Contour, the digital trade finance network, has appointed Elaine Ng to the newly created role of Head of Innovation.

Based in Singapore, Elaine will head up Contour’s Innovation Lab and manage the process of bringing new and innovative products and processes to market for the trade and trade finance industries. Working with Contour’s senior management and product and engineering teams she will conceptualise, formulate, and strategize new product development and partnership opportunities for inclusion into the company’s product roadmap.

Elaine joins Contour from Standard Chartered Bank where she was Head of Workplace and Ways of Working Transformation. Previously she was an Executive Director at J.P. Morgan and has also held positions at HSBC and Capco.

Elaine is an innovation-focused technology director who has worked in technology and consulting for over 20 years. She specialises in technology transformation and organisational change management, using data-driven and UX/human centred design techniques.

Elaine joins Contour from Standard Chartered Bank where she was Head of Workplace and Ways of Working Transformation. Previously she was an Executive Director at J.P. Morgan and has also held positions at HSBC and Capco.

Elaine Ng comments: “I’m delighted to join a team that is utilising cutting edge distributed ledger technology to solve complex problems in global trade. I look forward to collaborating with our industry partners to reimagine the future of trade finance, and I am excited about what we can achieve together.”

Joshua Kroeker, Chief Product Officer, comments: “Elaine is a great addition to the company and our Innovation Lab. She has proven experience in managing successful innovation programmes within a corporate environment and will ensure Contour remains a future-focused and future-proof network. Our members can join with confidence knowing we are continuing to steer them through a world full of new technologies and opportunities that can impact their business. I look forward to working alongside Elaine at this exciting period in Contour’s evolution.”

Routefusion co-founders Colton Seal and Richard Scappaticci attempted to launch a neobank in 2016, but they ran into significant hurdles when trying to integrate with banks to help their customers move money to other countries. They found that in order to provide cross-border payments on their platform, they had to first navigate a “super fragmented market” filled with payment providers relying on complex, inefficient platforms, Seal told TechCrunch in an interview.

“Banks and other financial services companies are really just risk companies. They’re not payments companies, and that’s not necessarily their fault — that could be because of regulation or whatever else. But as two outsiders kind of coming into the industry, there were so many hurdles around how to partner with a bank and how to get compliance [approval],” Seal said.

Add in the complexities of different regulatory regimes in different countries, and one can start to see how legacy cross-border payment tools could be tough for developers to navigate. Seal and Scappaticci decided to ditch the neobank and launch Routefusion to help simplify the process instead. The company allows its customers to access more than 12 different banking and foreign exchange providers through a single API (application programming interface).

“I tell our [banking and foreign exchange] partners all the time, you guys are really good at building payment rails, and you’re really good at doing the compliance. But we’re really good at doing product and customer service and building awesome APIs,” Seal said, describing what differentiates Routefusion.

The Austin-based company officially launched in 2019 and has doubled its number of customers to nearly 40 since its first institutional funding round last February, Seal said. Its customers largely use Routefusion for B2B payments today, but some also use it for remittances, he added.

During the same period, Routefusion’s revenue grew by 5,000% to a seven-figure sum, according to the company, though Seal declined to share further detail on the numbers. 

Routefusion just raised another $10.5 million in a “seed prime” round, bringing the company’s total institutional funding raised to date to $14.1 million. New investor Canvas Ventures led the most recent round, with participation from existing investors including Silverton Partners and Initialized Capital and new investor Haymaker Ventures. Angel investors Sherwin Gandhi (co-founder of Jeeves) and Aldrin Clement (co-founder of Novel Bank) also backed Routefusion in the “seed prime” raise.

The company plans to double its headcount from 20 to 40-plus employees by the end of this year, Seal said. Seal is currently focused on expanding Routefusion’s product offerings in Latin America, Europe, the United Kingdom and Canada, and is pre-emptively exploring different markets in Africa, where he expects to see surging demand in the next two years.

Routefusion is the only payments API company other than Stripe founded by two software engineers, which constitutes a competitive advantage, Seal said. He wants customers to see Routefusion “as an extension of their own team” rather than as an external payments provider removed from their day-to-day challenges.

Rebecca Lynn, who led Canvas Ventures’ investment in Routefusion, said the company’s developer-friendly approach allows it to onboard customers far more efficiently than legacy providers. As a former engineer who self-identifies as “product-oriented,” Lynn was drawn to Routefusion in part because of its positive customer feedback.

“I pay a lot of attention to what customers tell me. I can think whatever I want to think about a founder or company or product or service, but what I think doesn’t really matter — it’s what their customers think, and the customers love this company,” Lynn told TechCrunch in an interview. 

“That’s really what sold me, because it seems like a noisy space at the top level. But when you start diving in, there’s no one really solving this middleware problem the way they are,” Lynn said.

Armalytix, which uses open banking technology to streamline the collection of data for the professional and financial services industries, has been selected by Minerva, an electronic onboarding solution for law firms, to create an intelligent, digital onboarding service for the legal market and estate agents.  

Minerva’s client onboarding solution speeds up the end-to-end process for new clients, ensuring that law firms can receive and accept quotes, complete KYC and AML services, and receive complete digital forms and questionnaires.  Through the partnership with Armalytix, Minerva’s clients now have access to Armalytix’s Source of Funds analysis and reports, which have been fully integrated into the platform and provide an easy, visual way for lawyers to gather the correct source of funds information from their clients to manage compliance and money laundering risks.   

Law firms are subject to stringent Source of Funds and Anti-Money Laundering requirements when onboarding new clients. Minerva creates a one stop shop for legal companies and their clients, using the success of challenger banks, such as Starling and Monza, in revolutionising the banking industry, as a template for Minerva’s unique offering. Minerva’s solution takes the typical time spent on an onboarding process for conveyancing firms from two to three weeks, down to 48 hours, making the entire onboarding process more efficient for clients, speeding up transaction time.  

Ben Mills, the Commercial Director at Minerva commented: “We’re delighted to announce our partnership with Armalytix, cementing our onboarding solution as best in class for our clients.  Armalytix’s Source of Funds analysis integrates perfectly with our current solution, to ascertain client’s source of funds in a way that is easy to understand, and entirely digital.  Armalytix is an important piece of the puzzle for our platform, ensuring we can deliver a complete and efficient onboarding process and support law firms in embracing the intelligent future now.” 

Tom Lyes, Head of Legal and Property at Armalytix said: “Our vision to create a form free future fits in perfectly with Minerva’s mission to provide seamless, digital onboarding for clients.  Our Source of Funds tool ensures that clients can meet AML and fraud checks for compliance and regulatory purposes, and digitises the process, allowing for a better client experience.  We’re excited to be supporting Minerva as one of the top providers of client onboarding solutions in the legal world.” 

Minerva and Armalytix went live with their integrated solution in January.  

Monneo, a virtual IBAN and corporate account provider has partnered with a global leader in money transfer services to expand its local banking network. The new agreement gives the company’s customers an indirect connection to more than 60 additional local banks in Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Australia and will help to dramatically speed up transaction times on cross-border payments.

As per its new agreement, Monneo can now conduct cross-border payments more efficiently for its customers. Moving forward, the company will be able to use its expanded network of local banks to settle international transactions, often within a day of the request being made. As such, Monneo’s customers are no longer reliant on the SWIFT process, which can take up-to a week to complete, when looking to execute cross-border transactions.

Already linked to eleven different international banks and with a further three announcements expected imminently, Monneo allows eCommerce merchants to receive and send payments in 134 currencies internationally, as well as in a number of digital currencies. By leveraging new connections in its local banking network, Monneo's clients are now able to combine the benefits of this flexibility with faster transaction timeframes.

Lili Metodieva, Managing Director of Monneo, comments: “We are excited to offer our corporate customers additional banking solutions for their businesses. By partnering with a global money transfer leader, we’ve been able to dramatically streamline the cross-border payment process. As a result, our customers can now complete international financial transactions in a matter of hours, which is of huge benefit.

“We continue to forge relationships with globally recognised, reputable payments businesses, who we are delighted to partner with. Together, our collaborations further strengthen Monneo’s continued commitment to providing the best service to our customers. With the implementation of this new service, we are able to expand our secure network for payers and payees even further across all corners of the globe. “

Online merchants and B2B companies can set up multiple IBANs in their company’s name across multiple banks from Monneo's network.  The company has also recently launched its new card acquiring service, which enables it to offer a true end-to-end solution for eCommerce merchants.

Temenos adopts partner-first strategy to drive faster innovation, a broader reach into new markets and segments and faster adoption of its open platform for composable banking                                                                    Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced to strengthen its commitment to a partner-first future with the launch of the Temenos IMPACT Partner Program that will cover five different partner categories. The new partner program will drive deeper collaboration and tighter engagement with system integrators, value-added resellers, solution providers, fintechs and consulting companies to open up new market opportunities and segments.

With the speed and cost of innovation and the emergence of new business models such as BaaS changing the DNA of how banks operate and the need for more collaborative ways of working, Temenos sees partnering as the key to success for all players in the financial industry ecosystem.

According to Alois Pirker, Director, Wealth Management Practice, Aite-Novarica Group: “Shifts like open banking and the move towards SaaS solutions are driving banks to pay closer attention to vendor ecosystems as part of their selection processes. Traditionally, Temenos has had a strong global partner ecosystem. We believe the announcement of Temenos IMPACT will bring additional investment and opportunity for the global partner and banking ecosystem.”

The Temenos IMPACT program aims to unlock the full potential of this ecosystem. It supports partners in building new businesses, growing their banking practices and adding new capabilities across different geographies in the retail, corporate, SME and Wealth sectors. 

The program is built around five partner categories to deliver the maximum impact potential for co-innovation and shared benefits. These include:

• Sales Partners: Can be global, regional or local value-added resellers (VARs) with proven sales expertise that will sell Temenos solutions globally or in local regions or countries.  
• Delivery Partners: Deliver, integrate and extend Temenos banking solutions and services
• Technology Partners: Hyperscalers, Technology and Platform partners to deliver the most scalable, secure and effective cloud infrastructure and open technology
• Solution Providers: Bring a new generation of financial solutions to the Temenos Banking Platform, pre-integrated for rapid implementation through the Temenos Exchange
• Strategic Advisors: Consulting companies helping banks to make the best solution and technology choices on their transformation strategy

The partner-first strategy is crucial to Temenos’ mission to become the open banking platform of choice for customers and partners. The company is also investing in its new Partner Organization to accelerate this strategy, appointing Paul Carr as Global Head of Partner Ecosystem, reporting to Martin Häring, Chief Marketing Officer and Partner Ecosystem. 

Martin Häring, CMO and Partner Ecosystem, Temenos, commented:“With our partner-first strategy, Temenos is committed to working with the best in the market. Building on our open banking platform strategy for composable banking, Temenos provides an ideal environment for system integrators, technology partners, solution providers, fintechs and other players to innovate. Together we can scale rapidly, capture new markets and win using new business models while creating incredible value for our customers.”

Temenos offers partners almost three decades of banking expertise. Its products support 3,000 banks in 150 countries, serving 1.2 billion people around the globe. The company invests 20% of its revenue in R&D, ensuring it remains the best partner for the future. As a recognized leader in ESG, with a top rating from the Carbon Disclosure Project and Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, Temenos can also support partners and shared customers in the drive for ethics, integrity, and sustainability.

Kelly Switt, Global Senior Director, FSI Ecosystem and Strategic Partnerships, Red Hat, commented: “Red Hat’s collaboration with Temenos is built on a shared belief in the power of open source to fuel the next generation of digital banking services. By combining Temenos’ leading digital banking services with Red Hat’s enterprise-grade open source technology, we can enable banks to deliver enhanced digital experiences for customers and scale more efficiently across the open hybrid cloud to meet industry demands today, tomorrow and beyond.” 

Abid Mumtaz, Global Head, Wise Platform, said: “At Wise, we want to set a new standard for global payments, one in which they’re faster, more cost-effective and more transparent. By working with Temenos, we’re able to get closer to achieving this. Temenos’ platform helps us access a global banking audience - it’s been a real success so far, and we’re excited by what’s to come.”

Binance, the world's leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider, today announced that it has joined the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), a nonprofit corporation focused on identifying, validating, mitigating, and neutralizing cybercrime threats. Binance is the first organization from the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry to formally join the alliance.

The NCFTA was established in 2002 to enable the responsible sharing of information and subject matter expertise with partners from private sector industries, law enforcement, and academia. Its goal is to develop and share threat intelligence as part of the international effort to combat and defeat cybercrime. NCFTA’s initiatives have helped prevent over $2 billion in potential losses and launch thousands of criminal and civil investigations, which have led to over a thousand arrests.

“Cybercrime is a global threat that continues to see exponential growth, with the potential to impact the very fabric of our society,” said Matt LaVigna, President and CEO of the NCFTA. 

“Binance is an industry leader with a proven track record in aiding international cybersecurity investigations. With their leadership, collaborative approach, and commitment to the war on cybercrime, they will enhance our ability to achieve the current mission of the NCFTA and assist in enabling a safe environment not only for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, but for everyone," added Matt.

Binance has built one of the world’s most advanced teams to tackle blockchain and cryptocurrency fraud. Its Binance Investigations Group is actively assisting law enforcement agencies worldwide. To date, Binance has cooperated with hundreds of criminal investigations, which have led to high-profile arrests, including a cybercriminal group laundering $500M in ransomware proceeds. 

“The constantly evolving blockchain and cryptocurrency industry relies on strong cooperation between the industry, law enforcement, and government agencies,” said Tigran Gambaryan, Vice President of Global Intelligence and Investigations at Binance. “Joining the NCFTA is an important step in our joint fight against cybercrime, securing the cryptocurrency ecosystem for the entire community. Binance aims to be the leading contributor in the fight against cybercrime, ransomware, and terrorism financing. We will continue our fight against cybercrime and increase our level of cooperation and transparency through our partnership with the NCFTA.”

Wikisoft Corp. (OTCQB:WSFT), a big data and business analytics company, today announced plans to digitize startup funding and accelerate matching startups with investors. 

Once a startup's seed investment round is secured then the fledgling company powers ahead to create a minimal viable product (MVP). Once the MVP is proven, the founders of the startup will soon require further investment to accelerate growth. They participate in a series of investment rounds - series A, B or C, depending on the maturity of the business.

This is a stressful period and an arduous process involving introductions, pitches, negotiations, term sheets, and all the intricacies that go with each stage and every round. The time is ripe to change from manual processes to digital, creating a trusted and authenticated system to bring together high-potential, dynamic, young, fully-operational startups with groups of wily discerning tech investors looking for capital appreciation.

Deloitte recently wrote that 23% of the fund order process is still being handled manually, mainly though fax orders which have a significant impact on distribution costs. PwC surveyed 100 Private Equity houses with a minimum EUR250m assets under management. The PE houses named digitization as the most important megatrend influencing new investment.

Wikisoft, listed on OTCQB, is a fast growing, international, agile, big-data-powered, company which in today's fast-moving business world of increasing globalization leverages big data and associated insights from global business datasets to improve performance.

In line with this new phase of digitization and globalization, Wikisoft sees a growing demand for access to credible and reliable business data about startups and investors and has an ambition to digitalize the process of matching the right startup with the right investor and accelerate the investment process.

Carsten Kjems Falk, Wikisoft's CEO, spoke about the company's vision, "Our advancement will accelerate matching investor to startup, and vice versa, at a lower risk through credible and reliable business data. Series A, B and C investment rounds will be more efficient for all parties via digitization. It will enable startups to concentrate on scaling-up their business, becoming highly valued, and eventually opening the possibilities for even further expansion. Investors will have an efficient way of finding prospects and make the right investments."

Cabital, a trusted digital financial institution, today announced that it has appointed leading international audit, tax and advisory firm Mazars to conduct an audit in accordance with the Singapore Standards of Auditing.

Raymond Hsu, Cabital’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, said:

“We are pleased to announce that we have appointed an external auditor for Cabital. The firm we have selected is incredibly well qualified to provide us with an unbiased and external audit given their ability to understand our business model, culture and industry and their capabilities to consider the needs of our stakeholders to provide a tailored auditing strategy specific for our business. Appointing a leading external auditor will allow us to start the auditing process that is crucial in our mission in becoming a global leader in risk compliance, corporate governance and transparency in the cryptocurrency industry.” 

Lu Ying, Cabital’s Finance Director, said:

“As Cabital continues to build a compliant and trusted digital financial institution where our customers can easily buy, sell and earn cryptocurrency, appointing a reputable external auditor allows us to strengthen our customers and investors’ confidence in us. Their extensive industry experience in auditing will enable us to significantly improve our operations, internal controls and corporate governance. We are looking forward to the upcoming audit as we continue to build out a compliance programme that is modeled after leading global financial service providers.

Cabital integrated with Plaid to make it easy for users to securely and seamlessly fund their Cabital accounts and the firm has partnered with BCB Group (BCB), one of Europe’s leading providers of business accounts and trading services for the digital asset economy, enabling it to incorporate GBP to its growing list of payment methods.

Cabital is in the process of applying for approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) under the Payment Services Act 2019 to provide digital payment token services as a Major Payment Institution.

“We’re excited to reach more merchants with IXOPAY, helping our joint customers take the pain out of taking payments. With the combined power of bank debit, which helps reduce payment churn by up to 21%, and open banking, which provides instant payment authorization that offers businesses a low-cost alternative to accepting cards for any type of transaction, we believe our account-to-account solutions will help merchants grow their top and bottom line.” Said Mario Böhm, Senior Partner & Alliance Manager at GoCardless