American Express continues its long-standing backing of small businesses by once again running its flagship Shop Small campaign, encouraging the nation to support their local, independent businesses.

Shop Small launched on Small Business Saturday (4 December) which was founded by American Express back in 2013, and of which it remains Principal Supporter.

This winter’s UK Shop Small campaign includes a range of impactful multi-channel activity celebrating the vital role small businesses play in their local communities - all designed to help drive customer footfall and spend. High-profile advertising will be running throughout December across TV, cinema, radio, online video and OOH. At its heart is the ‘Perfect Present’ TV ad encouraging consumers to shop with small businesses this festive season.

The campaign seeks to mobilise American Express’ loyal Cardmembers, encouraging them to spend instore with small retailers this festive season, generating additional sales, new customers and boosting brand loyalty for merchants. The centrepiece of the campaign is the Shop Small Offer, that rewards UK American Express Cardmembers with £5 when they spend £15 (up to 5 times) at participating businesses between 4-15 December. American Express is accepted at more UK merchants than ever before, including hundreds of thousands of small businesses.

Dan Edelman, General Manager, UK Merchant Services at American Express, said: “The nation’s small businesses are at the heart of our high streets and local communities across the UK. That’s why we’re encouraging people to continue to show their appreciation for these much-loved independent businesses and help them go from strength to strength in the years ahead. Now in its ninth year, our Shop Small campaign is stronger than ever and is just one of the ways American Express backs small enterprises all year round.”

Shop Small campaign activity supporting merchants this year includes:

• The Shop Small Map - displaying the physical address of small businesses participating in the Shop Small campaign, helping Cardmembers locate their nearest outlets
• A range of downloadable digital assets designed to help merchants promote Shop Small to their customers via their own social media channels. In addition, a dedicated merchant campaign pack including branded window stickers, open signs and personalised collateral
• Social Spotlights putting merchants front and centre of the campaign, telling the story of four independent businesses in London; The Shed in Notting Hill, Bens Greengrocer in Primrose Hill, 12:51 in Islington and Black Gull Books in East Finchley. These spotlights are being shared across UK American Express social media channels including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Shoreditch Takeover – a bespoke mural in Redchurch Street designed by renowned specialist artist Jo Hicks and featuring a number of local small businesses, supported by temporary artwork on selected merchant shop fronts
• The Little Blue Book of Celebration – from Alexa Chung to Richard Quinn, American Express has asked some of its favourite designers and celebrities for recommendations of their go-to independent stores. These are combined with the business owners’ insider tips to make for a compelling collection of fantastic small, independent businesses.

To further back small businesses this year, American Express has launched Business Class: The Series – which aims to provide business owners and entrepreneurs with essential know-how on topics such as managing growth, digital marketing, cashflow, and more. The 5-part video series offers an inside look at how common hurdles are approached by various small business owners around the world. UK businesses featured include Brighton-based Bird & Blend and sustainable design and manufacturing company Pentatonic in London.

Research carried out by American Express in conjunction with Small Business Saturday in the run up to this year’s Shop Small campaign revealed that the UK’s small business owners are feeling significantly more optimistic about their future prospects than they did in the summer. Some 70% feel good about the current state of their business – up from 52% six months ago.¹

Notes to Editors

¹ Research conducted amongst 250 Senior Decision Makers in Small Businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors by Opinium in November 2021, under strict Market Research Society Guidelines.

Belvo and Visa have announced today their strategic partnership to support the acceleration of open finance products and solutions across key markets in the region, which empowers consumers and provides them with more choices. 

Under the agreement, Visa and Belvo will work together to support new payment flows, integrate both Visa and Belvo’s APIs for richer consumer experiences, and develop new solutions around areas such as identity verification. In addition to supporting new fintechs and developers, Visa will work with Belvo and its traditional bank clients to create solutions for new market segments. For instance, if a bank in the region wants to create a new application to reach a niche segment like gig economy drivers, Visa and Belvo can work together to bring this to life via Belvo’s open finance APIs. 

“This partnership will be instrumental to keep expanding the reach of our platform and continue working on our mission to provide a truly pan Latin American solution that can help banks, fintech companies, and other financial institutions across the whole region unlock the potential of Open Finance,” said Pablo Viguera, Belvo’s co-CEO, and cofounder. 

“We are eager to continue improving our product by learning from Visa’s experience in creating a successful network of financial partners as we build our own financial data and payments ecosystem for financial innovators. Going forward, we’re excited to deepen our collaboration efforts with the financial sector and to help more institutions extract value from a wider range of financial data sources by leveraging our existing connections, developer-friendly tools, best-in-class infrastructure, and security practices”

Pablo Viguera, Belvo’s co-CEO, and cofounder. 

Belvo’s products enable consumers to conveniently share their financial information and other non-bank data with over 100 regional apps and services such as Jeeves, Rappi, Mobills, Ferratum, Higo, Creditea, and AskRobin. Consumers rely on these apps and services to help plan their spending, manage their personal finances, borrow money, and run their small businesses. For example, when a consumer in Latin America uses a digital platform to request a personal loan, that platform can use Belvo’s APIs to easily and securely extract and analyze the consumer’s data. The company can use bank data to determine the loan’s tenure, interest rate, or even the best loan product for that specific consumer.

“Consumers and businesses have embraced digital means at speed since the onset of the pandemic, and central to this uptick are open finance ecosystems. We believe open finance has the potential to unleash great collaboration across all payments participants including, financial institutions, merchants, fintechs, neo-banks and technology providers,” said Romina Seltzer, Senior Vice President of Products & Innovation for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean. 

“Belvo has been a leader in open finance efforts in the region for the last two years and has established great connectivity with many of the key financial players in our region. We look forward to partnering with Belvo to continue our mission of offering consumers and merchants more choice in how they manage their financial lives while continuing to support fintechs in the region to build more efficient and robust apps”

Romina Seltzer, Senior Vice President of Products & Innovation for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Connectivity between financial institutions and developers has become increasingly important to facilitate consumers’ ability to use fintech applications. Belvo provides its clients with a fully integrated suite of Open Finance products, providing both data aggregation and enrichment tools to build next-generation financial products.

Belvo’s API already provides connections with 50 financial institutions, covering more than 90% of personal and business bank accounts in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, as well as tax authorities and gig economy platforms.

After 340% increase in revenues, SPG raises $34m Series A to capitalise on the rapid digital transformation in the legal industry, and to fuel early growth in the ecommerce and marketplace industry.

The UK based FinTech group, SPG that owns and operates Shieldpay and Paycast, has raised a $34 million dollar (£25 million pounds) Series A that includes strategic funding from Mastercard and Marqeta. Other significant Investors in SPG include Elliott Management, CreditEase and Techstars.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, the group was formed to answer a simple question; how can we help two people who don’t know one another to transact securely? The bigger challenge that underpins this question is that many transactions, for consumers and businesses, are neither simple nor straightforward. High-value goods, complex services and time-sensitive deals demand greater protection and security. On a mission to protect the payments that matter the most, SPG set about modernising and simplifying the traditional escrow payment process to bring trust back to transactions.

Shieldpay, SPG’s first business, gained immediate traction in the professional and financial services sectors. The company’s digital platform offers organisations a simplified approach to their complex payments. By virtue of its sophisticated transaction management platform, Shieldpay has enabled their clients to replace paper-based, time-consuming and risky payment processes and ease their regulatory reporting. The business works with a range of clients, from top 100 law firms and sole practitioners to lenders and technology companies. Their legal clients utilise the platform for a wide variety of payment use cases including class action lawsuits, M&A and real estate.

“Last year we saw particular demand from the legal sector as firms embraced new technologies and ways of working. Lawyers no longer want or have the time to take on the administrative and regulatory burden of processing payments internally and running client accounts. Our Series A funding will enable the business to capitalise on this demand and scale substantially”, says Peter Janes, founder and ceo of SPG.

The group’s latest business, Paycast, is a payment engine for marketplaces, ecommerce and platforms that specialises in facilitating and protecting high-value and time-sensitive transactions. Leveraging the group platform and working alongside acquirers and gateways, Paycast enables our customers to hold funds in escrow between buyers and sellers until the conditions of sale have been completed. Paycast’s strategic partnership with Mastercard will create a valuable ecosystem for marketplaces, buyers and sellers in pursuit of a bold ambition to facilitate a new era of trust online.

“We are thrilled to be supporting Paycast on the next step of their journey, having worked closely with them since their early days in the Mastercard Start Path programme,” said Scott Abrahams, senior vice President, business development & FinTech, Mastercard UK & Ireland. “From our technology and data assets to our global ecosystem of partners and dedicated programs, we are leveraging our tools and expertise to iterate with Paycast at every stage, transforming bold ideas together.”

To date SPG has processed over $3 billion dollars of payments for its clients and experienced a surge in business during the pandemic that saw revenues grow by over 360% in the last year. At this early stage of growth for Shieldpay and Paycast, this is a powerful validation that SPG is providing a timely and valuable solution to both businesses and consumers.

The fresh capital into SPG will scale Shieldpay to fully capitalise on the demand in the professional services market, and also fuel Paycast in its early stage of growth in bringing our payments platform to a consumer audience.

$2.4 million seed round marks prolific VC’s first fintech investment in the region

alongside fintech unicorn’s first institutional investment

CinetPay, a digital finance platform that enables merchants in Francophone Africa to seamlessly accept and make payments, has announced a $2.4 million seed fundraising round from 4DX Ventures and Flutterwave . The investment will boost CinetPay’s sales and marketing efforts across nine markets in West and Central Africa.

Since its 2016 launch in Côte d’Ivoire, CinetPay has processed over 30 million transactions for 350 active merchants in nine countries, including Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, Mali, Togo, Burkina Faso, Benin and Guinea. CinetPay’s platform provides a single interface for businesses to process over 130 different payment operators, from mobile money to credit and debit cards and e-wallets, eliminating the need for merchants to spend months integrating with different systems in order to manage sales and revenues.

Used by a broad range of businesses from e-commerce platforms to digital public services, insurance companies and schools, CinetPay simplifies the process of accepting payments online or via mobile Point of Sale (PoS) devices with best in class security protocols.

By bringing Flutterwave onboard, CinetPay is building on a successful commercial partnership that has evolved since 2019, and this investment follows Flutterwave’s recent acquisition of Disha and marks the unicorn’s first direct investment in the region.

“For a first institutional investment, we couldn’t have asked for two better partners in 4DX Ventures and Flutterwave,” said Idriss Marcial Monthe, CEO & Co-Founder of CinetPay. “We’ve watched firsthand as thousands of merchants waste crucial time, even up to 6 months, getting their payment systems in order. Now we’ve got the resources to market and sell our optimal solution across the region and we’re excited to ensure that all businesses in our region never miss a sale again. We have selected highly strategic partners as investors and are excited about the immediate next steps we take together in terms of simplifying and improving digital payments in Francophone Africa.”

The rapid growth in a wide range of digital payments channels across the continent over the last decade has led to a disaggregated market. Two-thirds of global mobile money transactions are driven by users in sub-Saharan Africa, with 562 million registered accounts by the end of 2020, while the number of e-commerce users on the continent is expected to double from 281 million in 2020 to 520 million by 2025. This trend continues with public institutions as well, with more bodies now offering digital public services, such as payments for ID cards, Visas and COVID tests, and school fees, which are often paid digitally. With such a multiplicity of payments required across different verticals from a growing number of sources, CinetPay is fast building its presence in the region.

“We’ve been tracking the Francophone Africa market for some time now, and have been impressed by Cinetpay’s ambitious goal to digitize payments across the region,” said Walter Baddoo, Co-Founder and General Partner at 4DX Ventures. “The company has demonstrated deep product knowledge with a differentiated offering and a strong brand with customers. We look forward to partnering with the Cinetpay team alongside our long-time portfolio company, Flutterwave, to help usher in the next phase of digital payments across the Francophone region.”

“We’re building the payments infrastructure for Africa, making it easier for businesses to grow and expand their customer base on the continent and worldwide,” said Olugbenga Agboola, Founder and CEO at Flutterwave. “Having collaborated with the Cinetpay team for a number of years now, our shared vision to simplify payments on the continent further strengthens our commitments to working towards creating endless possibilities and experiences for all our customers. Cinetpay is well positioned for the next chapter of growth and we’re excited to work with the team to help scale the business to achieve maximum impact and value for its customers.”

Available on desktop and mobile, CinetPay is quick to set up and designed with a modular approach that integrates within a merchant website and accepts Mastercard, Visa and all major local mobile money in 9 markets from MPESA to MTN mobile money and Orange Money.

According to a survey recently carried out by automated reconciliation firm AutoRek and Worldwide Business Research, automation is high on the agenda in a post-COVID world. The survey, which consisted of half asset managers and half wealth managers with an average AUM of £1-50bn, revealed that manual processing, the availability of adequately skilled staff and appropriate automated systems are the top concerns for firms across the financial services industry.

Key findings include:

• Close to 95% of organisations have a dedicated annual budget for delivering process automation across operational functions, with half budgeting over £500k.
• More than 25% of firms said that their budget for delivering operational improvements greatly increased as a result of the pandemic, making it even more likely that firms will begin to action automation.
• Out of all manual operational processes, 60% of respondents said that reconciliations present the greatest challenge to their organisation. CASS 7 and CASS 6 reconciliations would benefit the most from automation, likely due to the FCA reinforcing the importance of protecting client assets during the pandemic.
• The top regulatory requirements for which organisations wanted more support from technology were Operational Resilience (52%) and Prudential Regulation (50%).
• 98% of organisations plan to invest in technology in some capacity to address regulatory requirements in the next 12-24 months, with a fairly even focus on Operational Resilience (52%), Prudential Regulation (50%), MiFID II Transaction Reporting (47%), and CASS Operations (40%).

While automation is a priority for many firms, the survey found a range of specific needs to be addressed depending on size, offering and clientele. Firms will therefore require bespoke solutions and, while some are looking to deliver these internally, an equal amount acknowledged that they would seek the support of an external vendor to deliver on their automation objectives.

Commenting on the results, Murray Campbell, Consultant at AutoRek, said: “These findings echo many conversations we have with clients who themselves are often weighing up this decision. Firms should certainly be mindful that even the best in-house solutions quickly become legacy systems. Outsourcing often gives organisations a better chance of staying ahead of the curve. As the regulatory landscape continues to evolve, it is clear that most, if not all, organisations would benefit from external help – not just in the form of an off-the-shelf technical solutions, but consultative expertise as well. Awareness of the availability of appropriate solutions and consultants to introduce automation is a challenge in and of itself.”

He added: “The pandemic has been an opportunity for businesses to learn about their organisations in a way few would previously have contemplated. By testing capacities to the maximum, many firms have discovered what they are truly capable of and where they require additional investment and support. There are still so many blank spaces in which automation could significantly assist firms’ approach to compliance. One in four firms don’t consider themselves well-placed to meet new IFPR requirements – now two months out from enforcement. A similar amount (31%) reported that they have not invested in an automated solution for achieving IFPR compliance and are not looking to invest in the future. Automation could be of huge help here. Firms that are able to strategically invest in the right tools and advice will reap enormous benefits and alleviate pressures for staff – both in IFPR compliance and beyond.”

The survey drew insights from 100 Heads of Operations and equivalent from firms across the UK with a range of qualitative and quantitative questions on the future of operational processes, automation and financial regulation.

You can download the report on the survey findings here.

With an ESG score of 61/100, the company is ranked 5^th in the IT & Software services sector in Europe

Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, is proud to announce that it has strengthened its performance in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), according to the latest assessment by V.E, part of Moody’s ESG Solutions, an ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) data and assessments provider. With a 2-point improvement on its overall score compared to last year, Worldline  progresses on its most critical CSR challenges in the areas of business, people, ethics, supply chain, environment, and local communities. Through these consistent improvements provided by Worldline’s TRUST 2020 transformation programme, Worldline is now positioned amongst the top five businesses in the European IT & Software services sector, according to V.E, with an overall score significantly higher than the sector’s average.

Energy emission reduction matching with ambition

With a remarkable score of 86/100 (+4 points vs 2020) in energy transition and a A grade in carbon footprint matters, Worldline has demonstrated the efficiency of its climate strategy and action plans to fight against climate change and its ability to constantly progress. Over the past 5 years Worldline succeeded in reducing its global carbon footprint of 59% in intensity per revenue for scope 1.2 and 3A. Furthermore, Worldline’s greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction objectives are in line with the criteria and recommendations of the SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative) 4.2 version. The ambition of Worldline’s scopes 1 and 2 targets is therefore in line with a 1.5°C trajectory and are as follows:

• Worldline commits to reduce its absolute scopes 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 25% by 2025 compared to the base year 2019;
• Worldline is also committed to reducing absolute Scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services and the use of sold products by 7.4% within the same timeframe.

Worldline’s climate commitments are also compliant with the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures).

Key social challenges reached

Regarding the social scope, Worldline has obtained a score of 58/100, supported by its responsible employer strategy which gathered all the people-oriented challenges. A key component and a strong asset of this strategy is its career and skills development to attract and develop the best talents and guarantee their employability over the long term. In 2020, and as part of TRUST 2020 programme, Worldline has reached a score of 89.5% for employee satisfaction on the trainings provided by the Company. Amongst the other key social challenges, diversity and inclusion action plans set to ensure fairness, equity and non-discrimination towards the organization have demonstrated progress. As an example, through its Human Rights internal policy, Worldline ensures that the fundamental Human Rights are respected by all the employees across the organization and guarantees a high level of ethics and integrity throughout its value chain.

A highly committed Board of Directors

In terms of Governance, Worldline’s score has improved by +7 points, reaching a score of 55/100, especially supported by  the high level of commitment of its Board of Directors and Top management in the company’s CSR strategy. Since 2019, Worldline has put in place a Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee which is composed of 5 Board members including the CEO, an independent member as a Chairman, two independent members, and the Director representing the employees. Committee members are regularly trained and updated on CSR core issues of the Company, of the sector and of the best practices of the market. In addition, diversity of skills, gender, backgrounds are represented within the Board members.

Bolstered by the adoption in 2020 of its Company Purpose, Worldline has announced in May 2021 following its General Assembly the main axes of its TRUST 2025 programme, the start of a whole new chapter in its CSR strategy. This new CSR roadmap for the next five years includes a set of 19 measurable objectives to be achieved by 2025 with a higher level of ambition and a wider scope to fit with Company’s growth and stakeholders’ expectations in terms of sustainable development.

“This new recognition of our CSR performance by V.E is a strong mark of encouragement for all our teams, who are fully involved in the implementation and achievement of our new TRUST 2025 programme. Supported by our CSR vision as a key driver of transformation for our Group, embedded at the heart or our corporate strategy, we intend to pursue our efforts to further increase our performance and trust within our ecosystem.” says Sébastien Mandron, Worldline CSR Officer.

To learn more about Worldline TRUST 2025 programme, read Worldline Integrated Report 2020, the dedicated launching Press Release or visit Worldline CSR webpage.

The highly scalable solution will help financial institutions meet their risk management, valuation, security master and operational needs

Tech Mahindra, a leading provider of digital transformation, consulting and business reengineering services, has selected Alveo’s FiDaaS solution, a leader in market data integration and analytics solutions for financial services, to offer its customers integrated Financial Data as a Service Proposition to the Financial Services Industry. 

The FiDaaS Solution provides a cloud-based, Centralised Market Data Platform which offers a comprehensive solution for pricing and reference data management and covers end to end Financial Data Management requirements. The solution covers Data Acquisition, Data Mastering, Data Quality Management, Data Discovery and Distribution.

The technology will include: 

• Reference Data Management Solutions for security set-up and post-trade processing as well as ESG data management

• Market Data Management Solutions for Portfolio valuation (e.g. NAV and IPV), Sensitivity measures, and Index and ETF Data Management

• Risk Data Management Solutions for risk factor data, back-testing, scenario analysis and stress testing

The Financial Services industry is faced with increasing volumes of additional data sources and need to provide their business users and applications with quality checked and validated information for risk, valuation, operations, trade enablement, finance, and advanced analytics. In this regard, FiDaaS will improve operational efficiencies by streamlining the management,  control and tracking of data to enhance governance and verification for regulatory reporting. 

The Tech Mahindra “Powered by Alveo” partnership brings together two global specialists with the complementary capabilities needed to realise transformative outcomes with a vision and a commitment to co-innovate.

Vivek Agarwal, President – BFSI, HLS and Corporate Development, Tech Mahindra, said, “Value and reliability of instrument data that financial institutions have access to, has far reaching impact on their reputation and regulatory scrutiny. Inaccuracy and unavailability of this data increases risk and causes significant financial losses. A sophisticated data management platform is central to ensuring data quality, data lineage, data cost monitoring, automation and self-services for global enterprises. Our partnership with Alveo is a step in this direction. Through this collaboration, we aim to help financial services customers to achieve the objectives of better-quality data at right cost while also getting the best analytical features from the historical financial data repository. We are looking forward to working with Alveo and driving the financial services customers towards the Data -as-a-Service model.”

As part of the NXT.NOW TM framework, Tech Mahindra aims to enhance human centric experiences for businesses. This means focusing on investing in emerging technologies and solutions that enable digital transformation to better meet the evolving needs of its customers through our DigitALL framework.

Mark Hepsworth, CEO, Alveo, said, “Our partnership with Tech Mahindra is another step forward in rolling out Data-as-a-Service offerings to the financial services industry. The speed of onboarding, flexibility in consumption and lower cost of change whilst providing users a clear set of controls, dashboards and configuration options have made Data-as-a-Service the model of choice when it comes to sourcing data management capabilities. We are delighted to welcome Tech Mahindra to the ‘Powered by Alveo’ program and look forward to working closely together.”

TIPTrust and Experian transform the delivery of free debt advice during the Covid-19 pandemic

A partnership between global information services company Experian and TIPTrust, which supplies data and technology to the free debt advice sector, has helped transform the delivery of free debt advice during the pandemic.

By providing faster, more accurate client data to debt advisers, the partnership has enabled those seeking free debt advice to get the personalised support needed to start their journey towards regaining control of their financial situation during the pandemic.

Covid-19 has had a profound financial impact on many of us with research suggesting 40% of people experiencing a pandemic-related income shock. While some can fall back on their savings or access credit to soften the blow, it can be much more damaging for those who can’t and seeking impartial debt advice becomes even more essential.

Through the TIPTrust self-service Debt Adviser Support Portal, more than 800 advisers were able to gain instant access to detailed credit reports from Experian, alongside open banking data and reports from another credit reference agency. This data helps advisers quickly and easily establish a comprehensive view of each client’s indebtedness so they can more effectively guide them towards an appropriate solution, such as a Breathing Space, a Debt Relief Order, or an informal debt management plan.

The partnership also played a huge role in the switch to remote advice delivered from home at a time when lockdown restrictions prevented face-to-face advice.

Ryan Hayes, TIPTrust COO, commented: “We understand the challenges faced by debt advisers and believe in technology, which is designed to enhance, rather than replace what they do, saving them time and money in achieving the best possible client outcomes.  Without Experian on board with a low-cost supply we couldn’t have supported the sharp increase in demand for free credit report data when advice had to be delivered remotely during the pandemic and this partnership will continue to be important in giving advisers easy access to creditor information for those who need it most through whatever means the advice is being delivered.”

A TIPTrust customer survey carried out in the summer highlights many of the positive impacts the Debt Adviser Support Portal has provided to advisers and their clients, including:

• ‘They have enabled me to deliver advice sessions remotely with ease’ – 87% of advisers reported that TIPTrust had improved the efficiency of their advice provision 

• ‘Client journeys have improved’ –The requirement for clients to recall or obtain creditor information is significantly reduced, which is particularly beneficial to clients with mental health issues. They are reaching a debt solution in less time and are more likely to stay engaged with the advice provider. Processing times for Debt Relief Orders have reduced from weeks to days when credit reports are accessed early in the advice process.

• ‘The reports have reduced the requirement for additional appointments to collate creditor information’ - 93% of users confirmed that the number of client appointments needed had reduced.

• ‘The reports have improved the quality of my advice’ - 84% of advisers reported that TIPTrust improved the quality of their advice 

Ryan Hayes continued: Debt advice delivery is complex and challenging – clients often have multiple needs and gathering all the information together to provide accurate advice can be an additional strain. We aim to support advisers with technology and data to remove some of these barriers and improve the experience for the adviser and their clients in the process. Credit reports are an important part of this and following our survey, you can see the positive impact but we can do much more.”

James Jones, Head of Consumer Affairs at Experian, commented: “We’re delighted that our partnership with TIPTrust has helped advisers provide essential and timely support to people struggling with unaffordable financial commitments, especially given the impact the pandemic has had on the way many services are able to work. We’re all too aware of grave financial impact the pandemic has had on many communities, particularly the vulnerable, and the knock-on effect on people’s mental wellbeing. The debt advice sector provides such a vital lifeline for consumers, and we’re pleased that our work with TIPTrust has helped support the continued availability of free, high quality debt counselling during what has undoubtedly been a very challenging time.”

The Naturally Fast Food brand has introduced Adyen Giving charity donation service for payments on its new in-store kiosks

Adyen, the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading businesses, today announced the extension of its partnership with Naturally Fast Food brand LEON to include Adyen Giving. The new feature enables customers to donate directly to LEON’s chosen charity when making payments on digital kiosks in-store.

Since the partnership began in June 2020, LEON has worked with Adyen and Vitamojo to develop, streamline and innovate its payment systems, creating an online click and collect ordering channel and recently powering the roll out of self-service digital kiosks in-store. This innovation is a key pillar of LEON’s digital transformation, enabling the chain to build a more scalable restaurant model, which is critical to making it more accessible and fulfilling its mission of helping everyone to eat and live well. LEON also relied on Adyen’s solution to help launch its coffee subscription service, which the brand used to encourage guests back into restaurants as they returned to the office post lockdown, making it possible for customers to order drinks online and collect in-store.

Through the partnership, Adyen has helped LEON expand its in-store digital kiosk offering, while empowering customers to do good in the course of their purchase. LEON has chosen to direct donations to Bags of Taste; a non-profit that improves the diets of those in poverty by tackling it at source, empowering people to cook healthy delicious food on a tight budget. The Adyen Giving feature is currently running at 20 of LEON’s restaurant locations and has so far raised over £8000 from over 11,000 individual donations for Bags of Taste programme participants. Using tech for good, Adyen guarantees 100% of customer donations go to Bags of Taste.

“At LEON, it’s our mission to make it easier for everyone to eat well and live well, which is why we serve Naturally Fast Food that tastes good, does you good and is kind to the planet. This sentiment now extends past our food, to the impact that our customers make on the world,” said Hugo Engel, Digital Executive at LEON. “When we first started working with Adyen, we knew we would be able to offer our customers more streamlined payments. But now, thanks to Adyen Giving, our customers can help others create a balanced lifestyle through donating to Bags of Taste.”

“It’s always great to work with businesses that are striving to make an impact in their communities. Our partnership with LEON has developed a lot over the last year. We were delighted to help LEON boost its customer experience and now we’re really excited to give their customers the opportunity to give back with each payment,” said Colin Neil, Managing Director of Adyen UK. “In a world where convenience takes precedence, this feature allows for simple, fast donations without interrupting the payments experience.”