Westpac has appointed Damien MacRae as its first BaaS chief executive, overseeing the Australian lender's efforts to deepen its relationship with non-bank partners looking to embed banking services. MacRae, a Westpac veteran who recently returned after a stint away from the bank, will begin his new role in April, alongside his current position as MD of Pacific Bank and Specialist Finance.

The two-year old banking-as-a-service business uses a cloud-native banking platform built from the ground up in partnership with UK-based provider 10x and integrating more than 30 different technology services.

Says MacRae in a company blog: "Banking is increasingly becoming embedded in platforms and apps of non-bank businesses.

"Those non-bank businesses recognise that banking is an incredibly capital and regulatory intensive business, which is something they don’t wish to explore - but it's core to Westpac and that’s what we’re leveraging through banking as a service."

Block-owned BNPL giant Afterpay recently launched its spending and savings accounts on the platform, while digital lender SocietyOne is preparing to come onboard. MacRae says others are set to follow within months.

"We're having conversations with a range of businesses about the platform’s capabilities and how it can help them - companies from a cross section of industries, with large customer bases, predominantly within that millennial demographic market," MacRae says.

Meanwhile, in addition to transaction bank accounts, a digital mortgage proposition is set to be added later this year, along with other products and services.

After securing $40 million in Series A funding, London-based social and investing startup Shares is launching its app. The Series A was led by Peter Theil's Valar Ventures and brings Shares' total funding to $50 million in just nine months. Having built up a 60,000-strong waitlist, Shares is now available for Brits to download via the Apple Store and Google Play, promising to bring all the features users would expect from a social media app with a simple investment product. When buying or selling, users can share their views on the investment they are making with their close circles by sharing captions and GIFs.

UK-based crypto startup Mode has named former Alipay UK CEO Rita Liu as chief executive officer. For over a decade Liu has held leadership roles at fintech giant Alipay in Asia, the US, Canada and was CEO in the UK before joining Mode in March 2020 as Chief Commercial Officer. In her new role, Liu will be responsible for driving Mode forward as the firm bids to deliver a one-stop app for users to shop, earn and grow their bitcoin.

Foonie Magus, the company behind Apeiron, the world's first god-game with NFTs, has announced that it will receive $750,000 of investment from Yield Game Guilds Southeast Asia (YGG SEA) and Infinity Ventures Crypto (IVC), in a strong show of support for the metaverse's hottest new project. The two organizations will use the money to acquire their very own YGG SEA Constellation in Apeiron's SEA Mythologically-inspired galaxy, which will come with its own NFTs, cosmetics, and tokens for guild scholars to enjoy.
Apeiron is bringing back classic god-game gameplay while modernizing it with influences from RPGs, roguelikes, and grand strategy games, among others. Players will act as Godlings, newborn gods, and take over planets full of little Doods. Every Planet offers a different gameplay experience and is a unique NFT; players will be able to earn a variety of tokens and additional NFTs simply by playing the game.

Frank Cheng, CEO of Foonie Magus, was thrilled to announce this investment: "It has been a humbling and very pleasant learning experience to work with them and to gain their early support, and we're excited to be able to continue this partnership long into the future." Evan Spytma, CEO of YGG SEA, also spoke confidently about the deal: an ultimate strategic god game placed in outer space. How can you go wrong?"

Apeiron is currently in its seed round with a fully diluted valuation of $80m, and is continuing to attract partners and collaborators. The 1st Apeiron NFT Presale is scheduled at the end of Q1 2022, with the game planning to launch late 2022.

Leading mortgage technology provider, Twenty7Tec, has announced the monthly results from its data analytics module INSIGHT, which tracks the behavior of the 15,000 advisers who search for mortgages for their clients via the CloudTwenty7 platform.

Mortgage searches in February 2022:

• More than 1.43 million mortgage searches were conducted by advisers
• Three of the four busiest days ever on the platform took place in February 2022
• February was the highest month on record for total mortgage searches - beating even the pre-stamp duty rushes of 2021
• February saw a 17.63% increase in mortgage searches for million-pound properties (In fact, £1m+ house price mortgage searches have more than doubled since December 2021.)
• February was the busiest month ever for Buy To Let mortgage searches since we began reporting

Mortgage products

• Mortgage product volumes took their first dip in late February as the market adjusted to new market conditions, but recovered to end February higher than January
• There are now 87.6% of the total volume of mortgage products available pre-pandemic (the previous peak)
• 18.12% of all products are in the 90-100% LTV range - the highest figure since we began reporting

Nathan Reilly, Director of Lender Relationships at Twenty7Tec says:

“Despite being a shorter month, February outperformed January's strong performance, particularly in the areas of total mortgage searches, the volumes of But To Let mortgage searches and the volume of searches in the £1m plus valuation range. Activity was stronger in the first half of the month so it will be interesting to see how momentum sustains into March and the pre-Easter push."

Customers can earn accelerated rewards at top online merchants
and top spenders can win stashcash worth Rs. 8000

Neobanking platform Stashfin has introduced exclusive offers for its credit line card customers this International Women’s Day. In the run-up to 8th March, Stashfin will be offering 8X accelerated rewards on purchases made at select partners – Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Swiggy, Zomato, Nykaa, Tatacliq, Tanishq, Croma, Ajio, Chumbak, Lenskart, ShopperStop, Myglamm, BlinkIt, BigBasket.

With a brand promise of ‘Nobody in India should be credit starved’, Stashfin has been working towards the financial inclusion of various customer segments who find it hard to be accepted by traditional banking systems. The company also helps the underrepresented build their credit footprint to enable them to improve their quality of life.

With Women’s Day Sales underway at premium online merchants and retail stores, customers also stand a chance to win stashcash worth Rs. 8,000. Stashfin’s accelerated rewards will enable its customers to get additional savings in their transactions. Further, Stashfin will reward the top two spenders with Rs. 8,000 stashcash, the top 10 spenders with Rs. 800 stashcash, and the top 100 spenders with Rs. 80 stashcash! The accelerated cashback rewards will last till 13 March 2022.

Counted among India’s leaders in the neo-banking space, Stashfin’s line of credit card offers exclusive cash back rewards, welcome credits, and a host of other exclusive benefits:

• Welcome offer: Rs 1,500 in stashcash (1 stashcash = Rs 1) and benefits worth up to Rs 3,450

• Easy reward redemption: Redeem stashcash for EMI payments

• Cash back: 1% on each expense

• Exclusive features: Free cash withdrawals at any ATM; no membership fees, annual or hidden; free lifetime card; slip into any point of sale or merchant site

• Reference: Refer friends / family and get stashcash

• Advantages: Also acts as a virtual and physical card for shopping, traveling and eating

Shruti Aggarwal, co-founder, Stashfin said, “International Women’s Day gives us another day to celebrate women, their work, their achievements, their lives. We’ve dedicatedly worked towards the financial awareness and independence of our customers – who are the backbone of Stashfin. The 8X accelerated rewards program is just our way of appreciating our women customers and empowering them.”

AP Automation and Spend Management Provider partners with payments specialist to simplify and automate payments

Medius, a leading provider of AP Automation and wider spend management solutions, today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Nomentia, a leading name in cash and treasury management. 

The partnership is the latest step in developing Medius’s integrated payments offering across global markets. Nomentia automates and simplifies payments, delivering out of the box banking integration for businesses looking to take advantage of Medius Pay’s secure gateway for improved payments visibility and control. Nomentia offers integrations with over 10,800 banks globally, through host-to-host, SWIFT and local connections.

With an HQ in Finland, the Nomentia partnership is of particular relevance to Medius’s Nordic customers, offering integrations with all the region’s main banks. The partnership enables Nordic customers to react effectively to in-market developments, such as the P27 initiative, which aims to establish a single pan-Nordic payment infrastructure for the region’s 27 million citizens.

Daniel Ball, SVP of Innovation at Medius, said: “As with our AP automation and spend management solutions, we want Medius Pay to make our customers' lives easier, creating a single secure, audited channel that can automate all their payments to suppliers both locally and around the world.

Bank-fees, foreign-exchange fees and cumbersome processes are just a few of the pain points businesses have to deal with when processing payments in what can be a costly, and time consuming business function. With Medius Pay’s rapid deployment and native Nomentia integration, our customers can realize all these benefits quickly with an accelerated time to value.

For our Nordic customers, the partnership comes at the perfect time, enabling them to capitalize on the P27 initiative which is driving digitalization of payments.”

Jukka Sallinen, CEO at Nomentia, said: “The partnership with Medius unites AP automation and payments with our extensive bank connectivity, giving more businesses the tools they need to control and optimize all aspects of spend and payments. I look forward to working with Medius, whose expertise in AP automation and spend complement our own in global cash and treasury management.”

 AP Automation and Spend Management Provider partners with payments specialist to simplify and automate payments

MARCH 1st, 2022 – Medius, a leading provider of AP Automation and wider spend management solutions, today announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Nomentia, a leading name in cash and treasury management. 

The partnership is the latest step in developing Medius’s integrated payments offering across global markets. Nomentia automates and simplifies payments, delivering out of the box banking integration for businesses looking to take advantage of Medius Pay’s secure gateway for improved payments visibility and control. Nomentia offers integrations with over 10,800 banks globally, through host-to-host, SWIFT and local connections.

With an HQ in Finland, the Nomentia partnership is of particular relevance to Medius’s Nordic customers, offering integrations with all the region’s main banks. The partnership enables Nordic customers to react effectively to in-market developments, such as the P27 initiative, which aims to establish a single pan-Nordic payment infrastructure for the region’s 27 million citizens.

Daniel Ball, SVP of Innovation at Medius, said: “As with our AP automation and spend management solutions, we want Medius Pay to make our customers' lives easier, creating a single secure, audited channel that can automate all their payments to suppliers both locally and around the world.

Bank-fees, foreign-exchange fees and cumbersome processes are just a few of the pain points businesses have to deal with when processing payments in what can be a costly, and time consuming business function. With Medius Pay’s rapid deployment and native Nomentia integration, our customers can realize all these benefits quickly with an accelerated time to value.

For our Nordic customers, the partnership comes at the perfect time, enabling them to capitalize on the P27 initiative which is driving digitalization of payments.”

Jukka Sallinen, CEO at Nomentia, said: “The partnership with Medius unites AP automation and payments with our extensive bank connectivity, giving more businesses the tools they need to control and optimize all aspects of spend and payments. I look forward to working with Medius, whose expertise in AP automation and spend complement our own in global cash and treasury management.”

-- Turkey's Hepsiburada bolsters its support for female entrepreneurship with the launch of "Women's Cooperatives: Stronger with E-Commerce in the Pandemic" project, in collaboration with the Innovation for Development (I4D), the International Labor Organization (ILO) Office for Turkey and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (BPRM) --

Hepsiburada (NASDAQ: HEPS), one of the leading e-commerce platforms of Turkey, continues to celebrate and support women's entrepreneurship with the launch of the "Women's Cooperatives: Stronger with E-Commerce in the Pandemic" project in collaboration with International Labor Organization (ILO), Innovation for Development (I4D), and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM).

The project aims to improve the digital and business skills of female entrepreneurs by providing training and mentoring support to over 100 women in 5 women's cooperatives that have been affected by the pandemic. The cooperatives involved in the Project,  will enjoy several benefits, including commission discounts, advertising and marketing support, free photoshoots, and shipping support. They will also receive mentoring and e-commerce training. The project will contribute to the participation of women's cooperatives in the economy to encourage local development and inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

The project will help with the digital transformation of women's cooperatives to improve their access to online marketplaces and boost their presence in supply chains and economy. Additionally, a new social procurement framework will help the cooperatives continue to set up new projects.

Today's announcement builds on Hepsiburada's strong track record. To date, Hepsiburada has supported 24,000 female entrepreneurs and 88 women's cooperatives since 2017 under the Technology Empowerment for Women Entrepreneurs program. Since then, the proportion of female-led business operating on the Hepsiburada platform has risen from 6 percent to 23 percent of total vendors.

Hepsiburada Chief Commercial Officer Murat Büyümez said: "We are excited to announce our collaboration with our international partners. This is an important demographic that Hepsiburada has been pleased to support over the past two years with a number collaborations and investments including Women Entrepreneurs Challenging COVID-19 Project in cooperation with Innovation for Development (I4D), SPARK and Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD).  As a company that supports the participation of women in all aspects of society, we will continue to mobilize our resources to empower female entrepreneurs, building on what we have already achieved with our Technology Empowerment for Women Entrepreneurs program."

ILO Livelihoods Officer Ayşe Turunç Kankal said: "At the ILO, we are working to minimize the damaging economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hurt traditional sales channels and caused supply-chain disruptions globally. Moreover, it has been particularly hard on vulnerable groups such as women, the elderly, people with disabilities, and refugees. Strengthening vulnerable groups and integrating them into the digital economy of the future, particularly women's cooperatives and refugee entrepreneurs, is essential in achieving sustainability and diversifying sales channels."

I4D Director Doğan Çelik said: "At I4D, we have been working on breakthrough development interventions in areas including the jobs of the future, inclusive supply chain management, women's economic empowerment, social entrepreneurship, and social procurement. It is thrilling to see some of these efforts come to fruition in collaboration with the private sector and the sustainable development world. The issue of ending poverty is now more prominent than ever, so we are calling on the private sector and international development community to help develop and expand this collaboration with ILO and Hepsiburada."

Company Delivers Enhanced Protection on Active Directory Domain Controllers

Attivo Networks®, the experts in identity security and lateral movement attack prevention, today announced it has expanded its award-winning Active Directory Protection portfolio with capabilities to efficiently detect identity-based attacks at the domain controller from all endpoints. The new ADSecure-DC solution provides threat protection from attacks originating from Windows as well as Mac, Linux, IoT/OT devices, and unmanaged devices which are limited in their ability to run traditional endpoint protection software. 

In 2021, there was a  surge of attacks targeting Active Directory domain controllers in order to gain the privileges that are needed to install backdoors, change security policies, and distribute ransomware or malware. Over 90% of Global 1000 enterprises use Active Directory for authentication and authorization, per Frost & Sullivan. According to an Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) research report, half of the organizations surveyed experienced an attack on Active Directory (AD), with more than 40% indicating the attack was successful. 86% of respondents indicated that they were planning to prioritize the protection of Active Directory with increased investment.

The Attivo Networks ADSecure-DC solution identifies enumeration and attacks targeting Active Directory. It also detects suspicious user behaviors using deep packet inspection and behavior analytics and delivers high-fidelity alerts. Organizations gain AD security for attacks from managed and unmanaged systems, IoT and OT devices, and popular Windows and nonWindows (Mac, Linux) systems without interfering with domain controller operations.

“Active Directory services continue to be the powerhouse for all critical information and help adversaries to further their attacks easily and without detection,” said Srikant Vissamsetti, SVP of engineering at Attivo Networks. “For organizations that are using a managed Active Directory service, the additional protection of domain controllers prevent attackers from carrying out ransomware, Kerberoasting, Silver Ticket compromise, Domain Replication and other advanced AD attacks.”

“In the cybersecurity world today, Active Directory is one of the most targeted assets by threat actors. By leveraging AD’s vulnerabilities, attackers can penetrate an enterprise's entire network, and freely move undetected across multiple attack paths,” said by Christopher M. Steffen, CISSP, CISA, Research Director at EMA Research.“However, enterprises today recognize the many risks and vulnerabilities Active Directory faces, making AD protection a top priority in 2022.”

The Attivo Networks ADSecure-DC solution joins the company’s existing suite of Active Directory protection products. These include ADSecure-EP, which operates on the endpoint and prevents attackers from seeing and accessing privileged credentials in Active Directory,

ADAssessor for continuous AD exposure visibility, and ThreatPath, which identifies and remediates exposed and risky credentials on the endpoint. Organizations deploying these solutions gain easy, efficient, and effective protection for their AD environment.