Trulioo, the leading global identity verification company, today announced new partnerships with four major European payment providers: PayDo, Pollen Technologies, Sokin and XanderPay. Following its USD $394 million Series D round of financing last month, Trulioo is looking to grow in Europe with plans to increase headcount by 300% in Dublin, Ireland, attract new customers and better serve existing partners.

Trulioo has been selected by these payment providers to help them meet compliance requirements and verify customers. Through the world’s largest marketplace of identity data and services, Trulioo GlobalGateway orchestrates real-time identity checks that adhere to a diverse range of compliance requirements, prevent fraud, and increase trust and safety online. 

"Payments providers grapple with facilitating cross-border transactions while meeting ever changing regulatory requirements. Turning to our expertise in global identity verification helps deliver frictionless customer onboarding for real-time payments, fueling the digital economy," said Steve Munford, CEO of Trulioo.

The four payments providers that chose Trulioo to verify their customers worldwide are:

• PayDo, which offers e-wallet, EU IBAN, and merchant accounts for businesses and individuals 

• Pollen Technologies, a whitelabel banking and payments platform 

• Sokin, a leading financial services provider that enables global payments for both consumers and businesses

• XanderPay, which streamlines payment solutions for hotels

Trulioo enables organizations to take a risk-based approach to identity verification, allowing  clients to choose a balanced integration of human judgment and automated technology in the Customer Due Diligence process. GlobalGateway helps organizations meet KYC/AML compliance requirements across jurisdictions and enables them to instantly verify over 5 billion customers in more than 195 countries.

detected, the global mark of trust for eCommerce, has completed its latest funding round of £900k. This newest round demonstrates impressive industry backing and strong support for detected. Participants in this round include existing angel investors and institutional stakeholder EmergeVest, plus a new tranche of high-profile investors including:

• Huw Slater - COO of TravelPerk
• Laurence Guy - Founder and CEO of We Are Pentagon
• Tink Taylor - Founder & President of dotMailer and Founder of dotDigital Group plc
• Ed Hill - SVP EMEA, Bazaarvoice
• Maropost Ventures

Huw Slater, Chief Operating Officer at TravelPerk, said: “detected has the winning trifecta: the right team at the right time with the right idea. I’m excited to invest in and support this dynamic young company to build on its already impressive traction.”

detected Chairman Rob Barnett said: “The business continues to make rapid progress, and we are well supported by our existing and new investors who share our vision.”

Liam Chennells, Chief Executive Officer at detected, said: “Twelve months ago, detected was an idea; the opportunity to build a business capable of solving an existential problem facing the entire eCommerce industry. Buyer trust, and for marketplaces, knowing who your sellers are. I couldn’t be prouder of our team and what they have achieved already.

“We have built a completely bespoke AI-powered platform that draws on seller information in more than 160 countries and checks over 1 billion business records to create a consistent profile for every online seller. We are actively solving the challenge of Know Your Business (KYB) requirements for marketplaces, and this new investment lets us rapidly scale the value we provide customers around the world.”

detected will use this capital to grow its team, develop its technology further and capitalise on its commercial traction.

This investment round follows a pre-seed round in September 2020 and a seed round in November 2020, which saw TrustPilot Chief Technology and Product Officer, Stephen Garland, join the company’s advisory board. 

Certified FinTech Practitioner MENA is a new programme developed jointly by The London Institute of Banking & Finance and LendIt Fintech, and delivered in partnership with ADGM Academy in MENA, which aims to help bank and fintech executives get to grips with this new world of fintech. It’s open for registrations now, with the course starting this September.

The fintech world moves at such a pace that is difficult for even the most seasoned executive to keep up. The London Institute for Banking & Finance, a 140-year old professional institution dedicated to serving the banking world with top-flight education, and LendIt Fintech, a founder-led media business dedicated to advancing fintech on a global scale came together to develop a six-week immersion course, and are working with ADGM Academy to deliver the programme in Abu Dhabi, UAE.

Kareem Refaay, Managing Director of The London Institute of Banking & Finance MENA said: “We are delighted to launch CFP MENA, a digital practitioner programme equipping participants with required skills to excel in fintech. The programme is regionally relevant with global insights for a well-rounded learning journey experience. LIBF MENA, as a leader in the fintech education arena, aims to provide programmes from awareness to practitioner to executive level in digital, fintech, digital transformation AI, BI, blockchain and many more in the MENA banking and finance sector.”

Mansoor Jaffar, Managing Director of Abu Dhabi Global Market Academy said: “ADGM Academy believes that this new era of learning will raise a generation powered with the right knowledge, as we create the digital landscape for a new generation with the skills they need today for a brighter tomorrow. The FinTech role in society is becoming more vital than ever, particularly due to Covid-19. Today we can all witness how FinTech has reflected on the economic growth and established new successful careers in the industry.”

The programme will provide participants with expert knowledge of the evolution and impact of fintech and is designed for forward-thinking early to mid-career professionals who are looking to expand and formalise their understanding of fintech business models and the environment in which they operate. Participants will be able to develop their ability to understand and to critically analyse the factors behind the success, and failure, of fintech ventures, models and initiatives.

The Certified Fintech Practitioner MENA course is a six-week immersion in fintech for current and aspiring professionals in financial services. It is a virtual online studied online, including:

·       14 sessions with esteemed instructor Helene Panzarino

·       6 self-study sessions providing an opportunity to reflect on learnings

·       Study guide, reading materials, and a broad array of information and resources from the leaders in financial services

·       Access to the course site for the duration of the programme, and then for six months afterwards, enabling participants to refresh and renew your learning

·       On completion, a digital Certified Fintech Practitioner credential is awarded to participants

To learn more and apply, please visit the course website.

• 55% likely to buy from Western Europe and 45% from Northern Europe
• Londoners are the most willing to buy from overseas versus those in the South West who are the most reticent
• Despite ‘support local’ movements in the wake of the pandemic, buying from local retailers only matters to 14% of British shoppers, and only 8% prefer to buy from the UK 
• The research of 2,000 consumers also found one in five people believe that most online reviews are fake, yet they remain an important consideration for nearly a third (30%) of shoppers 
• Delivery options are also a key factor in driving sales, with attitudes to free delivery varying by generation -  76% Gen Z are willing to pay more for a product if free delivery is on offer 

Today, leading global payment service provider, emerchantpay, publishes the second and third instalments of its New World, One Market Report which examines consumer behaviour post-pandemic. The latest two chapters reveal stark differences in attitudes to the factors that influence a purchase decision, with splits across UK location and generational group.

The survey of 2,000 British consumers showed that despite the chaos surrounding Brexit, 55% are likely to buy from Western Europe and 45% likely to buy from Northern Europe. In addition, supporting local retail only mattered to 14% shoppers with just 8% preferring to buy from the UK, increasing to 18% of Baby Boomers and dropping to 1% of Gen Z. 3% of people said politics was a consideration when choosing where to buy an item. This paints a picture of a modern consumer uninfluenced by geographic boundaries or global dynamics.

Respondents from Greater London were consistently more likely to buy from countries other than the UK. The majority of Londoners said they were likely to buy from Western Europe if given the option (63%), and more than half (56%) said they would buy from North America. They were also most likely among those we surveyed to buy from Russia (21%), Eastern Asia (47%), Southern Asia (34%), South America (26%), Africa (28%) and the Middle East (27%). Northern Irish respondents were most likely to buy from Northern Europe (53%), and those in the South East were most likely to buy from Eastern Europe (35%). 

People in the South West were least likely among those we surveyed, to buy from countries other than the UK. 50% said they were unlikely to buy from South America if given the option. 48% declined to buy from Eastern Europe; almost a third (30%) wouldn’t buy from North America or Northern Europe; and almost a quarter (24%) wouldn’t buy from Western Europe. Welsh respondents were most likely among those who responded, to feel neutral about countries outside the UK.

Older generations are less loyal than their younger counterparts - and are less forgiving when it comes to delivery fees

More than half (55%) of consumers are willing to pay more for a product if delivery is free. Consumers are happy to spend 4.63% more on average. 

However opinions differ markedly by generational group: the majority of Gen Z (76%) and Millennials (62%) are willing to spend more, compared to the majority of Gen X (47%), Baby Boomers (62%) and the Silent Generation (56%) who are not. 

The average Gen Z consumer said they would pay up to £3.98 for delivery for an item up to £50 in value, versus Baby Boomers who are only willing to spend up to £1.74. The latter group was most likely to believe that delivery should always be free (48%).

Brand loyalty also appeared to decline with age: 7% of Gen Z and 9% of Millennials claimed not to be loyal to any brands. The same answer was given by 17% Gen X, 23% Baby Boomers and 31% Silent Generation. 

Drop in consumer trust following the pandemic

One in five people believe that more than half of online reviews are fake. However a third (30%) listed product reviews as an important consideration when choosing where to buy. 

More than a quarter (26%) said product reviews would encourage them to switch to another brand. But friends (75%) and relatives (71%) were the most important sources of advice for product recommendations, with social media influencing more than half (57%) of Gen Z.

In terms of sectors, respondents were most likely to remain loyal to grocery, food, drink or supermarket brands (49%), rising to 57% of those in the Baby Boomer generation, but dropping to 42% of Gen Z. By contrast, Gen Z were more likely to stay loyal to technology and gadgets brands (48%), or fashion, clothing and accessories (47%). Only 30% of Baby Boomers said they're loyal to particular fashion brands, with 35% instead remaining loyal to financial products.

In addition, our research found that 46% of shoppers feel that there is a greater risk of fraud now than before the pandemic. 50% believed there to be the same risk now as before - rising to 60% for Baby Boomers.

Jonas Reynisson, emerchantpay's Founder and CEO comments: “The rise of ecommerce has undoubtedly changed the way we shop and it’s great to see that Brits still look beyond geographic boundaries despite Brexit. When it comes to the things that influence where we buy or how much we spend, such as reviews or delivery charges, there are obvious differences between generational groups and it’s up to retailers to interpret these findings. One way or another, it’s up to merchants to make sure that the purchasing process is as smooth and efficient as possible to serve the needs of their customers, no matter where they are in the world.” 

This announcement follows the launch of the first chapter of the New World One Market report, which launched in May 2021.

Paydock, an enterprise-grade payments orchestration platform appoints Jenela Gunasekaran as its Chief Product Officer. This significant appointment emphasises the increasingly recognised role of payments orchestration as well as Paydock’s leadership in the sector.
Jenela brings over 16 years of experience across product, technology, and financial services to her new role at Paydock. She joins from HSBC where she held the role of Head of Product at its mobile payment service PayMe in Hong Kong for almost three years and led a team of product managers, engineers and tech writers to launch online payments for merchants and numerous distribution models for partners, serving over 2.3 million PayMe consumers.
Prior to her role at HSBC, Jenela spent over five years as Principal Product Manager at PayPal where she was responsible for multiple products focused on minimising seller fraud and credit risk across geographies. In this role, she partnered with global business units and policy makers to create product vision and lead multi-year product strategies and a scalable and robust platform to deliver business positive outcomes for PayPal.
Commenting on the appointment, Robert Lincolne, founder and CEO of Paydock, said: “We are delighted to be able to attract such high calibre international talent to our team. Innovation sits at the heart of Paydock and our market-leading team, product and services is a testament to this. Jenela’s expertise will undoubtedly add significant value and competitive advantage to our offering.
Jenela is passionate about creative use of technology to build inclusive and sustainable products. She has vast experience in e-Commerce, Digital Payments, Fraud and Credit Risk, API as a Product and Software Application Life-cycle Management.
Commenting on her appointment, Jenela Gunasekaran said: “With accelerated digitisation and businesses eager to rapidly adapt to changing consumer preferences, Paydock’s payment orchestration is uniquely positioned to play a pivotal role in helping businesses offer fast, secure, reliable, and a cost effective payments experience to their consumers in their preferred mode of payment. I am very excited to join the incredibly talented team at Paydock and I look forward to driving further innovation on the platform.”

Technology platforms TruNarrative and Canny form partnership to help firms access the latest in RegTech innovation 

Technology platform Canny have integrated the TruNarrative solution into their financial services marketplace. Delivering Canny’s current and future customers access to  TruNarrative’s financial crime decision engine and extensive third-party app store for regulatory compliance and customer onboarding. 

Canny Co’s marketplace is designed to provide financial institutions the whitelabelled, API solutions they need to rapidly expand their product offering into new areas including; lending, FX, payments  and savings. 

The Canny Cloud platform is trusted by leading financial services firms for digitised payments, AI driven data analysis, lending orchestration. Additionally, Canny delivers the ability to invoice-to-pay,  and request-to-pay via its CannyPay solution. 

TruNarrative technology delivers the customer onboarding and compliance strategies for some of  the world’s leading businesses and is a critical supplier for a number of challenger banks and EU  payments organisations. 

Delivered through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) TruNarrative’s Risk & Financial Crime platform offers 50+ pre-integrated third-party data sources covering 180+ countries. 

TruNarrative’s solution is now integrated into Canny’s marketplace of technology partners, delivering even more functionality and agility to their customers. Allowing them access to the latest technology  to evolve their tech stack and enhance their business. 

The TruNarrative platform complements Canny’s existing marketplace partners with real-time  financial crime decisioning and risk rating, enabling Canny’s clients to provide a seamless onboarding  experience for their customers. 

The partnership with TruNarrative will allow Canny to rapidly extend their marketplace offering, with access to TruNarrative’s data partnerships, including leading credit reference agencies and data  providers. 

Integrating TruNarrative’s technology into Canny’s cloud-based platform means that Canny’s clients will be able to perform, identity and document verification, account & transaction monitoring and  anti-money laundering checks. Enabling Canny partners to accelerate their businesses and comply  with current and future regulation. 

Canny’s customers will be able to orchestrate their end-to-end onboarding and due diligence  processes using TruNarrative. Utilising customisable workflows and referral management capabilities to reduce false positive referrals and drive efficiency for their operational teams. 

Firms will be able to design their financial crime prevention strategies within TruNarrative’s intuitive  platform and access valuable reporting via the Canny platform.

“Through our strategic partnership with Canny, firms will be able to access the latest in RegTech  innovation, reducing their requirement for development resources and increasing the speed they  can bring their products to market ” says John Lord, TruNarrative CEO. “We look forward to working  with them and helping them and their customers grow”. 

“We are happy and excited to be working with TruNarrative, enabling us to empower our clients to perform; identity and document verification, account & transaction monitoring and anti-money  laundering checks and get access to RegTech innovation. We look forward working with TruNarrative  as we transform customer proposition, drive efficiency and bring additional revenue stream to our  clients” Aaditya Rathod, Co-Founder of The Canny Co 

Flutterwave, Africa’s leading payments technology company, has appointed Mr. Oluwabankole Falade (Bankole) as the new Chief Regulatory and Government Relations Officer. In his role, he will support Flutterwave’s vision by providing strategic oversight and government relation strategies, while ensuring that the interest and needs of the business are aligned with that of the regulators.

Bankole brings 18 years of experience in law, regulatory affairs, government relations and business development across financial and telecoms industries. Before joining Flutterwave, Bankole was the Director, Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations at IHS Towers. He also held key leadership roles at VISA and MTN, where he managed interactions with key government stakeholders and regulators in key markets across Africa.

Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave said: “We’re grateful for the conducive regulatory environments that have helped us carry out our business, safely and in the best interest of the customers. With Bankole joining our team, we believe he is well placed to strengthen our existing relationships as well as support us create new relationships. Bankole will play an instrumental role in supporting us achieve our goal of creating endless possibilities for our customers with our key stakeholders in mind,” he added.

Bankole Falade, Chief Regulatory and Government Relations Officer at Flutterwave said: “I’m excited about the work Flutterwave has done so far in building trust with regulators. We want the same things with the regulators; to grow businesses and economies through technology. My role remains to proactively work with stakeholders to better understand our interests and needs whilst ensuring we are always aligned with set standards and regulations. I’m happy to get to work.

Bankole is an alumnus of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland with a certificate from the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administration, Nigeria and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in the United Kingdom.

• The economic outlook has improved, but risks to the recovery remain.
• Banks have the capital and liquidity to be able to support the economy. 
• Risky asset prices have continued to increase, partly due to higher risk taking.
• New monetary tools being explored to stop a ‘dash for cash’.
• Bank of England testing financial sector’s resilience to climate change.
• Spotlight turned on digital money.

BofE has released its financial stability report

Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst, Hargreaves Lansdown:

‘’The Bank of England has rolled with the good news first by applauding the banking sector’s resilience for steering the UK economy through the pandemic and for having the liquidity to withstand further punches.

Banks have clearly played a key role in helping businesses and consumers survive the financial crisis by extending loan terms, offering payment holidays and providing a bridge over troubles waters. Government loan schemes have also been a lifeline. Since March 2020, UK businesses have raised  around £76 billion of net additional financing from UK banks and global financial markets. That has helped businesses’ cash balances increase by a quarter, around £132 billion since the end of 2019. 

We are not out of the danger zone just yet, with the recovery still fragile. The economy is still going to need a helping hand to emerge with growing strength from the combined effects of the Covid shock and the withdrawal from the European Union, so keeping the tap of bank funding on will be crucial to help viable, productive businesses stay afloat. To stop a squeeze on bank lending, the UK’s countercyclical capital buffer rate of 0% will be kept until December 2021 as a precaution, with any change not coming in until the end of 2022. If the economy does take a turn for the worse, and unemployment rises, banks should brace themselves for loans turning bad on consumer credit rather than mortgages with more defaults on loans and credit cards historically linked to job losses. While the housing market has been red hot, the Bank of England doesn’t expect demand to drop like a stone after the stamp duty holiday comes to an end, given that interest rates are still attractively low. Like in other economies the race to find space and adapt to working from home long term are trends expected to continue.

What is now flashing a warning light for the Bank is the increase in risky asset prices with valuations high on an historic basis. Its concerned that the search for higher returns in a low interest rate environment is leading to higher risk taking. It’s singled out high yield corporate bonds and evidence of loose underwriting standards, as a particular cause for concern, as firms which have borrowed up to the hilt could see a dramatic reversal of fortunes which could accelerate economic downturns.

The Bank of England is warning that sharp corrections could be on the way if worries rear up about inflation and a higher interest rate environment. It is clearly concerned that there could be a knock on effect on the finance available for households and businesses. Already we’ve seen financial markets wobble as central banks flag price rises, with growth stocks in particular taking seeing small corrections. The Bank of England is clearly fearful this could amplify as markets come off the drug of cheap money.

Like a family elder trying to make its younger relatives more responsible so it can take a step back, the Bank of England is also trying to lay the groundwork to limit central bank involvement in future market turmoil. The dash for cash as the pandemic unfolded saw  huge losses in March 2020 and the financial market volatility led to central banks stepping in to calm the storm. The Bank of England wants to see reforms to enhance the resilience of money market funds and better understand the role of leveraged investors in bond markets and the preparedness for margin calls in a high stress environment.

The Bank is also clearly worried that central banks are running out of the weapons needed to help fight future crises in financial markets system. Already the arsenal has been depleted, with ultra-low interest rates and mass bond buying programmes still in force. So it wants to find new tools to tinker with system, which crucially don’t encourage risk taking, given the concerns that loose monetary policy is seen as partly behind the current frothy valuations of some assets.

There are fresh threats looming, not least climate change and the Bank is already testing the resilience of banks and insurers for their ability to withstand and transition to new environment and low carbon targets.

The revolution in the global payments system is also on the bank’s radar given how critical its smooth running is to financial stability. It has highlighted the need for regulators to keep up with digital coin developments, and ensure the public have the confidence and trust to use digital money. It has again flagged stable coins, pegged to fiat currencies, as systemically important, indicating that these are likely to be a central feature in the monetary system going forward.’’

Ecommerce driving link based payments in metros; groceries in non-metros

Payment links via SMS or WhatsApp have emerged as the front runner in contactless payments in the second wave of the pandemic with Mswipe registering a record 6X growth in Pay By Link based (PBL) transactions. PBL transactions grew from 2.37lakh in March 2020 to 12.55lakh in March 2021. 

A high adoption has been observed across metro cities including Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Chennai and Hyderabad, and non-metros such as Kanchipuram Tiruvallur, Coimbatore, Vadodara and Goa. 

According to the findings, Mswipe’s merchants in metros are seeing a high adoption for PBL transactions from their customers across various segments including e-commerce, auto accessories, mobile phones and groceries. On the other hand, in non-metros, merchants are witnessing higher traction for link based payments for groceries, electronic items such as mobile phones, purchase of travel tickets, clothing and at restaurants. 

Mswipe, India’s leading end-to-end digital enabler of MSMEs, studied the pattern of contactless payments across its merchant base. The Total Payment Value (TPV) noted through PBL registered a 4X growth from INR 107cr in March 2020 to INR 400cr in March 2021. The average ticket size of a PBL based transaction was around INR 3,000. 

Ankit Bhatnagar, Head of Product, Mswipe said, “The high adoption of Pay By Link noted by our merchants definitely signals greater choice, flexibility and convenience that has been brought to the checkout stage. With Pay By Link we have brought two key benefits to contactless payments – it makes it possible for the merchant to collect payments remotely at the time of the delivery and it also gives the customer the convenience of not having to be present at the point of delivery. Despite the second wave of pandemic resulting in extended lockdowns and largely remote delivery of products, Mswipe merchants were able to have higher conversions at checkout through the link based payments.”  

Mswipe is the only player which has a complete range of digital payment solutions for MSMEs in India including UPI QR, NFC based Tap and Pay, POS and Payment Link. The largest POS acquirer in India with 6.75 lakh POS and 1.1 million QR merchants, Mswipe is also the fastest growing issuer with its prepaid Moneyback Card.