● From 545,080 monthly active users in July 2020 to 10,354,279 in August 2021, MetaMask has grown over 1,800% in just one year
● It is the fastest growing non-custodial wallet in the world in terms of monthly active users
● There are now more than 10 million monthly active users across the globe using
● MetaMask to access the decentralized web where they swap tokens, borrow, lend, mint and buy NFTs, play games, and much more.

— ConsenSys, the market-leading blockchain technology company founded by Ethereum co-creator Joseph Lubin, announced today that MetaMask now has more than 10 million monthly active users. This represents a 19x growth compared to July 2020, and positions MetaMask as the leading non-custodial wallet by users globally. MetaMask is both a mobile app and browser extension that functions as a cryptocurrency wallet for interacting with the Ethereum blockchain and any Ethereum-compatible network like Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism.

The Drivers Behind MetaMask’s Growth

MetaMask’s exponential growth has tracked closely with that of the Ethereum ecosystem. In 2019, $2 billion in crypto assets were committed to Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Today, Ethereum supports a flourishing Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem with over $80 billion in assets under management.  

MetaMask is the primary way a global user base interacts with DeFi applications, along with the vast universe of approximately 17,000 unique Web3 domains, which include rare digital goods marketplace OpenSea and NFT-based online games.

MetaMask was first created in September 2016 and has been a central catalyst in the adoption of decentralized applications on Ethereum. The launch of the mobile version in September 2020 has played a crucial role in rapidly bringing new users from global markets such as the Philippines, Vietnam, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Brazil.

The launch of token swaps on MetaMask mobile in March 2021 also exponentially accelerated user growth.

“MetaMask defined a new kind of cryptocurrency wallet, where users don't just interact with currencies, but with decentralized applications, and we are constantly making these new kinds of applications more safe and accessible to a broader audience,” said Dan Finlay, MetaMask CoFounder. “We're letting users explore new ways of establishing trust on the internet,” he added.

MetaMask Users Geography

As of August 2021, the top 15 countries using MetaMask include: The Philippines, United States, Vietnam, United Kingdom, China, India, Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Germany, France, Canada, and Spain.

Asia is the number one region in terms of users’ growth, followed by Europe and North America.

DeFi is addressing the limits of “Traditional Finance” (TradFi) such as: substantial geographical barriers around the movement of capital, extensive paperwork, tons of intermediaries, lack of transparency, and high fees. It is challenging the existing TradFi policies that sometimes exclude minorities and low-income earners. The early and massive adoption of crypto in emerging markets is an example of how DeFi is solving TradFi market inefficiencies. 

Non-Custodial Wallets vs Custodial Wallets

Until recently, custodial wallets were leading the democratization of access to crypto assets. The main uses were focused on trading different cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, through a wallet where the private keys are held by a third party: the custodian. This means thirdparty custodians operate with full control over user funds while users only have to give permission to send or receive payments. Like a bank, but digital.

MetaMask is different. It is now the leading non-custodial wallet which allows users from all over the world to hold and own their private key, giving them full control of their funds. There is no need to trust a third party to secure your funds and return them if you want to trade or send them somewhere else. MetaMask allows users to be their own bank and take control over their own finances in a private and secure way.  

“MetaMask owes its growth to our community. They are constantly coming up with new ways to build and organize, and are always pushing us to improve in countless ways. As long as we can continue to help unleash their creativity, while keeping users safe, I think we'll have an exciting future,” concluded Dan Finlay.

Early results show steep increases in approval rates and automation

Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider, Scienaptic AI today announced that Gesa Credit Union has completed implementation and is now live on its platform. The deployment enables Gesa to make automated, AI-driven, smart credit decisions while enhancing credit access to members. Using Scienaptic's AI, Gesa automated approvals for more than 50% of auto loan applications, and the approval rate increased by up to 20%. Gesa expects a similar impact for their Visa Card program when it goes live on the platform next month.

Gesa Credit Union is the second-largest credit union in Washington state, serving over 250,000 members around the world. Gesa has a rich history of providing financial services to Washington state and reflects the early-day credit union motto, "people helping people." Through Scienaptic's AI, Gesa continues to add services and products that are convenient, economical and desirable for members.

“At Gesa, we continue to look for ways to provide the necessary products and services to help our members overcome their financial stressors,” said Kevin Willborn, VP of Consumer Lending at Gesa Credit Union. “Deploying Scienaptic's AI-powered credit decisioning platform is another step of our journey to rethink the customer experience and enhance our credit decisioning capabilities, putting members' needs first. Scienaptic's platform is enabling us to auto-approve more than 50% of our vehicle loan applications while increasing overall approvals by 20%. We are confident that in days to come, Scienaptic’s AI will deliver similar business impact for our credit card portfolio.”

 nCino, Inc. (NASDAQ: NCNO), a pioneer in cloud banking and digital transformation solutions for the global financial services industry, today announced its participation in the Middle East Banking Innovation Summit Plus 2021 (MEBIS Plus 2021) on September 15-16, 2021, in Dubai, UAE. As the Middle East’s largest banking innovation and technology event, MEBIS Plus 2021 brings together experts and executives from across the financial sector to discuss how digital transformation is pushing the industry into the future and creating a dynamic, growth-focused banking culture.

As part of the conference program, nCino will host a booth in the Banking Innovation Lounge and have representatives available to address how the ongoing COVID pandemic has reshaped priorities for Middle Eastern banks and how leveraging cloud banking can drive business innovation to achieve greater scale, speed and innovation.

“We are incredibly excited to lead this conversation at MEBIS Plus 2021 and to join our close colleagues from Salesforce in sharing key insights into cloud banking with our industry peers,” said Davis Brannan, EVP, Global Channels & APAC at nCino. “We believe single-platform cloud infrastructure is a true game changer for today’s financial institutions, and we’re eager to exchange perspectives on digital transformation with such an esteemed group of colleagues from the Middle East.”

• Partnership means that Status Money will now offer a credit card that automatically invests rewards in cryptocurrency

 Railsbank, the leading global Embedded Finance platform, and Status Money, the New York-based personal finance company, are partnering to launch an industry-leading cashback credit card that automatically invests rewards in cryptocurrency.

By partnering with Railsbank, Status Money is evolving from being a financial advice platform to a true financial services company to meet the investment pain points of its customers, providing its customers with an automatic way of turning their everyday spending habits into cryptocurrency investments.

This partnership comes at a time when 45% of Americans have no stock market investments (April 2020 poll by Gallup) and only 14% own crypto (April 2021 report by Gemini). Status Money already helps 400,000+ customers manage their finances and track how they are performing against their peers through its app.

The Status Money branded credit card has been made possible and brought to market in record time, thanks to Railsbank’s Credit-Card-as-a-Service product which lets partners like Status Money provide a fully featured credit card without needing to become a bank themselves.

This card provides an effortless fix for customers as it enables cardmembers to earn 2% unlimited cashback rewards on every purchase and automatically invests the rewards in crypto by default. Members get the investment returns without having to deal with the headaches and tax burden of owning crypto.

Dov Marmor, COO of Railsbank (North America), said: “Credit cards are one of the most commonly used spending mechanisms but over 80% of cards are issued by just the top 10 banks. There are simple reasons for this. Until now, issuing credit cards was an extremely complex and expensive business requiring vast technological infrastructure that meets heavy regulatory compliance.”

“We built Railsbank to enable companies like Status Money to create financial products that offer completely different value propositions, whereas currently big banks can only offer cashback, and more cashback. Railsbank offers this at a fraction of the cost and time that would have previously been required.”

Cardmembers will have full access to Status Money’s Premium suite of financial management tools, including the ability to track and compare their net worth with peers and to video chat with a financial advisor every month.

Majd Maksad, co-founder and CEO of Status Money, added: “We’re giving everyone who spends money the ability to become an investor automatically. If cryptocurrencies continue their skyward adoption, a member who spends $1,000 a month on this card will have rewards worth over $60,000 in five years. This is life-changing money for most of us.”

“Thanks to Railsbank, we’re taking our business model to the next level and opening up previously untapped revenue streams. We started Status Money with a social budgeting app that gave members new insights into their finances and access to advice – and this credit card is the first in a suite of products that will make it effortless to build wealth.”

Status Money launched its crypto rewards program this month with the credit card following soon after.

The Tech Nation Global Talent Visa reaches a milestone of 4,000 applications 

• Demand for the Global Talent Visa has increased by 28% between April’19 – March’20 (pre-pandemic) and April’20 – March’21.
• The number of applications for the visa has hit a milestone of 4,000 since 2014 – with a third (35%) of these coming through in the last 12 months.
• Over a third (39%) of all endorsed visa applicants have based themselves outside London.
• The number of endorsed applications from founders has grown by 73% on average every year since 2018.
• Cybersecurity, fintech and healthtech have experienced the highest increase in the number of applications since 2018.

Tech Nation, the UK’s scaleup experts, reveals new data on the Tech Nation Global Talent Visa, providing insights into the global talent pool working in the UK’s digital technology sector.

Tech Nation has been designated by the Home Office to endorse applications for the Global Talent Visa since 2014, enabling the best and brightest talent from around the world to come and work in the UK’s digital technology sector. The Tech Nation Global Talent Visa has received over 4,000 applications from 102 countries – with a third (35%) of these coming through in the last 12 months (July’20 - August’21) and 58% through in the last 24 months (July’19 - August’21).

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, repeated lockdowns, and travel restrictions in the last 18 months, the UK is still a magnet for global talent – with a 28% increase in applications from the period of April’19 - March’20, pre-pandemic, to April’20 - March’21. 

This talent is helping to drive the growth of tech across the UK, and over a third (39%) of visa applicants endorsed by Tech Nation decide to base themselves outside London - including Edinburgh, Newcastle, Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds, and Manchester.

Surge in founder applicants

The Global Talent Visa is open to both highly skilled tech employees and tech founders. The number of founders applying for the Visa scheme has grown by 74% on average every year since 2018, with over 600 tech founders now having been endorsed by Tech Nation. Founders bring new ideas, drive capital creation, and create employment opportunities within the UK tech sector. This is reflected in recent data released by Tech Nation analysing the UK’s decacorns (tech companies with valuations at $10bn and above) - across the UK’s 7 newest decacorns (created in 2021), 6 founders are from outside of the UK, hailing from Israel, Estonia, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland, and the US. 

Strong growth in applications across key sectors

2021 has seen large increases in applicants across key sectors, with a 172% increase in the number of endorsed applicants in cybersecurity since 2018, 75% increase in applicants with a fintech background, and double (+117%) the number of applicants coming through with a healthtech background. The visa scheme plays a key role in supporting skilled international tech talent to drive the growth of the UK’s tech sector. Across all applicants, App & Software Development, AI and Machine Learning, and Enterprise Software are the most common skills. 

Gerard Grech, Founding CEO of Tech Nation, comments: “The UK is a global powerhouse for tech, not only due to our world-class ideas and innovation, but our world-class talent too. Tech Nation’s Global Talent Visa is just one of the many reasons the UK is such an attractive hub for ambitious and inspiring tech entrepreneurs, and will help ensure the UK remains one of the best destinations to start and scale a tech business in the months and years to come.”

Two founders who have used the visa are Gilbert Corrales who founded Newcastle-based Leaf, and Anita Koimur who co-founded FinTech LiveFlow. 

Gilbert Corrales, Founder and CEO of Leaf Grow, comments: “Being a Tech Nation Global Talent Visa holder has helped to give me and my co-founders the time, space and access to the network required to scale our business here in the UK. We have also benefited from the route to attract and retain some of our key international talent as we grow."

Anita Koimur, COO and Co-founder of LiveFlow, comments: “Securing the Talent Visa allowed me to continue living in the UK and empowered me to co-found a B2B SaaS company that was backed by Y Combinator and Seedcamp. This opportunity has enabled me to move forward professionally so it's something I am very grateful for.”

Capitalise.com, a digital ‘super platform’ that allows accountants and their SME clients to access capital with a suite of credit and risk tools, has raised £10 million from Experian, QED Investors, Gauss Ventures, Hambro Perks and Post Finance. The investment will support the launch of Capital Reports, an entirely new, integrated risk management service that takes up where traditional credit reports leave off.

Powered by Experian and embedded within an accounting service and SME balance sheet, Capital Reports allows accountants to protect their SME clients from unforeseen risks of their clients’ and suppliers’ credit positions by warning of potential defaults, it analyses what is available to a business and its propensity or need to borrow, and provides real time access to a curated panel of mainstream and alternative providers.    

Half a million UK SMEs have cash reserves of 4 weeks or less. Of those, some 230,000 are at high risk. Their average account balance is £45.000 but the average SME has £30k in outstanding delayed payments: with little idea about when, or if they will be paid. A stronger understanding of the financial risks posed by the suppliers and clients on whom they depend makes SMEs more resilient while improving their own credit rating, allowing easier access to capital at more attractive pricing from both mainstream and alternative finance providers.

Capitalise CEO and Co Founder Paul Surtees says; “Everybody has had to think differently during the pandemic, including us, so we created a virtuous circle in which SMEs and their advisors are shielded from risk and helped to grow. Powered by Experian’s credit data, propensity modelling and open banking, we  underline our commitment to our accounting community by bringing their data to life and supporting their SME clients, in bad times and good”.

‘Capital Reports’ will be available on the Capitalise platform which underpins the digitisation and access to capital of over 1,800 UK accounting firms and has delivered over £1billion of offers from its panel of 200 capital providers. Delivery will be through a free and paid subscription model. On launch it will be available to approximately 500,000 SMEs via their accountants and a further 500,000 via API and open banking partnerships. 

Capitalise CPO and Co Founder Ollie Maitlaind says; “Managing credit risk is central to lender activity but SME owners typically overlook it. This restricts their growth and jeopardizes their survival. While the digitalisation of financial services was on course to deliver SMEs with efficient access to new capital providers, the pandemic highlighted the fragility of their supply chains. As they emerge, their ability to recover and protect capital, while boosting their appeal to the lending community will be crucial. Capital Reports will make an unprecedented and timely contribution to SMEs’ ability to survive, and grow, in the UK within the coming months, in South Africa in Q4 with more countries to follow.

Diasoft, the software company listed in the TOP100 global fintech vendors by IDC, today announced it has achieved Red Hat Container Certification. The certification confirms that Diasoft’s application container images are built and certified using Red Hat Universal Base Image (UBI), assuring customers that container applications are supported on the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

Diasoft's solutions created with open-source technologies are now available through the Red Hat Ecosystem Catalog. Diasoft is part of the Red Hat Partner Connect ecosystem, opening new market opportunities for the solutions, both in Russia and around the world.

The Red Hat Container Certification process includes technological validation that Diasoft’s application image is built to the Red Hat standard using Red Hat Enterprise Linux based packages that are supported to include up-to-date vulnerability patches.

With this certification, Diasoft container images can be used to deploy applications on Red Hat OpenShift running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat OpenShift is the industry`s leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, which provides easier installation, configuration, and software upgrades. Red Hat OpenShift can manage advanced application lifecycles (configuration changes, backups and restores) and automatically scale the cluster.

“With a rich partner ecosystem, Red Hat provides an ideal environment for DevOps with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat OpenShift, allowing organizations to iterate their ecosystem at speed, both in the cloud and on-premise. Furthermore, platform-based solutions consolidate workflows and simplify task management, which is critical to digital transformation. Thus, the more solutions appear in the market, the easier for IT professionals to find the best tools for every specific project. We look forward to working with Diasoft and believe that the partner’s products will provide greater support and choice to various organizations and industries,” Timur Kulchitsky, country manager, Russia & CIS, Red Hat.

As of August 2021, Red Hat has certified the following Digital Q software solutions with microservice architecture to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and supported Red Hat OpenShift environments:

• Digital Q.Omnichannel: Digital customer engagement platform for support of customer service business processes in digital channels.
• Digital Q.Customer Origination: Modern channel for digital customer onboarding and product origination.
• Digital Q.Risk&Compliance: Business platform for support of regulatory requirements to customer screening and identification of suspicious persons and transactions.
• Digital Q.Sensor: Technological platform for visual business processes analytics.
• Digital Q.ProductCatalog: Cross-product component for management of all products and services of  financial organizations.

Diasoft plans to build its collaboration with Red Hat to expand the list of Red Hat certified Diasoft solutions.

Red Hat-certified Diasoft solutions can help financial organizations successfully address the challenges of digital transformation and business process optimization, confidently enter new markets and integrate themselves into digital ecosystems. Modern microservice architecture accelerates time to market for unique financial products and services with the ability to monitor business efficiency in real time and make informed decisions based on live data.

Diasoft’s Red Hat certified containers can be accessed from the Red Hat container registry here. Red Hat, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the Red Hat logo and OpenShift are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

Only 14% of UK Finance departments report a primary focus on cash flow during the COVID-19 pandemic -

New research has shown that just 14% of UK Finance decision-makers focused on cash flow during the most recent Covid-19 lockdown. 

The majority of businesses focussed on cost-cutting exercises and the use of Government support. For example, 41% confirmed they had furloughed accounts payable staff over the past 12 months.

As of June 2021, approximately 11.6 million jobs had been placed on furlough in the United Kingdom as part of the government's job retention scheme at a cost of around £100 billion.

Ian Smith, GM and Finance Director for document management provider Invu, the company that commissioned the research, argues that cash is the key metric in a crisis.

“Cost-cutting is a key component in cash management but failing to pay attention to current and future cash flow both entering and coming out of a crisis can be terminal for a business.”

“At the start of a crisis, working capital assets and liabilities unwind as the volume of business reduces. For most businesses, this releases cash tied up in working capital and together with cost-cutting may help a business survive to the bottom of the cycle. Emerging from the crisis will see both increasing expenditure and increasing working capital requirements, a nasty pincer movement on cash resources.”    

“Surviving this cycle is dependent on having full visibility of working capital commitments which places a high reliance on timely and accurate management accounts and visibility of future financial commitments.”

The survey showed 16% of UK businesses can take up to 20 days to publish their management accounts - a further 7% taking over 30 days.

Smith argues that this is far too long in a normal business environment, let alone a crisis, as the relevance of the information diminishes after each passing day, providing little value for decision making.

“A business needs real-time visibility of variances compared to plan to be agile in a crisis. Each day spent waiting for management accounts, to see variances in performance against the current plan, represents a lag in decision making for corrective actions. This is a significant business vulnerability to nasty financial surprises,” Smith says.

The survey showed that a minority of businesses, 32%, use budgetary controls at the point of making a purchase commitment, and 68% of those businesses believed their purchasing process was effective.

“The majority of businesses appear to make financial commitments without fully understanding their financial business impact at the point of purchase. Combining this with slow management reporting means the impact on cash is often not known until it’s too late to do anything about it,” Smith continues. “Narrowing the gap between making a commitment and understanding its impact on cash flow needs to be a priority. Businesses failing to address this are at risk.”

GBT Technologies Inc. (OTC PINK: GTCH) ("GBT” or the “Company”), evaluates developing a driver monitoring system based on its wireless movement and position detection technology, internal project code name Apollo. Apollo is an intelligent method and system to detect motion-based radio waves. An AI system controls radio wave transmission and analyzes the reflected information to construct 2D and 3D images including real time movement. The system, once developed also can potentially detect human’s vitals like heart rate, breathing rhythm and more. GBT is investigating applying this technology as a vehicle’s driver monitoring system.

Statistics show that more than 90% of road accidents are caused by driver error (European survey - European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP). Human errors can occur due to driver fatigue, distraction, inattentiveness, intoxication, inexperience, or sudden medical incapacitation. The Apollo system upon development can potentially and effectively detect impaired or distracted driving, providing an audible and visual alert and possibly in extreme cases, prevent crashes or take over the vehicle. The Apollo system may use radio waves for monitoring and assessing the driver's physical and mental condition reliably and accurately. Based on this data the system can alert or act to ensure safety. The system concept includes an AI algorithm that analyze the driver's face, breathing rhythm, heart rate, eyes status, and perspiration and can determine if he/she is in a condition to control the vehicle.

GBT believes that the Apollo system, if developed, can significantly reduce driver errors caused by distractions, fatigue or emotional causes and can save lives by taking control over the vehicle, in case of sudden medical condition. The company will add this these concepts and possible application to its non-provisional patent that is planned to be filed during the next few weeks.

“We have identified an efficient safety application of our Apollo project technology. The Apollo system can detect objects and living entities based on radio technology. The system analyzes the returned reflected waves information and detects people’s position, movements, and can even measure their vitals. When applying this technology as a driver monitoring system, Apollo can analyze the driver's face, eyes position, pupils, heart rate, breathing rhythm, head, and body position in order to “see” the driver’s face, and posture. Using this data, the system can determine the driver’s physical and mental status at all times. For example, it can identify that the driver’s eyes are closed, open or blinking. Since the technology is RF based it can detect these characteristics even if the driver is wearing dark sunglasses or at night. AI algorithms collect the driver’s data, creating a model of a driver’s normality, attentiveness, and state of mind in normal circumstances. In case of abnormalities the system will alert via audible and visual to get the driver's attention. Upon user’s permission setup, if no driver response is achieved in an acceptable time manner, the system can take control over the vehicle, and stop it for safety purposes. The company filed a provisional patent on June 2021, and will file a comprehensive non-provisional patent during the next few weeks. We truly believe that such system can be an essential safety application for all vehicle types, significantly increasing our roads safety for generations to come.” Said Danny Rittman, GBT’s CTO.

There is no guarantee that the Company will be successful in researching, developing or implementing this system. In order to successfully implement this concept, the Company will need to raise adequate capital to support its research and, if successfully researched, developed and granted regulatory approval (provisional patent was submitted), the Company would need to enter into a strategic relationship with a third party that has experience in manufacturing, selling and distributing this product. There is no guarantee that the Company will be successful in any or all of these critical steps.