Crown Agents Bank accelerates global growth and expands into new markets with MuleSoft

●      Increases payment processing capacity by more than 3,000%

●      Reduces delivery of new integration projects from months to just days

MuleSoft, provider of the world’s #1 integration and API platform, today announced that Crown Agents Bank is using MuleSoft to digitally transform its core payments services and accelerate business growth. Crown Agents Bank is a UK regulated provider of wholesale foreign exchange (FX) and cross-border payment services, connected across frontier and emerging markets. Crown Agents Bank is committed to delivering connected experiences across its digital payments and mobile money services to meet the increasing needs of its customers. With MuleSoft, Crown Agents Bank is able to seamlessly connect to fintech partners and scale faster, increasing the number of payments it can process by more than 3,000%.

“Our primary objective is to drive financial inclusion in areas of the world that traditionally don’t have access to financial services,” said Osita Ngene, Enterprise Architect Lead, Crown Agents Bank. “Scalability is key to serving a wider market. We also need to be able to work with local fintech partners like digital payment providers, mobile wallets, and aggregators, who have a footprint in the markets we serve. That’s why APIs have become critical, giving us the flexibility to scale up our own systems rapidly and connect with those of others to offer payment services wherever they’re needed.”

Building a composable, digital bank

Crown Agents Bank previously relied on custom code that created tightly coupled, one-off integrations between front-end services and its core banking systems. As the bank built out and scaled its digital initiatives, it needed a new process that would adapt to changing market needs, such as handling higher transaction volumes. With API-led connectivity, Crown Agents Bank has transformed into a composable digital bank that can seamlessly connect with its ecosystem of fintech partners and quickly scale up capacity to support its continued expansion into new markets.

Initially, the architecture team built an API to integrate two core processing services to support its move into payments and FX. This enabled Crown Agents Bank to create an in-house sanction screening capability, so it could handle a higher volume of small transactions without increasing the risk of money laundering. With MuleSoft, Crown Agents Bank can now safely process 1,900 transactions in just five minutes.

Rapidly expanding into new markets

In 2019, Crown Agents Bank acquired Segovia to offer its customers a payment gateway to frontier and emerging markets. Segovia’s mobile money solutions and modern payments infrastructure are central to Crown Agents Bank’s plans to accelerate its expansion into new markets, such as Africa. By building APIs on MuleSoft, Crown Agents Bank seamlessly integrated Segovia’s payment gateway with its core banking systems and other internal and third-party payment services. This has enabled the bank to increase the number of payments it can process from 1,500 per day, to 50,000. In the future, these APIs will enable Crown Agents Bank to become less reliant on its legacy systems, providing a further boost to digital agility.

Accelerating digital innovation

MuleSoft has enabled Crown Agents Bank to speed up innovation across its business by reusing the APIs it creates across multiple services. To support this, the bank has adopted an API-led approach, building around 30 APIs. Approximately 90% of these APIs can be reused to power additional experiences beyond their initial use-case. MuleSoft’s API monitoring capabilities are also helping Crown Agents Bank to manage the performance of these integrations as it continues to expand in new markets, enabling it to predict periods of high demand.

“MuleSoft has been invaluable in helping scale up our business and accelerate growth,” continued Ngene. “The ability to decouple our services from legacy infrastructure and integrate them more seamlessly with new technologies is allowing us to future-proof our digital capabilities. We’ve also seen a significant reduction in costs and accelerated project delivery dramatically. We’re able to complete digital initiatives in weeks, or just days, instead of months. That’s time our developers and architects can now invest in more strategic projects, which helps to accelerate our expansion into new markets and offer even better services to our customers.”

To hear more about how Crown Agents Bank is scaling its payments services with APIs, register for the MuleSoft EMEA Financial Services Summit, taking place virtually on 17th November 2021. For more information, visit: https://www.mulesoft.com/events/mulesoft-emea-financial-services-summit-171121

Sai Perry provides extensive technology solutions and asset management expertise

Clearwater Analytics, the leading provider of SaaS-based investment accounting, reporting, and analytics solutions, announced today that it has appointed Mr. Sai Perry as Head of Solutions, Europe and Asia. He will lead the solutions group that help clients streamline and future proof their operating model to meet their growth ambitions. 

Clearwater’s Europe and Asia solutions team is based across London, Paris, Frankfurt, and Singapore. Based in London, Mr. Perry reports to Gayatri Raman, President of Europe and Asia.

He was most recently a Director at PwC in London, where he set up and led the Asset Management technology team that serviced clients globally. 

“Sai brings a wealth of knowledge and perspective in the Insurance and Investment management industry. Our clients will benefit immeasurably from his intrinsic knowledge and experience honed from both a product and consulting background. I am thrilled to welcome Sai to the leadership team for Europe and Asia,” said Gayatri Raman.

In previous roles, Mr. Perry served as an Advisor in the EY Advisory Wealth and Asset Management practice and was an investment management consultant at KPMG. He has led several successful global technology transformation programmes for asset owners and managers including Target Operating Model design for the implementation of multiple platforms and has also led successful client implementations at a number of fintech software companies. 

During his tenure within consultancy and the software industry, Mr. Perry has consulted for multiple clients where he has successfully delivered more than 15 global transformations across Europe and Asia. 

“I am excited to be joining an ambitious company, filled with enthusiastic and talented individuals who are committed to providing unparalleled transparency in investment accounting, reporting, and analytics,” said Sai Perry. “Clearwater is disrupting the investment landscape and I look forward to working with my team to enhance our customers’ experiences and help them find effective solutions to complex market challenges.”

The strategic partnership will allow both parties to shine, bringing a fintech startup to Ondato’s roster and a better experience to Nexpay’s customers

Nexpay, the banking infrastructure provider for the digital assets industry, has partnered with Ondato, running all KYC, AML, and e-signature processes through Ondato’s compliance management platforms. Nexpay will gain an increase in security and usability for its customers while Ondato continues to show that its compliance platforms are suitable to the most demanding use cases, such as the quickly developing and fraud-prone world of digital assets. 

The birth of Bitcoin marked the beginning of an era for digital assets, and with this milestone now only twelve years in the past, the industry remains one of volatile change. However, the heady days of completely unregulated crypto are rapidly coming to an end; the increasing legitimacy of digital currencies and digital assets paves the way for a number of companies to provide services in banking infrastructure, regulation, exchange, storage, and creation of this new form of value. At the same time, the pandemic-induced increase in online living has put added pressure on the ability of any business to conduct transactions online. 

Ondato provides Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) software as well as e-signature services for a wide range of industries, including insurance, banking, e-commerce, and any other company that requires robust authentication protocols. Nexpay is a startup providing banking infrastructure such as accounts and payments to a wide variety of businesses working in the digital assets industry. 

“I wouldn't say we’d be dead without Ondato, but basically we’d be dead,” said Nexpay CEO Uldis Teraudkalns. “The combination of robust security and white-label readiness that Ondato provides, as well as the fantastic customer service and ease of use of the platform, all stand out to us as industry-leading. Ondato gives me peace of mind, which allows me to focus on making Nexpay better at what it does best: helping build the next generation of financial technology businesses in the digital assets industry.”

“Ondato's principal mission is to create value by turning compliance into a business benefit, providing a service that passes the highest safety requirements,” said Ondato’s CEO and co-founder Liudas Kanapienis. “Our KYC compliance suite can dramatically cut down on any instances of fraud within Nexpay’s customer platforms. We're happy to bring another fintech industry member on board. This reassures Ondato's status as a trustworthy ally for future-focused industry members who want to organize their processes using modern and safe methods.”

Nexpay’s customized compliance services will include an automated ID verification system and an SMS signature. These will require a valid ID document, a selfie, and a phone number, creating a comprehensive solution that is simple enough for users but complex enough to be safe against fraud attempts.

• $52M from EQT Ventures takes Juni’s total Series A funding to $73M
• Funding to be used to launch new credit product
• Transaction volumes tripling month-on-month since inception in the run-up to this partnership
• Company to triple the size of team by the end of 2022, recruiting 120 employees across but not limited to; Engineering, Commercial, and Marketing functions

 Juni, the financial companion for eCommerce entrepreneurs, has secured $52M in funding led by EQT Ventures, with participation from FJ labs and other existing investors to add to the $21M already raised from their Series-A round in late June this year. This boosts Juni’s Series A round to $73M and takes the total funding to date to $76M. EQT Ventures joins Partners of DST Global, Felix Capital and Cherry Ventures in backing Juni to disrupt online banking for internet-first business customers. The company will use the funds to triple the number of its employees and launch an industry-first, fully integrated credit line product to their users.

Founded in June 2020 in Gothenburg, Sweden, co-founders Samir El-Sabini (CEO), Jonathan Sanders (COO), and Anders Orsedal (CTO) have a winning combination of payment, banking, fintech and technical developer experience between them. As part of Juni’s mission to help eCommerce businesses grow faster, and starting with an initial roll-out in the UK, customers will soon be able to access short-term credit. This new offering will give entrepreneurs better visibility and control over their cash flow, while eliminating the arduous admin usually associated with credit repayments.

“Everything we do is designed to make life for internet entrepreneurs easier,” said Samir El-Sabini, Founder and CEO at Juni. “We’re internet entrepreneurs too, after all, and before launching Juni, we were in the industry that we cater to today! We understand their pain points and business needs in a way that traditional banking can’t, which in turn means we’re able to offer them a credit product that actually makes sense for them.”

The follow-on investment from EQT Ventures will allow Juni to build their product entirely in-house, in stark contrast with traditional banking platforms, which tend to offer credit solutions from outside partners. This means that Juni will be able to provide a fast, customer-centric offering, specifically tailored for eCommerce businesses to access short-term credit. To support this, Juni is accelerating its worldwide hiring of top talent for its credit team, with a plan to recruit 120 more employees in the next 12 months.

Ted Persson, Partner at EQT Ventures, stated: “Juni is the fastest-growing fintech we’ve ever seen, by a long stretch. The company has hit an impressive average weekly growth rate of 80% in just five months, and we're hearing great things from digitally-native entrepreneurs. The fact that we've known Samir for a long time, and rate him highly made the investment decision easy. We’re excited to help Juni bring a new kind of credit product to the market, disrupting banking platforms for businesses even further.”

Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner at venture fund FJ Labs, added: “We invest actively in macro-trends, and powering the massive shift to eCommerce has been an integral part of our investments strategy for a number of years. Juni is a game-changing enabler for eCommerce and it is only natural for us to support their journey.”

In June this year, Juni raised a $21.5M Series A round led by Partners of DST Global and Felix Capital. The company counts several prominent business angels amongst its early investors, including NA-KD.com founder and CEO, Jarno Vanhatapio, and former iZettle Chief Communications Officer, Johan Bendz. Bendz has also joined Juni’s board alongside Niklas Thornestad, who was recently Klarna’s Global Head of Compliance. 

Digital vouchers available for purchase at retailers within a one mile radius of 99% of the UK’s urban households

The digital gift card and voucher market is reported to have grown in the UK by almost £1 billion, now estimated to be worth £6.9 billion¹. Recognising accelerating demand by consumers to shop digitally as well as physically, digital payments expert PayPoint is bringing its growing portfolio of digital voucher partners - Amazon, Neosurf, Xbox, PlayStation, PaySafecard and Love2shop - to consumers at corner shops and convenience stores across the UK.   

These partnerships not only deliver greater accessibility to leading brands for consumers, but also offer its retailer network the opportunity to enhance its customer offering and drive increased footfall. Stores in the PayPoint retailer network include Sainsburys, Asda, The Co-op, Spar, One-Stop and independent local stores. More than 99% of urban households live within 1 mile of one of these locations.

In the coming weeks PayPoint will be rolling out a point-of-sale promotion at selected retailers to promote its digital gift card and voucher partners.  The most recent Gift Card and Voucher Association (GCVA) State of the Nation report² revealed that 44.6% of respondents stated they have made gift card purchases within the past three years influenced by displays in physical stores.

The report also confirms in-store redemption remains the most popular way to spend gift cards and vouchers in 2020 (55%), however this has decreased from 70% in 2019.  22% of respondents redeemed their gift card via mobile in 2020, up from 11% in 2019.  These findings confirm an upward trend towards online and mobile redemption.

Danny Vant, Client Services Director for PayPoint said: "The digital gift card and voucher market has grown significantly in the last 18-24 months, largely driven by lockdown restrictions and consumer appetite to purchase online. However, this trend is not anticipated to abate, indeed, it's expected to increase by another 25% in the next decade¹. It's vital we support our physical retailer network in capturing their share of this growing market, including increased customer engagement and revenue.  Of course, the benefits are there too for consumers who now have greater accessibility to a wide choice of digital gift cards and vouchers for gaming, streaming, shopping and making digital payments."

2^nd CIS Islamic Banking and Finance Forum will convene in Tashkent – Uzbekistan on October 21, 2021 to explore and discuss innovative financial inclusion strategies that can create clear pathways to financial and economic Solutions. AlHuda CIBE organizing the 2^nd CIS Forum with the collaboration of Multilateral Partner Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector- ICD. ICD is one of the premier Islamic multilateral financial institutions for the development of the private sector. This event is going to happen with the support of Uzbekistan Banking Association and Leasing Association of Uzbekistan. The Technology Sponsor for this event is Codebase Technologies. Apex Insurance LLC & Islamic Finance and Takaful Association are the Silver Sponsor. The Exhibition Sponsors are Caiz Holding, Uzcard and FinExtra.

More than 20 countries will be participating in this prestigious event including the Middle East, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan etc. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are well developed in this concept whereas Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are developing in the same way slowly but steadily. The theme of the forum is to explore the untapped potential of Islamic Finance market of CIS countries and to adopt the latest trends, address the challenges and discover the new opportunities in Islamic financial industry of Central Asia. Islamic Banking and Finance is the more befitting solution to financial sector demands and needs. The forum will cover a variety of topics including Islamic Finance, Financial Inclusion, Takaful, and Sukuk (the Islamic Bonds) Investment opportunities in Central Asia and Uzbekistan. After global crises the second outbreak to the world economy is Covid-19 pandemic and its post effects. Along with overall economic downfall, Islamic financial system is not far away from its adverse effects. The challenges and effects will also be discussed in this event by Islamic finance industry leaders.

The CIS region has significant potential for the Islamic banking and finance industry but untapped. The main objectives of the forum include recognizing significant developments in Islamic Financial Infrastructure of Central Asia and linkages of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Islamic Finance industry with international financial market. The event is open to the public with a very nominal entrance fee. It is highly recommended that more and more organizations, companies and banks should join the summit in order to gain the maximum benefit from this international event in Uzbekistan.

Muhammad Zubair Mughal, Chief Executive Officer, AlHuda CIBE - UAE echoed his thoughts and said that Islamic finance is fastest growing area in CIS countries, Islamic finance is not only developing its roots in Muslim countries but many non-Muslim countries are getting benefit from it. AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics (CIBE) is committed to providing specialized Training, Advisory and Research globally with commitment, dedication, and aspiration in Central Asia. Industry well known speakers will be addressing the event.

• Virgin Money Sustainable Business Coach provides an objective assessment of a business’ ESG impacts, with guidance on how to improve
• Free app is available to all UK businesses, not just Virgin Money customers
• App was developed in partnership with fintech Life Moments and not-for-profit Future-Fit Foundation
• Launch coincides with one of the first Sustainability-Linked Loans being agreed with Smart Metering Systems

Virgin Money has launched a free new app designed to help businesses be more sustainable by measuring, tracking and offering guidance on improving their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) credentials.

Through its partnership with Future-Fit Foundation, a non-profit organisation whose mission is to help the transition to a society that is environmentally, socially and economically fair, the Sustainable Business Coach will help UK businesses manage their sustainability goals. Virgin Money is also offering Sustainability-Linked Loans to businesses who meet the eligibility criteria generated by the outputs from the tool.

The tool identifies the high-priority goals a business should consider and provides an objective assessment of the positive and negative ESG impacts of its activities. As well as giving a score and actionable guidance, it has been designed to be updated periodically, encouraging businesses to track their progress over time. With growing requirements for companies to report on their environmental and social impact, this tool, which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, is an easy first step to help any business of any size to get started, and track and demonstrate their progress.

Once completed, if eligible, businesses can apply for a Sustainability-Linked Loan, which reduces the cost of finance for companies whose core activities enable consumers and other businesses to operate in a more economically and environmentally sustainable way. Virgin Money is the first bank in Europe to offer such loans in commercial banking using an objective science-based methodology. For customers borrowing at least £250,000, with a sufficiently strong ESG assessment, the lending has no arrangement fee. 

Smart Metering Systems is one of the first UK businesses to have a Sustainability-Linked Loan agreed. Installing, owning, operating and maintaining metering assets on behalf of the UK's energy companies, the finance is part of a revolving credit facility across a six-bank club. This will allow Smart Metering Systems to fully fund the installation of another 2.75million meters and invest in new carbon reduction assets, including grid-scale battery storage technology. 

More details can be found below alongside examples of businesses who have already used the Sustainable Business Coach.

Graeme Sands, Interim Head of Business Banking, at Virgin Money, said: “We are committed to working with businesses to help them grow and thrive, and one area where many need support is on their ESG strategy. Businesses recognise the importance of sustainability to their long-term success but many, especially smaller firms, can face challenges getting started, setting targets and making positive progress. 

“We designed the Sustainable Business Coach to help businesses with this process, giving them the information and guidance they need to operate more sustainably. It can be completed periodically, so becomes an effective benchmark to track progress over time. We have made the app available to any UK business, not just our customers, as work in the ESG space should be about collaboration and sharing best practice – we must all play our part in becoming more sustainable.”   

Martin Rich, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Future-Fit Foundation, said: “Every business must play its part to create a future in which people and planet can thrive. We are pleased to be partnering with a bank which is using its balance sheet to encourage its customers to start on that journey, and providing practical, tailored guidance in the form of the Virgin Money Sustainable Business Coach.” 

To help create this app, Virgin Money engaged fintech data expert company, Life Moments, a leading provider of platforms and tools to improve customer experience and generate data insight. Virgin Money and Life Moments have worked together since early 2020, initially developing and launching the bank’s Home Buying Coach app, which is designed to simplify the home purchase process and help first time buyers on to the property ladder.

Ben Leonard, Co-Founder & CEO of Life Moments, said: “This was an exciting opportunity to apply our platform technology to help businesses embed sustainability into their business models. As a Profit and Purpose firm ourselves, working with Virgin Money and Future-Fit Foundation on this exciting project ticked all the right boxes.”

This support tool comes at a pivotal time as businesses assess their ESG efforts to support net zero goals. Results from a recent United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report highlighted that global emissions need to be halved and targets met in the next decade to stop temperatures rising above critical levels. 

Research^* by Virgin Money also highlights that becoming more sustainable is important to the majority (85%) of UK SMEs, but less than half (43%) of SMEs are managing to implement clear ESG targets. The Virgin Money Sustainable Business Coach aims to help SMEs overcome this challenge, and the app is available to any UK business, not just customers of Virgin Money.

As part of its ESG strategy, Virgin Money has also committed that 5% of all its business loans will be to firms driving environmental and social change by September 2022, as judged by the tool.

* Survey conducted by Censuswide: SMEs – 1,006 respondents who are senior decision makers in SMEs, survey conducted in Q4 2020.

• Angular Ventures announces $80M Fund II to continue backing early-stage enterprise and deep-tech companies across Europe and Israel

• Fund I invested in 21 early-stage companies across a range of areas including: Agtech (Trellis), next-gen AI/data mesh (Firebolt, Paradime, Valohai), automation (Levity), industrial (Aquant, CruxOCM), infrastructure (Aspecto), low/no-code (Budibase, Candu, Datos), and nano-technology (Dust Identity) many of whom have since raised their Series A from Tier 1 US VCs including Bessemer, Boldstart and Insight

• David Peterson, previously head of growth at Airtable, joins as a full Partner

Angular Ventures today announces the closing of its second fund, and that David Peterson has joined founder Gil Dibner as the firm’s second full partner. With the $80M second fund, Angular will double down on its strategy of backing European and Israeli companies with their first check, at the earliest and riskiest stages. 

With a focus on deep tech companies working to disrupt huge global industries with unique and advanced technologies, Angular’s remit covers enterprise software, nanotechnology, advanced healthcare infrastructure, space technology, agricultural software, and a wide range of advanced machine learning applications and tooling.  

Double the fund size

The new $80M fund, nearly double the size of the firm’s first fund, was raised in a matter of weeks due to strong LP interest following the performance of Angular I and of Gil Dibner’s pre-Angular portfolio, which earned him a slot on the Forbes Midas List for European and Israeli VCs. Angular’s LP base consists of leading institutional investors, mostly from the US, and expanded to include two additional major US institutions in Fund II. 

“Our new fund size will allow us to write larger high-conviction first checks, even earlier in a company’s lifecycle,” said Gil Dibner, Partner at Angular Ventures.

“We are most comfortable being the very first investor in a startup, especially in cases where no other investor is willing to move. That is where we can add the most value as coaches, sparring partners, advisors, cheerleaders, and force multipliers. This is what having a venture firm as a true partner means to us. It’s not just about investing, it’s about being fully invested as a VC in the companies we back.”

Jonathan Roosevelt, managing director at Industry Ventures, one of Angular’s LPs, comments: “Angular Ventures is a special kind of fund…. Super scrappy, driven by their own very early conviction, and loved by LPs, other VCs, and pound-the-table happy founders.”

Another of Angular’s LPs, Michael Kim, founder of Cendana Capital, comments: “Angular is special in today’s world because they have a high conviction approach to investing, enabling it to become a trusted advisor to their founders. Coupled with a remarkable ability to identify great founders, we believe they will deliver significant alpha.”

Doubling down on the strategy

Angular plans to use its larger fund size to double down on the same strategy, but writing larger checks of $250K to $3M at the earliest possible stages of company formation. 

The firm typically leads rounds, usually within the first $1M of investment, and often the very first round. Angular typically invests pre-revenue, usually pre-product, and - occasionally - pre-company. 

Angular’s investment strategy and approach has generated outstanding performance. US-based co-investors in Fund I portfolio companies already include Bessemer, Bain Capital Ventures, Boldstart, Bullpen, CRV, Fathom Capital, Gradient, Haystack, Initialized, Insight, Lightspeed, Kleiner Perkins, Root Ventures, Two Sigma, Uncorrelated, Zeev Ventures, and others. Gil Dibner’s pre-Angular track record includes 26 companies from across Europe and Israel, five of which have achieved valuations greater than $1B, six of which have exited, and one of which has gone public (Nasdaq: FROG). The collective performance of that pre-Angular portfolio is substantially over 20x, positioning it as one of the strongest early-stage track records on this side of the Atlantic.

Doubling the partnership

David Peterson joins Angular Ventures from Airtable where he was an early employee and drove the company’s early go-to-market strategy, leading growth and partnerships as Airtable scaled to over 500 employees, grew from zero to 200,000 customers, and reached a $5.77B valuation. Prior to Airtable, David held growth, marketing and customer-facing executive roles at various startups, founded a company of his own, and worked in seed stage venture capital at New York and Boston-based Founder Collective.

“I’ve been lucky enough in my career to have helped build and scale companies from the earliest stages,” said David Peterson. “I know from experience that early stage startups are full of uncertainty and risk and often have more questions than answers. They’re messy, and that’s what I love about them. This is why I’m so excited to join Gil in building Angular, a young firm itself that takes a hands-on approach to supporting - through investment and mentoring - pioneering founders who are still figuring it out.”

“Since 2005, I have been focused on backing disruptive contrarian companies at the earliest stages. By bringing David Peterson on board as a full partner, with double the resources, we look forward to providing impact and growth levers for more of the companies who are driving changes through deep technology solutions,” says Dibner. “We’ve been working together under the radar for several months now, and the impact on our portfolio companies has already been amazing.”

David Peterson is the latest addition to a team that includes Head of Platform Anne Blum and Senior Associate Andrew Poesaste. In addition, the broader Angular Ventures team includes four venture partners: Fred Simon (chief architect and co-founder of JFrog), Eldad Farkash (co-founder of SiSense and Firebolt), Ron Yachini (Head of the Allen Institute of AI in Israel), and Phil Wickham (founder of Sozo Ventures and Chair and CEO Emeritus of the Kauffman Fellows Program). 

• Open Banking credit reference agency, Credit Kudos, launches highly accurate, explainable Open Banking credit score, Signal.
• Signal leverages Credit Kudos’ wealth of Open Banking insights to translate transaction data into a score to accurately assess someone’s creditworthiness in real-time. 
• Signal enables lenders to accurately assess all applicants - not just those with previous credit history - using highly relevant, up-to-date financial behaviour. 

Credit Kudos, the Open Banking credit reference agency, has launched Signal, a highly accurate, explainable Open Banking credit score to help lenders serve more customers, reduce defaults and evidence risk decisions. 

Available now, the score enables lenders to move beyond the limitations of traditional credit data, allowing them to accurately score all applicants, not just those with credit history. Signal helps lenders quickly and accurately predict risk using highly relevant and up-to-date financial behaviour data, as well as using machine learning with clear explainability - so lenders can understand the rationale for compliance purposes and the risk profile of their population. 

Signal uses a combination of machine learning and Open Banking-gathered transaction data to accurately predict an individual’s likelihood of repayment. The model has been trained on transaction data and loan outcomes, collected for more than six years. It ensures the data is highly accurate and more detailed than what lenders have access to through traditional credit data. 

The three key benefits are:

• Increase acceptances: With a highly accurate understanding of anyone’s financial situation, lenders can reach currently underserved customers. This includes those who have a thin credit file, are new to the country, or who have adverse credit history but are now creditworthy - which Credit Kudos estimates to be around six million*.
• Reduce defaults: Signal leverages Open Banking data and insights to accurately predict someone’s creditworthiness. Using machine learning trained on more than six years of data, lenders can assess people more accurately than with traditional credit scores, which reduces the likelihood of a borrower defaulting. 
• Understand and evidence risk decisions: The Open Banking credit score has clear explainability so lenders can understand and evidence the decisions driven by machine learning, allowing them to fulfill regulatory requirements around transparency and fairness. It does this by surfacing the five features that most contributed to the person’s score.

One lender using the Signal credit score for those previously declined found that it could accept a third more applicants, while maintaining its default rate - showing there was no additional risk to taking on more applicants that they would previously have declined based on traditional, non-Open Banking credit scores. When used for all decisions they found it could reduce overall default rates from 11.7% to 9.7%, whilst increasing acceptances from 17.5% to 29.8%.

Freddy Kelly, CEO of Credit Kudos, comments: “Credit scores based on traditional credit data is not only limited but can lead to lenders wrongly declining those who are creditworthy. Our new Open Banking-powered credit score, Signal, allows lenders to accurately assess all applicants - including those with thin files - meaning they can safely increase acceptances without increasing risk or defaults. It is highly accurate, fast, and wholly explainable, all of which are integral features to helping lenders make better, more informed and responsible decisions.”

Europe’s leading fintech scales its operations within the U.S. through the acquisition of America’s largest local commerce network 

SumUp, the London-based global payments service provider with over 2,800 employees across three continents, today announces its acquisition of Fivestars (www.fivestars.com), America's largest two-sided local commerce network that combines a marketing platform with integrated payments, for $317 million in a mix of cash and stock. The acquisition will enable both companies to offer essential payments and marketing automation services to small business owners across the U.S. and globally. 

Following a €750 million raise in March 2021, one of the most significant [debt] financings for any privately backed startup in Europe, SumUp - which has grown since 2012 to support over three million merchant users in 34 markets - is executing on its commitment to international expansion. The acquisition is SumUp's first in the U.S. and will provide the company with access to the more than 70 million consumer members and 12,000 small businesses within Fivestars's network, which currently drives over $3 billion in sales and 100 million transactions per year.

"SumUp is a market leader because of our support for, and belief in, small businesses. Our global community of merchants has battled through lockdowns and volatility and we're confident that this acquisition will further energize the U.S.'s recovering small business economy. Now is the time to make sure our presence is as strong in the U.S. as it is in Europe and, by acquiring Fivestars, SumUp will deliver for U.S.-based merchants as it has in other international markets," said Marc-Alexander Christ, SumUp Co-founder.

Victor Ho, Co-founder and CEO, Fivestars said, "We founded Fivestars to give small businesses the opportunity to thrive in the digital economy and over the years, we've achieved just that. Understanding that SumUp shares this mission, it was an easy decision to partner, and together, we look forward to supporting a retail market that champions small business success." 

SumUp’s exponential growth has been sustained through relentless innovation. The fintech behemoth continually broadens its product ecosystem, most recently through revamping its Online Store offering for merchants, and the Europe-leading fintech is now widening its global ambitions. Solid footings across the U.S. and South America will now be utilised as the expanded network, courtesy of the acquisition, sets about empowering American businesses. 

Fivestars' San-Francisco-based team, including its CEO and co-founder, Victor Ho, will remain in their roles and continue to operate Fivestars. SumUp's acquisition of Fivestars will result in expanded technology offerings for American small businesses that will help them save money on payments and make money through smart automated marketing.

The acquisition comes as merchants across the U.S. look to new technologies to revitalize their businesses as the next normal sets in. During the pandemic, Fivestars became a lifeline for small businesses who needed technology to help them drive sales and reach customers and with a shared goal of serving small business owners, SumUp will tap into Fivestars' local market expertise and trusted commerce network for its nationwide expansion.