Today, EedenBull, the leading fintech specialising in B2B commercial payments technology and Diners Club International, a global payment services company owned by Discover Financial Services, have announced a strategic partnership aimed at further leveraging the vast untapped opportunities in this space.

Through this strategic partnership agreement, EedenBull customer banks can now integrate Diners Club International into their card issuing options, offering market leading travel and entertainment and B2B payment solutions to their customers. This partnership comes at a time when banks find it increasingly challenging to justify internal development of and investment in digital commercial issuing capabilities, thus making the EedenBull "Commercial Payments-as-a-Service" (CPaaS) model an efficient and competitive option.

The partnership pairs EedenBull's technology and bank partner network with the broad global reach of Diners Club International, bringing market leading payments and spend management technology to the network. EedenBull's fast-growing network of banking partners will also benefit from reduced complexity, lower costs, and an enhanced user experience for their business and corporate customers.
The integration demonstrates EedenBull's commitment to driving the modernization of the B2B commercial payment ecosystem. It marks the next step in its mission for delivering deep payment expertise and cutting-edge technology to banks worldwide.
Nicki Bisgaard, CEO and Co-Founder of EedenBull, said: "As the global business world begins to engage with international travel again, it is vitally important for companies to have efficient and effective management of spend and expenses. Our new agreement allows banks to offer payment solutions associated with Diners Club International alongside the market leading technology of EedenBull."
He continues: "EedenBull is delighted to be working with Diners Club International and is looking to broaden our integration to the advantage of both companies and our mutual customers internationally."
"EedenBull is a leader in the space of Commercial Payments-as-a-Service, and we see many new opportunities for us to jointly help banks launch and digitize their commercial products offering," said Matt Sloan, Vice President International Markets at Diners Club International. "The ever-increasing regulation and technical complexity, as well as other priorities within banks, makes the EedenBull and Diners Club International offering very attractive for bank customers of all sizes."
Diners Club International, part of the Discover Global Network, is a global payments network that is accepted at nearly 40 million merchant locations and 1.3 million ATMs in more than 200 countries and territories. The Discover Global Network includes Discover Network, Diners Club International, PULSE and more than 20 alliance partner networks across the globe.

Senior Business Development Professional Joins Drawbridge to Drive Continued Global Growth

Drawbridge, a premier provider of cybersecurity software and solutions to the alternative investment industry, today announced the appointment of Thomas Fallucco as Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Fallucco will be responsible for driving continued growth while expanding a global footprint through international business and enhancing client relationships and service.

Fallucco brings over 20 years of leadership experience across sales, partnerships and marketing to his role at Drawbridge, with extensive experience serving financial services and funds within the alternative investment space. Prior to Drawbridge, Fallucco served as CRO at Kobiton where he assisted in the acquisition of competitor Mobile Labs, designed the organization for scale, aligned client-centric resources and rebuilt the new logo sales team. Earlier in his career, Fallucco held leadership roles at Secureworks, where he led the global channel team, and subsequently oversaw U.S. and Canadian sales teams.

“As the cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, Drawbridge is committed to providing our clients best-in-breed software coupled with deep industry and technical expertise to safeguard them against internal and external threats,” said Jason Elmer, Founder and CEO, Drawbridge. “Thomas’ proven track record scaling many high-growth technology companies by delivering innovative strategies and exceptional client service will be invaluable to us as we continue our period of hyper-growth.”

“The remarkable success and expansion Drawbridge has recorded to date is a testament to the extraordinary team, industry-leading platform and services the company provides to the alternative investment community,” said Thomas Fallucco, CRO, Drawbridge. “Drawbridge is ideally positioned to help firms manage today’s dynamic emerging threats and regulatory requirements, and I am thrilled to join Jason and the team to help accelerate growth at such an exciting time in the company’s history.” 

ION Commodities’ Openlink integrates EDP’s trading and retail operations and calculates prices for sales offers

ION Commodities, a global provider of commodities trading and risk management solutions, announces that Energias de Portugal (EDP) has selected ION Commodities’ Openlink CTRM as its new power and gas pricing and offer management solution. Along with Openlink, ION will deliver a range of Center of Excellence (CoE) managed services to support EDP with daily operations, and optimize current processes and system usage.

EDP – a Lisbon-based, multi-national utility company with a growing focus on renewables – had experienced a significant increase in transaction volumes and required a solution to simplify operations, deliver automation, increase scalability, and improve reporting. Openlink will integrate and provide transparency across EDP’s trading and retail operations and calculate prices for sales offers, while monitoring associated risks and exposures.

Openlink is ION’s multi-commodity CTRM solution for integrated enterprises that need to standardize complex workflows, automate operations, and consolidate reporting across the business. Openlink’s customers in the power and utility market benefit from fully integrated front, middle, and back-office capabilities for managing power purchase agreements and renewables assets and combining them with traditional trading and hedging for power, gas, and regulatory credits for more informed decision-making.

“We selected Openlink to help us grow our retail business, which could only be achieved by deploying a fit-for-purpose solution that could provide automation and scalability while improving business controls through enhanced risk management and business reporting,” said an official EDP representative.

“EDP is the latest energy trading business to select Openlink for its ability not only to support both traditional power and gas transactions but also trading in renewables, a growing focus for our energy clients. Openlink delivered through ION Cloud, together with CoE, provides a more resilient system that can help meet current and future market conditions and volatility,” said ION Corporates CEO Richard Grossi. “I’m pleased to welcome EDP to ION’s market-leading CTRM community.

Xero expands the availability of its Xero Me app to all global markets, adding additional functionality and paving the way for it to become an all-in-one employee self-service app

Xero, the global small business platform, today announced a reimagined version of Xero Me, its employee self-service app which now comes with integrated Expenses technology. 

By integrating the award-winning* Xero Expenses technology right into Xero Me, employees of small businesses using Xero Payroll in Australia, New Zealand and the UK will now benefit from being able to submit expense claims in the same place they access payslips, submit timesheets and manage leave requests. 

The Xero Me app is evolving to become Xero’s central place for employees to manage critical people processes themselves, with more functionality being built into the experience now and into the future. A single Xero Me app removes the need for employees to switch between multiple apps or navigate disparate systems and workflows for critical employee processes, creating a more seamless employee experience. Meanwhile, employers can ensure data is easily entered and stored in a single place.

“Processes like onboarding, leave and expense management are time-consuming but critical to the optimal performance of any small business. The Xero platform is designed to make life easier for small business owners — so we wanted to give them and their staff an even easier way to manage those fundamental employee processes,” said Simona Turin, Executive General Manager of Business Products at Xero. 

“With the new Xero Me app functionality, business owners will be able to get the data and information they need to manage employee expenses, leave, pay and timesheets, while creating an enhanced employee experience. We’re bringing together our award-winning Expenses and popular Payroll, used to pay more than 2.4 million employees each month, as part of our commitment to help make lives better for small businesses and their advisors, empower employees and help businesses thrive.” 

Rebecca Baldwin, an employee using Xero Me at Fiasco, a desk manufacturing business, said, "My experience of Xero Me has been great. It's really easy to access and use on the go since it has its own app - so for time sheets, all I need to do is enter the hours I've worked each day and submit and then it's done. That's the same for submitting a leave request - it's really easy to request time off, wherever I am. Being able to access payslips in Xero Me has also been super useful."

The new Xero Me experience is rolling out in stages to all Xero’s global customers. In countries outside Australia, New Zealand and the UK, this will be with Expenses-only functionality. Small business employees globally can therefore use Xero Me to quickly submit expense claims and will soon have the ability to complete self-service setup for expense management. 

From this month, existing Xero Expenses app users globally with a ‘Submitter’ role will be able to download and transition across to the Xero Me app to submit their expense claims. Xero Expenses approvers and admins globally will still need to use the standalone Xero Expenses app to check and approve any claims.

·  BondAval has raised over $9m in its first year since founding

·  Strong investor validation underscores the opportunity and value of BondAval’s proprietary MicroBonds™️

·  Pioneering financial instrument enabled by technology provides certainty to supply chains

 BondAval, the insurtech start up offering a new form of payment security, has today announced that it has secured a $7 million seed round led by UK-based venture fund Octopus Ventures. The company, which has offices in London and Austin, also received co-investment from US-based fund Expa, along with support from existing investors Insurtech Gateway and TrueSight Ventures and several high-profile entrepreneurs, including Tom Blomfield (Monzo and GoCardless), Charlie Delingpole (ComplyAdvantage) and Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First).

Founded in 2020, BondAval addresses the imbalance of working capital solutions in supply chains between large corporates and smaller businesses. Currently, SMBs are forced to use sub-optimal instruments, which come with a high time, money, and opportunity cost. 

Co-founders Tom Powell and Sam Damoussi identified that offering businesses of any size access to highly efficient and affordable investment-grade payment security in real-time has far-reaching positive impacts on supply chains.

As an alternative to existing solutions, BondAval’s next-generation payment security – MicroBonds™️ – is backed by a panel of A-rated insurers. By guaranteeing payments and supply contracts with investment-grade certainty, these revolutionary MicroBonds empower businesses of any size to realise their full potential. 

BondAval is currently live in both the UK and the US, with North American operations being led by Charlie Evans, formerly of venture capital firm, Hedosophia.

The company plans to use the funds primarily for growth, hiring out larger teams in the UK, US and new markets as it expands, as well as continuing the build-out and scale of its proprietary platform and provisioning services.

Tom Powell, CEO and Co-Founder of BondAval, said:

“We envision a world where the size of a business is no longer an inhibitor to it achieving its ultimate goals. We’re building the infrastructure to give businesses of any shape and size access to the most efficient forms of capital in real time. This funding round is yet another great point of validation for BondAval. The interest and support of all our investors – funds and angels alike – is rewarding in the fact that they all see the opportunity ahead of us. The capital raised will help us to continue hiring the best talent available. I’m proud of what this team has accomplished already and excited for the future.”

Sam Damoussi, COO and Co-Founder of BondAval added: 

“BondAval is bringing a completely novel outlook to a space that has been crying out for innovation. MicroBonds are a revolutionary security instrument with clear benefits for both suppliers and merchants. They are also highly flexible. We are constantly validating new and innovative use cases, and this fundraise will provide us with the capacity to further roll out our product offering.”

Tosin Agbabiaka, fintech investor at Octopus Ventures, who will join the BondAval board said:

“For decades, companies looking to guarantee future transactions were forced to stomach high costs, significant collateral requirements, and a slow, analogue process. BondAval’s technology changes that, applying surety to micro B2B transactions to transform the cost structure of the product. This means that SMBs and industries across the world can now access collateral free, near-instant guarantees, and a significantly lower cost of working capital, all through a friction free user experience. The team’s depth of expertise here is remarkable, particularly for a business at this stage, and their execution to date has been outstanding. We are excited to support them in carving out a new market. The opportunity here is truly enormous.”

Co-founder Tom Powell’s, career prior to founding BondAval was non-traditional. Tom traded international rugby, having captained the England Sevens team, for financial services, and subsequently the technology sector. Co-founder, Sam Damoussi, spent more than a decade working in the insurance-backed surety market and brings with him a deep domain expertise, as well as a strong track record in insurance product innovation across international markets. This unique combination of experiences allows them to bring a novel, refreshing approach to a largely static and antiquated B2B insurance industry.

Dave Clarke, London-based partner at Expa added:

“At Expa we’ve seen what founders can achieve with technology in industries where they have deep expertise and first-hand experience. We are excited about the opportunities associated with supply chains for BondAval in North America and around the world and look forward to working with the team to scale.”

Luminor Bank, the third-largest bank in the Baltic region, and Ondato, the leading provider of compliance as a service, are partnering to allow companies the opening of Luminor business accounts remotely in Latvia. To meet the rising demand for digitization, Luminor business customers will now be able to open a new account remotely, from anywhere in the world, using Ondato’s identification platforms.

In a survey conducted by Luminor in September 2021*, 34% of small and medium-sized enterprises indicated that they plan to develop and expand their businesses in the coming year. At the same time, 13% stressed that they would also need to raise additional funds to further develop their operations, and that opening a new account might also be necessary. Ondato will allow Luminor to offer businesses the possibility of opening a new account without visiting a bank branch, something previously only offered to existing customers. 

“The pandemic has contributed significantly to the digitisation of many services and the transition to online operations, which is a major time-saver for our customers. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the most frequent openers of new accounts, accounting for almost 85% of all Luminor current accounts opened for legal entities. Switching to remote account opening is an obvious modern digital solution that will create additional convenience and save time for our clients, as all necessary actions can be performed completely remotely from anywhere in the world,” said Jekaterina Ziniča, Luminor Business Development Manager for the Baltics.

“Digitization is one of the main steps a financial institution can take to make itself more competitive and convenient for its clients. While Know Your Business (KYB) procedures are often regarded as something forced on businesses due to regulations, this can also be an opportunity to make your day-to-day processes more effective. We're happy to provide Luminor with modern tools that will increase the safety and quality of their remote procedures,” said Liudas Kanapienis, CEO and co-founder of Ondato.

The new solution enables remote customer identification through several levels of checks, including automated verification of customer data and documents in databases and registers. Customer biometric data is also processed as required by the laws and regulations. Remote account opening with Luminor will be available for companies registered in Latvia, the signatories of which have access to authentication with a Smart-ID Qualified or eID electronic [KE1] signature. If the signatory is not yet a customer of Luminor, additional remote identification is carried out via a video call. Upon receipt of an application, a representative of the company will be contacted by the bank’s staff to tailor a range of services to suit the needs of each customer. Signing of the contract will be done after submission of the documents and identification of the customer with an electronic signature.

Also, if the business grows and additional products are needed, the customer will be able to request the services they need remotely and will no longer need to visit a branch in person. In May 2020 Luminor Bank, together with Ondato, introduced a similar innovative solution for individuals, offering the possibility to become a customer of the bank by performing identification procedures and all necessary activities completely remotely.

● Ebury will support TopSource Worldwide’s growing client base of over a thousand businesses in making payments to thousands of employees 

● Ebury’s proposition allows high volume time critical payments in over 140  currencies to 200 countries alongside a dedication to customer service 

● Integration of Ebury Mass Payments helps TopSource Worldwide remove barriers  to growth for international scale-up clients  

Ebury and TopSource Worldwide are delighted to announce a new partnership that will allow clients  to accelerate their headcount growth internationally without the normal payroll and payment  challenges.  

TopSource Worldwide, the leading global payroll and employer of record provider, will make use of  Ebury Mass Payment’s technology and capabilities to provide clients with a scalable payroll payment  service that can make payments to employees based in over 200 countries across 140 currencies. 

The scalable service means that TopSource Worldwide clients, many of which have employees in  multiple global locations, will be able to quickly grow their headcounts without having to deal with  the practical challenges and cost of setting up a legal entity and payroll function on the ground in  every country they are active in. 

Ebury, a leading fintech company that simplifies cross-border trade and payments by offering  international transactions, FX hedging and account collection solutions for businesses, has developed  its own bespoke payments platform, that delivers a host of pre and post transaction functionality  including: 

• Country specific bank account and payment requirements 

• Mass beneficiary data upload 

• Pre-payment beneficiary data validation 

• Pre-go live Payment (Penny) Tests 

• Mass payment multi-currency payment file uploads 

• Automated beneficiary payment email notification 

• Exportable Transaction reports 

Ebury’s platform ensures funds are routed quickly, cheaply and in a way that minimises the risk of  deductions for employees. Ebury’s payment hub makes use of Faster Payments, SEPA, ACH and Swift  to ensure its secure payments reach the intended beneficiary without any unexpected deductions,  while its specialist customer service function is on hand 24/7 to provide assistance and advice. 

TopSource Worldwide, which was created in August 2021 following the merger of TopSource Global  Solutions and PEO Worldwide, selected Ebury Mass Payments as its global payroll partner following  a competitive tender process. TopSource Worldwide currently makes payments to thousands of  employees across over a thousand global businesses. 

Owain Walters, Managing Director of Ebury Mass Payments, commented: “We are delighted to be  partnering with TopSource Worldwide to help high growth businesses scale their international  operations. Global employment trends and the proliferation of high growth technology companies  have seen this type of ‘last mile’ payments grow in strategic importance for businesses looking to scale  up overseas.” 

Paul Sleath, CMO of TopSource Worldwide, commented: “This partnership comes at an exciting time  for the business as TopSource Worldwide continues to grow as an experienced, trusted payroll and  Employer of Record provider.  

“Delivering a reliable, high-quality service is of paramount importance to our clients, so Ebury’s  combined people and technology offering, coupled with its scale and risk management expertise made  them a natural choice for us. Previously, this kind of service was only available to the largest global  corporations, but we’re excited to bridge the gap and allow for real change.” 

The Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) joins forces with tech-embracing companies to leverage a privacy-preserving technology, called “Federated Learning”, to develop artificial intelligence (AI) models and output in the form of encrypted parameters that serve as a reference for financial institutions to conduct comprehensive credit analyses for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to help them get access to financing. ASTRI’s partners are Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited; Ping An OneConnect Bank (Hong Kong) Limited (Ping An OneConnect Bank or PAOB), the first virtual bank serving MSMEs in Hong Kong; OpenRice, a Hong Kong restaurant guide and review platform; and FrieghtAmigo, a logistics and freight pricing platform. 

Unlike traditional machine-learning methods, Federated Learning does not require data to be transferred directly to a central database, thus protecting privacy and mitigating the risk of data security breaches. Data partners and financial institutions can establish common credit evaluation models by combining their encrypted parameters. During the process, the collaborators do not have access to any consumer personal data, nor are the identities of the enterprises identified. Only when an enterprise applies for financing and is undergoing authorisation can the designated financial institution obtain the relevant parameters and conduct a credit evaluation. 

Dr Denis Yip, Chief Executive Officer of ASTRI, said: “ASTRI develops and leverages innovative technologies. We leverage the Federated Learning technology to provide alternative data for credit assessment, while protecting privacy and data security to help financial institutions reduce the cost of vetting and approving loans for MSMEs and help enterprises get financing. We look forward to collaborating with more organisations to promote the implementation of open data. The Federated Learning technology will also effectively promote the development of other Fintech applications and support the government’s efforts to drive smart city transformation.”

Ms Winnie Tung, Head of Business Banking, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited, said, “Standard Chartered has always been actively driving innovations and digitisation to enhance our capability to serve our clients. The Federated Learning technology enables us to evaluate the financing needs and the health of SMEs from a new perspective, while ensuring our clients’ data privacy is well protected. Our business clients no longer need to go through the time-consuming process of providing many financial reports to get banking facilities. The streamlined process makes financing solutions more accessible to our clients. We will continue our efforts to make innovation and client-centricity part of our business ethos.”

Ms Mabel Chu, Deputy Chief Executive of PAOB, said, “As a pioneer in the virtual banking sector servicing SMEs, PAOB is the first virtual bank in town adopting alternative credit scoring as the foundation for credit assessment, and leveraging financial technology and strategic partnerships with various business partners to close the service gaps in SME banking. We look forward to our strategic collaboration with ASTRI in this Federal Learning exercise. With the AI models, we can access our customers’ comprehensive operational data in real time to help realise financial inclusion by expediting loan approvals and meeting the financing needs of SMEs.”

Mr Joe Yau, CEO and Acting CTO of OpenRice Limited, said, “OpenRice is the most popular food dining platform in Hong Kong, accumulating 10 trillion data units every year, including restaurant distribution and categories, business performance, and social media data sharing. With the strong level of personal data protection, we expect to use Big Data and Federated Learning to train AI models and develop professional industry parameters to make credit applications from small and medium-sized restaurant partners faster and easier to quickly meet their operational needs.”

Ms Ivy Tse, Co-founder and Director of FreightAmigo, said, "As a pioneer of one-stop supply-chain finance eMarketPlace in Asia, FreightAmigo integrates complex logistics industry data in real time through innovative technologies to simplify operations in the supply chain industry. FreightAmigo is collaborating with ASTRI, using the Federated Learning technology to strictly protect privacy. The massive data on the platform is used to train AI models to help to build industry parameters, which helps SMEs apply for trade financing and credit with ease, and effectively addresses their financing needs. It coincides with the mission of FreightAmigo — ‘Dedicating to the advancement of the logistics and financial industry with technologies’. Our ultimate goal is to "make trade easier".

As data partners, OpenRice and FreightAmigo will leverage big data, including various restaurant popularity metrics, the transaction status of consignment merchants, and business operation status, to identify the elements affecting the credit risks of enterprises from alternative data by using AI and Federated Learning. Through this, a model will be trained to derive parameters to assist credit scoring. No information about the enterprises will be transferred from the data partners to other institutions.

With the authorisation of the enterprises applying for loans, Standard Chartered and PAOB can refer to data providers’ assessments of an enterprise’s competitiveness in its industry and its credits status, which is determined using the enterprise’s operation parameters through the model developed to process an MSME loan application. 

During the loan-approval process, financial institutions will be able to make more reliable credit assessments based on the projections of their own credit evaluation models and the assessments of their data partners. The first phase of the models developed using Federated Learning is expected to be in use within 12 months.

At the end of 2020, commissioned by Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), ASTRI published a white paper titled “Alternative Credit Scoring of Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises”, which outlines how FinTech can be adopted to utilise alternative data to evaluate borrowers’ creditworthiness. ASTRI collaborated with financial institutions and data partners to implement the white paper and adopt Federated Learning to protect privacy.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data issued “Guidance on the Ethical Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” a month ago. It also recommends that organisations adopt Federated Learning to train AI models to avoid unnecessary sharing of training data from different sources.

“The Protecting Privacy in Practice” report, published by the Royal Society in 2019, points out that Federated Learning is an emerging practice for training machine-learning models to protect privacy.