The Protection of Public Information Act (PoPIA) came into force in July last year. The Information Regulator, who oversees all PoPIA compliance in South Africa, gave organisations a 12-month grace period to get everything in order and implement the measures required to comply with the act. Yet nearly a year later, many have yet to get started on their compliance journey and feel overwhelmed at the prospect.

Netherlands-based white-label payment orchestration platform Akurateco is announcing a launch of the free fintech meetings season.

The company aims to help business owners to get acquainted with the leading payment technologies that can boost their e-commerce.

Fintech meetings are scheduled as follows: 

Companies are trying to expand their operations. However, it is impossible to achieve ambitious goals without money. Hopefully, Layer-1 blockchain developer Aptos Labs was able to find investors.

It has closed a $150 million funding round to further its ambitions in the Web3 space, further highlighting venture capital’s appetite for budding crypto-focused startups.

Cardless, a financial technology firm, today announced a new agreement with American Express. The agreement empowers some of the country’s most celebrated brands – including travel providers and retailers – to seamlessly launch digital-first cards leveraging the Cardless platform, backed by the benefits, offers, and security of the American Express network.

Crassula, a Cloud Banking SaaS software platform, joins hands with Salt Edge, a leader in offering open banking solutions, to help banks, EMIs, and fintechs launch advanced PSD2 and open banking solutions in the UK and EU.

Balance, the leader in B2B marketplace and eCommerce payments, today announced a $56 million Series B fundraise, bringing the company’s total funding to $87M. The round was led by Forerunner Ventures with support from Salesforce Ventures, Hubspot Ventures, Lyra Ventures, and Gramercy Ventures.

Atato, a digital asset company, has raised $6m from a Series A funding round headed by AlphaLab Capital and FEBE Ventures.

Also taking part in the round were Babel Finance, NFT1, Wing Vasiksiri, January Capital, NGC Metaverse Ventures, Huashan Capital, Tom Trowbridge and SOSV. Angel investors such as Dan Bertoli also took part.

Revolv3 announces that Rosecliff Ventures and an angel investor have invested $4.5 Million USD in seed money in the recurring billing solutions company.

B9 Inc, a fast-growing payroll solution platform, aimed at promoting creditworthiness through employment data and economic behaviour, has announced a $2.6M funding round led by Sky Light Invest with participation from prominent FinTech investors Mbanq and the founders of Wrike, a project management application.

Lloyds Banking Group has identified another 66 branches for closure over the next few months.