The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced that its Project Ion initiative, an alternative settlement platform that leverages distributed ledger technology (DLT), will move into a development phase following a successful prototype pilot with leading market participant firms. With six months of testing of the “proof of concept” now complete, DTCC has the quantitative data and qualitative feedback to build out a production-ready workflow and a roadmap for, subject to regulatory approval, future full industry integration and adoption. 

Specifically modeled around a netted T+0 settlement cycle — but capable of supporting T+2, T+1, T+0 or extended settlement cycles — the Project Ion platform is designed to:

• Provide a clearance and settlement option for the industry leveraging DTCC’s core benefits of risk management and volume capacity, including netting and the trade guarantee of the CCP.
• Support new features, with seamless interoperability between the Project Ion platform and the classic settlement platforms at The Depository Trust Company (DTC).
• Ensure adherence to DTCC’s rigorous regulatory standards across resiliency, stability, security, risk, and controls.

As described in a new white paper, “Building the Settlement System of the Future,” the first phase of the Project Ion platform will support bilateral deliver order transactions that will be initiated by pilot participants through client nodes hosted by DTCC. Once launched, the transactions will be processed through the Project Ion platform and then passed to DTC’s existing systems for settlement processing. The Project Ion platform is anticipated to be launched in the first quarter of 2022, and will serve as a parallel book and infrastructure for limited bilateral transactions on DLT, with DTC’s existing systems continuing to remain the authoritative source of transactions.

“Cryptocurrency, digitized assets, DLT and other innovations increasingly are integral parts of the evolving financial services industry, and we are excited about the future opportunity in each of these areas,” stated Murray Pozmanter, Head of Clearing Agency Services and Global Business Operations at DTCC. “Project Ion has demonstrated that settlement in a T+1 or T+0 environment are effective use cases for DLT, and we look forward to working with our clients and the industry to launch the new platform.”

Project Ion’s functionality will be introduced in phases. Subject to regulatory approval, future phases are expected to extend the platform’s functionality over time to realize the reconciliation efficiencies offered by DLT. Other phases are anticipated to include the provision of access through a client-hosted node and expanding the transaction types processed by the platform.

“The industry’s primary goal must be to create efficiencies without introducing additional risk to markets, and client participation and feedback at every iterative step of this journey will be pivotal to the continued success of the platform,” said Michele Hillery, General Manager of Equity Clearing and DTC Settlement Service at DTCC. “Project Ion holds the promise of new settlement functionality supported by robust technical capabilities and is a key part of our on-going efforts to further accelerate settlement and build upon current same-day settlement capabilities. We look forward to our continued work with the industry, while providing a DLT-based alternative to existing services.”

DTCC has planned for early and later adoption of the functionality and technology offered by Project Ion, to ensure the phased roll-out is responsive to clients’ individual development agendas. For clients, this means that while the general industry can move ahead to achieve T+1 accelerated settlement on DTCC’s classic systems, those clients ready to integrate onto the ledger can begin development efforts and start to ready their firms for the future operating model without waiting for full-market adoption.

India-based SunTec Business Solutions, the world’s #1 relationship-based pricing and billing company, today announced a major milestone in Oman, with six of the 10 local banks in the country going live with SunTec’s GCC VAT Compliance Solution. Oman implemented a nationwide VAT regime on April 16, 2021, in line with the transition to VAT across all GCC countries. 

Despite a short notice for implementation, SunTec’s client banks in Oman were able to execute full VAT compliance well before the deadline by capitalizing on SunTec’s uniquely designed solution that integrates easily and sits as an overlay on top of banks’ complex IT systems.

SunTec’s Indirect Taxation Solution is used by more than 50 banks and financial services providers in the Middle East and India for VAT or GST compliance with 30 customers in the GCC region alone. Nearly one billion transactions are processed annually through SunTec’s GCC VAT compliance solution.

Nanda Kumar, CEO and Founder at SunTec said, “We are glad to recognize that a number of leading banks in the GCC region are choosing SunTec as their preferred technology partner for full-scale VAT compliance. This is an endorsement of our world-class Xelerate platform, which is designed from ground up to help banks digitalize and elevate their customer experiences with minimal efforts and changes to their core infrastructure.”

Amit Dua, President - Client Facing Groups at SunTec said, “It is a matter of pride that six leading banks in Oman chose us as their technology partner for VAT compliance. This overwhelming adoption of our product not only underscores our market understanding but also the robustness of our pre-configured product that seamlessly integrates with the bank’s systems despite them running complex IT landscapes and by fully accommodating their local, region-wide needs.”

SunTec’s GCC VAT Compliance Solution is designed to meet the unique needs of banks and financial services firms in automating the entire VAT compliance process, including centralized rule-based tax determination, input tax recovery, tax invoice, reconciliation, corrections, adjustments, statements, and regulatory reporting. The solution can easily integrate with existing IT systems and is further designed to process all taxable transactions across business lines and applications with reduced cost of compliance. It also helps mitigate potential risks of compliance violations, penalties, and loss of reputation.

Hazeltree, the leading provider of integrated treasury management and portfolio finance solutions to alternative investment managers, and IHS Markit, a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, today announced a strategic alliance to offer clients an integrated treasury and portfolio finance solution powered by IHS Markit’s industry-leading Securities Finance dataset.  Our integrated solutions enable our clients to trade and operate more directly, transparently and efficiently and to obtain a composite overview of their entire positions, margin and risk profile.

Hazeltree’s products help over 200 leading hedge fund managers globally to transform how they manage counterparties to increase returns by 40-80 basis points, optimize fees, minimize exposure, and protect assets.  Hazeltree’s market-leading position is best evidenced by the fact that 8 of the world’s top 20 hedge funds are powered by Hazeltree’s treasury products.

IHS Markit’s Securities Finance data helps hedge fund managers gain a competitive advantage, providing an end-to-end alternative data value chain which includes a vast array of datasets, tools and techniques for analyzing stock loan data and access to experts to explain the data’s contents IHS Markit’s Securities Finance dataset delivers market leading analytics on short seller demand, supply and borrow costs. IHS Markit offer clients a holistic transparency into short interest dynamics, supporting investment decisions, asset allocation and risk management.

“Our mission is to not only provide the broadest, deepest and most accurate data and analytics but to also assist our clients across all segments address and solve other challenges they face when navigating the stock loan market "said Paul Wilson, Managing Director and global Head of Securities Finance at IHS Markit. “Bringing together Hazeltree’s expertise and IHS Markit’s data to produce an integrated solution fits completely with this objective and is exactly what our clients need.”

“Given the significant overlap of the IHS Markit and Hazeltree customer base, it makes great sense to provide our mutual clients with this valuable capability,” Sameer Shalaby, President and CEO, Hazeltree. “We are excited to work with IHS Markit to support alternative investment managers with our industry-leading combined solution.”

Regulatory Obstacles, Lack Of Trust and Data Pipeline Limitations Slow Down Adoption Of Predictive Analytics, Finds New Research From Qlik

New research from data leader Qlik® reveals how concerns around trust and regulatory compliance, as well as weaknesses in the data pipeline, are slowing the adoption of predictive analytics in Financial Services (FS), preventing UK organizations from reaping the full value from their data and maximizing the potential with business intelligence platforms.

The report “Unleashing the Potential of Predictive Analytics in Financial Services”, which surveyed more than 500 UK IT leaders in FS, exposes the slow uptake of predictive analytics. More than a third (38%) of British financial institutions have five or fewer predictive analytics use cases currently in operation – in stark contrast with the leading 7% of institutions which have each introduced 50 or more.

Key issues IT leaders in FS face when implementing predictive analytics include:

• A question of trust – Every decision a financial services organization makes can have a major impact on a customer’s life, from agreeing to an overdraft to making payday or approving a mortgage application. Yet one third (30%) of IT leaders admit fearing algorithms could unfairly impact their customers. This is perhaps unsurprising given only half of respondents (50%) trust decisions made by predictive analytics solutions are without bias and are always accurate (45%). Over two fifths (43%) of respondents go far enough to say they wouldn’t even trust predictive analytics to manage their kids’ pocket money.
• Regulatory risk – In such a highly regulated industry, 44% of IT leaders fear they could be held personally responsible for decisions automatically triggered by predictive analytics solutions – rising to 81% amongst those working in funds and investments. The regulatory burden also weighs heavy on them, with 46% reporting it outweighs the benefit the solution could offer.
• Flaws in the data pipeline – IT leaders also cite a number of technical barriers to implementation. Two fifths face issues with data quality (40%), data silos (40%) and the speed of data integration (36%). Data privacy (30%) and the use of inaccurate or outdated data sets (30%) were also common concerns. Just over two fifths (43%) also fear they don’t have the skills to implement predictive analytics.

Improve trust by marrying human & machine intelligence

Many of the concerns relating to predictive analytics are underpinned by a lack of human oversight of its decisions – both in terms of outcomes and explainability. To overcome these issues, more than two thirds (69%) of IT leaders in FS advocate incorporating predictive analytics into business intelligence (BI) platforms.

Most believe integrating the powerful forecasting of predictive analytics into the BI platforms that already inform employee decision-making has the potential to:

• help organizations comply with regulatory frameworks (72%)
• significantly improve employee decision-making (70%)
• deliver a better customer experience (68%)
• identify areas of cost saving (68%)
• democratize forecasting (67%)

However, ensuring employees have the requisite data literacy to understand, question and apply the predictive forecasts to their decision-making process is key to maintaining trust and compliance. Three quarters (76%) of IT leaders in FS highlighted the importance of data literacy training in enabling employees to recognize the limitations of the technology. And in helping them explain to customers and other stakeholders how decisions using predictive analytics are made (77%).

“We are very clear about what our customers, our members, mean to us, and that extends to how transparent we are in decision-making processes. We would never want to make a customer feel like decisions were being made about them that couldn’t be explained. A human has to be able to explain those decisions,” said Richard Speigal, BI Centre of Excellence Leader at Nationwide. “Integrating predictive analytics into BI empowers our organization to harness its benefits for improved employee decision-making, while retaining upmost trust that it will only result in fair outcomes for our customers and stakeholders.”

“The financial services industry is undergoing rapid data transformation. Predictive analytics will play a key role in empowering employees to take more informed actions, with forecasts helping them consider what might happen, as well as what has happened before, when making decisions,” said Adam Mayer, Senior Manager at Qlik. 

“However, our research has shown that many IT leaders are yet to fully trust the insights from predictive analytics and the impact these decisions could have on their customers,” continued Mayer. “This trust needs to be built from the ground up. Real-time, hyper-contextual information, with clear data lineage and robust governance, must feed the analytics data pipeline, revealing insights that data literate employees can discerningly use to inform decisions. This will empower financial services organizations to look forward and take action, rather than react to business moments as they arise. Helping them truly achieve Active Intelligence from their data.”

Find out more in the full report here: Unleashing the potential of predictive analytics in financial services

Banking infrastructure provider Nexpay has partnered with Salt Edge, a leader in open banking solutions, together offering enhanced customer protections and SCA for the digital assets industry.

In order to maintain a high-security level in the new era of open banking, Nexpay is now running SCA and all authentication processes through the app developed by Salt Edge. The Authenticator app is a SaaS solution that meets all the SCA requirements and runs dynamic linking for secure payments. The technology uses data encryption and anonymisation during the customer journey.

Nexpay is built on principles of excellence in security, reliability and convenience, which is why we chose to partner with Salt Edge. The Authenticator app is the best solution on the market to fit our high security requirements. An added bonus is that we think Salt Edge is providing a much better UX compared to the SMS-based two-factor authentication processes we are replacing.

Uldis Teraudkalns, CEO at Nexpay

Working mostly with enterprise-level accounts, Nexpay’s new partnership will provide its customers with an increased level of flexibility and security for their digital assets platforms. End-customers will see in the app key payment details before confirming the payment, thus gaining confidence in their actions. The authentication journey was optimised for end-customers’ convenience – creating streamlined user experiences with advanced protection.

Having in place a mechanism that guarantees security of customers’ actions and privacy of their data is paramount in the trading market and the overall financial industry. We’re thrilled to assist Nexpay on its path toward being a global leader in the digital assets industry – by offering its clients security and flexibility in their platforms and products.

Initiative to nurture tech solutions to common challenges in personal finance 

A unique collaboration between Huawei’s regional Ecosystem Development business and its R&D centre in Finland will lead to the launch of the Digital Finance and Security Innovation Lab (Fin²Sec) in September. Designed to address the increasingly urgent requirement for banking, finance and payment services in Europe to become digital-first, Huawei is looking to collaborate with multiple industry stakeholders to accelerate progress and satisfy customer demands. 

Establishing the Helsinki-based Lab as an incubator in which ideas and programs can be discussed and developed, Huawei is aiming to create a base for technology, shape improved industry standards and develop products and services which are fit for the needs of today. The Lab will also focus on facilitating and supporting the financial services sector through innovative technology solutions that improve customer experience and loyalty. The overarching objective will be to bring secure, digital financial services and improvements to payment processes to every person, home and organisation to encourage a healthy and accessible financial life. 

In preparation for launching the Digital Finance and Security Innovation Lab, the Huawei team, as a donor of Helsinki-Aalto Institute for Cybersecurity, is working closely with Aalto University, and has also invited pan-European banks, FinTechs, and industry associations to get involved. Their expertise and future plans, as well as their input on the challenges they face, which are inhibiting progress, will be the focus of the Lab. 

“Unless we work together to strengthen the financial ecosystem, we will continue to struggle to bring secure digital services and products to people in a way that they can easily access, in particular for those that are unfamiliar or feel uncomfortable with the digital transformation,” said Adam Rybusiewicz, Director of Financial Vertical Eco-Development and Partnerships for CEE, Nordics and Turkey at Huawei Consumer Business Group and one of the innovation ab architects. “The purpose of the Lab is to generate not just new concepts, but to share experiences and challenges, and foster successful initiatives or business models that can be emulated across the finance, banking and payments sector.” 

Similar projects that Huawei has launched previously with security improvement in focus have led to significant innovation. An example of this is Huawei’s Digital Car Key feature, an NFC-based app which allows drivers to lock or unlock their car and start it using their smartphone¹. 

"Huawei Finland R&D has been working on consumer device security for almost one decade, and the resulting hardware-assisted trusted environments today host or support critical security services like Huawei Pay, WeChat Pay, car keys and authentication solutions in Huawei mobile phones.  We look forward to sharing our expertise and promote our device security capabilities to the Fin²Sec ecosystem together with our university partners," said Dr. Jan-Erik Ekberg, Head of Helsinki System Security Lab (HSSL) in Huawei, where he is responsible for Platform Security R&D, especially in consumer devices. 

• Using open banking-enabled account verification and the fastest payment rails, TrueLayer’s payouts settle in the right account, right away.

• Businesses can programmatically issue payments as an integrated part of their app or service through a simple API integration.

TrueLayer, Europe’s leading open banking platform, today announced the launch of Payouts, a new solution to tackle the issues of slow withdrawals and refunds. Payouts is already being used by TrueLayer clients, including the UK's leading online car retailer, Cazoo, to instantly pay customers when they sell their car via the platform.

Today, customers expect payments that arrive in their account in seconds. The five days it can take for card or Bacs payments to appear frustrates customers and leads to a lack of loyalty. This is made worse when businesses, as part of their due diligence, need to verify new user’s payment details and identity before issuing a payout, stopping customers mid-flow and making the process even slower.

Traditional payout methods require managing multiple reports, endless rows of data, and manually tracking each payment, creating inefficiencies, input errors and complaints from customers whose payouts were never issued.

TrueLayer has tackled the issue of fragmented and slow payout processes by combining open banking verification and the fastest payment rails available to ensure customers are paid to the right account, right away. The open banking-powered verification process works by matching the name provided by the customer with what's on file at their bank to confirm the details are correct. Results are returned in seconds. Gone are the days of asking customers to upload bank statements for compliance teams to review, or using micro-deposits that can be cumbersome for users to confirm.

With the customer’s details pre-populated and verified, payouts are then automatically issued through TrueLayer’s robust infrastructure, connected to thousands of banks in the UK and across the EU through a simple API integration. 

“Businesses today are laser-focused on customer experience, and the post-purchase experience involving customers requesting refunds, or users withdrawing their savings and investments, is critical to build loyalty. We built Payouts to take the pain out of these transactions and enable firms to create a compelling value proposition for their entire customer base - withdraw your funds or receive refunds instantly,” commented Murtaza Bootwala, Head of Payments at TrueLayer. “It is designed with ecommerce, wealthtech and trading, marketplaces, and iGaming in mind, where customers are growing increasingly frustrated by the poor experiences they have to endure as a result of outdated infrastructure. In 2021 it shouldn’t take days, sometimes over a week, to receive a payment.”

TrueLayer is the only provider that can deliver account verification, powered by open banking, with Payouts to deliver payments for businesses that:

• Increase retention and encourage service-switching: granting instant access to funds that settle in seconds, 24/7, without having to go through lengthy verification processes, customers get what they want - their money instantly - compared to five days that cards or Bacs can take.

• Eliminate the cost of lost or failed payouts: using bank-verified account information to automate payment setup.

• Remove manual tracking processes: initiating multiple payouts via a single API, removing errors from the whole equation. 

• Streamline due diligence: using open banking verification, TrueLayer crosschecks the name provided by the end-user during registration with what's on file at their bank to confirm that the details entered are correct. This helps businesses to minimise money laundering risk.

• Improve the customer experience: users don’t need to remember account details, or manually fill any forms. With a simple redirect to their bank they can authenticate their account details using fingerprint or Face ID.  

“TrueLayer is leading the charge to ensure payments processes that truly work for the customer and the business, ditching outdated methods to deliver the best possible payments experience,” added Bootwala. “By verifying the account details before paying out, you can say goodbye to the days of failed or lost payments, and reduce the strain on customer support. And by offering instant payouts, businesses can build customer trust and encourage others to switch over to your service.”

The launch of Payouts continues the expansion of TrueLayer’s solutions built on top of its market-leading open banking network in 2021, following the launch of PayDirect in January.

Harsch Khandelwal moves to Executive Chairman as UREEQA accelerates efforts to protect Creators' work, rights and revenue through its blockchain platform

UREEQA, a blockchain platform for protecting, managing and monetizing creative work, today announced that the company is bolstering its executive core as technology marketing leader Kirk Fergusson becomes the new CEO. Former CEO Harsch Khandelwal rounds out the executive team as Executive Chairman.

Kirk Fergusson

In barely a year, UREEQA has evolved from a compelling concept to a crypto project with a loyal, growing base of believers and Tokenholders as well as a healthy pipeline of clients excited to utilize the company's revolutionary platform. UREEQA will increase its dedicated focus on proactively engaging its core audiences and demonstrating the platform's full potential for helping Creators protect, manage and monetize their work. The organization is making valuable changes to its braintrust in order to maximize its ability to develop in a wide range of fields.

In his new role as Executive Chairman, Khandelwal will focus on strategic development and implementation to support UREEQA's continued growth. Meanwhile, Fergusson - a distinguished technology marketing executive - moves into the CEO role. Altogether, the rearrangement will allow Khandelwal, Fergusson and the rest of UREEQA's highly-esteemed executives to naturally become more keenly focused on their respective wheelhouses moving forward.

"As we've built this company from the ground up, we've learned a lot about ourselves and our place in this constantly changing industry," Khandelwal said. "One thing we've realized is just how important it is to employ the best possible talent across the board. Adding Kirk Fergusson as CEO is a move in lockstep with that approach, and it will enable me to focus on continuing to strategically build UREEQA into an industry powerhouse."

This is yet another critical maneuver for UREEQA from a personnel standpoint. In May, former KPMG director of market relations and versatile industry executive Rakan Aown became UREEQA's new Vice President of Business Development, while former SAS director of consulting services and celebrated business leader Joe Pillitteri became the company's new Executive Vice President. In July, music and entertainment legend Harvey Mason Jr. joined an Advisory Board that already contained Michael Sheresky and Ramses IsHak of United Talent Agency, official Community CEO Kevin Leflar and former SOCAN VP Janice Scott. All of these experts and many others have worked throughout 2021 with Khandelwal to lay down the puzzle pieces. Now, with Khandelwal's oversight, Fergusson will play a major role in putting these pieces together as UREEQA continues to evolve.

With over 30 years' worth of functional experience in marketing, corporate communications, sales/business development, and general management, Fergusson is a black belt in strategic and tactical marketing, solution development, business development/sales, and start-up/scale-up management.

Prior to joining UREEQA, Fergusson led sales operations for SecureKey Technologies, which employs blockchain technology to underpin its innovative identity network. He previously held leadership roles with several Toronto-based start-ups, one of which was focused on deploying a blockchain-based supply-chain management SaaS solution.

While serving as Managing Director of Canada's leading digital medical education firm, MDBriefCase, Fergusson led Canadian business development activities as well as the shared services provided to the company's global operations. And prior to that, he was VP of Corporate Services at Canada Health Infoway, where he led corporate communications and marketing activities for the national electronic health records agency.

Fergusson has also acted as a public relations executive in Ottawa, where he served a multitude of federal government clients including the Copyright Board of Canada, Canadian Heritage, and Industry Canada.

"I'm thrilled to be joining UREEQA at this juncture," Fergusson said. "The team is first-rate and the company has made terrific progress to date. I look forward to helping Creators of all stripes discover our unique platform, and encouraging them to leverage it to the fullest extent to protect, manage and monetize their creative work."

To learn more about UREEQA and the company's executive team, please visit our website: www.ureeqa.com/about-us

• Lightyear, founded by ex-Wise duo Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, combines multi-currency accounts with unlimited access to global markets so customers can invest without hidden fees. 

• The startup tops up their seed round with an additional $8.5 million of funding from Mosaic Ventures, Taavet+Sten, Metaplanet’s Jaan Tallinn and early Monzo backer Eileen Burbidge.

• This takes the total raised pre-launch to $10M, after announcing its first funding round of $1.5M from a cohort of angel investors just months ago. 

• From today, Lightyear will start to onboard customers from its 5,000 strong waiting list as it makes its first move to shake up the European investment landscape.

Fintech startup Lightyear announces today an additional $8.5M of funding alongside the launch of its app as the company starts to onboard UK customers from its waiting list. Lightyear combines multi-currency accounts with unlimited access to global markets so customers can invest freely without hidden fees.

Lightyear is founded by early Wise alumni Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, and pledges to bring a global mindset into the European investment space. Traditionally, if European investors wanted access to international markets they have been hit with a range of various fees such as transaction and custody fees, but most notably foreign exchange fees. After removing the friction of sending money abroad during their time at Wise, the pair are looking to do the same with investing. 

The new investment platform seeks to eradicate the ambiguity and unjustifiable fees levied at retail investors. With platforms charging different types of fees at varying points of the customer journey, they leave little clarity around the true cost of an investment. Lightyear is on a mission to flip this pricing model on its head by giving customers the tools to add, hold and invest money in multiple currencies, removing the need for conversions. With unlimited access to more than 1,000 global stocks, Lightyear’s first iteration of the app (its minimum viable product or ‘MVP’) will start onboarding customers from the waitlist starting today.

Earlier this summer, Lightyear announced a $1.5M pre-seed round from a cohort of fintech industry stalwarts, led by Taavet Hinrikus of Wise and Sten Tamkivi of Teleport and Jaan Tallinn (Metaplanet) of Skype. The round also welcomed Ott Kaukver, the CTO at checkout.com, Wander Rutgers, the former President of Robinhood UK and Kaarel Kotkas, the founder of Veriff.

The new $8.5M in funding was led by Mosaic Ventures alongside existing investors Taavet+Sten (the recently formed investment partnership of Taavet Hinrikus and Sten Tamkivi) and Metaplanet. New angel investors coming in this time include early Monzo backer Eileen Burbidge, Harsh Sinha, the CTO at Wise and Taavi Tamkivi, the CEO at Salv. 

Simon Levene, Mosaic co-founder and partner says: “Compared to mature markets such as the US, retail investment across Europe is still at the beginning of its growth journey. The customer experience hasn’t really been cracked, and the majority of current offerings serve just their local country. Lightyear’s mission is to offer access to global markets for pan-European investors, providing all the necessary data and education they need -- with a simple, transparent business model that removes all the hidden and confusing fee structures. We’re delighted to support co-founders Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, two veteran execs from TransferWise, at the start of their journey to empower retail investors - experienced and new alike - across the continent”

Martin Sokk, Co-founder and CEO at Lightyear, adds: “10 months ago Lightyear was just an idea, so we’re really excited to have raised a total of $10 million, hired a world-class team and to be launching the first iteration of our app. There are more people in Europe investing now than ever before, but there’s still a very long way to go. Our goal is to give all of Europe access to the world’s markets without hidden fees and to make investing cognitively easy. We’re excited to have such a strong group of investors that share this vision with us.” 

Eileen Burbidge, who personally invested as an angel investor in Lightyear, says: “When it comes to investing in an early-stage business, it’s crucial that the team is best in class, that I believe in the sector, and the product has global appeal. We’ve seen more and more people interested in retail investing over the past year and a half, which, combined with this highly motivated, extremely  talented and high integrity team, makes for something special. I’m excited by Lightyear’s commitment to transparency and building a platform that’s approachable and inclusive, where everyone has the best access, tools and confidence to invest.”

From today, Lightyear will be onboarding customers from its waiting list that has been growing since the company came out of stealth mode earlier this summer. With its expansion plans already in play, Lightyear is targeting H1 2022 for a pan-European launch, and this latest funding will enable the company to accelerate its plans to open up transparent and low-cost investing to everyone in Europe. 

Lightyear, founded by ex-Wise duo Martin Sokk and Mihkel Aamer, combines multi-currency accounts with unlimited access to global markets so customers can invest without hidden fees. 

• The startup tops up their seed round with an additional $8.5 million of funding from Mosaic Ventures, Taavet+Sten, Metaplanet’s Jaan Tallinn and early Monzo backer Eileen Burbidge.

• This takes the total raised pre-launch to $10M, after announcing its first funding round of $1.5M from a cohort of angel investors just months ago. 

• From today, Lightyear will start to onboard customers from its 5,000 strong waiting list as it makes its first move to shake up the European investment landscape.

FSS (Financial Software and Systems), a leading global provider of integrated payment products and a payment processor, has been selected to work with Vopy Payments in a partnership designed to support European digital commerce growth through a premium embedded finance approach.

Embedded finance – which supports the integration of financial services into products and business processes of non-banks – is becoming increasingly relevant in Europe fuelled by Open Banking and digital transformation, with global growth predicted to exceed $138 billion in 2026[1].  FSS is among the leading providers of card issuance products globally, managing 800 plus million payment cards for Tier One banks and payment processors and is already helping to support the growth of embedded payments across multiple global markets. Vopy and FSS will collaborate closely, offering greater value to customers by combining FSS’s Unified Card Issuance Platform with particular emphasis on card management, support around 3DSecure adoption with FSS’s Access Control Server and integration of FSS’s Reconciliation Solutions.

Speaking on the partnership Vopy CEO, Kim Forsell said; “Our goal is to fully maximise the embedded finance opportunity with a broad solution set encompassing not only payments but also digital lending, saving and investment applications, leading ultimately to a fully rounded business proposition enriched with unique marketing and business services. We therefore needed a partner who shared our vision and selected FSS because it has a proven and robust payment processing solution and an experienced team of domain specialists to support continual innovation. Leveraging their know-how, we can refine our payment solutions bringing innovative added value services to the market to deliver superior, secure payments experiences.”

The partnership will focus on driving payments excellence for leading consumer brands among telecom providers, social network platforms, consumer tech and other business verticals across multiple markets in Europe, before extending into other markets in other regions.

“The global demand for embedded payments is increasing but none more so from businesses within Europe,” commented Krishnan Srinivasan, Chief Operating Officer FSS PayTech. “It’s testament to players such as Vopy that consumers and businesses across the region are already benefiting from their innovative, robust and secure solutions. We are confident that this partnership will accelerate their development even further and, in turn, contribute significantly to Europe’s digital payments ecosystem.  We are happy that we can play a part in this, as a key contributor and partner to Vopy.”