This is the first time Zopa bank turns a profit, making it one of the fastest digital banks to achieve profitability ever.

We expect to remain profitable from this point onwards, continuing our accelerated growth.

The news will be announced later today from the Innovate Finance Global Summit by Zopa’s CEO Jaidev Janardana.

More context and some figures:

• The past year has been a highly successful one for Zopa bank as we’ve exceeded our targets across new and existing products and raised $300 million led by Softbank to fuel our accelerated growth

• Since launching our bank in 2020 we have attracted £1 billion in deposits, more than £1 billion of loans on balance sheet, issued circa 250,000+ credit cards becoming a top 5 credit card issuer in the UK, and tripled (3x) our revenue per customer 

• Our Fixed Term Savings account alone amassed £1 billion in customer savings in 18 months topping the tables 15 times, offering great value and an intuitive digital experience

• In February we launched the Smart Saver, a “hybrid” savings account (easy access / notice) to help young users at the beginning of the saving journeys better save in a post-pandemic world – it attracted 10k customers and £8m deposits in less than a month

• Looking ahead, we anticipate closing 2022 with a balance sheet of £2bn and again more than doubling our revenues

• Zopa will launch a fully regulated Zopa BNPL product in the fall, targeting big-ticket items

Jaidev Janardana, CEO at Zopa bank said: “The past year has been a highly successful one for Zopa as we’ve exceeded our targets across new and existing products and raised $300 million led by Softbank to fuel our accelerated growth. Hitting profitability in just 21 months is a testament to our unique model that meets customer needs by focusing on how they borrow and save - the two things with the most impact on finances. Today’s news makes Zopa one of the fastest digital banks to achieve profitability ever and reinforces our thesis on the importance of sustainable growth as a catalyst for accelerated product and market expansion.”

Consumers Credit Union (CCU; $3.0 billion) recently purchased a building in Lake Forest, IL to serve as the credit union’s new corporate headquarters. Located in the prestigious Conway Park office park, CCU’s new headquarters will provide the fast-growing organization with the space, infrastructure and a centralized location that will better enable its nearly 500 employees to continue to collaborate and innovate to meet the evolving financial needs of over 191,000 members.

“CCU continues to grow at an incredible pace and we currently have employees across the northwest Chicagoland area, with two main employee hubs in Gurnee and Schaumburg,” said Sean Rathjen, CEO of Consumers Credit Union. “To keep pace with our growth trajectory and create one centralized location, the time was right to find a new headquarters building. We are thrilled to purchase a facility that’s not only able to house all of our current home office employees and provide us with ample room to grow but can also serve as a dynamic workplace destination for all of us as we move forward with our return to office plan.”

With 3 floors and a furnished basement floor offering over 140,000 square feet of usable office space, CCU’s new headquarters offers nearly double the amount of square footage of the organization’s current Gurnee and Schaumburg locations combined. In the coming months, CCU plans to build out infrastructure and make modifications to the building’s interior with the goal of having employees moving in during the first quarter of 2023.

• €15M seed funding co-led by Lakestar and Lightspeed, with participation from Creandum and System.one, as well as angel investors from companies including N26, Public.com, sennder, Taxfix, Finoa and Stripe
• lemon.markets to launch its industry-disrupting stock trading API in Germany, with further markets to follow
• The fresh capital will be used to continue driving product development and growing its team, particularly building its regulatory expertise 

lemon.markets, a financial technology company offering an easy-to-use API for stock trading, today announced €15M in seed financing to launch its pioneering brokerage platform for developers and tech companies. Co-led by leading investment firms Lakestar and Lightspeed, with participation from Creandum and System.one, it is one of the largest seed funding rounds in Europe. Angel investors in the round include operators from N26, Public.com, sennder, Taxfix, Finoa and Stripe. The financing signals lemon.markets’ strong trajectory on its path to facilitate brokerage services across Europe.

lemon.markets will use the funding to accelerate its product development, extending its usage to businesses that wish to integrate stock trading into their services. Seizing the opportunity in embedded finance, the company will focus on bringing great talent onboard the already rapidly growing team. It will especially focus on strengthening its in-house regulatory knowledge as it scales and enhances its offering.

Stock trading is becoming an indispensable part of today’s world. The increased demand for financial freedom, low interest rates and shifts in equity culture, are encouraging companies to incorporate brokerage services into their offering. Eventually, brokerage services will be inescapable, with every major tech company providing their customers the means to participate in the stock market. However, the technology and infrastructure needed to build and integrate these brokerage services is nascent in Europe. A stable and reliable trading API, designed specifically for developers, is noticeably absent in the market. 

That’s why lemon.markets presents itself as an API-first company, offering a stock trading API geared towards developers. As retail investing becomes widespread, more and more people are looking for tailored solutions, creating a demand for infrastructure that enables personalised portfolio trackers, trading automations, custom saving plans, and the vision doesn’t stop there. lemon.markets will be the go-to choice for developers wishing to launch these projects to a wider non-technical audience. 

Quickly becoming the leading brokerage-as-a-service provider in Europe, lemon.markets’ vision is to expand across the continent and provide the rails for any European to invest. The use-cases for its API are endless: from empowering every neobank to offer stock trading as a convenient feature to reinvesting tax refunds to automatically investing the roundup of payments. lemon.markets believes we won’t be seeing the endgame of retail investing anytime soon.

Since its inception, lemon.markets has been deeply rooted within a strong community of developers and intensively collaborates on creating new use-cases with them. lemon.markets’ features are co-designed by its users, including software development kits (SDKs) that wrap around the company’s API. Users have been executing trades in closed alpha, helping to shape the product before its full commercial launch in Q2 2022. Leveraging lemon.markets’ strong footprint in the developer community provides a systematic approach for the company to become the go-to-partner for businesses in launching a stock trading product. This allows lemon.markets to build exactly what developers need to reshape what brokerage is, one line of code at a time.

“European brokerage is ripe for disruption. We strongly believe that every tech company should be able to embed financial services into their offering and lemon.markets wants to facilitate that. The demand is already there. Our infrastructure solution takes care of all the plumbing, so developers in these companies can dedicate their focus on creating value for users. We can’t wait to see the many different ways our API will be applied,” says Co-founder and CEO, Max Linden.

“lemon.markets is providing tech companies the technical and regulatory infrastructure to integrate brokerage in their products - all through a single API. With companies facing increasing regulatory, compliance and structural hurdles, lemon.markets abstracts these complexities away for their customers through technology. The current technical infrastructure that makes up our world of finance is being rebuilt entirely,” says Lakestar Partner Nicolas Brand.

"We're thrilled to be backing the lemon.markets team as their product and mission fits squarely within our thesis of embedded finance." says Justin Overdorff, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. "lemon.markets bottom-up developer focused go-to-market strategy allows it to partner with the very best developers and companies building innovative and best in class products in the brokerage and securities trading space. An important part of their offering will be to scale those infrastructure products throughout Europe, setting the foundations for the next era of financial services across the continent."

“Max and the lemon.markets team are creating the next generation of fintech: laying the infrastructure that will power the next generation of equity trading products, and enriching existing products with equity investing capabilities. Their API first product is leading the charge in making brokerage universally accessible and adaptable. Seeing Max thrive over the last months strengthened our belief to back lemon.markets in this round.” says Creandum General Partner Simon Schmincke.

Global study finds 18% of UK adults own cryptocurrency, with nearly half (45%) investing for the first time in 2021

Almost one in five (18%) UK adults own cryptocurrency, according to new research from cryptocurrency platform Gemini. The 2022 Global State of Crypto Report suggests crypto adoption has accelerated rapidly in the last twelve months, with nearly half (45%) of these investors first buying in the past year. Over a third (35%) of UK cryptocurrency investors are female.

The data reveals the UK’s crypto ownership is similar to major European markets, such as Ireland (18%) and Germany (17%), and in line with developed nations including Australia and the US, where 18% and 20%, respectively, have bought crypto. Compared globally, Europe is more conservative, with the highest crypto ownership in Brazil (41%), Indonesia (41%) and the United Arab Emirates (35%).

UK consumers are crypto curious, with 49% of UK respondents who do not currently own crypto saying they are interested in learning more or likely to buy it in the next 12 months. Of those identified as ‘crypto curious,’ the majority (55%) are women.

Other key highlights of the report:

The average age of investors is 36, with 62% of investors aged 25-44.

• Crypto ownership is highest in London (23%), followed by the North West (12%), South East (11%) and East Anglia (11%).
• Investing for the long-term. Four in five (80%) buy and hold crypto for long-term gains, versus 40% who are actively trading crypto to make a profit. Other European countries such as France and Germany are less likely to hold for the long term (75% and 79% respectively) and more likely to actively trade (47% and 47% respectively).
• Reasons to invest. Half (52%) of UK investors believe crypto is a good way to diversify assets, lagging investors in countries such as Brazil (81%), India (71%), France (60%) and the US (55%).
• Mostly Bitcoin. The most commonly owned currencies by UK investors are Bitcoin (69%) followed by Ethereum (33%).

Blair Halliday, Head of UK at Gemini, said, “Last year was transformational for cryptocurrency ownership, with significant growth in UK adoption. A high proportion of UK investors see crypto as a long-term store of value, suggesting more people are recognising crypto’s part to play in a diversified investment portfolio. There is a huge opportunity to support those who expressed interest in learning more, and Gemini is focused on providing simple tools and high quality education to enable the curious consumers to start their journey.”

Azentio Software, a Singapore-headquartered technology firm owned by funds advised by Apax Partners, has been included in the reports Now Tech: Digital Banking Processing Platforms (Retail Banking), Q1 2022 and Now Tech: Digital Banking Processing Platforms (Corporate Banking), Q1 2022, published by leading research and advisory firm Forrester.

The Now Tech reports delve into the value offered by digital banking processing platform (DBPP) providers. Forrester defines a DBPP as “a comprehensive but modular / componentized set of banking applications designed to cover areas such as retail or corporate banking. Further, DBPPs comprise core banking functions and support processes in near real-time, provide insightful information, allow rapid product development, and expose their business capabilities via APIs.”

In both reports, Azentio’s Kastle™ Digital Banking Suite is included in the international incumbent functionality segment, which is described as offering broad business capabilities. The solution’s geographic presence by revenue is stated as Middle East (62%), Asia Pacific (26%), and Africa (12%), while the vertical market focus by revenue is on retail banking, business banking, corporate banking, and other banking sub-verticals.

Tony Kinnear, Chief Executive Officer of Azentio, stated, “It is pleasing for Azentio to be acknowledged by Forrester. We believe this validates the value we consistently provide to our BFS clients, whether in process enhancement, customer satisfaction or revenue generation, through our innovative and market-focused technology solutions.” 

Azentio has been in the forefront in helping BFS businesses redefine themselves by providing a comprehensive suite of solutions for Core Banking, Lending, Treasury, Risk Management, AML, Compliance, Asset Management and Islamic Banking. The company has over 900 clients across 65 countries and holds a leading position in the Middle East & Africa.

Mollie and WooCommerce build long term partnership to grow global footprint together

Mollie, one of the fastest-growing payment service providers in Europe, today announced the launch of Mollie Payments for WooCommerce in the UK. The plug-in offers UK SMEs with a WooCommerce webshop a seamless way to support both domestic and European payments. Mollie and WooCommerce, one of the world’s most popular open-source ecommerce solutions, already work closely together in other European countries and are now engaging in a long term partnership to grow their global footprint together. 

Mollie Payments for WooCommerce provides customers with critical success factors - it’s easy to install, easy to use, and supports businesses with UK and global payment methods such as debit and credit cards, PayPal and Apple Pay as well as more than 20 local payment methods including iDEAL, Sofort and Bancontact. All of which can be easily toggled on and off in the Mollie dashboard.

British ecommerce SMEs expanding into Europe risk making a major misstep if they can’t accept the payment types European customers favour. Mollie can support them with market knowledge, local payment methods, and key local integrations, such as bookkeeping software. The fully bespoke checkout system supports effortless payments, helping users increase conversion rates.

"WooCommerce research shows that 56% of UK merchants have added multiple or new payment gateways to offer their customers more options and better checkout experiences,” said Keala Gaines, General Manager Payments at WooCommerce. “Sellers should be implementing the preferred payment methods in the countries they're hoping to gain traction in. WooCommerce merchants love Mollie’s simple integration, international options, and hyper-localization.”

Mollie’s personalised dashboard allows access to real-time data and insights at any time, with flexible pay-outs to ensure businesses keep a healthy cash flow. The WooCommerce plug-in is already available to Mollie’s Dutch, French, and German customers.

Paul Falla, Co-Owner at UK heritage brand and launching customer of Mollie Payments for WooCommerce, Ernest Wright says, “I’m a fan of Mollie’s human style of customer service. On the one hand, Mollie is top-notch and modern, but it also has a personal touch. And the personal touches for me are much more important than the last penny. Although I want the last penny as well, of course — but solving the customer’s problem is more important.”

“We’re delighted to engage in a long term partnership with WooCommerce and grow our footprint together,” said Ken Serdons, Chief Commercial Officer at Mollie. “We’re supporting an increasing number of UK businesses with their domestic payments, in addition to helping them succeed cross-border in this post-Brexit world. Mollie’s ethos is to deliver the easiest online payments for our customers and through our partners. We look forward to continuing to deliver high conversions to allow ecommerce businesses to stay focused without having to worry about the payments side of things.” 

• The funding round was led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, existing investors plus new investor Polar Capital, and brings total funds raised by the digital wealth manager to £95 million
• Founded in 2016, Moneybox supports a community of more than 800k customers as AUA grows >100% YOY
• Moneybox also announces a second crowdfunding campaign, to enable customers to share and shape its future success

Moneybox, the award-winning digital wealth manager, has secured £35m in a Series D funding round, led by Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, a dedicated venture capital team at Fidelity International, alongside existing investors as well as new investors Polar Capital. The investment brings the total amount of funds raised to date, to £95.1 million.

Moneybox is on a mission to help people build wealth with confidence and provides a range of products and services across saving, investing, home-buying, and retirement, all within one easy-to-use app, supported by award-winning technology and customer support.

The funds will help build the Moneybox brand, grow its customer base, introduce financial planning services and launch an enhanced investing proposition focused on long-term wealth generation.

Since its launch in 2016, Moneybox has seen exponential growth. The platform currently supports 800k+ customers and has more than £2.9bn^[1] in assets under administration, growing by more than >100% YOY.  Since its Series C fundraise in July 2020, AUA has more than tripled (+356%),  AUA per customer has increased by 107%, and revenue has grown by 340%.

In this time, the team has also doubled to c.300 people. A number of notable appointments have been made to bolster its leadership team including Laurel Powers-Freeling as Chair of the Board, Karen Kerrigan, formerly COO at Seedr, Cecilia Mourain, MD Moneybox Home-buying and Caroline Murphree, formerly Europe CEO at Wealthsimple, who will join next month.

Ben Stanway, co-founder of Moneybox, said: “Our mission is to help people build wealth with confidence so they can enjoy life today and tomorrow. This new round of investment enables us to create even better services to help our customers succeed across their home-buying, retirement, savings and investing missions. By continuing to focus on the large and under-served mass market we believe we are on a path to create the UK’s category-defining wealth platform. We celebrate this moment with deep gratitude for our amazing team, our loyal customers, and our supportive investors.”

Alokik Advani, Managing Partner, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures: “We were proud to lead the Series D funding round and this new investment is testament to the confidence of those closest to the Moneybox business. Since our first investment in the Series B funding round, we have been extremely pleased with the company’s execution, clear revenue model, product innovation, and diversification. Moneybox is at a significant inflection point in its journey and this next chapter of growth will see them introduce new unique investment solutions helping to support millions as they save for the future.”

Laurel Powers-Freeling, Moneybox Chair, commented: “Without doubt, it’s a very different market right now than even 1 or 2 years ago and it has perhaps never been more important that consumers are supported to make positive financial decisions that can help them build wealth over their lifetime. Moneybox has the potential to lead a revolution in how everyone engages with their financial lives and their opportunity to build wealth for their future. The comprehensive product range is designed to help people succeed over the long term, offering the tools and information they need to confidently save and invest toward what matters to them in life. With 5* rated services, one of the highest NPSs in the industry, and a 95% customer retention rate, Moneybox is primed to reach exciting new heights in the years to come. Through their increased support, our investors have shown their deep commitment and belief in what Moneybox can achieve as we move to our next phase of growth.”

Following the success of the first crowdfunding campaign in 2020, which welcomed 16,500 customer shareholders in less than 48hours, in early May 2022, Moneybox will once again offer its community the opportunity to share in its exciting growth journey alongside existing professional investors.

Pre-registration for the crowdfund will be announced in the coming weeks on the Moneybox website, social media channels, and the Crowdcube website.

Australian merchants will have access to some of the world’s most advanced payment solutions thanks to the partnership between Worldline and ANZ

ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions announces its launch in Australia– a joint venture between ANZ and global payments services leader Worldline. Australian merchants will have access to some of the world’s most advanced payment solutions, proven internationally and adapted to meet the unique requirements of the Australian market.

Worldline is the technology partner of choice for merchants, banks and acquirers across more than 50 countries, with decades of experience in domestic and international payment systems.

Headquartered in Melbourne, ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions is the first partnership in Australia between a big four bank and a specialist payments provider, with Worldline holding a 51 per cent stake in the local entity, and ANZ a 49 per cent share.

From 1 April, ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions began delivering services to ANZ's merchant customers. The company has solutions for small businesses through to large enterprises across all segments including retail, hospitality and fuel, which will also be available to all Australian merchants who want to offer better consumer experiences.

Vincent Roland, Managing Director Merchant Services, Worldline, said the company’s ambition is to bring together Worldline's global scale and payments expertise with ANZ's deep local knowledge and financial services leadership.

“Australians have always been early adopters of new technologies such as contactless payment and digital wallets. Australia is number four globally for payment terminals per capita, and the local eCommerce market – thanks largely to COVID – is tipped to get close to AU$100 billion by 2025,” he said.

He said Australia's strong economic outlook and rising consumer confidence is a promising foundation for merchants who are well-placed to capitalise on Australia's post-COVID recovery.

“It is vital that businesses have the tools to respond to the accelerating take-up of digital payments technology and the rebounding economy. While mass transaction technology calls for economies of scale, the uniqueness of each business must not be underestimated.

“For small business, that means making it easier and faster to accept payments by using their customers' preferred payment method. For large institutions and businesses, it's about understanding the entire consumer journey, having insight through data at your fingertips and being able to layer-on value-adding solutions like loyalty programs,” he said. 

Petr Ryska, CEO, ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions, said the new company is planning significant investment in its local offering to deliver innovative, world-leading products to the Australian market.

"In 2021, Worldline spent the equivalent of c.AU$380^[1] million globally in research and development. ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions will invest a further $22.4 million in Australia to localise our platform, ensuring we meet the unique requirements of Australian merchants and comply with the various regulatory requirements", he said.

Later this year, a number of existing ANZ customers will be invited to participate in product pilots for new ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions technology. In a second phase commencing early 2023, the company will launch its new product suite for all Australian merchants, including:

• Omnichannel – a solution for the mid-market that facilitates contemporary user journeys that have become the mainstay of large enterprises. It enables consumers to seamlessly transition between online and in-store touchpoints within a single purchase, while a single integrated back-office solution ensures operational efficiency and deep customer insight for the merchant.

• YUMi – offers a whole new world of tailored and customisable customer interactions at the point of sale and beyond.  It includes self-checkouts, buy now pay later (BNPL) and loyalty schemes, all through an award-winning, revolving design. 

• Worldline Mobile Pay – an application that enables merchants to turn selected Android smartphones or tablets into a payments terminal to accept immediate payments from customers. With no additional device required, customers simply tap their payment method directly to the phone.

Mr Ryska said ANZ Worldline Payments Solutions’ new product suite will help all its merchant customers improve their customers’ shopping experience, boosting loyalty and efficiency at the same time.

“For large enterprises, it means better customer journeys – a seamless, consistent, and straightforward shopping experience whether online, in-store, or on the go. For a tradesperson, you can get paid wherever you are. Payments will be processed on the spot with a mobile device. For a café owner, it means a better and tailored experience for customers who can split bills, run a bar tab, and easily tip staff,” he said.

ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions will be headquartered in Melbourne. Its operations will ultimately support more than 350 Melbourne-based roles across the joint venture and Worldline’s support services, including 185 newly created roles and 169 roles transferring from ANZ’s local operations. It will also support additional roles in Sydney and Brisbane.

Summary:  Bytes, a two-day virtual mega-scale summit, focused on Big Data Analytics will shed light on Southeast Asia’s market dynamics and requirements, all the while facilitating collaboration between the seeking organizations and the top technology providers from the industry.

With ASEAN's digital economy projected to hit $1 trillion by 2030, Big Data Analytics has emerged as the fastest-growing market in the region. Amidst increasing digitization in Southeast Asia and its flourishing IT industry, the region is generating colossal volumes of data, thereby breeding a multi-billion-dollar Big Data Analytics industry.

Taking heed of these unprecedented developments and post-receiving phenomenal success in Africa, Tradepass is thrilled to host its flagship Big Data Analytics Summit, BYTES, in ASEAN virtually on 12 – 13 April 2022.

The summit will attract 1000+ Big Data Analytics professionals from the leading public and private organizations across ASEAN, along with 20+ best-in-class global solution providers and 30+ top speakers from the industry who will share the latest developments, case studies, and use cases, best practices, and many more.

In a statement issued, following their participation announcement, the Global Field CTO at Databricks, Chris D'Agostino expressed, "Only 13% of organizations are succeeding at their data and AI strategy yet the successful application of data and AI has never been a greater necessity for survival than now. Enterprises need a modern data and AI strategy that is open, simple, collaborative and empowers everyone across the organization to make faster, more informed decisions with a unified view of all their data."

Judy Nam (Principal Solutions Engineer Director, Dataiku) while confirming her participation as a speaker gave an insight on the growth of AI, “Developing an AI strategy for your business is becoming standard to keep up with the competition, but there are many challenges along the way. I’m excited to be sharing how organizations can enable everyday AI across business functions while growing the complexity and scale of AI models and projects.”

Organizations like Databricks, Dataiku, Cloudera, Tech Data, BMC, Aerospike, Denodo, Snowflake and Fivetran have already confirmed their participation to lead the summit and showcase their latest solutions.

The virtual summit will power two knowledge-packed days filled with insightful presentations on the most pressing industry topics, deep dive panel discussions with the leading thought leaders, live showcase of the best solutions and many more.

Some of the confirmed speakers for the summit include Chris D'Agostino, Global Field CTO, Databricks; Judy Nam, Principal Solutions Engineer Director, Dataiku; Sam Majid, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission; Juan Kanggrawan, Head - Data Analytics & Digital Products, Jakarta Smart City; Abhishek Pratap Singh, Senior Vice President Engineering, DBS; Ram Kumar, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, Cigna; Varun Verma, APAC Head of Data & Analytics, The Heineken Company; Kirill Odintsov, Head of Data Science, Home Credit Indonesia; Akanksha Rastogi, Head of Data and Insights, Foodpanda – Thailand; John Daniel Funtanilla, Advanced Analytics Lead, Nestle Philippines; Nikola Sucevic, Senior Vice President - Advance Analytics, Smartfren and many others.

Another key speaker for the summit Sam Majid (Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission) expressed his view on the industry, “To thrive in the digital economy, avant-garde organizations leverage on its leadership and widely accessible data to continuously deliver and delight citizens and customers.

Organizer and CEO of Tradepass, Sudhir Jena expressed, “With Southeast Asia rapidly adopting emerging technologies, Bytes 2022 – ASEAN will acknowledge the many intricacies concerning Big Data Analytics to empower the organizations with improved business function.”

Finastra today announced the appointment of Lynne Biggar, a proven financial services and marketing leader, to its Board of Directors, effective March 2022.

Lynne brings decades of experience and deep financial services insight to the Board. Most recently, she was Executive Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Visa, where she led the organization’s global brand and marketing strategy, including all consumer, B2B, and B2B2C marketing activities that advanced Visa’s brand and business goals. She also oversaw management and activation of Visa’s world-leading sponsorship assets, while driving impactful business outcomes and award-winning initiatives for one of the most valuable brands in the world.

Prior, Lynne was Executive Vice President/Consumer Marketing + Revenue at Time Inc. Before that, she spent more than 20 years at American Express in a variety of leadership positions across high-profile revenue-generating operating and marketing divisions.

Simon Paris, CEO at Finastra said, “Lynne is a distinguished and highly capable executive with an impressive track record in driving growth and success across leading organizations. I know she will provide valuable guidance as we continue our journey as ecosystem orchestrators for Banking as a Service (BaaS) and the future of financial services software. I’m delighted to welcome Lynne on board.”

On her appointment, Lynne commented, “I am excited to join the Finastra Board. I have always been a firm advocate for transformational purpose-led brand strategy, and I see that reflected in Finastra’s work. I look forward to making a positive contribution in the coming years.”

Lynne has been recognized by Forbes as one of the “World’s Most Influential CMOs” three years in a row (2019–2021) and by Business Insider as one of the “25 Most Innovative CMOs in the World” (2020). Brand Innovators named her on its “Top 100” Women in Brand Marketing list for the past five years. She is also an Independent Board Director at Voya.

Lynne was sourced through the independent board program operated by Vista Equity Partners, a global investment firm focused on enterprise software, data and technology-enabled businesses, and a majority investor in Finastra. Launched in 2017, the program leverages Vista’s ecosystem and additional resources to identify, train and appoint qualified board candidates for its portfolio companies. The program works to create a diverse pipeline of qualified board candidates through programs and partnerships that advance diversity for all boards and drive impact for the corporate world at large.