Strengthening Judopay's mobile payment services as the world adapts to an increasingly touch-free economy

Judopay, a leading mobile payments provider, today announces that it’s partnering with Mastercard on its SCA compliant (Secure Customer Authentication, which requires two-factor authentication to ensure it is in line with Europe’s new regulations), Click to Pay solution.

Click to Pay offers consumers and merchants a more convenient and secure guest checkout experience supported by intelligent recognition. It makes it easier and safer for consumers to check out online without having to manually enter their card details every time or store them with multiple merchants.

In a post-pandemic environment, which has accelerated consumers' use of contactless and mobile payments, this collaboration demonstrates Judopay and Mastercard’s commitment to improving the eCommerce experience, providing rich native components for customers to use within their mobile apps. Along with offering enhanced security, merchants across the Food & Beverage, Mobility and other sectors will also benefit from no additional transaction fees, as well as no additional onboarding or integration. 

This solution adds an enhanced way for consumers to pay online via apps, with their mobile devices, and provides a seamless journey for guest checkouts, they can pay with ease on a website or app even if they have never visited it before by accessing their Click to Pay account. Card details are protected through tokensation, which allows payments to be completed without the merchant having to access the consumers personal information.

Using Mastercard Click to Pay, consumers do not have to enter in their card details, name, email address or billing details to complete a purchase, and instead use the details that are already stored in their Click to Pay to pay account. Furthermore, being SCA compliant, Mastercard offers enhanced security, using tokenisation, which reduces merchant risk and overall exposure to fraud.

Judopay's CEO, Jeremy Nicholds, commented: "With people getting fully accustomed to using their mobile devices to pay when out and about, for both hygienic benefits and convenience, partnering with Mastercard to enable a Click to Pay solution makes sense as a next step in our relationship. It will be a key strategic partnership as we grow our business across a range of different markets and head into an increasingly digital future"

He added: "Having previously worked with Mastercard to provide their Pay by Bank App solution to our customers last year, using our strong relationship, we will work together in helping businesses to continually adapt to a touch-free economy."

Scott Abrahams, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Mastercard UK & Ireland commented: “The new digital age spawns a fresh set of players who are keen to co-create and innovate on our network. Therefore, providing a single point of entry to technology, products and partnerships, as well as flexibility, is the company's priority.

“Mastercard has been actively expanding its platform capabilities through the Mastercard Developers portfolio, adding a multitude of differentiated services to power new ways to pay, enhance the customer experience and infuse trust across the payments ecosystem.”

To learn more about the Judopay, please visit: judopay.com

Infocus International Group, a global business intelligence provider of strategic information and professional services, has launched a brand new online masterclass – ESG & Sustainable Finance which will be commencing live on 4 April 2022. 

There is no question the future of financial services is Sustainable Finance. Be it investment, lending and mortgages, be it private equity and trade finance – no asset class out there is untouched of questions such as: “what is the carbon intensity of this investment?”, “what is the financial climate risk in financing this project?”, or “how can we create ESG-linked products for our customers?”. Both customers and regulators demand financial institutions to report on ESG (environmental, social and governmental) indicators and analysis. We are here to help you navigate the ESG jungle!

You will learn how ESG and Sustainable Finance affects your business from a regulatory and a customer viewpoint. Understand the strategic implications of ESG and Sustainable Finance on the financial industry and learn how technology offers competitive advantages in transforming into a sustainability-driven organisation. Regardless of your role this course will teach you the business requirements on Sustainable Finance, giving you the confidence to lead meaningful conversations across your business.

Anna from Italy shared that, “Trainer is simply excellent. Thanks to his clarity, very complex issues become easy and understandable to the great satisfaction of trainees. I go back very often to the notes of that seminar and find them at any time clear and useful.”

“I have attended a number of courses conducted by the trainer over the past few years. I have learnt a great deal – he is an excellent lecturer; not only is he technically sound, he would ensure that the content of his courses are kept up-to-date with case studies which are relevant to the current market environment. His classes are never dull and he always keeps the participants engaged,” said Kingston from Singapore.

Join us to explore the strategic implications of ESG and Sustainable Finance on the financial industry and learn how technology offers competitive advantages in transforming into a sustainability-driven organisation. Learn more at www.infocusinternational.com/esg-sustainable-finance. 

Course Sessions

1. An introduction to Sustainable Finance

2. The fundamentals of ESG indicators

3. Sustainable investment

4. Green bonds

5. Climate risk

6. EU Taxonomy and SFDR

7. Sustainable Fintech

8. Next steps in Sustainable Finance

Benefits of Attending

• Understand why Sustainable Finance becomes the new normal

• Learn what ESG comprises and why it is still challenging to speak ESG

• Apply Sustainable Finance concepts to various business fields in financial services

• Combine Open Banking with Sustainable Finance

• Effectively manage climate risks

• Evaluate the impact of the EU Taxonomy and the SFDR

• Explore next developments in Sustainable Finance

Want to learn more?

Simply email emilia[at]infocusevent.com or call +65 6325 0210 to obtain your FREE COPY of the event brochure. For more information, please visit www.infocusinternational.com/esg-sustainable-finance.

Digital money transfer service ZEN.COM powered by Mastercard has introduced the conversion of fiat money into digital assets, as well as the transfer of fiat currencies to any digital wallet servicing BTC, ETH or USD-T (ERC-20), with more currencies coming up in the nearest future, such as BNB or support for USD-T (TRC-20).

The platform, which was built to provide a seamless payment experience both online and offline, will allow users to convert fiat money into an array of digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USD-T (ERC-20). Additionally, users can convert digital assets into EUR, and then into over 30 fiat currencies serviced by the ZEN.COM wallet, such as GBP or USD.

“There is currently a lot of noise around digital assets and their popularity has increased, and yet the overall complexity of the system reduces wider adoption, especially among customers used to fiat currencies. We feel that everyone should have access to their own money, regardless of whether they store their assets in a wallet, or on an exchange.” said ZEN.COM founder, Dawid Rozek.

The service will work seamlessly with digital wallets and exchanges that service the assets supported by ZEN.COM. It will accept and convert digital assets to fiat upon receipt. Currently, the service supports Bitcoin (including instant transfers and top-ups), Ethereum, and USD-T, as well as Litecoin (only transfers from fiat account to an exchange or a wallet). The company is looking to expand this list in the upcoming months. ZEN.COM conducts thorough due diligence into the digital assets it supports, to deliver a secure service to its customers.

One of the attractive features of the service is its competitive pricing. Top-ups, meaning sending the assets from an exchange or a digital wallet to an EUR currency account at ZEN.COM incurs a fee of 0.5% (Platinum plan) or 0.9% (Gold plan). Whilst transfers – sending assets from an EUR currency account to exchange or to a private digital wallet – have a fee of 0.5% (Platinum) or 1% (Gold). Comparatively, many market competitors have a transfer fee of between 1.5-2%. Access to Gold plan costs EUR 0,99 monthly, while Platinum is just EUR 4,99 monthly.

Dawid Rozek continued: “There is no shortage of online platforms that let you exchange digital assets but most of them are not simple to understand or easy to use. What’s more, on top of exchange rates being different across every platform, each of them has its own fees and hidden charges; we believe that people looking to participate in the growing market for digital assets should have a simple and safe way to access their money.” 

In certain countries it is still incredibly difficult to transfer money both domestically and internationally – ZEN.COM aims to provide a straightforward solution to this issue, with the addition of digital assets being a natural extension of this service. The app aims to give users the optimal customer experience through its simple interface, fast conversions and transfers, provision of currency conversion at competitive market rates and the possibility of an additional twelve months of warranty on electronics purchased via the card.

ZEN.COM does not take custody of the digital assets. The technological partner responsible for providing the service is Triple-A.

Charts accelerated growth plans with new partnerships and leadership expansion

• The current round of funding has enhanced the company's balance sheet size to ~INR 800 Cr. with a total equity of about Rs. 300 Cr. and debt lines in excess of Rs. 500 Cr. from a well-diversified pool of leading private banks and reputed NBFCs.
• With its strengthened balance sheet, CASHe targets to disburse over Rs. 3,000 Cr. in FY 22-23. 
• The funds will be deployed to enhance its personal loans, BNPL, Credit Line and card businesses and also scale up its growth, technology & operations teams thereby fortifying its vision of building a full-stack credit-led financial wellness platform.
• CASHe has aggressive plans for 2022 and beyond and as part of its Vision 3.0 action plan it has on boarded experienced banking professionals like Joginder Rana from Bank of Baroda, the company said in a statement.

CASHe, India’s leading credit led, AI-driven financial wellness platform, announced that it has closed 140 crores of equity funding from its Singapore-based holding company TSLC Pte Ltd. The latest round of capital infusion strengthens the Mumbai headquartered fintech company’s balance sheet size to over Rs. 800 Cr. which constitutes about Rs. 300 Cr in equity and over Rs. 500 Cr. raised through debt from a well-diversified pool of leading private banks and reputed NBFCs.

With this fresh capital, the company will continue to boost its profitability, enhance its existing product lines such as personal loans, BNPL, Credit Line and embedded card business. It aims to launch new offerings in WealthTech and ramp up its investments in operations, product development, data sciences, and technology. It strives to double its team strength across domains to manage future growth seamlessly. It also seeks to expand its loan book to Rs 3,000 Cr. and upscale its user-base to 1 million from the current 4 lakh customers in FY 2022-23. The company has disbursed over Rs 1,000 Cr worth of loans in 9 months of this fiscal year alone and is all set to disburse over 1400 crores in FY 21-22, thereby growing by over 100 percent over its previous year.

The firm plans to invest substantially in creating and improving its tech-stack platform to bolster and preserve the growth of its user base, all while facilitating all types of banking transactions. In achieving its expansion goals, the company has strengthened its leadership through strategic C-suite appointments. It is eyeing fresh hires in technology, product, marketing, and customer support to help it expand its foothold across the country, thereby fortifying its vision of building a full-stack credit-led financial wellness platform.

V. Raman Kumar, Founder Chairman of CASHe “Achieving the Vision 3.0 is the next frontier for our growth and opportunity. We have set our goals to become a full-stack, credit led financial wellness platform of choice for the millennial and Gen Z cohort. The new capital infusion reflects a meaningful maturity level of CASHe’s balance sheet, profitability and business model”

Also speaking,

Joginder Rana, Vice Chairman & MD, CASHe, said, “CASHe is now poised to enter the next phase of its growth journey. In the last few years, CASHe has demonstrated that it is ready to seize every opportunity, even during the two waves of Covid. It continues to forge ahead through its strong accelerating momentum predicated on the strength of its technology, business analytics, people and processes. The latest capital infusion in the company will enable us to disburse to the tune of Rs 3,000 Cr for the FY 22-23 – that would be twice as much as we would have disbursed by the end of FY 21-22. It also provides us with the required resources to fuel and accelerates our investments in technology and people to enable us to launch innovative financial products to our customers.”, he concluded. 

In the last four years since its launch, CASHe has crossed over 15 million registered users with over 9 million customers that have provided thin file data. It has disbursed over 3000 crores to over 4 lakh active customers, of which 70 percent are repeat customers. By employing its proprietary tech and credit writing system, CASHe aims to transform the digital lending industry in India while offering credit to the unserved and underserved – those who otherwise do not have access to credit through traditional mediums. Today, CASHe is the nation’s fastest-growing digital lending platform.

Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry and #4 player worldwide, announced the completion of its acquisition of Axepta Italy. Effective January 4, Worldline has taken over 80% of Axepta Italy, the merchant acquiring entity of BNL in Italy. This partnership is a significant step in Worldline’s strategy to enhance its scale, reach and direct presence in a growing number of countries in close partnership with leading local banks.

Through the joint venture, Worldline significantly expands its Merchant Services footprint in the Italian market, whose continued growth is driven by the steady adoption of electronic payments. Axepta Italy is one of the largest Italian Acquirers, with c. 200 million acquiring transactions^[1] per year (c. 5% market share in MSV) from a c. 220,000 POS acceptance network.

Axepta’s highly diversified and loyal customer portfolio of ca. 37,000 merchants will be integrated into Worldline’s global Merchant Services customer base. Thanks to the activities’ integrations with Worldline, the current and future merchant customers will have the opportunity to access services and products in continuous evolution and with the highest standards of quality and technology on the market, to ensure best response to specific business needs and optimised customer experience. Furthermore, through a long-term commercial partnership with BNL, the joint venture leverages one of Italy’s strongest banking networks as a key commercial channel.

Worldline is the largest merchant acquirer and third largest online payment acceptance provider in Europe, providing customers with unmatched coverage of the payments value chain, online and in-store services and specialised vertical solutions to support their business growth with deep operational expertise and economies of scale wherever they are. Going forward, Italian merchant customers will benefit from the roll-out of Worldline SMB offerings and its local acquiring capabilities to provide a comprehensive European footprint for large international and national customers, and the deployment of strong e-commerce and omnichannel solutions for best-in-class user experiences.

The Joint Venture is designed to be an open vehicle for welcoming both existing partners and other Italian banks willing to benefit from delivery and servicing excellence, combined with scale and competitive cost structure.

Starting immediately, more than 100 payment experts will be integrated into the global team of 20,000 Worldliners, contributing their specific market knowledge to jointly accelerate the development of Worldline’s business in Italy, while benefiting from the unique career development opportunities of the leading European paytech company. Worldline has a successful track record of building partnerships with leading banks in the merchant acquiring space, e.g. ANZ Bank in Australia or Komercni Banka in the Czech Republic.

Marc-Henri Desportes, Deputy CEO of Worldline said: “Worldline’s raison d’être, or company purpose, commits us to designing and operating digital payment and transactional solutions that enable sustainable economic growth and reinforce trust and security in our societies. Through our new joint venture in Italy, Worldline will continue to deliver on our vision of a trusted, secure and environmentally friendly payments industry.”

Stefano Calderano, CEO of Axepta and Country Manager Italy for Worldline’s Merchant Services, said: "Worldline's experience and expertise will make a fundamental contribution to improving and innovating the payment services offering for today's and tomorrow's customers, from small merchants to large multinational corporations looking for omnichannel payment solutions. In addition, the joint venture is itself an "open vehicle" to accommodate new Financial Institutions looking for access to advanced acquiring solutions while enhancing customer satisfaction and maintaining full control of the business relationship."

Fintech start-up expects to approve more credit profiles and streamline decisioning processes

Scienaptic AI, a leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider, announced the deployment of its technology for Uni Cards. This implementation will enable Uni Cards to expand credit access in India by providing instant decisions to applicants and an efficient process that redefines the way credit is consumed in India.     

Uni Cards is bringing innovative and differentiated credit products for various customer segments, keeping their rich experience at the fulcrum. Through Scienaptic’s AI-powered credit decisioning platform, Uni Cards can process traditional and alternate data streams of customers and provide instant decisioning. Scienaptic’s platform provides flexible configurations to handle diverse and changing decisioning flow requirements as Uni Cards’ business scales up and offers a multitude of test-and-learn simulation options to run rapid experiments. This will allow Uni to launch and adapt products faster, catering to the changing needs of new customer segments.

Nitin Gupta, Founder and CEO of Uni Cards commented that “India has 130 million ‘credit active’ users and only 38 million of these have a credit card today, signaling a severely underpenetrated credit industry in the country. We see a huge whitespace for innovation and an opportunity to design credit products for a varied set of customers. Our Pay-later card, Pay 1/3rd, has one of the lowest NPAs in the industry. We are delighted to have a partner like Scienaptic as we expand further and make access to credit democratic."

"We are excited to help Uni Cards offer a refined application process to their users,” said Pankaj Kulshreshtha, CEO of Scienaptic. “It aligns with our mission of credit expansion, and we are proud to support them from day one. Our credit decisioning platform allows Uni Cards to experiment, test-and-learn faster, and over time, build the best decisioning strategies for their customer segments, balancing growth and profitability.”

Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board (CTMUHB) of NHS Wales, Roche Diagnostics, Digipharm and Life Sciences Hub Wales are launching a cutting-edge project to develop an innovative value-based contracting approach to pioneer sustainable procurement and improve the diagnosis of heart failure in patients.

All partners are working together to forge a new way of collaborative working for developing an outcome-based (payment by results) contracting model using Digipharm's blockchain platform, focusing on the value of the diagnostic test within the heart failure pathway and determining a fair payment structure based on the value generated. This will create sustainable outcomes that matter to patients and drive efficiencies for healthcare systems, with the long-term objective of creating shorter waiting times, quicker diagnostics, and better health outcomes.

The project will see procurement, clinical, operational and informatics teams at CTMUHB developing and implementing a Value-Based Health Care-led purchasing strategy for the NTproBNP diagnostic test. This is a simple and quick test developed by Roche that is used for diagnosing heart failure, which works by detecting levels of proteins that is produced by the heart when it is under stress. 

 To optimise its use and improve patient management and outcomes, all partners will work together to understand how this diagnostic test is currently being used within the chronic heart failure pathway.

Dee Lowry, Head of Value-Based Health Care at CTMUHB, said: “CTMUHB is committed to enabling and embedding Value-Based Healthcare approaches across our healthcare landscape in order to improve the outcome that matter most for our patients, staff and wider population. “We are delighted to be working with our project partners on a collaboration built on trust and a shared vision to identify and reduce unwarranted variation in heart failure diagnosis, to improve patient outcomes, which in this project can also enable us to effectively and efficiently procure based out on outcomes.”

Digipharm’s outcome-based digital contracting platform built on the blockchain will be used to host and manage the project, with CTMUHB and Roche Diagnostics using this to develop a collaborative procurement strategy that is underpinned by data and automatically executed using smart contracts. This will include adapting existing pathway approaches to diagnosing heart failure patients using NTproBNP, understanding patient pathways, and developing processes that will inform procurement decisions.

Ahmed Abdulla, CEO of Digipharm, said:“This is an exciting and innovative collaboration that is the first of its kind globally. Typically, outcome-based reimbursement agreements have been implemented for drugs and medical devices however the focus of this project is a diagnostic test, which will not only impact clinical outcomes but also provide financial and operational efficiencies that will transform the way resources are allocated and care is provide. Due to these complexities and numerous data points of interest, automation using our system will eliminate the administrative burden of managing and processing this agreement.”

Chris Hudson, Director of Access and Innovation for Roche Diagnostics UK and Ireland said:"Roche Diagnostics is committed to working with healthcare professionals and organisations to create efficiencies in patient care. A particular focus for us is Value Based Healthcare (VBHC) and Value Based Procurement (VBP) but we also know that one organisation is not going to solve the complex issues around VBHC and VBP in isolation. That is why we are excited to be involved in this collaboration and committed to investing in this project to help bring the benefits of VBHC and VBP to the NHS in Wales."

Throughout the project, Life Sciences Hub Wales will be providing management and communications support – convening and coordinating partners.

Cari-Anne Quinn, CEO of Life Sciences Hub Wales, said:“Life Sciences Hub Wales is delighted to be collaborating with CTMUHB, Digipharm and Roche on such a groundbreaking project. Value-Based Health Care focuses on patient outcomes and improved efficiencies for our healthcare services, applying the learnings from this project can set the standard for pioneering value-led procurement processes.”

Verofax Limited, an Asset Digitization and Traceability solutions provider, today announced closing a $1.5M pre-Series A round by international investors led by Benson Oak Ventures, with 500 Startups, Wami Capital and Vernalis Capital completing the group.

Verofax utilizes patented technology incorporating Blockchain, Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence to provide 'Traceability as a Service', enabling brands to turn their offline products interactive, and manage their entire supply chain to trace goods, fend off counterfeit activities, and improve manufacturers' productivity. Brands can extend their reach directly to end-consumers, thereby increasing consumer intimacy with direct engagement, and leveraging the boom in NFTs and metaverse experiences.

The funds will be used to expand the Company's sales and marketing activities on a global level, ahead of a planned Series A round later in 2022. Verofax solutions are applicable to a wide range of industries (Retail and CPG) and are already used by leading brands such as Anheuser Busch Inc. Verofax is a Microsoft Gold partner, and has secured a global network of distributors and resellers, and co-selling on enterprise solution platforms including Microsoft Appsource, Amazon AWS and Ant Group Antchain.
Wassim Merheby, CEO of Verofax, said: "Our solution helps brands turn their products into a direct-to-consumer communication channel and deliver amazing experiences to drive growth and boost loyalty while also promoting greener product choices and ESG auditability. Verofax also helps turn give-aways into collectible and tradeable NFTs, interoperable across several metaverse environments. We are thrilled to be joined by investors that will help accelerate our growth trajectory through their collective expertise, network, and leadership."

Robert Cohen, Managing Director of lead investor Benson Oak Ventures, said: "We have a very specific investment thesis that brands will leverage Web 3 & NFTs to reinvent their engagement & business models with consumers, creating entirely new service categories. Verofax has demonstrated early product market fit, leveraging its proprietary technology to sell its Traceability solution to many different types of brands and help them navigate this new world. We have been incredibly impressed by Wassim and the whole Verofax team, and thrilled to be making this our first investment in the UAE."

Chetan Mehta, CEO of Wami Capital, said, "Verofax Blockchain-based traceability and validation solution empowers brands in the consumer goods and retail industry to promote sustainable products and allows consumers to choose greener brands and enjoy immersive experiences. Verofax traceability prevents counterfeiting in the supply chain across pharmaceutical, manufacturing, consumer, retail and logistics. We look forward to working with Verofax team to accelerate the adoption of their solution across our ecosystem."