The DigitalBits blockchain will now be accessible to over 1,200 crypto and digital asset businesses on the Fireblocks Network

DigitalBits Foundation, a leading contributor for DigitalBits, protocol layer blockchain prioritizes security, speed, and cost-savings and focused on supporting consumer digital assets, and Fireblocks, the leading enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets, announced today the completion of the direct integration of the DigitalBits blockchain with Fireblocks. This integration will provide Fireblocks customers with a secure way of accessing the DigitalBits blockchain, as well as the tools they need to build products and services - such as branded cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other digital assets - by leveraging the DigitalBits blockchain.

Daniele Mensi, DigitalBits Foundation Managing Director, comments: “This strategic integration by Fireblocks is a huge milestone within the DigitalBits ecosystem. This unlocks exciting growth opportunities by enabling the connection of the DigitalBits blockchain inclusive of a new category of tokens with global institutions that are embracing digital assets.”

DigitalBits, a blockchain attracting leading organizations and icons, enables enhanced connections for consumers and brands that leverage branded tokens, NFTs, and web3 applications to access richer experiences inclusive of exclusive digital and/or physical products.   This integration is a major milestone for the DigitalBits ecosystem as Fireblocks now offers full multi-token support for assets built on DigitalBits’ blockchain.

“We are excited to launch this new integration of the DigitalBits blockchain on Fireblocks,” said Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks. “Now, our customers can access the DigitalBits blockchain through the Fireblocks platform, and developers can leverage the Fireblocks suite to manage the entire lifecycle of minting, issuing, burning, and managing fungible tokens and NFTs powered by the DigitalBits blockchain. We look forward to building alongside these communities to deliver a better end-user experience for anything that touches digital assets and crypto.” 

Launched in 2019, Fireblocks has become the single largest liquidity network for crypto capital market participants. Fireblocks' infrastructure has also enabled trillions of dollars of new value to flow into the decentralized finance and Web3 markets.

The DigitalBits product ecosystem has experienced significant growth in 2022, including the launch of AstraX, the first web3 mobile built for the DigitalBits blockchain and Mintngo, the new easy-to-use minting platform for fungible and non-fungible tokens. In addition, Hyprr, a web3 social media platform, announced the integration of the DigitalBits blockchain bringing powerful NFT functionality and utility to the ecosystem. More and more, products and applications built on the DigitalBits protocol will provide utility to its members. The activation of Fireblocks within the DigitalBits ecosystem supports the multi-faceted compliance and security needs of enterprises and institutions.

Web 3.0 is an all-encompassing term that covers cryptocurrencies, smart contract computing, decentralised hardware, IoT, Non-Fungible Tokens, DeFi and maybe the most buzzwordy of them all — ‘the Metaverse’. Decentralisation is key to what Web 3.0 is about, along with open source transparency and distributed computing. The impact of this internet economy evolution is an unquestionable future reality. Just look at blockchain based NFTs,
where a recent boom in sales has catapulted the nascent market value to $7 billion, according to JPMorgan.

Blockchain’s potential

The spotlight is growing on distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, along with artificial
intelligence (AI), as we look to the recovery phase of the pandemic.

Priya Guliani is the UK President for Government Blockchain Association (GBA): “The arrival of blockchain technology has brought unprecedented disruption to financial services.
I believe its application can account for far more than just transparent transactions. It can pave the way for a fully democratized financial landscape, providing a more seamless and effective alternative to banking, built around the ideas of fairness and decentralization,
making it possible for individuals to manage their wealth without the middlemen or major institutions themselves.”

We spoke with Lex Sokolin, Global Fintech Co-Head and Head Economist at ConsenSys the Ethereum software company: “Blockchain infrastructure is now being used for meaningful smart contract computation and value transfer and exchange across the economy.”

Of course, caution does remain, with questions around sustainability, regulation, scalability and interoperability, but overall the signs of forward momentum are encouraging.

Digital currency adoption

The rise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology has brought about new possibilities in the use of money as well as exciting new forms of digital assets and markets. Aside from cryptocurrency and stablecoins, central bank issued digital currencies or CBDCs are one of the most interesting innovations in this area. They are seen as expediting and increasing the security of payments between banks, institutions and individuals.

We spoke to Richard Truin, the best-selling fintech author of of “Cashless – China’s Digital Currency Revolution”, who is well placed to observe first hand how CBDCs will take off: “Digital payment is already part of Chinese people’s lives, and revised the status of banks to “dumb pipes” — simple conduits rather than ”revered institutional gatekeepers — a serious cause for concern in the industry.”

“Ready or not, CBDCs are coming. With China and India launching CBDCs a full 37% of the world’s population will have access to CBDCs in the next 3 years. This is a fundamental change of paradigm for which Western banks seem woefully unprepared.

Despite the growing calls for cashless societies, CBDCs aren’t necessarily going to be a replacement for cash just yet. Although the market is far too nascent to confidently predict outcomes, those involved in the payments ecosystem should take steps to position themselves for the inevitable changes on the horizon.

Artificial intelligence in fintech

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning have the potential to advance financial services more than any other emerging technology. With AI companies can better mitigate risk, optimise portfolios, combat financial crime, deliver personalised customer experiences and more. The key strength of AI is that it allows companies to analyse large blocks of data
and make genuinely informed decisions.

Jim Marous, global speaker, podcast host and co-publisher at The Financial Brand: “AI and applied analytics will facilitate customer access to financial tools, advice, and embedded solutions that can improve trust and differentiate a brand by empowering the customer to partner on their financial wellness journey. This level of sharing will also assist in protecting the customers’ privacy and security.”

Eran Stiller Lead Software Architect: “A crucial part of regulating AI will be ensuring that the data used to derive the algorithm is valid. Consequently, I predict that data quality and reliability will be a topic of growing concern with most, if not all, tech companies. Like we test our code, we should test and validate our data and ensure that it behaves as we expect it to”.

Embedded finance’s continued growth

It took a while, but banking without banks is becoming a reality through the phenomenon of embedded finance — also known as contextual finance or banking. Digital natives’ ability to embed financial services into their platforms has accelerated the drift of customers from
incumbents who no longer necessarily know their customers better than the competition.

We spoke with Dr. Efi Pylarinou, the influential global fintech commentator, on the shape of embedded finance: ”It has taken two forms in the market. One through existing financial services providers growing their stack of services via fintech Saas providers.

The other form is non-financial companies now offering financial services. For example, Apple in the US is offering its own credit card, Tesla is offering insurance, and Shopify is offering business banking.”

Bill Gates said in 1994 “Banking is necessary, banks are not.”

Although you cannot actually invest in blockchain because it is a system for storing and processing transactions, its disruptive technology can be used to help investors make money in new ways that were impossible before. This has resulted in new concepts that were coined to explain different points of online trading, including arbitrage trading bots and tokenization of real estate assets.

If you’re interested in online trading and investing and have experience in traditional ways, you will still need to learn the differences between these two types. From understanding how blockchain and cryptocurrencies work to detecting good investing opportunities, you will need to spend some time getting familiar with this new worldand learning the basics.

Online Trading

There are some predictions from experts in the blockchain world that this technology will revolutionize international trade. As a distributed ledger technology, blockchain has the potential to make trading commodities more affordable, transparent, and simpler. We mostly connect blockchain with Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency, however, it can be used in almost every process that involves transactions and data exchange.

One of the popular ways to utilize blockchain is to buy and sell stocks. Actual stocks can easily be tokenized into digital ones, and easily transferred utilizing peer-to-peer transactions. The entire process of digital trading is the same as the conventional one, but instead of using your physical wallet with fiat money, you will use your digital wallet with cryptocurrencies to buy, sell, and trade your stocks.

One of the few things that have been coined with blockchain technology is the arbitrage trading bots, which are used to generate profits from spreads. These types of bots are generally created for people with advanced investing experience to facilitate the entire trading process for them.

Centralized vs Decentralized

When talking strictly about investing, most investors are still using centralized exchanges like Gemini or Coinbase. With centralized vs decentralized exchanges, there are a few key differences you will need to be aware of. Centralized exchanges are regulated, require licenses to operate, and are compliant with the regulatory authorities.

On the other hand, decentralized exchanges are much more complicated to regulate because they are not operated by a central regulatory authority. Decentralized exchanges are run on smart contracts, which enable the exchange to function without these regulatory authorities. Because of that, decentralized exchanges are permissionless, which means that anyone can join without requiring permission from the central authority.

Yield Farming

One of the recent buzzwords in the blockchain world is yield farming, the automated process of utilizing decentralized finance (DeFi) to maximize returns. Yield farming users will lend or borrow crypto on a DeFi platform and then earn cryptocurrency for their services. There is a wide range of tactics yield farmers can employ to increase their yield output, such as constantly shifting their cryptocurrencies between several loan platforms to optimize their gains.

Yield farming allows interested investors to earn yield by putting coins or tokens in DApp or decentralized applications, such as decentralized social media, DEXs, crypto wallets, etc. Most of the time, yield farmers will utilize decentralized exchanges to lend, borrow, or stake their coins to earn interest and then speculate on price changes. Because it is supported by decentralized finance, yield farming also operates on smart contracts, which eliminate the need for the intermediary and allow agreement parties to proceed with their agreement due to the nature of the smart contract.

There are several different types of yield farming that are becoming increasingly popular as more investors are seeing this type of investment as a great opportunity to earn money. They are:

• Liquidity provider: The user will deposit two coins to a decentralized exchange to provide trading liquidity. These exchanges charge a low fee to swap the two tokens paid to liquidity providers, which can also be paid in new liquidity pool (LP) tokens.
• Lending: Those who have coins or tokens can lend their crypto to borrowers via a smart contract and earn yield from the loan interest.
• Borrowing: Yield farmers can utilize one token as collateral and receive another’s loan. This allows users to farm yield with the borrowed coins.
• Staking: Two forms of staking exist currently in the decentralized finance world. The more popular one is on proof-of-stake blockchains, in which users get paid interest to pledge their tokens to the network to show security. The second form is to stake liquidity pool tokens earned from supplying a decentralized exchange with liquidity, which allows users to earn their yield twice.

Token.io Secures $40 Million Investment to Scale Open Banking Payments in Europe​

Open banking payments platform, Token.io, announces it has raised $40 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Cota Capital and TempoCap, with participation by Element Ventures, MissionOG, PostFinance and existing investors Octopus Ventures, Opera Tech Ventures and SBI Investment. Torch Partners advised on the financing. The funding comes from a group of investors with deep expertise in fintech and payments, with track records of backing disruptive payments firms on rapid growth trajectories.

Deserve secures $250 million credit facility from Goldman Sachs, Cross River and Waterfall Asset Man

Deserve, the venture-backed fintech company expanding and powering the real-time credit card economy, announced a new $250 million credit facility with Goldman Sachs, Cross River, and Waterfall Asset Management. With Deserve's digital-first, mobile-centric, and highly configurable credit card platform, the company will use this new funding to meet the growing demand from financial institutions, fintechs, and consumers.

Fintech Company Spades has Successfully Closed a $2.5 Million Angel Round

Spades was founded by Mehdi Chraibi, Adnan Haque, and Sameer Poonja after successful careers building digital products used by millions of users at VISA, Emirates Airline, Oracle, Millicom and Rocket Internet. Their oversubscribed angel round of $2.5M also included prominent European business angels, such as Thibaud Elzière (Founder, Fotolia & eFounders), Eduardo Ronzano (Founder, KelDoc & Managing Partner, Secret Fund), and Yan Hascoet, Othmane Bouhlal, Omar Benmoussa - the Founders of Chauffeur Privé - Kapten (acquired by Free Now), which was closed with early investments from global & regional VCs such as Nordstar and Impact46.

India's AssetPlus Raises $3.6 million

AssetPlus has raised USD 3.6 million. Venture Catalysts, Swaroop “Kittu” Kolluri, Amit Nanavati, Kedar Kulkarni, and other angel investors joined Mr. Bhupinder Singh of InCred and Mr. Nithin Kamath of Rainmatter in this round of fundraising. The Chennai-based fintech intends to use the funds to grow its operations and add new financial products to its platform. AssetPlus, founded in 2018 by Awanish Raj and Vishranth Suresh, focuses on providing digital-first solutions to financial advisors and mutual fund distributors.

Brazil's Dock raises $110m in a Funding Round led by Lightrock and Silver Lake Waterman 

Dock, a leading full-stack payments and digital banking platform across Latin America, announced that it has raised $110 million in growth funding led by Lightrock and Silver Lake Waterman, with participation from existing investors Riverwood Capital, Viking Global Investors and Sunley House Capital, bringing its valuation to over $1.5 billion. The funds will be used to accelerate the company’s product development roadmap and international expansion plans, and to add new talent as Dock taps into the $18.5 billion total addressable market for card processing and banking-as-a-service in the Latin America region.

UK-based Bitfount Raises $5M Seed to Streamline Collaboration Between Organisations Working with Sensitive Datasets

Bitfount, the federated analytics and machine learning platform, announced that it has raised a $5M seed round as it continues to accelerate its product development and expand its engineering and design teams with key hires. The round, led by Ahren and Speedinvest, reflects the growing global demand for machine learning and analytics in every industry, alongside increased public and regulatory awareness of data privacy concerns, and the rise of the data-centric AI movement.

BVNK Raises $40M Series-A Round to Fuel Crypto-powered Payments

BVNK, the crypto-powered payments and banking platform for businesses, has secured USD 40m in Series-A funding to drive growth as it brings traditional finance and crypto together. The investment will fuel BVNK's launch into new markets, including the USA, accelerate its acquisition of regulatory licences, and support the expansion of product capabilities. While traditional payments running on legacy infrastructure suffer from excessive fees and slow processing times, the attributes of cryptocurrencies — digitally-native, offering almost-instant transactions and requiring fewer intermediaries — provide a foundation for more efficient financial services.

Aiven Raises $210M to Invest in Sustainable Open Source Cloud

Aiven, a software company that combines the best open source technologies with cloud infrastructure, announced it raised $210M in its Series D at a pre-money valuation of $3B. The round was led by Eurazeo, and joined by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock as well as existing investors IVP, Atomico, Earlybird, World Innovation Lab and Salesforce Ventures. The company has increased its headcount by more than 65% since October 2021 and aims to use the new funding to continue its international expansion, reaching beyond its newest hubs in Japan, Singapore and New Zealand, to other parts of the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions.

Tumelo Raises $19m in a Series A Round Led by Treasury Venture Fund

Tumelo, a UK startup that helps investment platforms and pension providers give investors insight into which firms their money is being put into, and a voice on issues such as board diversity and climate change, has raised $19 million. The Series A round was led by fintech venture fund Treasury and joined by Legal & General, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, Nucleus Adventure Capital, Lance Uggla, previous CEO of IHS Markit, and Jim Wiandt, founder of ETF.com.

$120 million Series E for Pyramid Analytics

Pyramid Analytics (Pyramid), a pioneering decision intelligence platform provider – next-generation business analytics for the enterprise – announced that it has closed a Series E funding round of $120 million, bringing the company’s total venture capital raise to more than $200 million. The round was led by H.I.G. Growth Partners, the dedicated growth capital investment affiliate of H.I.G. Capital, a leading global alternative investment firm with over $48 billion of equity capital under management1, with the participation of Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings, Kingfisher Capital, and General Oriental Investments. Early investors who participated in this new round are JVP, Maor Investments, Sequoia Capital, and Viola Growth.

Gate.io Leads $10 Million Series A Funding for Stanhope Financial Group to Fuel Growth

Stanhope Financial Group, an Ireland-based global fintech company that provides businesses with a full suite of banking services, has raised in excess of USD 10 million for its Series A funding round. The funding, led by venture capital firm Gate Ventures, will be used to develop the group’s product offerings, strengthen the management team, increase its market share, and prepare for the launch company’s upcoming affiliate digital assets division, SH Digital.

Partnerships 

Buckaroo Partners with SurePay to Offer the Confirmation of Payee Solution to their Netherlands Customers

SurePay, the leading Confirmation of Payee provider, announced that it has partnered with Buckaroo, an established payment service provider for businesses, to offer its Confirmation of Payee solution to their customers in the Netherlands. Confirmation of Payee is a way to give consumers, banks, and companies greater assurance that their payments are being routed to the intended recipient and are not being accidentally or deliberately misdirected. 

Visa and Solarisbank Partner With Fintech FINOM to Launch Italy’s First Business Banking Accounts With Integrated E-voicing

FINOM, a fintech company focused on empowering small firms, freelancers and entrepreneurs across Europe, has launched an innovative new business account in Italy, which combines banking, e-invoicing, and financial management services on a single platform. European bank  Solarisbank is facilitating the fintech firm’s product expansion in Italy, by offering local IBANs to customers, and they will issue the account’s Visa debit cards.

Emerchantpay Partners with APEXX Global to Expand Acquiring Coverage

Emerchantpay, a leading payment service provider and acquirer, has formed a strategic partnership with APEXX Global, a multi-award-winning global payments platform, to expand its acquiring coverage and maximise its merchant growth globally. The partnership will expand APEXX’s current ecosystem by providing access to emerchantpay’s in-house and global merchant acquiring services. Additionally, through the new alliance with emerchantpay, APEXX will leverage over 300 ways to pay domestically and cross-border. This means that APEXX can reach more merchants across a range of verticals and in key international markets.

Cytric by Amadeus is Partnering with AppZen to Deliver AI-driven Expense Audits

AppZen’s AI-powered spending auditing will natively integrate with Cytric Expense delivering new efficiencies for corporations and business travel agencies. Typically, companies only audit up to 10% of their employees’ expenses, due to the vast number of work hours auditing expenses takes.  With this in mind, the value of an AI-powered platform allowing for 100% automation of expenses quickly becomes clear. Amadeus has partnered with AppZen, to offer Cytric Expense customers a seamless expense-auditing experience. 

Verisoft and IDEX Biometrics Have Teamed Together to Speed Up the Deployment of Biometric Smart Cards

IDEX Biometrics ASA announces collaboration with payment software provider Verisoft A.S. for the commercialisation of biometric payment solutions in EMEA and globally. Verisoft delivers end-to-end smart card issuance solutions, ranging from personalization software, digital payment solutions, card management,and loyalty systems across 32 markets, and has delivered EMV solutions to more than 100 banks, working with leading card vendors such as AustriaCard, G+D, IDEMIA, Kona I and TAG Systems.

Monoova and TrueLayer to Launch data-enabled Payments in Australia Using the Consumer Data Right

Monoova, a leading B2B payments solutions provider, and TrueLayer, a global leader in open banking, are partnering to harness financial and identity insights using Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) for smarter, faster, data-enabled payments in the Australian market. The benefits of the combination of CDR data with payments start when onboarding customers and continue through the procure-to-pay process at the time of invoicing, and are especially powerful when setting up recurring payments for regular periodical subscriptions or an ongoing commercial supply arrangement.

ACI Worldwide and NORBr Partner to Help eCommerce Businesses Across the Globe to Drive Revenues

ACI Worldwide, the global leader in mission-critical, real-time payments software, and NORBr, the leading global payment services distributor platform for digital merchants, and leading payment services marketplace for digital merchants announced a partnership. The collaboration allows merchants to connect to ACI’s merchant solutions, including ACI Secure eCommerce, and ACI Fraud Management for Merchants. NORBr connects merchants with certified payments providers, managing and benchmarking all payment services through a single API, for free.

Phrasee Partners with Visa to Offer the Most Advanced AI Marketing Technology to Clients Across Europe

Phrasee, the leader in brand language optimisation, announced an exclusive European partnership with Visa, a world leader in digital payments. The three-year agreement is part of Visa’s strategic investment in its clients, which include Europe’s leading B2B financial services brands. Visa clients will have access to Phrasee’s advanced natural language generation and machine learning technology as part of its reseller programme.

Ingenico and Inspire Payments Partner to Ignite Payments for UK SMEs

Ingenico, a Worldline brand, and Inspire Payments announced a new partnership, equipping the Verastar Group’s company with Ingenico’s market-leading ‘Move’ and ‘Desk’ payment terminals. The deal will mean Ingenico is now the primary supplier of terminals to Inspire Payments, empowering the payments provider to grow its merchant estate and offer tailored payment solutions to the UK’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Launches 

Nordigen Introduces a New No-code Integration for their AIS Solution, Lowering Barriers to Entry

The world’s only freemium open banking platform, Nordigen, has further expanded its services to include a no-code feature, allowing users to access account information services without API integration. With the new no-code feature, companies can go live with AIS in a day. Clients now have the option of a simplified integration method which eliminates the need to write code on the users’ side. Instead, clients can request the no-code solution during registration, and the sales team will assist with a tailored and personalised solution based on their needs and preferences.

Klarna Launches Virtual Shopping, Bringing the In-store Experience to Online Shoppers Everywhere

Klarna, a leading global retail bank, payments, and shopping service today announced the launch of its Virtual Shopping offering, bringing the best of in-store to the online experience. Virtual Shopping by Klarna enables consumers to browse and buy online with confidence by connecting them directly with in-store experts through live chats and video calls to receive product advice and inspiration. For retailers, Virtual Shopping empowers in-store teams to bring their expertise beyond the walls of physical stores to millions of shoppers online.

FintechOS Launches BNPL Offering to Help Traditional Institutions Enter Booming Market

FintechOS, the global leader in high-productivity fintech infrastructure offering to the banking, insurance and retail industries, launched new features that allow traditional institutions to create, customise and roll-out their own Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) product as well as additional embedded lending solutions. With experience helping banks and lenders build digital lending products, including a number of pioneering embedded finance projects in Europe, FintechOS is well placed to empower established financial brands to step outside the box of traditional payments and credit product definitions, and tap into the booming BNPL market.

Wilshire Adds CrossTower, Okcoin and eToroX to its Digital Asset Blended Price Methodology and Launches 25 New Indexes

Wilshire, a global investment technology and advisory company, announced that CrossTower, Okcoin, and eToroX have been promoted from ‘watchlist’ to ‘contributing’ exchanges. Contributing exchanges help facilitate price discovery through the FT Wilshire Digital Asset Index Series which now features 38 blended prices, multi-coin indexes. This increases the number of contributing exchanges that meet Wilshire’s robust standards for institutional quality digital asset indexes from 7 to 10, – Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Coinbase, CrossTower, eToroX, Gemini, itBit, Kraken, LMAX Digital, and Okcoin.

MONET Launches World First Finance Platform for Creators, Powered by Weavr

London-based revenue management Fintech, MONET, announced the beta launch of its revenue-based lending platform with dedicated Creator Business debit cards and accounts for creators, providing infrastructure that is a world-first in its field. The platform is facilitated by embedded finance specialist Weavr, using their technology to provide business banking and payments infrastructure.

Wolters Kluwer Launches OmniVault for Real Estate Finance Technology Solution

Wolters Kluwer Compliance Solutions has launched its OmniVault for Real Estate Finance solution. OmniVault for Real Estate Finance uses the company’s industry-leading, multi-award-winning eVault technology to support digital home equity lending, both HELOCs and home equity loans, in addition to already supported conventional, U.S. government and jumbo first mortgages.

Rillion Launches in United States as it Rebrands from Palette Software

Global SaaS solutions provider Rillion announced its launch in the United States. Formerly Palette Software, Rillion has 3,000 customers and 340,000 users across 50 countries. The solution captures invoice data, processes invoices, matches purchase orders, offers searchable archives, and allows complex approval workflows to boost productivity in finance and accounts payable (AP) departments.

Finastra Managed Services Launches on Amazon Web Services

Finastra announces the launch of Finastra Managed Services (FMS) on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to enable banks and financial institutions to access FMS in the AWS cloud. FMS is available in the AWS cloud has already demonstrated its benefits, helping a large multi-national U.S. bank on the West Coast roll out its lending solution. Users of FMS in the AWS cloud benefit from increased efficiency and scalability, which improves spending and reduces carbon footprint. AWS empowers organizations to modernize their infrastructure, meet rapidly changing customer behaviors and expectations, and drive business growth.

Merger & Acquisition

Checkout.com to Acquire Ubble to Increase Trust and Safety in the Digital Economy

As part of its drive to expand its financial services offering, global cloud-based payments provider Checkout.com announced its intent to acquire digital identity verification (IDV) startup, ubble. The deal—slated to close later this year pending regulatory approval—comes amid the continued growth of online transaction volumes around the world and the concurrent increased risk of fraud and money laundering. It also supports Checkout.com’s mission to enable businesses and their communities to thrive in the digital economy.

Nets Acquires Full Stake in Orderbird

Nets, part of the leading European PayTech Nexi Group, has acquired full ownership of German-based orderbird, a leading provider of integrated POS-software solutions in the hospitality sector in Europe. Nets was a long-standing partner and shareholder in orderbird through its German-based digital payment provider Concardis. The current transaction follows Nets increasing its stake in orderbird in late 2021 and completing this full acquisition further strengthens its merchant services proposition in the hospitality vertical in a region where it already leads through Nets / Concardis merchant services.

Ebury Acquires Bexs and Expands its International Payments Offering in Brazil

Ebury, one of the world's largest fintech companies specializing in international transactions for small and medium-sized enterprises, with operations in 20 countries, today signs an agreement to begin the process of acquiring 100% of the Brazilian fintech Bexs, which includes the businesses Bexs Banco (foreign exchange) and Bexs Pay (payments). The acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, aims to broaden the company's offering of international money transfer solutions for SMEs, as well as to provide digital services to businesses that sell their products online in Brazil, particularly marketplaces, applications, and software companies.

Job Moves

PPRO Names Former SWIFT CEO Lázaro Campos as First Independent Board Chairman

PPRO, the leading provider of digital payments infrastructure, has appointed Lázaro Campos as its first Independent Chairman of the Board in an effort to strengthen its board and governance in the next phase of the company’s growth trajectory. Campos takes over from Tim van Delden, representative and Managing Partner of PPRO shareholder HPE Growth, who served as Chairman of the Board through the last stage of PPRO’s rise. Van Delden is now Vice Chairman of the Board. Campos was officially appointed Chairman on 25 April.

HUB Group Appoints Chief Commercial Officer to Accelerate Digital Investment

Fintech business HUB Group has appointed Rob Hudson into the new role of Chief  Commercial Officer. Rob will start in June and report to Group Chief Executive David Cooper. HUB Group is a part of the FTSE 250 retirement specialist Just Group and provides corporate solutions to some of the biggest UK companies; pension schemes and regulated advice and guidance services to employees and scheme members. HUB Group’s innovative automated advice solution, Destination Retirement, started to be deployed in the worksite earlier this year and will have been installed in over 50 employers during the next few months.

MANGOPAY Appoints Luke Trayfoot as New Chief Revenue Officer to Spearhead Growth and Expansion

MANGOPAY, a major European payment solutions provider for marketplaces and platforms, announced the appointment of Luke Trayfoot as Chief Revenue Officer. In this newly created position, Luke takes on a critical leadership role to help MANGOPAY accelerate its international expansion as well as improve revenue streams for this next phase of growth. The appointment of Luke Trayfoot, who will report to CEO Romain Mazeries, is another step for MANGOPAY in becoming one of the key global payment solutions providers powering the platform economy.

VikingCloud Has Announced New Leadership Appointments

VikingCloud, (formerly Sysnet), a leading provider of cyber security and compliance solutions, has announcedthe addition of two new members to its executive team. Gregory Leos has been appointed Chief Revenue Officer, bringing a wealth of experience in the financial services industry to the company. Based in Chicago, he joins from a six-year tenure with Fiserv, where in addition to leading several vertical sales teams within the Enterprise National Sales group, he was General Manager for the Enterprise Franchise business unit.

SQream Hires a New Chief Operating Officer

SQream Technologies, the leading Peta-scale data analytics platform announced today the appointment of  Naama Saar as Chief Operating Officer, responsible for executing the company’s strategy and vision to become the market leader for solutions that accelerate Peta size data analytics. Naama will lead the product, R&D and delivery teams worldwide to provide a superior customer experience for their partners and customers.

Airwallex Appoints New EMEA General Manager to Double Down on Regional Growth

Airwallex, a global fintech platform, today announced Pranav Sood has joined as its new General Manager, EMEA and will lead the company’s next phase of growth as it continues to expand across the region. Airwallex first established its presence in EMEA in 2019 and has witnessed tremendous growth since, with a regional team of more than 100 people. Continuing with this momentum, Pranav will be responsible for continuing the business’ strong growth trajectory, driving Airwallex’s strategy, growth, operations, product development and talent across EMEA, whilst being a Director Designate of Airwallex (UK) Limited and Airwallex (Netherlands) B.V.

TransUnion Appoints New UK Chief Operating Officer

Laura Barley has been appointed as chief operating officer (COO) for TransUnion in the UK, meaning that its executive team is now an even split of men and women. TransUnion pledged in 2019 that it aimed to achieve gender parity in senior leadership by 2030 in all the regions it operates in. The UK leadership team, which is now 50% female, is a testament to that commitment being put into practice. Having been with the business for over 15 years, Laura has taken on responsibility for all aspects of UK operations. 

DriveWealth's CEO is a Former Visa Crypto and Fintech Executive

Terry Angelos, Visa's global head of crypto and fintech, is quitting the card scheme to join fractional investment trading platform DriveWealth as CEO. DriveWealth’s APIs are utilised by over 100 global fintechs, challenger banks, and digital wallets - such as Block's Cash App and Revolut - to purchase fractional shares of US equities. Angelos is joining DriveWealth following a transformational year for the company, which realised a 100% growth in customers and revenue, 140% growth of its international business, and an over 150% increase in headcount in 2021.

Accelerated Payments Appoints VP of Business Development for North American Operations

SME funding provider Accelerated Payments today announced the appointment of Steven Conrad as Vice President of Business Development for North America.  Conrad brings over 20 years of experience to the role and will be instrumental in managing the regional growth of the company. He will be based out of Toronto. An internationally experienced, multi-disciplined professional, Contrad is a proven leader with career highlights in business development, strategic marketing, finance, audit, HR, communications and change management. He comes into the role with valuable board-level experience and a track record of consistently achieving results in challenging corporate environments.

Visma | Onguard Names Adriaan Kom as New Managing Director

Visma | Onguard, the fintech company that focuses on the order-to-cash process, has appointed Adriaan Kom (41) as Managing Director as of the 1st of June. Kom has been working at Visma | Onguard for one and a half years as Chief Commercial Officer. In his new role, Kom will focus on the further growth of the company as part of Visma. Part of this is to accelerate further innovation in the product portfolio and to make the customer even more central. With the appointment of Kom, Visma | Onguard focuses on being and remaining the stable partner and order-to-cash specialist for its global customer portfolio.

‘’Investors are continuing to wrestling with worries over inflation as the oil price climbs back up again and supply concerns resurface amid ongoing geo-political tensions. As the era of cheap money has hurtled to an end, lowering liquidity in the markets, trading in the sessions ahead is set to stay volatile. On Wall Street the S&P 500 was just a whisker away from a bear market before rebounding and the growls are continuing at the spectre of stagflation hovering over economies. The FTSE 100 is set to open higher with some measure of calm restored after the head of the US Federal Reserve Jerome Powell said that although taming inflation won’t be easy, the central bank saw paths ahead to make that happen.

Brent crude has edged up and is trading just below $109 dollars a barrel as the prospects loom of a European ban on Russian crude while work on a compromise to cater for Hungary’s demand for an exemption continues. Tensions have been pushed up after Russia slapped sanctions on European subsidiaries of state owned Gazprom. For now though a lid is being kept on the oil price by China’s zero-Covid policy and its city wide whack-a-mole approach of using mass lockdowns to quash infection spikes. With little end in sight to these tough restrictions, which have already caused a severe headache for manufacturers in terms of lost production, jitters are continuing about weaker growth and lower demand in the world’s second largest economy. Chinese stocks have been lifted over speculation that The People’s Bank of China will unleash a fresh round of stimulus to help companies keep borrowing costs lower amid worries about the economy losing steam.

For now the crypto wild west is taking a breather after reeling from the crash brought on by the collapse of a so called ‘stablecoin’, which demonstrated that it was anything but what it said on the tin. TerraUSD was designed to trade one on one against the dollar-but instead of being backed by the fiat currency – the reserve was made up of a mish-mash of other volatile coins. The clamour for regulation of stablecoins has become louder after losses mounted up but Bitcoin and Ether have regained some ground, with Bitcoin edging back up above $30,000. Some traders may see the sharp fall this month as an opportunity to buy the dip at a time but, given the hugely volatile nature of the coins, the crypto house of cards could tumble further. This latest plunge in the wheel of fortune demonstrates that speculating in cryptocurrencies is extremely high risk and are not suitable for investors who don’t have money they can afford to lose.’’

• All positions will be based around Mphasis’s ‘hybrid first’ working model where employees define their working location according to business objectives and client requirements 
• "We need to see employees with a human touch, at the moment they are selected we look beyond their technical potential," says Elango R. President, North America-New Clients Acquisition 
• 2021 saw increasing numbers of technology companies from abroad, mainly from the United States and European countries, recruiting tech talent in Mexico. 

Mphasis (BSE: 526299; NSE: MPHASIS), an Information Technology solutions provider specializing in cloud and cognitive services, today announced plans to recruit up to 600 employees for its Guadalajara operations in the coming year. The vacancies – which cover a range of functions from application development and infrastructure management (including telecoms and networking), to end user and help desk support – reflect an increasing attraction of Mexico as a global technology hub. 

Elango R., President, North America-New Clients Acquisition, explains that the roles will support a number of international clients– in particular, in the US – looking for a genuinely global level of client service and support. 

“These are front-line roles.  Our clients entrust a huge responsibility on us to provide advice and support, often direct to their customers.  So – in addition to technical competency – we are looking for professionals who are prepared to engage on a personal level and go the extra mile to ensure a great customer experience.  This commitment is what we call the ‘human touch’; even (or especially) in an extremely hi-tech environment, it really can make the difference.” 

According to research from recruitment specialists, Robert Walters last year saw businesses from the US and Europe pivot towards Mexico to recruit technology talent, with developers across mobile, data and cyber security topping their requirements.   

Elango describes Mexico not only as a compelling source of talent, but a place to develop and build a career. 

“All our positions are ‘international’ by nature; we are looking for professionals with a solid level of English, who are open to working with different cultures, and who are committed to building a career here in Mexico.  The ‘traditional’ career path of migrating to the US, for instance, to ensure ‘visibility’ and rapid promotion is no longer the only option. Today, roles in growth markets such as Mexico also represent an extremely compelling career option for the long term,” he said. 

Mphasis has recently announced a commitment to a ‘hybrid first’ working model in Mexico: ‘work from anywhere, collaborate in the office’.  According to the company, today, employees themselves are in the best position to decide where and how they work, to best service their clients and achieve the company’s objectives.   

“Hybrid first reflects a deeper trend towards employee wellbeing; better, more flexible working environments tend to lead to happier, more productive teams.  This ‘virtuous cycle’ represents a key competitive distinction when we are recruiting and building teams. It also represents a compelling differentiator when we are recruiting talent.”  

Elango points out that in the case of tech profiles, qualities such as adaptability to change, resilience and the ability to face VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) environments - where uncertainty permeates - are increasingly as important as technical credentials. 

"Employees are our greatest strength. We are committed to attracting, nurturing and retaining employees with diverse skills, experiences and backgrounds in Mexico. In essence, high trust, hi-tech, and high touch, is the combination that we – and our clients – are looking for," concludes Elango R.