Publicly traded fintech specialized lender is expanding loan portfolio with focus on real estate development

Legion Capital Corporation (OTCQB: LGCP), a fintech-enabled private equity lender serving small to medium sized businesses and real estate developers, today announced plans to expand its lending portfolio through the launch of the Legion Funding platform, which enables real estate owners and developers throughout the U.S. to submit potential transactions online.

Legion has steadily grown its direct lending portfolio since product launch in December 2015, by focusing on early stage housing and real estate development finance in the ever growing Central Florida region. The company now looks to expand in select markets nationwide through the launch of the new platform.

"Our unique approach to specialized lending, particularly to early stage real estate developers, has distinguished us from our competitors," said Paul Carrazzone, President of Legion Capital. “By providing critical early-stage capital bundled with a basket of services and other key resources, we serve a need that has gone unserved by commercial banks and traditional lenders.” Carrazzone added, “Legion now looks to capitalize on the success we have experienced in Central Florida by expanding our footprint into other key markets nationwide.”

Legion recently announced the sellout of its $40 million SEC qualified offering and has amended and increased the offering to $75 million as approved by the SEC on January 7^th, 2022.

“We are excited to expand our loan portfolio and open loan processing online as well as nationwide,” stated Treanna Scholer, Manager of Lending Operations. “We look forward to helping real estate developers advance their mission by leveraging our fintech technology coupled with high touch relationship management.

Robin.io will provide the Cloud-Native Platform (CNP) for deploying applications and network functions on the STL Enterprise Marketplace Platform.

Robin.io, a leader in Kubernetes data management for enterprise applications and operators of 5G solutions, has announced a strategic collaboration with STL (NSE: STLTECH), an industry-leading integrator of digital networks, to offer an (XaaS) Everything-as-a-Service solution. The XaaS solution will leverage the STL Enterprise Marketplace Platform with the Robin Cloud-Native Platform (CNP) to deliver enterprise applications and 5G services effectively.

"Built on the foundation of cloud-native, zero-touch automation and open architectures, the integrated marketplace solution will enable CSPs to deliver new revenue models and accelerate customer onboarding while keeping service delivery costs in check. The marketplace solution, built jointly by STL and Robin.io for service providers and enterprises, will disrupt the way XaaS frameworks are built and delivered," said Partha Seetala, founder and CEO of Robin.io.

STL Enterprise Marketplace is a new-age, platform-based model that simplifies collaboration and has the potential to open up multi-sided marketplace opportunities. STL offers end-to-end software solutions for creating new-age digital services, building new business models, and opening new revenue streams.

The Platform brings together service providers, partners and enterprise customers from different verticals on the same Platform. Robin CNP provides storage, network management and scheduling to run complex network workloads from application vendors and partners across a wide spectrum of use cases. The synergy provides a complete platform for partnership, collaboration and co-creation targeted for enterprise telco customers.

Commenting on the collaboration, Saikat Mitra, COO of STL Network Software, said, "Extreme automation and true cloud-native platforms are key to accelerating digital transformation. In its endeavor to bring innovative XaaS offerings faster to the market, STL has been supporting a hybrid network ecosystem with its 5G Enterprise Marketplace and 5G monetization initiatives. In this strategic partnership, we are bringing our Enterprise Marketplace Platform enabling Robin.io to achieve seamless cloud infrastructure management for multi-datacenter, multi-cloud and multi-edge ecosystems and actualize their vision on 5G, IoT and WiFi."

There is a growing trend amongst the Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to become an enterprise platform provider to leverage the massive opportunities it provides. The STL Enterprise Marketplace Platform, paired with Robin Multi-Data Center Automation Platform (MDCAP) and Robin CNP, equips service providers with the technology needed to break in and dominate the enterprise XaaS market. The collaboration announced today provides telcos an agile, scalable automation solution for 5G designed to help them reduce risk and accelerate time to value.

Mastercard Track™ Business Payment Service, a first-of-its-kind open loop network in Canada, improves the payment experience for businesses
Today, Mastercard announced new partnerships with BMO and Moneris Solutions Corporation (‘Moneris’), who have joined Mastercard Track™ Business Payment Service. This unique Mastercard solution, available to Canadian business customers in early 2022, is designed to help buyer and supplier partners tackle the systemic challenges of business-to-business (B2B) payments – one of the first open-loop commercial solutions to do so globally and a first of its kind in Canada.

Mastercard Track automates and enhances the execution and management of B2B payments and the exchange of payments-related data between buyers and suppliers. It offers supply chain finance solutions and provides greater control over payments to overcome inefficiencies in the current ecosystem.  According to a small business study by Mastercard, four out of 10 (40%) Canadian businesses report facing cash flow issues due to late payments and slow processing times for cash and cheques[1]. While delayed payments have always been a challenge for businesses, the pandemic magnified this pain point.

“Current business payment processes often require manual reconciliation work that can be very labour intensive,” said Sasha Krstic, President, Mastercard in Canada. “The availability of Mastercard Track through our new partnerships with BMO and Moneris will help Canadian businesses gain freedom from an inefficient process by simplifying and automating the exchange of payments to make B2B payments work harder, faster and smarter.”

With Mastercard Track, BMO and Moneris can modernize business payments for their customers by reducing complexity and risk, cutting costs and automating processes. The service enables buyers to improve working capital, use resources more efficiently and strengthen relationships with its suppliers. It offers suppliers a way to enhance control of payments, optimize cash flow management and be more operationally efficient.

“Mastercard Track builds on BMO’s commitment to meeting customers where they are as we build a digital-first bank,” said Derek Vernon, Head, Payments Modernization, North American Commercial Deposits and Corporate Card, BMO Financial Group. “This new service enhances the digital experience by offering a universal solution to simplify and automate B2B payments. In addition to reducing supplier enablement friction and facilitating quicker speed-to-spend, this solution provides BMO Corporate Card clients with the opportunity to influence their supplier payment strategy.

“Simplifying B2B payments for Canadian businesses has been a key focus for Moneris for a number of years. These types of payment solutions help businesses improve efficiency of payments with Suppliers and better manage their cash flow and overall business health,” said Angela Brown, President and CEO, Moneris. “Ensuring we continually enhance the options available to our customers through the addition of services like Mastercard Track, allows us to maintain our leadership in the Canadian B2B payments space.”

Innovating how businesses send and receive payments to drive value

Mastercard Track is one of many innovative, tech-forward solutions that Mastercard developed through its in-house innovation lab, Mastercard Foundry.

It underscores the company’s commitment to address pain points in the business environment and its vision to modernize the $135 Trillion global B2B payments market. The B2B network integrates with Mastercard multi-rail innovation assets, ranging from account-to-account and card payment solutions to data analytics and payment gateway services.

PAMM and MAM accounts have started to draw more attention than ever, especially during 2021 when we have seen a notable increase in interest from traders. This growth can be accounted for in several ways, perhaps not surprisingly as a result of the explosion of online trading, which has in turn, created further demand for Forex and crypto-related services from brokers. The rising situation means there has never been so much potential for attracting new business and it has undoubtedly created the perfect opportunity to offer these kinds of services to capitalise on the growing trend.

In this article, we look at what PAMM and MAM accounts are, and illustrate how you can boost your profits by offering these services to your customers. You will also be able to gain an understanding of how PAMM and MAM accounts differ from each other.

PAMM (Investment Fund)

PAMM accounts are one of the favourite kinds of accounts when it comes to money management. With PAMM accounts, all investment accounts are pooled into one big trading account and used by individuals or institutions for trading purposes. A money manager trades on this account and investors receive a profit (or loss) proportional to the size of their accounts. PAMM systems are a great option for professional or HFT traders and investment funds.

The system works whereby all statistics for trading are collected onto the leaderboard. All you need to do is enter the platform, select a money manager and make an investment. While investors are not able to trade on their investment accounts, their performance can be monitored in real time.

A PAMM account presents traders with a wonderful opportunity for investing into a trading strategy without the necessity for substantial capital. For this reason, PAMM accounts are essentially like investment funds since every investor will make a profit or loss from trades proportional to their funds. As far as investment managers are concerned, they are an ideal way to handle a number of clients in an easy-to-manage way. PAMM systems are additionally a very effective way of spreading risk between a bigger number of investors, allowing for more tolerance of short term volatility. 

MAM (Multi Account Manager)

MAM accounts assist traders with managing several trading accounts via one terminal, combining individual trader accounts into one large pool of managed funds of trader and investor accounts.

They are ideal for professional money managers who from time to time have the requirement to activate or deactivate certain investment accounts to skip new trades. A MAM account is basically a copier-based solution whereby investors retain their individual account rather than all of them being pooled into one large trading account. It is not possible for investors to trade on investment accounts, however, as they have a read-only capacity.

This type of account is an attractive solution for professional money managers already possessing an investor pool. They’re also ideal for investment funds and prop trading companies where several traders wish to manage one investment pool which in turn, can be managed using various auto or manual strategies.

Reasons for Offering a PAMM and MAM System?

Offering your clients PAMM and MAM accounts gives them another way to trade or even start a new career path with the added benefit of boosting their profits. For these reasons, they make good financial sense.

B2Broker Investment Platform 

There is a well-known system now on the market offered by leading technology & liquidity provider, B2Broker. The Investment Platform pulls together PAMM, MAM and Social Trading for Brokerage business, sometimes referred to as Copy Trading. This is where successful traders open master accounts, deposit their own funds into them and then trade in the same way as if it were a simple trading account. This unique platform offers brokerages the opportunity to boost their profits with an industry-leading, tailor-made solution. Besides assisting brokerages to draw new customers, the Investment Platform has more advantages in improving conversion and increasing traders lifetime values.

Key Features of the Investment Platform 

With B2Broker’s Investment Platform, brokers can boost their revenues with a bespoke solution which can be implemented in under a week. Some of the best features are:

• Full integration with MT4 and MT5

• Web interfaces giving your clients full control over their accounts 

• History importer providing access to trading statistics in your leaderboard

• Automatic fee payment including 5 types of fees including performance, volume and subscription

• Widgets for a website so you can show traders' success without coding a single line of code

• Risk management tools for your clients including maximum drawdown for investment accounts and daily risk limits for money managers

• Admin panel and Manager’s app comprising a fully functional cabinet for investors and money managers

This PAMM/MAM & Copy Trading system has won over many leading brokers who have quickly gone on to experience greater revenues after introducing this exciting business model. Find out more about the Investment Platform offered by B2Broker and get started straight away with a lucrative investment model that will benefit both you and your clients. 

Cornerstone FS plc, the cloud-based provider of international payment, currency risk management and electronic account services to SMEs, provides an update on trading for the year ended 31 December 2021.

As noted in its announcement on 4 November 2021, the Group had been experiencing increased trading momentum, which has continued until the end of its financial year. As a result, and subject to audit, the Group expects to report full year revenue of approximately £2.3m (2020: £1.7m), a year-on-year increase of some 38% on 2020. This reflects a very strong second half of the financial year, with unaudited revenue approximately 75% higher than in the first six months of 2021. 

In particular, and in line with the Group’s stated strategy, revenue generated by clients that the Group serves directly has also increased significantly. A key contributor to this was the Group’s new Asia team that was brought on board in the second half of 2021. The proportion of total revenue that was accounted for by clients that the Group serves directly increased to approximately 56% compared with 12% for the previous year. As a result, and subject to audit, the Group expects to report a substantial improvement in gross margin to approximately 51.5% (2020: 29.8%).

Revenue generated through the Group’s introducer network (which is primarily white label partners, who use the Group’s technology, but also introducer brokers) accounted for approximately 44% of total revenue (2020: 88%). This would represent a reduction in indirect business, on a reported basis, due to some revenue that the Group previously generated through its introducer network now being serviced directly. However, on an underlying (unaudited) basis, there was an increase in revenue generated through the Group’s introducer network in 2021 compared with 2020.    

The Board remains confident in the Group’s prospects and looks forward to updating the market on further progress, and its full year results for the year ended 31 December 2021, in due course.

Friktion Labs, the development organization building Friktion - a Solana-based options and structured product protocol, has concluded a $5.5 million capital raise. Investors of the round include Jump Crypto, DeFiance Capital, Pillar VC, Libertus Capital, Delphi Ventures, Sino Global Capital, Tribe Capital, Castle Island Ventures, Dialectic, Petrock Capital, Solana Ventures, and other angels.

Friktion has also brought on board its platform, a group of industry-leading derivatives traders and market makers in Genesis Trading, Alameda Research, LedgerPrime, QCP Capital, CMS Holdings, Orthogonal Trading, and GSR. As of writing, Friktion is currently Solana's largest options and structured products protocol with over $100 million deposited across 2 strategies (Volts), supporting over 11 top crypto assets.

Friktion's latest round of funding will be deployed into building Circuits, a liquidity and portfolio management system built to drive long-term capital inflows and return generation for DAOs. Circuits enable a new generation of risk-aware DAOs - responsible for maximizing long-term value and managing capital Current. Circuits are powered by Volts, Friktion's native return generation strategies and Inductors, balancers and optimizers of Current. Moving forward, these Circuits will enable users to access curated portfolio construction and risk management solutions.

"The DeFi market needs alternative ways to generate sustainable yields (beyond yield farming) and we are excited about Friktion's structured products offerings", says founder of Defiance Capital, Arthur Cheong.

Friktion will also be launching itsDAO Taskforce grants program, targeting Research Collaborators, Quant Research & Analytics, and User Research experts, a bug bounty program, and an Ecosystem Fund focused on development of the Solana ecosystem.

Quartix aims to support the rapidly growing demand for its digital products that enable industrial buyers and vendors to pay or collect whenever they want, regardless of payment terms

Fintech company Quartix, who provides a SaaS platform that unlocks digital Supply Chain Finance solutions to mid-size industrial companies, announced today it has successfully secured a $20M funding facility from two Fintech credit funds with a potential to increase the credit facility.

This facility will allow Quartix to support increased demand for digital, affordable credit products that provide flexibility for US clients and their eligible vendors to make payments or collections whenever they want, regardless of payment terms. Covid-19 significantly boosted demand for this flexibility among manufacturers and distributors due to pressured corporate cash flows and supply chains.

“Mid-market clients ($25M-$2B) are mainly served by traditional banks that offer secured, committing credit products. Clients’ cash flow needs are changing rapidly, and traditional bank products aren’t catching up. Quartix adds a real-time, on-demand layer to cash flow management. Our unsecured credit products complement and co-exist with traditional bank credit lines allowing CFOs and treasurers to better plan their cash flow, overcome temporary cash crunches and unlock cash from their supply chain,” said Dror Polak, CEO of Quartix.

Noam Mani, Quartix’s CRO adds: “Supply chains are under immense pressure these days. Payment terms are a win-lose for clients and their vendors. This is a constant source of friction. Quartix makes this a win-win allowing procurement professionals to improve vendor relations, support key vendors, reduce vendor friction and avoid supply disruptions. It’s easier for vendors to do business with clients that use Quartix.”

Advanced trade-finance products were previously available exclusively to Fortune 1000 companies. By unlocking digital real-time products to middle-market clients, Quartix democratizes Supply Chain Finance and levels the playing field, thereby allowing smaller companies to better compete with Fortune 1000 giants. Real-time data is used to optimize products to cater to actual client / vendor needs at affordable rates – offering unsecured credit lines of up to $10M.

John Fox, CCO of Capital Foundry Funding, that led the funding round, noted that: “On-demand credit products that cater to real-time trade events bridge a real gap that exists in the middle-market today, as Quartix’s rapid growth demonstrates. We’re happy to continue and support this growth. By catering to industrial supply chains, Quartix gains data and scale advantages that will enable it to become a Fintech leader in the underserved middle-market segment. We are very pleased to support the growth of Quartix, a very valued partner.”