FinTech companies Deposit Solutions and Raisin have announced the completion of their merger. After over a year of preparation, the two companies are forming Raisin DS, a pioneer in the savings and investment market, servicing banks and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic. The merger only needs to be registered in the commercial register.

Deposit Solutions is the leading B2B Open Banking platform in the savings deposit space. The company operates deposit marketplaces for over 150 partners, including large institutions such as Deutsche Bank, and connects them with deposit-taking banks from all across Europe. Raisin is the leading pan-European B2C platform for savings and investments. Raisin’s marketplaces offer consumers simple access to competitive deposit products from all across Europe. In Germany, the FinTech company also offers globally diversified, cost-effective ETF portfolios and ETF-based pension products. 

As Raisin DS, both companies will now be able to unite the best-in-class B2B offering and Europe’s leading B2C savings marketplaces under one roof.

A union to further democratize access to savings and investments

By joining forces, Deposit Solutions and Raisin are maximising the benefits for all market participants. For savers, the merger means more product choice and decision power, incumbent banks will benefit from more implementation options and product access for their own marketplaces, and deposit-taking banks will receive better access to deposit funding. 

“Deposit Solutions and Raisin have brought important innovations to a market that has been underserved for decades. Together we can achieve even more," said Dr. Tim Sievers, CEO and founder of Deposit Solutions. “By uniting Deposit Solutions and Raisin, we’re transforming two German innovation leaders into the European champion with global ambitions."

“Raisin DS is breaking down barriers and reinforcing our long-time vision for a single transparent market for savings and investment products. We want to contribute to a financial system that better serves day-to-day financial needs of people and enables banks to provide a stronger backbone to the real economy,”added Dr. Tamaz Georgadze, CEO and co-founder of Raisin. “We will continue to strive to make a positive contribution to the financial system.”

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, announced the general availability of Quartz™ for Markets, designed to help Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs) such as exchanges, depositories, central banks, payment infrastructures, private banks, custodians and issuers, offer end-to-end next generation services around tokenized securities, and drive their future growth.

Quartz for Markets builds on TCS’ position as the largest independent software provider to MIIs, with its proven TCS BaNCS for Market Infrastructure and Custody solutions powering the operations of over 50 market-critical institutions across 66 countries. The new solution helps MIIs leverage blockchain technology to offer next-generation services around tokenized securities, such as KYC/AML, token issuance, order management, matching, atomic settlement, crypto custody, digital asset servicing, general meeting services and trade surveillance.

The new solution provides out-of-the-box support for multiple asset classes, including equity, fixed income, warrants, and asset-backed tokens like real estate, gold, art, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as well as loyalty points. Investors can benefit from a choice of settlement in fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies, stable coins and digital currencies, thus gaining from both liquidity and flexibility.

Quartz for Markets is available on-premise as well as on cloud, and has been designed for easy integration and interoperability with existing core platforms and third-party solutions. It can work with public as well as private blockchain platforms and supports multiple token standards such as ERC and R3 Token SDKs. The solution includes an intuitive, low code development kit, with which it can be extended to meet the MII’s future needs. Four MII’s have already signed up for Quartz for Markets, and deployment is currently underway.

“Tokenization democratizes access to assets by turning material as well as digital assets into tokens that can be traded at a fraction of the current cost. This represents an opportunity for MIIs to launch innovative new services around tokenized assets, attract new classes of investors and drive growth,” said R Vivekanand, Global Head, Quartz, TCS. “Quartz for Markets is a robust, secure and future-proof solution that can support the end-to-end transaction life cycle and instant settlement for a wide range of tokenized assets, including NFTs, which are gaining in popularity and value. We have leveraged our contextual knowledge and extensive industry experience in capital markets to design a solution that seamlessly serves the needs of a broad spectrum of market players and accelerates their growth and transformation journeys.”

FV Bank, a licensed digital bank and digital asset custodian has announced today it has inked a deal with Fireblocks (www.fireblocks.com), an award winning platform for securing digital assets. FV Bank will be leveraging Fireblocks unique MPC-based wallet and network infrastructure to support the introduction of its digital asset custody services which will seamlessly be integrated within FV Bank’s online banking for its international customers. FV Bank is the one of the few banks which has a banking license and digital asset custody licenses which will enable FV Bank to offer new services inside a vertically integrated and regulated bank service offering. 

"It is very important that our offerings take advantage of the industry's leading digital asset management infrastructure solution as we move to prove banks can compete and lead in the convergence of digital assets management and fiat based accounts," said Miles Paschini, CEO at FV Bank. "Selecting Fireblocks' wallet infrastructure gives us a competitive edge as it will enable us to securely and rapidly deploy a groundbreaking offering from a regulated international bank.  We also are committed to provide insurance over our clients assets under management, Fireblocks secure infrastructure has gained the confidence of insurers allowing us to offer a bank grade solution to the marketplace."

For FV Bank, leveraging Fireblocks’ MPC wallet infrastructure and being able to streamline liquidity settlements using our own proprietary FVNet in combination with the Fireblocks Network guarantees the best possible experience for our account holders. By leveraging Fireblocks, we will be able to scale and quickly enhance and add new products to our service offering which are unprecedented in a regulated bank.

“FV Bank’s integration of the Fireblocks platform brings us a step closer in our effort to enable secure digital asset adoption among traditional financial institutions,” said Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks. “FV Bank's institutional customers can now securely interact with digital assets at an enterprise level and experience the full benefits of crypto finance with industry leading transaction speeds and the highest levels of operational security.” 

David Jones, Chief Market Strategist at European investment trading platform,Capital com, said: “It has been a calmer week in markets following the interest rate-inspired fireworks we had at the end of last week. In fact, it has been business as usual for many major assets.

"Crude oil pushed higher again, trading briefly above $74 to set its best levels since October 2018. Both the US and NASDAQ stock market indices hit fresh all-time highs, shrugging off the volatility seen last Thursday and Friday where the threat of rates rising sooner rather than later sent investors heading for the exit. 

"Perhaps oil is the maket to watch in the weeks ahead and will give us a hint as to whether investors' nerves are starting to crack. Markets are speculating that crude will hit $100 per barrel, which, let's not forget, famously traded negative in April 2020. When even the pessimists are starting to join the bulls, that's precisely the time to start wondering if perhaps the incredible recovery we've seen across many asset classes has gone far enough. 

"It is at times like this of course that markets could be thought to be the most vulnerable - and investors become over-complacent, as riskier assets bounce back from various mini-panics. But traders so far seem happy to step in and buy the dip.

"The spectre of inflation is still out there, with the Bank of England (BoE) adding its voice to the chorus of central bankers aware of the risk of rising prices, but the BoE does not look overly concerned. UK inflation is at a 2 year high but, like its American counterpart, the BoE expects any move higher to be just temporary. It remains to be seen whether this central bank sang-froid comes back to bite these venerable institutions later in thie year.

"Meanwhile, the crypto faithful felt more pain this week as Bitcoin dipped briefly below $30,000 - but even that was seen as something of an early summer sale and, so far at least, it has managed to bounce-back by more than 10% in a matter of days.”

 Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are vital to the economy in every country, with the World Bank estimating that around 90% of businesses are SMEs and that they provide more than half the jobs in the world. They also make a sizable contribution to their local economy, ranging from up to 40% in emerging economies to around 55% in Europe.

However, when it comes to banking, this sector is poorly served by financial services.  SMEs face hurdles of complex paperwork, poor access to finance, not being paid on time, and little to no advice or support for future planning.

Like many consumers, SME owners are comparing financial service providers with other providers in the economy and the comparison is not favourable. People expect digital solutions from their phones and laptops, fast and efficient products and services and ease of doing business.

This is of course the reason that the fintech market is beginning to make inroads into the SME market by providing real time digital services with personal attention, thus allaying the hassle of complexity and the regulatory hurdles associated with banking.

According to Kristen Kjerulfa, Chief Operating Officer at PayPugs, “the freelance economy is growing rapidly and does not look as if it will slow down, rather, it is expected to increase as the post-Covid world sees more people becoming freelancers.”

People who transition from a salary to working independently discover that there is a world of difference in a bank’s approach to lending money to them before and after the change.

On one hand, governments are encouraging SMEs to start up and on the other they are applying increasingly stricter controls over financial transactions, regardless of the nature of the SMEs.

Small businesses therefore find opening an account, accessing credit, and providing the correct documents for anti-money laundering (AML) regulations daunting. Even the know your customer (KYC) requirements can be hard to provide in emerging economies that pay utility bills through mobile money, thus making proof of residence difficult.

Credit applications are time-consuming and difficult to process and credit cards are also seen as difficult to obtain and expensive to manage. Therefore, SMEs often seek loans from family and friends, which in turn limits their growth.

People newly entering the market as entrepreneurs also discover the perils of not being paid on time and managing cash flow.  It isn’t usually a lack of cash but instead uncontrolled cash flow that causes more than 80% of SMEs to fail in the first year.

Kjerulfa added that “SMEs are familiar with off-the-shelf accounting packages but find banks do not provide accounting information in meaningful ways, then they are faced with needing either a full time accounting officer or hours of an owner’s time”.

The back end of fintech is state-of-the-art software, to enable speedy verifications, transactions and payments. On the front end, there is still a need to offer personal accounting officers that can guide and manage an SME’s business and enable it to grow.

This requires disruptor thinking that does not create work silos of software, accounts, front office but rather sees clients as an integrated whole that needs services and people working in harmony.

Fintech companies, like PayPugs, that can streamline verification of businesses and individuals, automate accounting and expense processes, and use data and advanced analytical techniques can open up a new financial world for its customers.

Finastra today announced that Fargo Public Schools Federal Credit Union, a not-for-profit, member-owned financial cooperative providing services to the employees of Fargo Public Schools and their families, has gone live on Finastra’s Fusion Digital Banking platform. The new digital banking solution will bring the credit union’s members more features and functionality, and greater integration with ancillary solutions through FusionFabric.cloud, Finastra’s open and collaborative developer platform and marketplace for financial solutions.

“Our members’ lives are increasingly digital, and they demand banking services that keep pace,” said Mari Gagelin, President, Fargo Public Schools Federal Credit Union. “With the launch of our new digital banking platform, we are providing robust banking functionality and exciting new features, making it easier for our members to bank how they want to, wherever they are.”

With Fusion Digital Banking, Fargo Public Schools Federal Credit Union is delivering its members a single, seamless, and easy-to-use banking experience. Among the new features that it is now providing are remote deposit, touch and face identification, and increased account and security alert options, in addition to enhanced fund transfers, e-statement access, bill pay and more. In the future, the credit union will be able to quickly and easily add innovative third-party services as needed, such as personal financial management (PFM) or mobile geo notification services, as needs evolve.

“Fargo Public Schools Federal Credit Union is a longstanding client of Finastra, and it is an honor to have been selected to work with them to future proof their digital banking capabilities,” said Chris Zingo, SVP and GM of Americas Field Operations, Finastra. “With Fusion Digital Banking, the credit union will be able to provide a modern digital experience to delight their existing members and attract new ones, and easily evolve their digital capabilities to keep ahead of market trends.”

HIPS Payment Group Ltd., a provider of innovative and cost-effective e-commerce and mobile payment solutions, and Vourity, a Swedish SaaS platform for unattended Sales and Payments with one of the leading payment solutions for Electric Vehicle (EV) charging stations in Europe, today announced their partnership, enabling crypto payment for 50,000 EV charging stations across the European Union (EU).

"Allowing the use of crypto payments will make charging convenient for all EV drivers, which will accelerate the move to an all-electric vehicle future"

“We are really pleased to announce this partnership as we believe it is forward-thinking on many fronts; allowing the use of crypto payments will make charging convenient for all EV drivers, which will accelerate the move to an all-electric vehicle future,” says John Cavebring, CEO of Hips.

Currently, the Vourity platform enables EV drivers to pay for charging by using regular open payment methods such as credit cards (e.g., Visa and Mastercard), Apple Pay, Google Pay, Swish, and Bluecode. The partnership with Hips will expand customer payment processing options, promoting the use of crypto currency as a viable and accessible option.

Crypto payments will be fully integrated in the Vourity platform and can connect directly to the blockchain via Hips Merchant Protocol's (HMP) native protocol token Merchant Token (MTO) starting November 2021. The roll out to 50,000 EV charging stations across the EU will be over 3 years.

“At Vourity, we are all about innovation and that starts with listening to EV drivers to understand and address their evolving needs. We want to make it easy for drivers to charge their car and offering an open platform that allows for crypto payments is the most logical choice for our next generation world,” said Hans Nottehed, CEO of Vourity.