JUMO, a South Africa- and London-based company that offers financial services to entrepreneurs and businesses in emerging markets, has raised $120 million in a new round of funding led by Fidelity Management & Research Company. The company is now valued at $400 million, according to The Times.

The round, which marks Fidelity’s first investment in an African company, also saw the participation from fintech giant Visa and London-based investment management firm Kingsway Capital. It is also coming a year after raising $55 million in a similar unnamed financing round. In total, JUMO has raised more than $200 million in equity and debt rounds from backers such as Brook Asset Management, Finnfund, Proparco, Leapfrog and Goldman Sachs since founder and CEO Andrew Watkins-Ball launched the company in 2015.

The fintech, which refers to itself as a banking-as-a-service platform, says it uses AI to power financial services, particularly lending in emerging markets where over 1.7 billion people do not have basic access to financial services, 42% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are unbanked and only 11% of adults are under credit bureau coverage in Africa. To meet these constraining needs in both markets, JUMO offers core products around savings, credit to customers and businesses, as well as infrastructure to banks, fintech and eMoney operators. Some partners include MTN, Airtel, Tigo, Ecobank, Absa, Letshego, Mansa Bank and Telenor.

When JUMO raised its $52 million in 2018, it opened an office in Singapore to enter Asia, but the company seems to have closed shop there based on information from its statement. Presently, the fintech only states Cape Town, Nairobi, Porto and London as its primary operational and tech hubs.  In terms of active operational markets, though, the fintech is present in six African markets — Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Ivory Coast and South Asian country Pakistan.

So far, JUMO has served loans worth over $3.5 billion to more than 18 million customers across these markets, granting up to 120 million individual loans. According to the current number of eMoney subscribers on its platform with access to loans, JUMO says it has an opportunity to disburse $29 billion a year. The company adds that this number can grow to $40 billion when it expands to Nigeria and Cameroon in 2022. The company’s operational costs also strengthen this assertion. JUMO claims to have lowered its costs to $1/customer per year, which gives it some advantage to scale efficiently across a total addressable market of 150 million customers.

Fidelity participation in JUMO’s round continues a growing list of first-time US investors who have made their first checks in African tech this year, especially fintech. Avenir Growth Capital’s co-lead round in Flutterwave and SoftBank’s backing of Opay come to mind.

“It’s exciting to be part of the wave of US capital being invested in payments and fintech on the continent – there are some great businesses being built and we are proud to play a role supporting capital providers to reach customers with great products,” said Watkins-Ball in a statement.

The founder says JUMO is focused on making it easier for capital providers to reach new customers at affordable prices. The six-year-old company also wants to help banks make “predictable returns” by providing a full range of infrastructure and services from core banking to underwriting, KYC (know your customer) and fraud detection services.

Since 2019, the total bank capital and assets under management deployed on JUMO’s platform has increased to 160%, which signifies the platform’s importance to these financial institutions.

Asides from the expansion into Nigeria and Cameroon, JUMO says it will use the investment to improve and increase the number of financial products it offers to small and medium businesses. It also plans to provide longer-term lending options for merchants and bigger businesses.

“JUMO’s lending platform is highly attractive in its ability to scale across markets and drive financial inclusion by creating access to credit for consumers and small businesses,” said Melissa McSherry, the global head of Risk and Identity Services at Visa in a statement. “We are excited about our investment in JUMO and are looking forward to accelerating adoption of JUMO’s platform across markets and delivering on Visa’s mission of helping individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive.”

Today, fintech company Bitfrost has announced that Anton Chashchin will take on the role of Managing Partner to spearhead the firm’s international growth. 

Anton Chashchin will lead Bitfrost’s strategic growth trajectory across all business areas as the firm expands its operations in Switzerland, the EU, Gibraltar, and Singapore.

The appointment follows the firm’s acquisition of OKONTO, where, as Chief Business Development Officer, Chashchin played an integral role in the firm’s evolution as a premium provider of institutional digital asset services.  

His experience offers a unique approach to fintech services, bringing invaluable expertise and strong relations with institutional clients. 

With over 10 years of experience in digital markets, Chashchin brings invaluable strategic business development expertise and strong relations with institutional clients to the new role. Having served as Managing Partner at CEX.IO Prime prior to the CBDO role, Chashchin also brings deep knowledge of building crypto infrastructure and the wider digital asset industry. 

“I’m excited to be able to contribute to the development and future of the fintech industry as Managing Partner of Bitfrost. As the sector continues to evolve rapidly, the unlimited potential of digital assets in addition to traditional ones will only improve the quality and broadening of the financial services industry.” says Chashchin.

Over the next few months, Bitfrost plans to integrate its systems with the OKONTO digital assets platform. The integration will significantly increase Bitfrost’s ability to offer clients a highly profitable, innovative environment for the varied use of digital assets alongside the high-speed processing of transactions across institutional-grade infrastructure and products. 

GreenBox POS, an emerging fintech company that leverages proprietary blockchain security and token technology to create customized payment solutions, today announced the closing of its previously announced $100 million convertible note financing ($84 million following the deduction of an original issue discount).

The Company plans to use proceeds for acquisitions, to jumpstart the Coyni stablecoin custodial revolver and apply additional working capital toward the Company’s future growth, this is a significant milestone in executing the Company’s growth plans.

“This financing round not only fuels the next stage of progress for GreenBox and our planned stablecoin spin-off, Coyni, but also demonstrates our organization’s focus on executing against lofty goals,” said Ben Errez, GreenBox POS Chairman. The world of financial payments is ripe for disruption largely based on legacy architecture and painstaking processes for businesses to transact. Now with a fortified balance sheet, GreenBox is one crucial step closer to achieving our long-term vision of becoming the financial infrastructure for the new blockchain based future of banking and operating as a point-of-sale, PayFac, card issuance, and full banking platform around the world.”

The note will mature 24 months from the closing date. The initial conversion price equal to an over 80% premium to the market price of the Company’s common stock on October 29^th, 2021 sets enterprise value at over $700 million upon conversion.

EF Hutton, division of Benchmark Investments, LLC, acted as the exclusive placement agent for the offering.

The securities were offered pursuant to an effective shelf registration statement on Form S-3 (File No. 333-257798) that GreenBox previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The offering will be made only by means of a written prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus that form a part of the registration statement. An electronic prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to the offering will be filed with the SEC. Copies of the prospectus supplement and the accompanying base prospectus relating to these securities will be available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov and may also be obtained, when available, by contacting EF Hutton, division of Benchmark Investments, LLC, 590 Madison Avenue, 39th Floor, New York, NY 10022, Attention: Syndicate Department, or via email at syndicate@efhuttongroup.com or telephone at (212) 404-7002.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

Fusion Risk Management, Inc. (“Fusion”), a leading provider of operational resilience, business continuity, and risk management software and services, today announced it has been named the Best Vendor Solution for Managing Operational Risk in the inaugural RegTech Insight Awards APAC 2021. 

Fusion’s recognition was driven largely by product innovation of the Fusion Framework® System™, a revolutionary platform that simplifies organizational risk and resilience assessment, eliminating the need for separate modules across multiple business areas. The platform integrates all aspects of operational resilience including risk management, cybersecurity, IT disaster recovery, crisis management, business continuity, and third-party management holistically to help organizations deliver on their brand promise, no matter the disruption. Fusion’s out-of-the-box capabilities empower firms to efficiently aggregate risk assessment information for accurate risk reporting and control monitoring across the organization, building a culture of resilience as a guiding North Star and enabling clients to go beyond reacting to ongoing threats to more proactively managing their resilience posture.

Throughout the year Fusion has continued to invest in enhancements to the platform, including the addition of Scenario Testing – a new purpose-built engine that provides organizations with the ability to model and test for severe and plausible events in real-time. Fusion recently announced the launch of Dynamic Response Console, an agile solution that streamlines response and recovery with a data-driven approach. Earlier this year, Fusion launched Fusion Analytics which provides diagnostic, prescriptive, predictive, and actionable insight for risk teams.

“Fusion is honored to be named Best Vendor Solution for Managing Operational Risk by the RegTech Insight Awards APAC 2021,” said Michael Campbell, CEO of Fusion Risk Management. “This award recognizes our commitment to delivering best in class operational resilience solutions that help our clients deliver on their brand promise through any disruption or unexpected event. The last 18 months have clearly displayed the critical importance of operational resilience and risk management planning, and we are excited to continue innovating and working in close partnership with our global clients to ensure a more resilient future.”

The RegTech Insight Awards APAC 2021 are evaluated by an esteemed Advisory Board and then voted on by A-Team’s broad readership including financial institution members, senior technology officers and RegTech specialists.

“Many congratulations to Fusion Risk Management for winning Best Vendor Solution for Managing Operational Risk in our inaugural RegTech Insight Awards APAC 2021. It’s a real vote of confidence from across our readership of 30,000+ senior technology officers and RegTech specialists, who selected Fusion Risk Management as the clear winner in a very competitive field,” said Andrew Delaney, President and Chief Content Officer of A-Team Group, which hosts the RegTech Insight Awards.

Cabital, a leading digital assets institution, today announced that it has partnered with BCB Group (BCB), one of Europe’s leading provider of business accounts and trading services for the digital asset economy, enabling it to incorporate GBP to its growing list of payment methods.

Cabital’s partnership with BCB allows it to serve any customer who holds GBP as the rate of cryptocurrency adoption increases across Europe. The partnership with BCB allows users to exchange GBP for crypto assets and vice versa. Customers who convert their digital assets into GBP can easily transfer it to a bank account held in their name.

Raymond Hsu, Co-Founder & CEO of Cabital said:

“Cabital’s partnership with BCB allows people who hold GBP to buy crypto assets and enjoy high-yield passive income through our interest-bearing crypto asset deposit products on Cabital Earn. This will provide our customers who hold GBP with more opportunities to generate higher returns in an exciting and quickly growing asset class.

“As we further execute our strategic ambitions, we will continue seeking secure and efficient strategic partnerships that will allow our customers to easily and safely invest in cryptocurrency and generate high-yield passive income from their digital assets no matter what fiat currency they hold. Looking ahead, we plan on adding more fiat currencies to Cabital’s crypto rails in 2022.

“I am confident that the continued execution of our strategic priorities will create long-term sustainable value for our shareholders and customers.”

Oliver von Landsberg-Sadie, Founder and CEO of BCB Group, added:

”We’re delighted to be working with Cabital, and helping them with payments infrastructure to allow them to incorporate GBP into their offering.”

Last month, Cabital announced that it has added the European Union’s Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) to its growing list of payment methods, enabling customers to seamlessly change between euros and cryptocurrencies to generate high-yield passive income. 

The SEPA announcement came after Cabital’s recently successful $4 million seed round that was led by SIG, Dragonfly, and GSR, increasing the company’s valuation to $40 million. That followed Cabital’s previously successful angel round where the company raised $3 million.  

Straight through processing capabilities added to Paymode-X Network

Bottomline, a leading provider of financial technology that makes complex business payments simple, smart and secure, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Bora Payments Systems, enabling Paymode-X vendors to utilize straight through processing (STP) as a method of accepting virtual card payments. The combination adds new bank channel relationships to Paymode-X and capabilities that improve the network’s virtual card program, an important revenue driver for Paymode-X.

Today, most virtual card payments are delivered through encrypted email or via secure portal access. This manual task can become expensive and burdensome as a vendor accepts higher volumes of virtual card payments from their customer base. Virtual card payments made via STP are processed directly to the vendor’s bank account while delivering rich remittance data. That results in savings of both time and effort, as well as reduced card acceptance costs, for vendors with high volumes of virtual card payments.

“For more and more customers and channel partners, the ultimate digital transformation of payables requires a comprehensive strategy for all payments—domestic, international, B2B and B2C,” said Tom Dolan, General Manager, Paymode-X, Bottomline. “Today, however, the card payment piece of the equation can be inefficient and cumbersome. For vendors, these new STP capabilities eliminate manual processing associated with virtual cards, shorten their invoice-to-cash cycle and optimize acceptance economics. For payers, they help improve relationships with suppliers, providing them with more payments acceptance options that offer great efficiency and cost-effectiveness.”

The transaction was structured as an asset purchase for $15 million in cash, and is not expected to have any material impact on Bottomline’s previously issued financial guidance

Broadridge has hired Trip Chong as Director of Business Development for its Securities Class Actions solutions. Trip joins Broadridge from specialist investor litigation monitoring, advisory and recovery firm, Institutional Protection, where she was Head of Strategic Partnerships. Trip worked closely with law firms, litigation funders and investor rights groups to help clients navigate the complex landscapes of international securities litigation.

Trip has over 13 years’ industry experience in securities group investor actions with a particular focus on international jurisdictions. She will be based in the United Kingdom and will be responsible for selling Broadridge’s Class Action solutions to markets outside of North America. Her previous leadership roles in business development, operations and client services have enabled her to build strong, long term relationships with institutional clients and industry partners, delivering the highest standard of services in the securities litigation arena.

“I am excited to welcome Trip to Broadridge. Her accomplishments, expertise, and industry experience in securities class actions are certain to be an asset to our company and our clients” says Manuel Baptista, Vice President, Head of Investor Communication Solutions International Sales at Broadridge. “Trip is a welcome addition to our team, and we look forward to her invaluable contribution”.

PhishLabs Threat Trends and Intelligence Report show attacks grow 31.5% year-to-date over 2020, with social media attacks continuing to climb; September more than doubles its phishing activity over the same month last year

PhishLabs by HelpSystems, the leading provider of Digital Risk Protection solutions, today released their Quarterly Threat Trends and Intelligence Report. Phishing remains the dominant attack vector for bad actors, growing 31.5 percent over 2020. Notably, attacks in September 2021 were more than twice as high as the previous year.

“While we saw a drop early this summer in phishing volume, threat actors didn’t take the whole summer off. Attacks have been on the rise since July and surged in September. If these trends continue, many IT security teams will find themselves dealing with a deluge of threats over the holidays,” says John LaCour, Founder and CTO of PhishLabs. 

Additional key findings of the PhishLabs Quarterly Threat Trends and Intelligence Report include:

1. Social Media Attacks Skyrocket in 2021: Since January, the average number of Social Media attacks per target climbed steadily, up 82 percent year-to-date. 
2. Vishing is Increasing: Vishing incidents more than doubled in number for the second consecutive quarter, suggesting a shift in tactics as threat actors seek to evade email security controls.
3. O365 Users Beware: In Q3, 51.6 percent of credential theft phishing attacks reported by corporate users targeted O365 logins.
4. PII Grows on the Dark Web, Leveraging Chat Services: The sale of Personally Identifiable Information accounted for 12 percent of dark web threats and was primarily made up of threat actors marketing employee email addresses to black market buyers. In 56 percent of PII sales, chat-based services were used to market the data.

“The continued climb in social media threats makes it imperative that businesses prioritise visibility across platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. As seasonal hiring ramps up for the holidays, the staffing industry in particular needs to be prepared to deal with online impersonation and other scams,” says LaCour.

PhishLabs analysed and mitigated hundreds of thousands of attacks targeting enterprise brands and employees in the Q3. The report uses this intelligence to determine key trends shaping the threat landscape.

PhishLabs Founder and CTO John LaCour will discuss key findings from the report in a webinar today at 2 p.m. ET. Attend the webinar live or watch on-demand at this link.

The PhishLabs Quarterly Threat Trends and Intelligence Report is available to download here. 

Quarterly Threat Trends and Intelligence - November 2021 (phishlabs.com)

Banks worldwide embrace new technologies and branch strategies in response to changing customer behaviour and expectations

The demand for self-service continues to rise

RBR’s report Branch Transformation 2021 reveals key trends in customer behaviour which help to shape and drive branch transformation initiatives around the world. One notable trend is the ongoing shift away from the teller counter to self-service channels. In response to this change, banks are offering a wide range of self-service options, from the traditional ATM to non-cash kiosks. Kiosks can perform a variety of functions, such as bill payment or card issuance, and are present in the majority of the 24 markets covered in the report.

Self-service devices are often located in bank lobbies which are accessible after banking hours for customers’ convenience. As demand for self-service continues to rise, the creation of these lobbies has become central to many banks’ branch transformation schemes. Société Générale in France, for instance, has been remodelling its branches to include self-service spaces with extended opening hours to benefit people who finish work late.

Customers expect personalised services

Tailored experiences for online shopping and streaming services are increasingly the norm and the study reveals that this expectation of personalisation even extends to banks. To cater to this demand, some banks look to redefine the teller role, placing more emphasis on building customer relationships. This is aided by the shift towards self-service, which frees tellers from performing traditional over-the-counter transactions.

New branch layouts are used to foster stronger relationships. Open-plan branches – in which bulletproof glass and teller counters have been removed – allow customers and staff to engage more easily. Some banks in Russia are even moving towards a deskless model in which staff-customer interactions take place side-by-side in informal seating areas.

COVID-19 made crowding a key issue

To further improve the branch experience, many banks make use of technology to reduce queues and minimise in-branch crowding. Self-service appointment scheduling is available at self-service terminals in over half of the markets RBR examined. Once inside the branch, customers can often direct themselves to the correct area using interactive signage. A small number of banks even make use of welcome robots to direct customers, such as China’s Bank of Communications in its flagship branches.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about the transmission of the virus made crowding an issue of hygiene as well as convenience, placing new relevance on queue management technologies. The demand for social distancing highlights the fluidity of customer expectations and the need for banks’ continued adaptability.

Emily Beeby, who led RBR’s Branch Transformation 2021 research, remarked: “Although branches vary by market and bank, they are united by the desire to serve the customer in the way they want to be served. This means that as customer behaviour continues to change, we can expect branches to evolve, implementing new strategies and adopting new technologies.”