71% said artificial intelligence (AI) is now significantly changing the way they work, and 60% agree that within t