Today the Swiss fintech startup keycount announces its partnership with the European open banking leader, Aiia - a Mastercard company.

With access to the capabilities of open banking keycount is set to bring its users a one-stop-shop of liquidity management - a platform set to be launched in the German market during 2022.

The partnership is set to complement keycounts’ wealth aggregation solution. With the partnership keycount is going to be the first provider in Germany to build a fully interoperable platform making it possible for consumers to gather all financial accounts and assets in one interface.

Aiia is going to provide an essential building block for keycounts success, ensuring the seamless and instant connection to all banks in Germany and further European markets.

Commenting on the partnership, CEO & Co-Founder of keycount, Arman Öztürk says:

“We’re delighted to sign this agreement with Aiia, which will allow us to build out our platform and remove hassle from liquidity management for our users. From the very first second the Aiia team gave us a good feeling and showed us their strong commitment to help startups. With a good understanding of our mission we’re happy to take our next steps with Aiia as a vital partner in our further product development plans”

Commenting on the partnership, SMB & Fintech Director of Aiia, Tanya Slavova says:

“We’re thrilled to be a part of yet another brilliant fintech ride and we’re looking forward to seeing the keycount platform grow in the German market in the near future. With the access to Aiia we’ll bring the keycount journey up to speed and help them increase customer convenience through open banking making it possible to become a go-to financial super app.”

• Strengthens management team to bolster growth and M&A
• Wealth of international experience as finance expert
• Dynamic, innovative approach to CFO role

SERgroup Holding International GmbH has appointed Holger Kliebe as the new Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Member of the Management Board. SER is a leading software vendor of enterprise content management solutions for intelligent information management.

SER is pleased to welcome Holger Kliebe, a finance expert with a wealth of international experience, as the new CFO. In his new role, he will be responsible for the areas of Finance, Controlling, Legal, Facilities, Order Processing and Administration.

“SER is known for its outstanding digital solutions in intelligent content and process automation — and its market and growth potential is enormous. I aim to hone and utilize this potential together with the Board. Given SER’s upward growth trajectory, the office of the CFO is crucial. We will be focusing even more on increasing value for our customers, which is the backbone of successful work. This is also extremely important for areas without direct customer interaction. My goal is to create and tap into a highly innovative environment with modern technologies. I very much look forward to the exciting work ahead!” he says.

In his previous position, Kliebe was the Director of Finance & Administration and Member of the Management Board at the software firm INFORM GmbH. He was also a Member of the Supervisory Board of logisticar GmbH and held a variety of executive positions at firms such as Klaus Steilmann GmbH & Co. KG and the Grünenthal Group. In addition to a degree in Business Administration, he has over 18 years of experience in finance on both operative and strategic levels.

“We have found in Holger an excellent manager and accomplished finance expert who brings so much to our management team. With his dynamic approach and know-how in software and digitalization, he is the perfect fit for us. Holger’s expertise in strategic development and M&A will provide us immeasurable support and help us to accelerate SER’s growth track,” comments Dr. John Bates, Executive Chairman of the SER Group.

KNEIP, a leader in fund data management and reporting solutions for the asset management industry, announced today that it has agreed to acquire Dataglide, a UK-based technology company specialised in data transformation and cloud-based automation.

With this strategic acquisition, KNEIP renews its commitment to being the technology leader in its industry. This acquisition brings significant technology expertise in-house, with microservices architecture and multi-tenant cloud computing, which will increase service quality and data accuracy, as well as will drive process automation across its portfolio. With Dataglide technology, KNEIP is ready to launch new products, innovate, and consolidate. Asset managers rely more than ever on accurate and efficient data management, and KNEIP’s new technology platform will support them better. It will in turn be a key tool to accelerate the growth of the business.

Dataglide has been working with KNEIP for more than a year to build its next generation fund data management system. The acquisition is highly complementary to KNEIP’s existing technology and will make its current infrastructure highly scalable and even more secure. It will also allow KNEIP to deliver working software more frequently and bring more value to clients faster.

Enrique Sacau, CEO of KNEIP, commented: “We are delighted to bring Dataglide’s capability and its team into KNEIP to accelerate our plans for growth. Our goal is to help firms control their data, lower their operational and compliance risk, and ultimately inform their business strategy. This acquisition contributes to future-proof our business, as it takes our technology to the next level and deepens our capability to deliver innovative solutions and services to our clients.”

Simon Hook and Matt Duckhouse, co-founders of Dataglide, commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with KNEIP and to contribute actively to the company’s future successes. By combining the technical expertise of the Dataglide team with the deep market understanding and powerful offering of Kneip, we will accelerate product innovation for the benefit of the fund management sector.”

Buy Now, Pay Later player Anyday has partnered with open banking platform Nordigen to provide accurate and healthy credit offerings. Using Nordigen’s premium lending categorisation tool, Anyday will be able to perform detailed credit checks, approving their customers in seconds. 

Anyday is a Denmark-based, financing solution that prioritises users’ experience, by removing interest rates and additional fees typically associated with BNPLs. Instead they work with countless merchants who take on additional fees on their sides, to benefit the users. 

"Anyday's mission is to provide fair and transparent financing to all shoppers. In order to accomplish this, we knew we needed to partner with a provider that can help us gain deep insight into a shopper's personal economy in order to provide a healthy credit offering. With that, Nordigen was a clear choice. Our communication and collaboration were rock solid from the start and Nordigen's APIs were seamless to integrate. We couldn't be happier that now, together, we are able to further deliver on our mission to provide the best possible financing solution for merchants and shoppers across Denmark, without any unexpected expenses and unpleasant surprises,” says Luke Golden, product owner at Anyday. 

Nordigen securely shares financial information with third party financial service providers in Europe through the use of their PSD2-regulated APIs. This information helps SMEs provide their users with better services and quicker credit checks. 

“Anyday has created a financing tool for the people and we are delighted to be collaborating with them to enhance their credit check process. Open banking has created many opportunities for good with transaction data sharing and creating better, more simplified processes to benefit the user and our premium categorisation tool helps take this one step further with more organised and clear data analysis,” says Rolands Mesters, co-founder and CEO of Nordigen.

The Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS), in close collaboration with Worldline and the local commercial banks, has implemented the basic infrastructure for Instant Payments (IP). As a result as of 15 January 2022, all interbank payments in and between Curaçao and Sint Maarten and in Bonaire will now be processed within ten seconds, 24 hours a day and 365 days per year. With the exception of two local commercial banks, which will join later in 2022, all banks in Curaçao, Sint Maarten and Bonaire are participating in the IP CSM. The IP CSM, developed by Worldline, fully complies with international standards and ISO 20022.

With the introduction of the Instant Payments CSM, the CBCS is one of the first financial institutions to make use of a dual currency system for Instant Payments. This means that now interbank transactions made with both Netherlands Antillean guilders and United States of America US-dollar ($) are processed within just a few seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

Looking to the future, partnership with all local banks

Implementing the infrastructure for IP CSM is only the first step for the CBCS. In collaboration with the local commercial banks and Worldline, additional technological possibilities are being developed. After Instant Payments are available to all bank customers on the islands, the CBCS will expand the payment options to more efficient mobile and on-line P2P (person-to-person), P2B (person-to-business), P2G (person-to-government) and in-store payments. The involvement of other stakeholders in the financial sector will be considered in this context. Later the infrastructure will be connected to IP payment ecosystems in other currencies, such as Aruba and the Netherlands.

Leila Matroos, executive director of the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten: "The introduction of Instant Payments is the result of our ambition to modernize the technological infrastructure, and to stimulate economic development in Curaçao and Sint Maarten. This way, we are better prepared for the future, and for the countless developments in the world of payments. By working together with an experienced IP processor from the Eurozone, we can easily connect to other countries at a later stage.”

“The implementation by the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten is a logical next step after the earlier introduction of Instant Payments by the Central Bank of Aruba. Instant Payments is on its way to becoming the new global payment standard. In this global context, the processing of Instant Payments for different currencies at the same time proves Worldline´s strong ability and ambition to be one of the leading global service providers for payments processing”, says Michael Steinbach, Managing Director Financial Services at Worldline. “That is why we continue to support the CBCS with their essential route towards 24/7/365 payments. Being the largest IP processor in the Eurozone, we are therefore very proud to work with the CBCS on this implementation and further expansion.”

OKLink, the well-known blockchain big-data company, has announced the launch of Chaintelligence Pro 2.0, the world's first blockchain analysis platform combining blockchain big-data technology and technical investigation methods, to assist police in cryptocurrency-related crime investigation and anti-money laundering.

"By the end of last year, the number of cryptocurrency-related crime cases in China had risen to about 6328, with more than 16.3 million people and over 320 billion yuan involved. Confronted with these cryptocurrency-related crimes, police officers are struggling with difficulties including high learning costs, high tracking difficulty, etc.," said Zhang Chao, vice president of OKLink.

Focusing on these sticking points, Chaintelligence Pro 2.0 optimized the blockchain & big data technology framework, and achieved 3 major innovations, i.e. technical innovation, function innovation and investigation innovation:

- Technical innovation: As the first-of-its-kind blockchain analysis platform combining blockchain and big-data technology, Chaintelligence Pro 2.0 could provide accurate on-chain data and save much time and human cost with machine learning, data modeling, Similarity algorithm, and Feature Engineering technologies.

- Function innovation: With functions like Data Visualization, real-time monitoring, smart researching and judging, Chaintelligence Pro 2.0 Provides integrated services of on-chain data monitoring, analyzing, penetrating and governing, which makes it easier for police officers to investigate cryptocurrency-related cases.

- Investigation innovation: Based on the practical experience accumulated by Chaintelligence 1.0, the 2.0 version could track on-chain data with technical investigation methods, letting the data do the research and investigation job.

"Data security plays a vital role in the coming digital economy age," Zhang Chao said. "Over the last year, Chaintelligence 1.0 has assisted in cracking down over 80 cases and recovering over 30 billion worth of crypto assets. In 2022, OKLink will boost product innovation, deepen service offerings and speed up industry expansion, pushing forward the healthy and sound development of blockchain industry."

Aiming to showcase the best of fintech world highlighting the worlds most innovative businesses and trusted thought leaders from the industry.

The Fintech Power 50 are pleased to announce that nominations for their 2022 edition are now open. The Power 50 programme is the annual guide to the most influential and innovative companies in the fintech industry, as well as featuring 10 of the visionary and inspiring personalities shaping the sector.

For the fourth year running, 40 global, cutting-edge companies and 10 of the world’s best

fintech influencers will be selected for the exclusive annual programme, which shines a spotlight on those who are driving change and creativity in the financial services industry.

As well as showcasing the hottest in the Fintech world, the Fintech Power 50 acts as a hub that actively promotes its members to a global audience by introducing bespoke networking and event opportunities. Being part of the Fintech Power 50 is not an award, it is a great recommendation tool and a testament to the work that individuals and companies are doing to help the sector innovate and grow.

Until March 1st, industry members can nominate fintech companies and industry individuals from anywhere in the world that they believe are deserving of being featured in this year's programme. Nominees will then be revealed for both the businesses and industry influences, where the public will be invited to vote online until the beginning of June. Winners will be announced in a launch ceremony on 11th July.

Not only will winners be showcased in the 2022 cohort, but the companies and individuals will also be given access to The Fintech Power 50’s trusted network of fintech companies and leaders. Benefits include guest appearances on webinars, podcasts and panels, the opportunity to contribute opinion lead thought leadership articles in The Fintech Times newspaper, invitations to industry networking events and support with talent acquisition.

The 2021 cohort included some of the biggest, most influential names in the fintech world, with Ron Shevlin, a top global fintech influence, Theodora Lau, whose work seeks to spark innovation to improve consumer financial well-being, Jim Marous, the internationally recognised financial industry strategist and Brett King, world-renowned futurist and speaker.

In terms of businesses, some of the influential fintech companies featured on the 2021 list included mobile identity-verification specialist Jumio, Moneyhub, a money management app, European Open Banking platform Tink, and Global Processing Services, a go-to payments processing partner.

Mark Walker, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, said: “We’re excited to start the nomination process for The Fintech Power 50 2021 for the fourth year running. As always, we aim to recognise the game-changers who are making a difference to our industry and look forward to offering industry members the opportunity to share and spotlight the people and companies that they believe are shaping the fintech space.

“Not only do we showcase the fantastic businesses and individuals across the globe that are working to innovatively shape the future of the fintech industry, but The Fintech Power 50 also provides true help and support to every member for a whole year. We’re here to help our cohort transform the industry for the better and I look forward to receiving nominations for our potential future members.”

Nominations for ‘The Fintech Power 50 2021’ will close on 1st March, with online voting available until 6th June. The final cohort will be announced in July. To nominate yourself or someone else, fill out the short form here: *[LINK]*. To find out more about The Fintech Power 50, visit https://www.thepower50.com/ or view the 2021 Fintech Power 50 list at https://www.thepower50.com/the-fintech-power50-2021/.