The British Business Bank’s third annual Nations and Regions Tracker, published today, finds the use of external finance among smaller businesses is showing signs of recovery in early 2023, after a decline in most UK Nations and regions in 2022. 

Use of external finance declined in 2022, but was picking up again in the first half of 2023

More than a third of firms in emerging finance sectors admit that they have been a victim of financial crime – including money laundering, in the last six months, new data from a cross-sector survey can reveal.

It should come as no surprise though as the same survey found that less than a quarter of firms complete the necessary checks, required by regulators to verify the identity of new individual customers. 

ieDigital, a leader in digital banking software in the UK, has today announced it has acquired Connect FSS, the US-based digital banking Software as a Service (SaaS) technology provider.

New research from independent SME funder, Bibby Financial Services (BFS), highlights a significant threat to the UK economy as banks appear to be retreating from lending to small businesses.

ITRS, leading provider of real-time estate monitoring and analytics software to global financial institutions, has announced a new partnership with GCI Consulting, the worldwide Temenos implementation leaders, to provide monitoring systems to its users.

Mastercard today announced that it has successfully demonstrated capabilities of a new solution that enables CBDCs to be tokenised (or “wrapped”) onto different blockchains, providing consumers with a new option to participate in commerce across multiple blockchains with increased security and ease.

FBS, a leading global broker, received the Best Islamic Forex Account award from the Forex Expo Dubai. Excellence in this nomination recognizes FBS’s commitment to improving people's access to financial markets and inclusion in trading.

LUNA, an Indonesian embedded fintech and vertical SaaS platform for retailers and MSMEs, today announced the completion of a round of financing led by TNB Aura through its TNBA Scout initiative, with participation from Seedstars as well as existing investors 1982 Ventures, Century Oak Capital, and Prasetia Dwidharma. 

Matic, a leading embedded insurtech platform, announced it raised $20 million as an extension to its Series B. The round includes $17 million in Series B equity co-led by IA Capital Group and Cultivation Capital with participation from existing investors and the majority led by new investors, including Intuit Ventures, TruStage Ventures, and Assurity Ventures. Concurrently, Matic upsized its credit facility by $3 million, bringing new liquidity to $20 million.

Starting on October 10th, the ARB token is available through Bitso —the leading financial services company powered by crypto in Latin America— as part of a collaboration with Arbitrum that also includes the integration of this network into the platform to increase the efficiency and performance of Ethereum network.