Horizon Software, a leading provider of electronic trading solutions and algorithmic technology, have chosen to partner with Business France Middle East, to expand the range of services on offer to clients based in the MENA region.

The choice to collaborate with Business France is strategic, and fits into the wider business goals of Horizon, supporting the growth and development of their global presence. Business France will play a major role in strengthening client relationships and facilitating business opportunities for Horizon in the MENA region. This will allow Horizon’s technology to be deployed on a larger scale, providing sophisticated services to a wider range of clients.

For the past four years, Horizon Software have invested a tremendous amount of energy in developing the region, led by Damien Jenner, Managing Director and Head of Sales. Becoming the FinTech provider of reference in the MENA requires dedication, professionalism, commitment, and values which are at the heart of Horizon. As such, Horizon has chosen to collaborate with Business France to enhance their presence in the region. This decision works in conjunction with the next key milestone, which will be to open an office to support clients on a local basis.

Headquartered in Dubai, Business France Middle East is part of a national agency that supports the international development of the French economy through fostering expert growth of French businesses, and facilitating international investment.

Mrs. Anne-Laure Bouhadef, Key Account Manager at Business France said: “We are delighted to begin collaborating with Horizon Software, and are excited to work together to support their regional expansion. Horizon’s expertise has already contributed significantly to the growth and dynamism that we see in the financial technology sector in the MENA Region.”

Mr. Damien Jenner, Head of Sales at Horizon said: “We are honoured to work with Business France Middle East and we look forward to exploring how our technology services can benefit our clients based in the MENA region.”

He added “Understanding the challenges of the financial markets in Middle East is our top priority, and working with Business France will ensure that we address them efficiently.”

Industry authority Roger Coles to lead ambitious global partner network scale out  

Gravitee.io, the open source API management platform, today launched its first partner programme. The company is actively seeking technology partners, system integrators, consultancies, SaaS and cloud providers across Europe, the Americas and APAC, to collaborate on seizing the opportunities of the thriving API management market - predicted to be worth $22 billion by 2028. 

The new partner program is being led by Roger Coles, VP Channels and Alliances at Gravitee. Coles, a seasoned specialist in building global partner networks, joined Gravitee from SnapLogic, having previously led teams at Informatica, HP Software, and TIBCO. Coles’ appointment and the channel programme launch follow Gravitee’s recently announced $11M Series A funding round.

Coles commented: “The opportunity for partners with Gravitee is enormous. In the past, many organizations have embedded the Gravitee Open Source edition. There is now a large ecosystem of these existing clients that are maturing. With Open Source and Enterprise Editions of the market leading API Management and Access Management modules, alongside Alert Engine, Business Friendly API Designer, and Cockpit, partners have access to a game-changing platform that can be either deployed on-premise, or consumed via the Cloud - complete flexibility for the modern enterprise”.

The API Management Opportunity 

Business applications are now interconnected by a web of APIs, the complexity of which is increasing as demand for real time data ushers in new protocols, and as new data sources become available. Gravitee delivers effortless API management and integrates Identity and Access Management, which is currently a $12 billion market annually.  

For technology partners (and ISV’s), such as ERP, Core Banking, Commerce, CRM/CX vendors, adding Gravitee will deepen and accelerate API ecosystem connectivity, whilst improving security and accessibility; driving more consumption of their core software and services and enhancing the customer’s experience of the integration process.

With Gravitee, Consulting partners, SI’s, and Boutiques gain the opportunity to offer a range of managed, advisory, and implementation services, demonstrate leadership with key customers and prospects, and build a Cloud API & Access Management solution offering that can be sold as an advanced subscription service. Plus, there are a plethora of open-source customers in existence who need access to support and API transformation services. 

For OEM & Cloud partners, Gravitee enables increased consumption of apps and services, enhanced customer success, and the opportunity to generate new revenue streams, plus rapid time-to-value, instead of coding/scripting. It also enables partners to focus their R&D team on the core line of business functionality, and gain access to a world-beating, feature-rich APIM solution. 

Gravitee has expanded the Gravitee Partner Community to now include AppyThings (based in the Netherlands), APIZR, (France), Fit Ideas, (Colombia), Miriade, (Italy), Finnova (Switzerland), Bloom (India), IWConnect (US and Macedonia) and Syssoft (Russia).

Tom Hendrix, Sales / Alliances Director at AppyThings commented: “Gravitee's focus on developer experience translates into capabilities that give developers and citizen integrators unprecedented control and transparency over their API ecosystem. With API connectivity at the heart of any modern IT landscape, we believe this is a future-proof approach to IT integration and development.” 

Oscar Lopez, Co-Founder at Fit Ideas added:​​"Since the earliest versions, Gravitee has been the API Management Solution with our clients. Its robustness, scalability, and ease of implementation make Gravitee one of the best platforms for API Management in the business. We are beyond excited and proud to become a Gravitee Partner in Latin America, and we are sure this partnership will bring new opportunities to our customers to leverage their API platforms and help them to better adapt to the ever-changing market."

MoonPay, the global payments solution for cryptocurrency, has announced it has partnered with Flow, the consumer and developer-friendly blockchain powering the next generation of games, apps, and digital assets. The partnership will for the first time integrate a fiat-onramp for Flow’s stablecoin, FUSD, for US customers to access the rich experiences built on Flow, in addition to offering coverage to over 150 countries.

MoonPay’s unique fiat on-and-off-ramp infrastructure democratizes blockchain access by allowing users to participate directly via traditional fiat payment methods. Through this new partnership, customers will now be able to seamlessly interact with the Flow ecosystem, accessing a range of blockchain powered games, entertainment, sports and news with the comfort of credit card onboarding.

Created by Dapper Labs, the team behind NBA Top Shot and CryptoKitties, Flow’s consumer-centric mission is to bring NFTs to the mainstream at scale in a sustainable way by empowering developers to build amazing experiences. The partnership with MoonPay, who shares their sustainable goals and developer empowerment vision, will allow any team building on Flow the ability to offer direct fiat on-ramp functionality to their audience globally from day one, including US consumers.

The partnership allows users to  be able to purchase the first stablecoin on Flow issued by Prime Trust, FUSD, which launched in June. This is the first FUSD on-ramp in the US. Elsewhere, users, excluding those in the US and Canada, will be able to purchase FLOW, the native token of the Flow network. 

Ivan Soto-Wright, co-founder and CEO of MoonPay said, “NFTs are revolutionising how we interact with our favourite games, sports stars and with wider culture, so it’s vital that everyone can access them without any barriers. Flow has changed the game and we are looking forward to collaborating with the team to create a seamless NFT experience and bring it to the mainstream.”

Peter Siemens, Developer Experience Lead, Flow, “It was vital that we found a partner who could not only provide a solution but also shared our mission of providing a high quality user experience with minimal friction for both developers and consumers. With MoonPay’s impressive infrastructure, consumers can unlock the magic of NFTs across the whole ecosystem safely, and with  the knowledge that they are simultaneously supporting more sustainable integration across the crypto economy.”

Strategic hire with wealth of scaleup fintech experience will help drive ambitious revenue strategy as open banking payment solution provider ramps up growth

 Vyne, the account-to-account payments provider for merchants, has today announced the appointment of Luke Flomo as its new Chief Revenue Officer. The strategic hire brings with him a wealth of scaleup experience having previously held senior roles with fintech challenger brands including Laybuy, Trustly and Klarna.

Founded in 2019 by true payments industry experts, Vyne’s full-stack open banking solution brings together decades of combined industry experience to ensure direct, secure, faster payments. Flomo’s hire comes at a pivotal time for the scaleup as it ramps up its ambitious revenue strategy which has included signing new clients across the retail, travel and fintech sectors. 

Karl MacGregor, CEO at Vyne, said: “We are thrilled to be welcoming Luke to the Vyne team and I’m personally delighted to be working with him once again. Luke brings with him exceptional experience of driving and managing revenue streams in high growth environments across the payments sector, and it is this expertise that we will be leveraging to full effect as we continue to use open banking technology to simplify payments and empower our growing merchant customer portfolio.”

Luke Flomo, Chief Revenue Officer at Vyne, added: “I’m delighted to be joining Vyne at such an exciting time in the company's growth trajectory. The credibility of the leadership team, many of which I have worked with previously, and their stand out investment partners means Vyne is primed to scale at pace. I firmly believe my experience over the last ten years within the likes of Worldpay, Klarna and a number of high growth scale ups means I am well positioned to help the team realise their vision of democratising payments to the true benefit of their merchant customers.”

Last month Vyne announced its integration with the leading global, technology and business services firm for the remittance world, RemitONE. The deal gives RemitONE’s 100+ remittance clients instant access to Vyne’s payment solution, becoming the fastest, most cost effective way for their customers to send remittances globally.

Half of Financial Services and Insurance (FS&I) businesses are missing the opportunity to implement technology which is vital to supporting risk management and compliance in line with regulatory standards, new figures from Atos reveal.

A new report based on an in-depth, independent survey of 800* senior decision makers reveals how leaders in the FS&I industry widely acknowledge the importance of modernizing and transforming their approaches to risk management and compliance, as well as cyber security, business model reinvention, and environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) – but that many are still deciding how to approach these challenges.

Opportunity to embrace digital risk management practices

The report, titled ‘The realization for change: accelerating action now’, found that 79 per cent of leaders within the global FS&I industry view technology investments as the most important contributors to business resilience, while a similar percentage (80 per cent) view digital activity as key to risk management, recognizing that the right technologies enable better monitoring of regulatory compliance and enhance the quality of risk decisions.

About half of businesses could still benefit from adopting tech solutions, however, with 51 per cent having so far developed digital products and services and 50 per cent having moved data and processes to the cloud, while almost half (48 per cent) have changed how they store and process customer data.

This suggests that business leaders know the benefits of digital risk management practices, but many still need to invest in the necessary tools in order to ensure business resilience and enable growth.

Meeting cyber security challenges

Cyber security is a major current focus for FS&I businesses within the area of risk management with 70 per cent of those surveyed agreeing that cyber security is the single biggest component of their risk management strategy. While almost half (44 per cent) have automated security and compliance policies, and 41 per cent have undertaken a threat assessment of existing or potential compliance risks, a majority of businesses still need to improve their technology in these areas.

Business model reinvention is a low priority

For years, the financial services and insurance market has faced constant digital disruption with new competitors emerging. Over half (55 per cent) of those surveyed named innovation and competition from challengers/disrupters as their greatest threat, yet fundamental change to business models is unlikely, with 42 per cent of leaders citing this as their lowest priority for the next year.

Asked about the difficulties business leaders face in accelerating business transformation, over two fifths (42 per cent) cited a lack of customer insight and a similar proportion (41 per cent) listed difficulties innovating and developing new propositions as a barrier to transformation – a sign that many business leaders are still deciding on the best approach to protecting their market share from disruptive competitors in the future.

Untapped digital opportunities to meet ESG goals

In recent years, ESG issues have become an increasingly important area of focus for business leaders, with 8 in 10 (81 per cent) viewing digital transformation as an opportunity to meet ESG and sustainability goals and almost three quarters (74 per cent) planning to stop investing in or lending capital to brown assets.

There is clear ambition among business leaders to meet decarbonization goals, with over half (54 per cent) citing difficulties reducing their carbon footprint or meeting ESG targets as a key threat to their business in the next two years.

At the same time, many recognize that there is much more to be done to tackle these issues, with a large proportion of insurance (69 per cent) and financial (68 per cent) businesses acknowledging that their current workplace processes and operations practices - fundamental to the employee experience - are not environmentally sustainable, showing that adoption of low-carbon digital strategies can still improve substantially.

Adrian Gregory, SEVP, Global Head of Financial Services & Insurance at Atos, said: “Most businesses acknowledge the vital importance of digital transformation, but ambition needs to be matched by action. A significant number of financial business leaders are seizing the advantage of technological solutions to industry headwinds, but others know they still need to make fundamental changes to reduce risks, ensure regulatory compliance, and keep up with digital-native competitors and net-zero initiatives.

“With inaction no longer an option, investment in digital technologies and partnerships with like-minded organizations will help to counter these threats.

“The financial services and insurance industries are facing a growing number of complex challenges, including cyberattacks, disruptive digital-first competitors and of course Covid-19 to name just a few. With ESG objectives increasingly on the agenda of companies as part of broader climate goals to be achieved by 2030, it has never been more urgent for businesses to address decarbonization issues.”

Digital services are a key enabler of decarbonization, and Atos has developed unique expertise to shape new decarbonization value propositions to customers ranging from decarbonization assessments to the introduction in large contracts of CO2 reduction commitments through Decarbonization Level Agreements to reduce the impact of business processes, supported by Atos OneCloud.

*The survey in this press release was independently carried out over May and June 2021 by Atos. There were 800 respondents, all of whom are senior decision makers within the global financial services and insurance industries across eleven countries including USA, Canada, France, UK, Germany and Italy.

• Colin O’Flaherty joins Barclaycard Payments from American Express as Managing Director, Head of Small Business
• O’Flaherty brings almost 20 years’ experience in payments, card services, business development and customer rewards to the role
• Appointment comes at an integral moment for the UK’s largest payments provider as it focuses on making it easier, faster and more rewarding for its small business customers to pay and get paid
• Reporting to CEO, Rob Cameron, O’Flaherty will be key to delivering Barclaycard’s Unified Payments strategy to small businesses

Barclaycard Payments has announced the appointment of Colin O’Flaherty to head up its growing small business customer offering. He will take up the newly created position of Managing Director, Head of Small Business, and will play an integral part in scaling the businesses and accelerating the alignment of Payments across the wider Bank.

O’Flaherty joins in September from American Express, where since 2004, he has held a number of senior leadership roles, most recently as General Manager for Commercial Services covering the UK, Russia and Central Eastern Europe.

With almost 20 years’ experience in payments, card services, loyalty and business development, O’Flaherty brings a truly global outlook of the payments landscape, having conducted business in more than 50 countries.

Reporting to CEO, Rob Cameron, O’Flaherty will take a seat on the business’ leadership team and will assume overall responsibility for Barclaycard Payments’ growing portfolio of 350k Small Business customers. He will ensure these clients receive maximum value from Barclaycard’s investment in its Unified Payments offering; from accepting payments in-store, online or on the go and making payments with its award winning credit cards, in addition to providing access to comprehensive banking and lending services from Barclays UK, being a partner of growth to our business customers.

Small businesses are looking for simplicity and faster and easier ways to pay and get paid. Barclaycard Small Business offers flexible products and services alongside new business tools, for example through software vendors such as Big Commerce, and better rewards such as its new market–leading, 1% cashback card  launched in April. The team has also been named Best Business Card Provider by Business Moneyfacts for eight years running*.

Rob Cameron, CEO of Barclaycard Payments, said: “Small businesses underpin the UK economy and it’s critical Barclaycard provides them with payment solutions to support their needs and those of their customers. As their payment requirements evolve so too have our products and services, which now include partner solutions like Big Commerce, to help them sell online, and rewarding commercial card offerings like our new 1% cashback credit card.  

“Colin’s expertise and global leadership capabilities will be invaluable to ensure we continue to make it easier, faster and more rewarding for small businesses to pay and get paid.”  

Colin O’Flaherty added: “Barclaycard Payments is uniquely positioned to offer end-to-end payments and banking services to help small businesses achieve their ambitions. I’m delighted to be joining the company at this pivotal time for small businesses and the opportunity for continued growth and innovation presents an exciting challenge.”

O’Flaherty studied at Trinity College Dublin where he gained a First Class honours degree in Economics in addition to completing several executive education programmes at Harvard Business School and The University of Oxford.

Earlier in his career, O’Flaherty also worked as a Business Analyst for McKinsey & Company for a number of years.

Volt can now connect more merchants with fast and secure open banking solutions and MoneyMatrix can expand into emerging markets

London, UK, 5th August 2021 -- Volt, the London-based leading open payments gateway, today announces a new partnership with MoneyMatrix -- the Malta-founded iGaming-focused payments gateway -- to connect more merchants with Volt while helping MoneyMatrix expand its coverage on emerging markets beyond iGaming. The news comes just weeks after Volt announced the largest ever Series A funding round for the open banking industry, showing the company’s momentum.

MoneyMatrix is an EU licensed Financial Institution and PCI DSS Level 1 Certified payment service provider (PSP) and payment gateway for online real-money gaming and digital industries. Volt’s intelligent platform connects merchants and PSPs with open banking seamlessly, standardising and operationalising the PSD2 API interface to a single point of access. It offers multiple paths for each payment request, improving conversion rates and reliability by using machine-learning to optimise payment routing, delivering a unified experience for merchants and PSPs.

Adding Volt into the MoneyMatrix portfolio will be key to diversifying the instant banking solution with its connection to multiple banks, easy integration, and smart routing. Globally, merchants and PSPs are increasingly prioritising instant payments; through this new partnership, MoneyMatrix can be ahead of the curve in this space and Volt can help more merchants accelerate growth.

Commenting on this news, Alin Bidescu, COO of MoneyMatrix, said: “When it comes to payment solutions, MoneyMatrix is continuously searching for the best technology. Volt is an important player in the open banking and payments world, the customer appetite for which is undeniable. By working together, we can offer clients new payment initiation service (PIS) solutions through a fast and secure user journey. We can’t wait for what comes next.”

Jordan Lawrence, CCO at Volt, added: “We are delighted that MoneyMatrix has chosen Volt to power its instant payments offering. When using card payments, merchants incur high fees and have to wait days for settlement across multiple channels. Open banking is a much more cost-effective option that’s processed instantly; it’s also more secure than card transactions, as the threat of card fraud is eliminated. Speed and security are famously important in the online gaming industry -- but also for countless more markets, which is why we’re so excited about this partnership. Now, MoneyMatrix can bring the benefits of open banking to a wider range of customers.”

FintechOS’ low-code approach to digital transformation improves the accessibility, affordability and impact of services for the financially excluded

 FintechOS, the global technology provider for banks, insurers and other financial services companies, today announced a $10 million investment from the IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, as part of its $60 million Series B funding round. The investment will support FintechOS in boosting financial inclusion globally by helping institutions improve access to financial services, make them more affordable, and boost their impact on unbanked and underbanked communities. The IFC will also support FintechOS’s expansion strategy by facilitating partnerships with its extensive network of bank clients and partners.

According to the World Bank, 1.7 billion people are unbanked. To better serve those financially excluded, financial institutions are investing in technology as part of wider digital transformation strategies. Instead of lengthy and laborious “rip and replace” digital transformation that require high levels of technology expertise and investment, FintechOS’ low-code, self-service approach empowers institutions to build, test and scale digital products for unbanked communities in weeks rather than months. The investment will help FintechOS bring agile and affordable technology solutions to all financial institutions, including those in the developing world, where IFC has a sizeable footprint.

FintechOS’ approach helps institutions boost financial inclusion in the following ways:

• Increase accessibility - Low-income households and small firms often struggle to access financial institutions through traditional channels like branches. Remote access to digital financial services can dramatically accelerate inclusion. By empowering commercial teams at institutions to develop digital products using low-code technology, FintechOS can make financial services more accessible to those financially excluded.
• Boost affordability - Financial services are often too expensive for low-income households and small firms. By lowering the cost of technology and improving operational efficiencies, FintechOS helps institutions to build services more cost effectively, and pass these savings onto customers.
• Improve impact - Individuals and businesses need specialised services that boost impact by tackling the specific and nuanced needs of certain communities. Building such tailored products has not been commercially viable for many institutions. FintechOS’ approach not only makes building specialist products feasible, its Evolutive Data Core can help institutions isolate and identify previously unknown customer issues specific to the unbanked and underbanked.

“Digital financial services are critical to boosting financial inclusion and driving inclusive growth. While the pandemic has increased the use of these services, it has also highlighted that many financial institutions are struggling to overcome the digital transformation challenges necessary to include the financially excluded,” said Henrik Bläute, Investment Officer, IFC. “Following extensive due diligence, IFC chose to invest in FintechOS because we recognize its potential to expedite the change that is happening in the financial services industry globally. By accelerating digitalisation, financial institutions will be able to serve more unbanked and underbanked individuals and communities.”

“Today financial technology is too often an inhibitor rather than an enabler of inclusion. Financial institutions both large and small simply don’t have the right tools at the right price point to meet market demands. Powerful emerging technologies like low-code just aren’t being utilised. And this impacts those at the bottom of the pyramid most acutely,” said Teodor Blidarus, co-Founder and CEO at FintechOS. “Our unique approach to financial technology is designed to overcome many of the barriers institutions face in serving those financially excluded. Banks, insurers and fintechs can now use the latest technologies to build hyperspecialized offerings that are commercially viable and meet the specific needs of unbanked and underbanked communities. With the investment and support of the IFC, we are making it our mission to ensure individuals across the globe have access to financial services they need to not just survive but thrive.”

“Over the last few years, government, corporate and investment stakeholders have been engaged in an increasingly intense dialogue around ESG, and specifically, tackling financial inclusion in-line with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals,” said Sergiu Negut, Co-Founder, CFO & COO at FintechOS. “Despite this focus there are too few concrete steps being made to bring simple, clear, easy to access digital financial services to everyone, everywhere. With IFC’s global investment footprint, this partnership will enable more banks and financial institutions around the world to build these essential solutions and integrate them in existing ecosystems at pace.”

FintechOS’ Series B round was led by Draper Esprit, and in addition to the IFC, existing investors Earlybird Digital East, Gapminder Ventures, LAUNCHub Ventures, and OTB Ventures also participated in the USD 60 million (EUR51 million) round.

Alex, Australia’s newest digital bank, goes live on The Temenos Banking Cloud to create a hyper-efficient cost structure and offer better value lending products and services to retail customers

·       Temenos technology simplifies Alex’s loan application journey, facilitating 3-minute application times and the delivery of nearly 10,000 loans in the last six months

·       Temenos’ packaged banking services will enable the quick launch of Alex’s savings business line so the bank can achieve rapid time to value and maximize growth and profitability                                                                                                                                       

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today announced that Australia’s newest digital bank, Alex, has gone live on The Temenos Banking Cloud. Temenos technology powers Alex’s launch as a licensed bank, following the acquisition of its Restricted-Authorized Deposit-Taking Institution (RADI) license from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) earlier this month.

The new digital bank was built on The Temenos Banking Cloud to disrupt the Australian retail banking market with fast, simple, fairer and more human banking to address the digital preferences of millennial and gen-Z consumers. With Temenos’ SaaS technology, Alex has created a hyper-efficient cost structure that enables the bank to offer better consumer credit options, like fast, competitive loans with no upfront, ongoing or hidden fees.

The end-to-end digital banking platform automates manual loan application processes to generate fast and simple customer journeys. Temenos technology has already supported the bank to process almost 10,000 loan applications in the last six months, with each application taking the customer just three minutes to fill out.

Alex’s front-to-back platform uses Temenos’ pre-configured Australia Model Bank methodology, which applies localized functionality to deliver new products and services faster. This will allow the bank to quickly expand its scope of services from personal lending to deposits now that the bank has received its RADI license. Using The Temenos Banking Cloud, Alex will be able to simply and cost-efficiently scale its business and bring to market a portfolio of products to improve the consumer credit and banking experience for Australians.

The Temenos Banking Cloud is a SaaS banking solution that gives Alex total control to deploy banking services that are easy to consume, configure and integrate with external applications. It combines the Temenos Infinity onboarding and channels services and the Temenos Transact retail lending banking service.

Simon Beitz, Chief Executive Officer, Alex, commented: “We are thrilled to launch to market as Australia’s newest digital bank, powered by The Temenos Banking Cloud. Temenos’ AI-driven digital banking platform provides the perfect foundation for Alex – a bank that is both digital and human. Temenos’ ultra-efficient cloud technology simplifies our business operations so we can focus on our customers’ needs and help them to get more of the things in life they really care about. It also allows us to keep our operating costs at an absolute minimum, so we can pass the benefits of better value, fairer banking services on to our customers.”

Jean-Paul Mergeai, President International Sales, Temenos, said: “Temenos is proud to support Alex on its journey to make banking human in Australia. Temenos technology supports more than 70 challenger banks worldwide, helping them scale fast and grow profitably while providing differentiated digital banking services to their customers. By choosing to run their operations on The Temenos Banking Cloud, Alex will gain control of its business model and innovation cycles. This means having the agility to launch new products and entire business lines fast and without complexity, delivering better value to its customers.”