The partnership will improve London Mutual’s services by creating a frictionless journey for customers, providing the option to make payments directly from their accounts.

Ecospend, a leading UK provider of Open Banking APIs, has today announced a partnership with London Mutual Credit Union that will enable ‘pay-by-bank’ functionality to its customers. The change will result in real-time money transfers, driving the credit union further towards its vision of achieving a friction-free experience for customers.

As the largest credit union in the Southeast of England, London Mutual Credit Union offers a range of banking products, including current and saving accounts, as well as loans to its 37,000 members.

Customers will be able to make payments directly from their account through biometric ID, creating an online payment method that does not require data or personal information. By making payments instant, London Mutual’s members will be able to better manage their cashflow and experience a streamlined process as there is no opportunity to enter incorrect details.

The payments journey will now bypass interim payment fees associated with a typical card transaction, ultimately helping customers save money and ensuring a safe and convenient customer journey from beginning to end. As processing costs are removed, the profits will be reinvested into the services that London Mutual Credit Union offers its customers.

Additionally, by using the ‘pay by bank’ option when making loan repayments, there is opportunity to reduce the amount of interest members might pay as money is cleared instantly, guaranteeing no interest increases between the time that the payment is made and subsequently settled.

Furthermore, as Ecospend will connect members’ banks to their merchants' banks, the chance of third-party interference in the transaction is eradicated, meaning there is no chance of card fraud.

James Hickman, COO, Ecospend, comments: 

“Customers are continuously favouring more convenient, secure and time-saving alternatives to traditional payment methods. As a London-based fintech company, we’re keen to address these customer expectations by helping them better manage their money, whilst benefitting from existing features of a conventional card payment, including refunds, recurring payments and subscription plans. We’re excited to offer ‘pay-by-bank' to ensure a smooth, frictionless end-to-end customer journey for London Mutual Credit Union’s customers whilst offering them the chance to better manage their finances through instant transactions.”

Leanne Phillips, Business Analyst, London Mutual comments: “We know that customer expectations are increasingly high when it comes to digital services and we want to provide the best service possible. With the help from Ecospend, we are able to offer customers the opportunity to make payments directly from their accounts, ensuring a more safe, efficient and secure payment journey. Added to this, we are committed to doing all we can to help our members manage their money, and by giving them the ability to make instant payments we can help empower them to do this.”

~ Envisions achieving Rs 1,000 crore AUM by March 2024 ~

Mcapital, the lending arm of Mswipe, today announced the appointment of Rohit Agrawal as Chief Executive Officer.

Rohit, who has more than 15 years of experience in financial services and lending, will spearhead Mcapital with a view to achieve Rs 1,000 crore AUM by March 2024

In his new role, Rohit will expand Mswipe’s core payments business by building a robust merchant financing and small loans vertical through Mcapital. He will also oversee the adaptation of innovative technology in creating new credit products for SMEs.

Rohit’s appointment is a crucial step towards strengthening the core leadership team at Mswipe.

Rohit, a CA by profession, joined Kotak Mahindra Bank in 2006. Since then, he has worn many hats including working for the bank’s mid-market business and heading its e-commerce and new-age business.

Mswipe CEO Ketan Patel said, “We are delighted to welcome Rohit, whose vast experience in the lending business will accelerate our ongoing efforts to provide small merchants with quick and easy access to formal credit. I look forward to working with him in developing cost-effective and consumer-friendly solutions for small merchants and expanding our lending business. Rohit’s understanding of the industry will be invaluable for the growth of our company and its vision of transforming into a digital SME bank.”

About his new role, Rohit Agrawal said, “I am excited on my appointment as CEO of Mcapital and I look forward to building a sizeable, profitable and risk-efficient lending business. Together, we are committed to strengthening the merchant ecosystem in India and making SMEs our preferred partners.”

As India’s largest independent POS acquirer with 6.75 lakh POS and 11 lakh QR merchants, Mswipe intends to target the highly underserved SME segment with access to formal credit via Mcapital.

Companies collaborate to disrupt legacy banking and pioneer a new future of banking

Berlin, Germany: viafintech GmbH, part of leading specialised payments platform Paysafe (NYSE: PSFE), today announces a new partnership with Solarisbank AG with a joint vision to replace the classic bank branch and physical locations for basic banking services. As Europe's leading banking-as-a-service platform, Solarisbank provides international corporations and fast-growing fintechs with a legally compliant and quick integration of financial services into their own product offerings via APIs. Thanks to the cooperation with viafintech, the leading barcode-based alternative payment infrastructure in Europe, many of Solarisbank's partners will be able to offer their customers more than 20,000 acceptance points for cash deposits and withdrawals across Europe in the future.

The technical integration of the service has already been completed and tested, so existing and future partners of Solarisbank can be connected immediately; they only need to integrate a few endpoints and design the front end of the feature according to their target group and corporate branding.

Sebastian Seifert, Managing Director and Co-Founder of viafintech GmbH at Paysafe, comments: "Our new cooperation with Solarisbank brings together two very complementary sets of strengths and services. Our long-standing and resilient network of retailers in six European countries will now be able to facilitate the daily handling of cash for even more companies and their end customers."

Leif Wienecke, Managing Director Digital Banking, Solarisbank, added: "From our point of view, bundling services like the ones provided by viafintech is the key to the banking customer of the future. They expect customer-focused solutions that make daily operations easier, not more complicated. The approach of being able to complete additional services while making regular purchases fits perfectly with our vision of a world in which financial services are seamlessly embedded in people's everyday lives."

Rapidly growing blockchain startup XY Finance has announced that it has closed a $12M funding round led by some of the most prominent venture capital firms in the cryptocurrency space. Led by investors including Circle Internet Financial, LLC, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Mechanism Capital, TRON Foundation, Morningstar Ventures, Yield Guild Games Ventures, Block Capital and Animoca Brands, the full consortium includes more than forty investment firms.

The fund raise also comes as XY Finance is about to conduct its Initial DEX Offering (IDO) on December 9. “XY Finance is excited to acquire significant support from our investors. In the near future, the cross-chain mechanism will be a game-changer of the DeFi ecosystem and GameFi market.” says XY founder Wilson Huang. “Including cross-chain transactions, GameFi, and NFT, what we’re doing will become essential for advanced DeFi users; therefore, we are eyeing more than $1 trillion transaction growth in 2022.”

Through collaboration with YGG and Animoca Brands, XY Finance will introduce various GameFi experiences to the XY Finance ecosystem and fulfill the cross-chain demand of the in-game assets and play-to-earn business model.

New York, NY | Option to attend virtually

March 31 – April 1, 2022 | 08:30 EDT

Striving to achieve operational excellence has been at the forefront for many financial institutions ever since the pandemic started, as many firms had to change the way they delivered products and services to customers while also managing costs and customer expectations. Many firms were also expected to try and deliver great service with fewer resources. As a result, firms had been under enormous pressure to maximise operational excellence while finding innovative ways to deliver better service to customers, while at the same time having to distinguish themselves from competition and remain profitable.

The GFMI 2^nd Edition Operational Excellence for Financial Institutions conference, taking place in New York City, on March 31- April 1, 2022 and virtually, will provide Operational Excellence professionals with the latest concepts, tools and technologies that will equip financial institutions with larger operational efficiencies and ultimately drive Operational Excellence. The importance of developing a culture of Operational Excellence will be at the forefront of this conference and delegates will learn new strategies to show the value of Operational Excellence to their organization.

Attending This Premier marcus evans Conference Will Enable You to:

• Embed a culture of Operational Excellence to strive towards continuous improvement
• Learn new approaches to get buy-in from all stakeholders
• Compare the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Improve how Operational Excellence teams are structured to achieve the highest possible ROI
• Evaluate the best strategies for selecting and testing new tools and technologies to maximize Operational Excellence
• Enhance metrics and guidelines to measure the success of Operational Excellence across an organization.

Best Practices and Case Studies from:

• Usha Rao, Director, Strategic Enablement, Prudential
• Sai Cherla, Chief Administration Officer, Technology and Operations, BMO Financial Group
• Dan Leeds, Executive Director, Agile Transformation, Morgan Stanley
• Jarel Hawkins, Senior Vice President, Intelligent Automation and Software Engineering, Truist
• Manas Tripathy, Head, Transformation and Delivery, Wells Fargo
• Rebecca McDonough, Vice President, Business Transformation, Mastercard

Financial IT subscribers are entitled to $200 discount! For more information please contact: Ms Ria Kiayia, Digital Media and PR Marketing Executive at riak@marcusevanscy.com or visit: https://bit.ly/3jcIuYO

ING notes the announcements made today by the European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Central Bank (ECB) regarding the information of the 2021 EU-wide Transparency Exercise and Risk Assessment Report.

Background EU‐wide Transparency Exercise  

The EBA Board of Supervisors approved the package for the EU‐wide Transparency Exercise, which since 2016 is performed on an annual basis and published along with the Risk Assessment Report (RAR).

The annual transparency exercise is based solely on regulatory reporting data (COREP/FINREP) on the form and scope to assure a sufficient and appropriate level of information to market participants. The templates were centrally filled in by the EBA and sent afterwards for verification by banks and supervisors.

The outcome of the exercise related to ING Group can be found in the annexes on the EBA website.

Klub has raised a debt financing round by Northern Arc Capital, to scale its embedded financing offering for e-commerce merchants, to provide flexible growth capital. 

India’s digital D2C/e-commerce ecosystem presents an opportunity of over $100 bn by 2025, yet merchants are often constrained by timely access to flexible capital options. To solve this, Klub has partnered with India’s leading e-commerce platforms to provide seamless access to flexible capital for the 200,000+ SMEs across these platforms. Merchants on online marketplaces will now be able to access Klub’s financing options either directly on the platforms they sell on or via their preferred payment gateways, and logistics partners. 

Speaking about the funding, Sudharsan Venkatakrishnan, Vice President, Klub said, “Klub’s embedded financing solution helps merchants on our partner marketplaces get easy access to capital without leaving the marketplace ecosystem. We are excited to partner with Northern Arc to offer this compelling solution to our rapidly growing customer base.”

Commenting on their recent investment in Klub, Bama Balakrishnan, COO, Northern Arc Capital, stated, “Northern Arc has always believed in partnering with pioneering companies like Klub that disrupt the existing ecosystem, at an early stage. Our ability to understand the potential and risks of underlying sectors and markets helps us underwrite these institutions and provide them with suitable products through their lifecycle.”

After the funding, Klub is on track to scale its embedded platform offering by 20x and support digital SMEs with growth capital ranging from ₹2 lakhs to ₹30 crores.  The company recently raised $20 mn in one of the largest seed rounds in India and has grown 18x over the last year. 

At least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the world's oceans every year. The globally difficult situation is improved by collecting plastic waste from oceans and coastal areas and reusing it. As the first in Finland, the Savings Banks Group will offer its customers an option to have their debit or credit card made from ocean plastic. TietoEVRY manufactures, personalises and delivers payment cards to the Savings Banks’ customers.

Savings Bank’s customized picture payment cards made from ocean plastics will be available from next spring. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), at least 14 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year – and that number is steadily increasing.

"By using plastic collected from the oceans to make payment cards, we can contribute to reducing the amount of microplastics ending up in the bodies of humans and animals. At the same time, it will also lead to cleaner beaches," says Manu Kauppila, who is responsible for Savings Banks Group’s card business.

Especially in developing countries, a large proportion of plastic eventually ends up in the sea. Material for Savings Banks’ cards is collected from, for example, small island states that do not have infrastructure ready for plastic sorting and that are also the most vulnerable to climate change.

Plastic waste collected from the ocean is sorted and eventually made into plastic from which TietoEVRY, Savings Banks Group’s card partner, manufactures and personalizes payment cards for Savings Banks’ customers.

The advantages of ocean plastic cards over traditional payment cards

Although the transport of collected ocean plastics to Europe by sea freight results in CO2 emissions, the total emissions are lower than if the cards were made of traditional plastic.

"We understand very well that we do not solve the world's environmental problems by using ocean plastic waste to make our payment cards. However, we believe that the world will become a better place if sustainability and environmental considerations are increasingly taken into account in similar concrete actions," says Kauppila.

Sustainable for both the nature and the user

Ocean plastics are made from PET, which is widely used in items such as plastic bottles. It is more environmentally friendly – but still as durable an option – as the traditional payment cards made from PVC plastic.

"Currently over 70% of a payment card body can be made of recycled ocean plastic. Ocean plastic cards not only minimize the introduction of virgin plastic but also reduce the amount of plastic in oceans. We are happy to work here with our card partner Thales," says Jarmo Rouhiainen, Head of Card Production & Personalisation in TietoEVRY.

Savings Banks Group is the first bank in Finland to announce that it will introduce an ocean plastic payment card.

"Even though many of our customers already pay for their purchases by phone or smartwatch, we believe that the physical payment card will remain in the customers' wallet for a long time to come. That's why we want to bring an environmentally friendly alternative to our customers' wallets as soon as possible," Kauppila sums up.

Picture debit or credit cards made from ocean plastics can be obtained from Savings Bank from around May 2022 onwards.

OneStream, a leader in corporate performance management (CPM) solutions for the world’s leading enterprises, today announced its further expansion across Asia-Pacific with the opening of a Singapore office. OneStream’s new Singapore office will be the third office for the organisation in the APAC region, enabling the company to extend its reach in the region and providing APAC customers and partners easier access to its industry-leading solution and world-class customer service and support. OneStream’s APAC expansion comes on the heels of an impressive Q3 in which the company increased its customer base 40 percent year-over-year and reported 88 percent growth in Annual Recurring Revenue.

“We are excited to continue our APAC expansion and open our newest office in Singapore to assist APAC enterprises seeking to overcome the many complexities within their financial operations. With a unified, scalable solution, OneStream is well-positioned to address those challenges on a global level,” said Thomas Palmer, Managing Director of Asia-Pacific Operations. “Over the last few years, hundreds of organisations around the world have transitioned from multiple legacy CPM applications, cloud point solutions and spreadsheets to OneStream’s unified intelligent finance platform to optimise and streamline their financial close, consolidation, reporting, planning, forecasting and analysis processes. We look forward to working with APAC enterprises of all sizes, and across industries, to maximise the value of their finance teams and provide leaders with strategic financial and operational insights that enable them to grow and evolve rapidly in the face of unprecedented challenges.”

With residence currently in Frasers Tower, 183 Cecil Street, Singapore, OneStream’s latest office will be home to the region’s pre-sales, sales, marketing, alliances and services team with a focus on supporting and expanding OneStream’s customer base across the Southeast Asia region.

Additionally, the new office will support the expansion of OneStream’s ecosystem of more than 200 global implementation partners, which includes AMCO Solutions, James & Monroe, Leap Poder and Taysols, that are already serving the Southeast Asia market.

“We implemented the first OneStream project in ASEAN over three years ago and now the rapid growth of OneStream in the Asia Pacific region will get an additional boost with the OneStream team opening their Singapore Office,” said Darshana Sanghavi, Managing Director, AMCO Solutions, APAC. “We are delighted with this development as the combination of AMCO Solutions in the CPM market, with OneStream’s local presence, provides an outstanding option for any organisation looking to carry out finance transformation with the best CPM solution.”

The new Singapore office will enable OneStream to provide local support for its growing base of customers in the region, including Global Fashion Group. “Since we went live in 2020, the OneStream platform has become the central component in our group finance systems landscape. As we roll out further capabilities, it will play an ever more important part in supporting our growth. Southeast Asia is a key market for Global Fashion Group through our Zalora platform, so I am very happy to see OneStream continue to build its presence in the region,” said James Petitt, Internal Controls and Finance Systems Manager at Global Fashion Group.

For more information on OneStream and the expansion into the Southeast Asia region, join the “Unleashing the True Value of Finance” virtual launch event on December 9: https://hubs.li/H0_rXFV0.

Twenty7Tec, the market-leading mortgage tech provider, has released its monthly findings from the UK mortgage market for November.

Key findings for November 2021 include:

·       43.2%*  Remortgages as a proportion of the mortgage market in November 2021 purchases (excluding product transfers) = 56.8%).

·       #2  November 2021 was the second busiest month for total mortgage searches in the past two years (March 2021 was the busiest).

·       17  Seventeen of the top 20 days this year for Buy To Let (on a 7-day rolling basis) were in November 2021.

·       2/11  November 2nd was the first time we ever saw more than 20,000 documents produced on a single day on the Twenty7Tec platform.

·       17.6%  First time buyers as a percentage of all mortgage searches in November 2021. The lowest share of searches since lockdown 1.0

·       7%  The rise in fixed mortgage volumes. Every other mortgage type saw a slight fall in volumes. 

·       49.3%  On November 4th Remortgage ESIS documents overtook Purchase ESIS document volumes for the first time in over a year. 

·       6  Six of the ten busiest days this year for creating ESIS documents were in November 2021.

James Tucker, founder of Twenty7Tec says:

“Continuing the trend from the previous month, Remortgage searches continued to dominate in November 2021.

In terms of volumes overall however, November was definitely a month of two halves. Huge volumes of searches and documents created in the first half, and a major drop off in most areas - Buy To Let being the exception - in the second half of the month.

If we extrapolate this forward, it could indicate that property transactions through Q1 and early Q2 2022 could be down fairly significantly on 2021. Of course, the new Covid variant could also be starting to play a role in a general slowing down in the market.”