Global spend management platform Payhawk reported 89.4% global annual growth in SaaS revenues in 2023 combined with net revenue retention from new customers in 2023 at 151%. Carrying its strong product momentum into 2024, the company announces several key appointments, key partnerships, product expansions, and hiring across multiple markets. 

Bolstering its executive team is Maor Fishman as General Counsel. Fishman joins from leading fintech Checkout.com, where he was Deputy General Counsel focusing on financial services regulations and data protection. Fishman’s expertise in strategic leadership, regulatory frameworks, data protection, and financial services will be integral to guiding Payhawk’s continued expansion.

This appointment follows two other senior hires earlier this year: David Ward as SVP of Customer Success and Pedro Batista as VP of Payments & Operations. Ward and Batista respectively bring over 20 years of experience in FinTech and SaaS at companies like Plaid and MuleSoft, and have a track record of shaping high-growth payment products pre exit.

This seasoned leadership team is already advancing Payhawk's capabilities and recognition. The company recently ranked as a Leader in G2's Winter 2024 reports for Expense Management and Invoice Management, was awarded the #2 spot globally for Payment Card Issuance, and was just announced as one of the Top 50 Software providers in the UK, also by G2. 

Central to its momentum is an intensified focus on integrations, innovations and partnerships. Payhawk now features a native Microsoft Dynamics integration, with over 40 joint customers since becoming part of the Microsoft partner program and launching their Microsoft AppSource listing. It has also joined the Oracle NetSuite and Quickbooks marketplaces, and introduced a new partnership with Wise to power global international payments to all of its customers in more than 60 currencies.

Additionally, as a principal Visa Europe member, Payhawk can directly issue Visa cards to accelerate payment innovation for its clients worldwide. "With our new Visa membership and our recently granted Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licenses covering the UK and EEA, one of our top priorities is further expanding our payment options. For example, we currently offer customers the choice between debit and credit cards in some markets, but we will shortly offer this flexibility to all our clients. Also on the back of the strong performance in 2023 and new licenses, we are planning to increase our headcount in the UK by 44%" said Hristo Borisov, CEO of Payhawk.

These developments build on an advanced, and externally validated, security and compliance framework, with SOC 1 and 2 certifications, as well as PCI DSS Level 1 and ISO 27001. Further verifying its technology, Payhawk recently received accreditation from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) after in-depth examination of its systems and processes. 

With strong third-party validation, marquee integrations, and a customer-focused strategy, Payhawk enters 2024 well-positioned to continue scaling its platform and reinforce its position as a global spend management leader.

NCR Atleos Corporation, a leader in expanding financial access for financial institutions, retailers and consumers, today announced that VyStar Credit Union has selected Atleos’ Allpoint ATM Network to expand surcharge-free access to cash for members at trusted locations across the country and support ongoing growth.

The Jacksonville, Florida-based credit union with $13.6 billion in assets continues to grow across the Southeast and needed strategic physical infrastructure to support its expanding member base. By joining the Allpoint Network, the world’s largest independently owned retail ATM network, VyStar is enabling members to more easily access and deposit cash at convenient locations where they live, shop and travel.

“We are expanding member access to financial services by plugging into the expansive Allpoint network, making more than 40,000 ATMs available surcharge- free to our members across the country at no cost to the member,” said Lauren Morrison, VyStar VP, Card Product and Services. “The robust Allpoint network across the U.S. and more than 10,000 international locations, boosts our credit union's capability to swiftly enhance access and allows us to provide even more value to both new and existing members.”

“As VyStar continues its impressive growth trajectory, our Allpoint network provides an efficient, reliable way for the credit union to expand member access to cash,” explained Diego Navarrete, executive vice president, Global Sales for Atleos. “We look forward to working closely with VyStar as they empower their members with convenient cash deposit and withdrawal capabilities, all while extending their brand and presence in communities across the Southeast region.”

Mastercard announced the Open Banking for Account Opening program, providing a foundational set of open banking products as a core benefit to Mastercard consumer and small business debit issuers as well as consumer prepaid issuers in the U.S. The program improves the digital account opening process by verifying account ownership, lowering account abandonment, reducing non-sufficient fund (NSF) returns, and minimizing manual entry of payment credentials. 

A study from Insider Intelligence found that Gen Z mobile banking adoption continues to rise sharply at 12.4% year over year, from 20.7 million in 2020 to hit 47.8 million by 2026. To meet the demands of today’s increasingly digital world, Mastercard will provide participating U.S. issuers who opt into the program free access to Mastercard’s Account Owner Verification, Account Detail Verification and Account Balance Check solutions when used to support digital account opening of a Mastercard branded consumer and small business debit and general-purpose reloadable consumer prepaid product. 

Mastercard Open Banking draws on the safe exchange of consumer-permission data, leveraging industry standards and machine learning to support a seamless and secure digital account opening experience. With Open Banking for Account Opening, Mastercard issuers can do the following: 

• Confidently verify account ownership 
• Lower abandonment and inactive accounts through rapid account funding and a more seamless user experience 
• Reduce costly NSF returns with real-time balance checks. 

“Today’s digital consumer is increasingly opening bank accounts online, gravitating towards the convenience and efficiency of the experience versus more traditional manual methods,” said Silvana Hernandez, Executive Vice President, Product and Engineering, North America, Mastercard. “The Open Banking for Account Opening program provides another entry point to the digital economy through valuable and secure experiences that lean into the power of consumer-permissioned data.” 

Mastercard Open Banking is enabling customers and partners to offer a completely modern and secure digital account opening experience, leveraging solutions that span the entire enterprise. Mastercard is strengthening the ecosystem for all participants, making relevant use cases safer, simpler, and more accessible through open banking.  

Imandra, the AI startup pioneering the industrial application of automated reasoning for financial and safety-critical software systems, today announced it has been awarded the ISO 27001 certification. 

ISO 27001 is the internationally recognised standard for information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection, and sets out the policies and procedures needed to implement an Information Security Management System (ISMS) that protects company and client information. 

The news comes after Imandra’s recent announcement that the company’s flagship product, Imandra Markets, now supervises exchange technology responsible for approximately 25% of all European equities trading. Imandra Markets provides exchanges and trading venues with a suite of AI-powered services for designing, testing, calibrating, and auditing complex financial systems to improve business intelligence and system resiliency. 

Paul Brennan, Chief Strategy Officer at Imandra, said: “As a pioneer in AI and automated reasoning serving regulated entities, we care deeply about identifying and addressing any potential risks to data privacy and security.

“As such, we understand and appreciate our customers' privacy protection and technology risk requirements. The ISO 27001 certification was a natural step for Imandra in demonstrating that data protection is a priority.”

Imandra has been independently audited and certified as ISO 27001 compliant and assisted on its journey to certification by Adoptech. The ISO certification gives clients and potential clients confidence that the firm’s systems, which manage the risks related to data privacy, adhere to the best practices enshrined in this international standard.

Alastair Goodwin, CEO of Adoptech, said: “We are very proud of our collaboration with Imandra to help them achieve ISO 27001 certification. From the outset, it was very clear that Imandra had an end-to-end approach to information, cyber and data security. It has been a pleasure working with them to help them establish and implement the necessary information security management systems that protect company and client information.”

Woli, the money management platform that provides children and teenagers with the tools to manage their finances, is partnering with Paynetics, one of Europe’s leading providers of embedded finance, to power their payment accounts and Visa cards.As Woli scales across Europe, Paynetics offers the agility and speed crucial for growth in a competitive market. This collaboration ensures Woli’s adherence to the rigorous Regulatory & Compliance framework and leverages Paynetics’ robust and scalable financial infrastructure. 

This partnership goes beyond transactions, creating an environment where practical financial education thrives, in an era where economic uncertainty is prevalent. By leveraging Paynetics' flexible financial framework, Woli embeds critical financial education seamlessly into the user experience, preparing the younger generation to confidently manage their finances amidst the complexities of today's economic landscape. 

Vasilis Zoupas, CEO and Co-Founder at Woli said: “We’re extremely excited to be working with Paynetics - a leader in embedded finance.  Financial literacy amongst the youth is something that we’re very passionate about and this partnership has not only allowed us to provide a workable and flexible platform while overcoming the challenges of building products quickly but also affords us the opportunity to scale our business across Europe and the UK.” 

Ivo Gueorguiev, Co-Founder at Paynetics UK, added: We are delighted to be collaborating with Woli. With financial literacy rates across the population frighteningly low, improving financial literacy among youth is more important now than ever. By pivoting to Paynetics, Woli is in good stead as it continues to empower children and teens to manage their finances. We look forward to working with Woli as it supports parents in teaching kids how to be financially responsible.”

Woli has been registered as Paynetics’s agent in the Bulgarian National Bank’s register of licensed electronic money institutions and successfully launched with Paynetics in December 2023.

Fusion Risk Management, Inc. ("Fusion"), a leading provider of cloud-based operational resilience, business continuity, and risk management solutions, has announced general availability of its AI-powered assistant Fusion Resilience Copilot™ following a successful global beta program. Resilience Copilot™ is pre-configured to answer critical questions at the click of a button, providing insights and recommendations. Powered by industry best practices and 20 years of boots-on-the-ground resilience and continuity experience, Resilience Copilot enables practitioners to automate manual and time-consuming activities, unlock deeper insights into incidents, and quickly respond to disruptions.  

Resilience Copilot is an extension of your team, acting as an advisor, analyst, and guide to turn data into immediate actionable insights. Contextual prompts in the Fusion platform allow practitioners to ask critical questions about their continuity, risk management, and resilience programs and receive fast, clear recommendations and situational summaries that help users accelerate time to value, increase productivity, and enhance their decision-making. Fusion customers can now significantly improve and expand critical activities, including business impact analyses (BIAs), continuity plans, incident management, issue management, and exercise and scenario testing.  

A transformative asset for business continuity and resilience programs, Resilience Copilot aids organizations by collecting more complete information and providing detailed insights and recommendations for continuous program improvement. Users can also reduce the time and effort required to fully understand the scope and status of an incident and quickly communicate critical insights to stakeholders through AI-generated summaries. Resilience Copilot gives risk teams greater visibility into incidents and allows them to answer critical questions across impacted assets, understand the impact of an incident on all services, and improve program effectiveness following an incident by identifying recovery strategy gaps and improvements – all at the click of a button. 

“Today’s risk teams need a better way to leverage generative AI and automation to streamline manual processes and minimize the response time between impact and action when an incident occurs. Resilience Copilot was created to meet that demand, and we’re grateful to Fusion’s global customers who participated in our beta program to help us enhance this transformative AI asset,” said Eric Jackson, Chief Product Officer, Fusion Risk Management. “Resilience Copilot gives Fusion customers a resilience power up by placing actionable insights and guidance right at their fingertips. Customers can now extend their continuity and resilience teams without hiring additional staff, reduce team stress and workloads, and free up critical resources to focus on other value-added activities. We’re excited to continue working with our customers to innovate for the future as we transform Resilience Copilot beyond typical AI capabilities.”  

Nav, the leading financial health platform for small businesses, announced a partnership with Gusto, which provides an integrated, all-in-one platform that automates and simplifies payroll, benefits, and HR.

Nav's platform combines powerful and personalized financial health insights with the largest network of financial providers, helping more than 2 million businesses improve borrowing power and get access to the capital they need to thrive. Gusto serves more than 300,000 businesses nationwide by helping them create incredible workplaces while processing tens of billions of dollars of payroll each year and providing employee benefits like health insurance and 401(k) plans.

Small businesses play a vital role in the economy, but they often struggle with securing and managing the funding they need to accelerate their growth. 54% of small businesses say that uneven cash flow is their biggest financial challenge, according to the Federal Reserve's 2023 report on Employer Firms.

Managing, predicting, and preparing for money-ins and outs can be a constant struggle. Gusto and Nav are working together to bring solutions to small businesses' biggest cash flow woes, including finding available funding, improving the stability of their cash flow, and better managing their expenses.

Through this partnership, Gusto customers will be able to build business credit and access Nav's network of more than 160 different financing options, including loans, credit cards, banking, and other business service options. In addition, they will be able to tap into Nav's financial health platform, showing them cash flow and credit insights alongside suggested financing options.

"Nav's platform makes the path to funding less opaque and limits exposure to painful rejections and predatory lending. Small businesses need to have a transparent view into what options are available to them," says Walt Levengood, VP of Revenue at Nav. "Our partnership with Gusto helps small businesses to have more control of their capital and to better manage their costs."  

"At Gusto, our mission is to help small and mid-sized businesses take care of their teams, while accelerating their growth. But these businesses can't grow without having a full picture of their finances and the funding options available to them," says Sonya Jamula, Head of Partnerships at Gusto. "That's why we're excited to join forces with Nav to bring them a broader range of options for funding and financial services – and to help more small and mid-sized businesses succeed."

ether.fi, the leading liquid restaking protocol, announces a $23M funding round, led by Bullish Capital and CoinFund. ether.fi has established itself as the leader in liquid restaking with over $1.6B in total value locked (TVL) - up 15x since the beginning of 2024 - and approximately 71,000 unique wallets holding its restaking token, eETH. The Series A round also includes commitments from notable investors such as OKX Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Consensys, Amber, Selini, Draper Dragon and Bankless Ventures as well as the founders/executives of Aave, Polygon, Kraken, Curve, Ethena and DeFi Llama. 

“ether.fi has seen remarkable growth and we are thrilled to welcome the backing of leading crypto investors to support our continued expansion,” said Mike Silagadze, CEO and Co-Founder of ether.fi. “The funding round further cements ether.fi not only as the first and largest liquid restaking protocol, but the most trusted as the only protocol to allow redemptions and not just speculative one-way deposits.” 

In the wake of the Bitcoin ETF launch, global market participants are shifting their focus to the Ethereum ecosystem, where smart contracts power decentralized finance (DeFi) and its transition to proof of stake delivers staking and restaking rewards to those who participate. ether.fi is the next innovation and generation of this momentum. 

Restaking allows users to earn additional rewards on their staked ETH; however, this has been a point of friction for retail investors as existing options for restaked ETH have been illiquid to date, requiring users to invest purely on speculation. ether.fi allows users to stake native ETH, which is automatically restacked on the Eigenlayer protocol, in return for eETH, a liquid token that can still participate and earn additional rewards in other DeFi protocols on Ethereum and compatible L2s. ether.fi is the first liquid restaking protocol to offer rewards on Eigenlayer through native restaking and remains the market leader, suggesting early product-market fit and killer app potential, driving future protocol revenue potential. As a result, ether.fi is a meaningful contributor to the significant momentum and growth in the broader Eigenlayer ecosystem, which jumped to over $7B in TVL in February 2024, up from $250M in December 2023. 

Alex Felix, Chief Investment Officer of CoinFund, said: “ether.fi is the future of crypto asset management. As an on-chain DeFi solution, the protocol bridges the realm of what is technologically helpful to Ethereum’s protocol decentralization and an opportunity to maximize value for holders of ETH. With enhanced, next-gen earning potential comes complexity and slashing risks that will require a sophisticated risk management solution. CoinFund is thrilled to partner with Mike and his dedicated, ambitious team to deliver these transformative benefits.” 

Alasdair Foster, President of Bullish Capital, said: “Restaking has the potential to solve the cold start challenge new projects face by leveraging the existing strength of the Ethereum validator set and become a central part of digital asset infrastructure for the long term. ether.fi has pioneered how to do this in a capital efficient manner through liquid restaking, and we are excited to partner with them on further developing this innovative technology.”