Welsh Accountancy business Mazuma has scored a triple whammy of award nominations in the FinTech Wales Awards and the Finance Awards Wales.

The awards reward excellence and innovation in Finance and FinTech in Wales, looking at the creative thinkers and innovators who are driving growth and positive change in their businesses.

Mazuma, based in Bridgend, is the UK’s leading online accountancy firm for freelancers and micro businesses.

It combines the technology of online accountancy via their proprietory tech (MazApp) with a human-focused approach, making things simple and clear for clients and being a friendly ear for the self-employed and business owners.

Mazuma is nominated for FinTech Company of the year and is up against heavyweights like Confused.com. The award is sponsored by Cardiff Capital Region.

Lucy said: “It’s an honour to be selected as one of the finalists in these awards, particularly in a category with such well established and innovative businesses."

“It’s a testament to our whole team that we’ve been able to realise our vision and create our own technology (called MazApp) that can take a pile of receipts and turn it into a set of Statutory Accounts in under an hour. To have achieved this against the backdrop of the pandemic is even more exciting."

Not only is Mazuma in the running for a prestigious award, but two of its staff have also been named as finalists.

Chartered accountant Stephanie Collins, Mazuma's Head of Professional Standards is a finalist for Accountant of the Year, while long-standing member of staff Bryony Ham is a finalist in the category of Accounting Technician of the Year.

Upon learning of her nomination, Stephanie said "I'm speechless. I never thought I;d be nominated, let alone become a finalist!".

These nominations come upon the back of a successful year for Mazuma with around 20% growth and a series of new jobs being created at the company.

The winners are due to be announced at awards ceremonies in Cardiff on September 3rd and 23rd.

LEXIT, a decentralized finance platform (DeFi) for tokenizing intellectual property into Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) announced today it has on boarded two new advisors, Marc Brouwers and Werner Leermakers from LvH Corporate Finance in an effort to grow the platform following the best practices from the corporate finance industry. Marc and Werner will advise on all financial subjects, best practice and open up their vast financial network to assist in the growth of the LEXIT platform.

Marc Brouwers has more than 20 years of experience in M&A dealmaking and corporate finance. He worked with American Appraisal/Duff & Phelps (2012-2017), Ernst & Young (2000-2012) and as a business owner of a consultancy agency (1994-1999).

Werner Leermakers is an all-round, hands-on consultant with more than 18 years of experience in corporate finance and transaction management. Starting in 2000 at Ernst & Young, he has experienced all aspects of business transactions: buying, selling, (re)financing and valuation.

About LvH Corporate Finance

Werner founded LvH Corporate Finance in 2014 and was joined by Marc Brouwers in 2017. Together we built LVH Corporate Finance into a trusted corporate finance lead advisor providing best-in-class advice and seamless execution on M&A transactions for our clients. Since our inception in 2014, we continue to build long-term relationships and partner with entrepreneurs, private equity investors and management teams planning to sell their businesses, build by acquisitions, valuate or raise capital. To learn more about LvH Corporate Finance please visit https://www.lvhcf.nl/en/

About LEXIT

LEXIT is a decentralized finance platform (DeFi) for tokenizing intellectual property into Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT). These NFTs are then made available through LEXIT’s launchpad, AMM (LexiFi) and through pools curated by LEXIT Pool Managers. To learn more about LEXIT please visit: https://lexit.com/

The partnership with the payment services provider, which is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain, will enable merchant customers to seamlessly and securely turn any NFC-enabled Android device into a payments terminal for the first time. 

New research has revealed that if someone followed the British public’s interest when buying and selling bitcoin this year, they would have made a 27% profit – equivalent to £8,602.37 profit on one bitcoin, or £272.80 for someone who originally invested £1,000.

The analysis by money transfer experts RationalFX calculated what return someone could expect if they invested in the cryptocurrency when internet searches for “buy bitcoin” were at their highest, and then sold it when searches spiked for “sell bitcoin”. 

Based on daily Google search trends for this year, searches for “buy bitcoin” compared to “sell bitcoin” were at their highest on Monday 8February, when the price of one Bitcoin closed at  $44,716.69 (£31,534.21). 

This was the date that Tesla announced it had bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, and that it would start accepting it as a payment method for its products.

Then on Wednesday 10 March, searches for “sell bitcoin” were at their highest compared to “buy bitcoin”, when the cryptocurrency closed at $56,915.17 (£40,136.58). 

Therefore someone who chose to invest on the first date and sell on the second date would have made 27% profit. That equates to $12,198.49 (£8,602.37) profit for one full bitcoin, or £272.80 if someone had invested £1,000.

The study also found that lucky investors could have made even more money speculating on the cryptocurrency in 2021, if they happened to choose the right dates. 

Bitcoin’s lowest point this year was $28,154.11 (£19,854.28) on Monday 4 January, while it reached its highest price on Thursday 15 April, when it went up to a high of $64,801.79 (£45,698.22). 

As a result, if someone had bought and sold on those dates, they would have made a 130% profit of $36,647.68 (£25,843.94) in three months. For someone who invested £1,000, they would enjoy a profit of £1,300.

Conversely if someone had invested in bitcoin at its high point this year, and sold it on Thursday 20 May, when it dropped as low as $30,201.96, they would have suffered a 53% loss. That equates to losing $34,599.83 (£24,399.80) for one full bitcoin, or £530 for someone who originally invested £1,000.

Commenting on the study, a spokesperson for RationalFX said: “Excitement about cryptocurrencies continues to grow, and these figures show that plenty of people are following news about bitcoin closely. The potential profits can look very tempting, but the volatility of the price and the possible losses will put off plenty of would-be investors too.”

Bitcoin has been traded since 1 October 2013, and reached its lowest ever price of just $83 on 3 October 2013. If someone chose to invest in one bitcoin at that point, and then sold it at its highest ever price, of $64,801.79 on 15 April earlier this year, they would have made a 776% profit. 

That equates to a profit of $64,718.45 (£45,950.10) on one bitcoin, or if someone had invested £1,000, they would have made a massive  £776,668.15. 

The research was carried out by RationalFX, which is one of Europe’s leading international payment providers, helping businesses and individuals to streamline their bank-to-bank transfers with smart global payment solutions. 

Drawbridge, a premier provider of cybersecurity software and solutions to the alternative investment industry, today announced they have launched a new module in Drawbridge’s flagship technology platform designed specifically for Private Equity (PE) funds. The new module gives PE funds a single view to monitor the complete cyber risk profiles of their portfolio companies in real-time.  The first offering of its kind in the industry, the module was developed in partnership with Drawbridge clients who have been confronted with a dramatic rise in cyber-attacks on their portfolio companies in terms of both size and frequency.  

The accelerating frequency of cybersecurity breaches in the Private Equity space has resulted in increased regulatory and investor scrutiny for managers and highlighted how critical it is that LPs feel confident that their assets and information are safe with the managers in which they invest. GPs must ensure they have ongoing maintenance and oversight to protect the Firm, its assets, and its confidential information, and that portfolio companies regularly test the environment and remediate vulnerabilities.

Created following significant client and market demand, the new Drawbridge module for Private Equity funds is offered as a managed service and provides PE funds with comprehensive transparency and insight into key aspects of the critical cybersecurity and risk standing of their portfolio companies. Funds can easily view the complete cybersecurity vulnerability management program and access data and reporting both at the GP and Portfolio Company Level. They can also leverage the new functionality to scan for known vulnerabilities within on-site and remote environments, monitor supply chain risk with a thorough third-party due diligence process, and create and track a roadmap for future improvements within the companies’ risk programs. The module includes Drawbridge’s advanced user interface (UI) that delivers executive summary level reporting that can be evidenced to LP’s to show progress of the Firm’s cybersecurity program from implementation of the Drawbridge module to today.

“Private Equity funds today face an increasingly complex threat landscape combined with escalating third party and supply chain risks. These funds must conduct thorough and continuous cyber risk assessments of their portfolio companies to protect their investments and their reputations, rather than view this critical practice as a mere point in time exercise,” said Jason Elmer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Drawbridge. “Our Private Equity clients told us they needed to be able to monitor and receive comprehensive, real-time information on their portfolio companies’ risk posture to identify cyber threats and minimize the possibility of cyber incidents that could inhibit their portfolio company’s growth. Drawbridge has always been focused on providing tailored and robust cybersecurity solutions that respond to pressing client and market needs just like this. We’re thrilled at the overwhelmingly positive feedback our clients have provided on the new module, and excited to make it available to our global client base.”

The launch of the new module in its flagship Drawbridge Platform follows a period of significant momentum for Drawbridge, including a minority growth equity investment by Long Ridge Partners earlier in the year and continued leadership expansion including the appointments of Darrell Tucker as Managing Director, Client Services, and Simon Eyre as Chief Information Security Officer.

Scality today announced that ARTESCA is available on the VMware Marketplace.

The VMware Marketplace enables customers to discover and deploy compatible, validated third-party solutions to VMware environments. Once validated, partners can easily publish their solutions for VMware customers across platforms. Customers will be able to access these third-party partner solutions directly from their cloud environments, while also being able to experience the convenience of features such as notifications, reporting, and analytics.

Scality ARTESCA redefines object storage for the new data era. It is an extremely simple, lightweight yet advanced platform addressing small footprints at the edge to scale-out deployments at the core or in the cloud, with the data availability and durability enterprises expect. ARTESCA fulfils cloud-native persistent storage requirements of containerised applications that businesses are developing and deploying. ARTESCA is based on Scality’s long-standing experience and established track record.

Paul Speciale, chief product officer, Scality, said: “Scality brings together decades of experience in solving some of the world’s largest and most demanding data problems to provide solutions that help simplify, grow, cloud-enable and reduce the cost of large-scale data storage and management. We’re proud to have ARTESCA listed in the VMware Marketplace and look forward to helping more organisations with their data storage needs, especially as they use or migrate to VMware Tanzu.”

Ramya Sarangarajan, director, product marketing and strategy, VMware, said: “We are pleased to see Scality's ARTESCA on the VMware Marketplace. Validated technologies, such as ARTESCA, enable our customers to build, run, manage and secure their applications effectively and efficiently. We're excited to work with partners such as Scality to empower customers to derive the most value from their technology investments.”

For more information on Scality’s ARTESCA please visit https://tinyurl.com/artescaonVMware

As PRIDE month kicks off, Mastercard is proud to announce the expansion of its True Name® card feature across the globe as Global Payments, a leading provider of payment technology and software solutions, implements this feature for its TSYS issuer customers. In addition, Mastercard partners across Europe and North America will enable cardholders to leverage their chosen name on their card offerings, including bunq and Monzo as the first issuers to implement in Europe and expanded deployment in North America through BM Technologies, Inc. (BMTX) and Republic Bank & Trust Company.

For many people around the world, the identity printed on their cards does not reflect who they truly are. True Name from Mastercard has been designed to change that, enabling people to display their preferred name on their card. As Mastercard seeks to achieve ubiquity for True Name across all card offerings, the collaboration with Global Payments ensures deeper market penetration.

True Name Enablement Expands in Launch Market North America: True Name continues to expand within North America, the introductory market for the feature, as partners across the region commit to enabling True Name for their cardholders. New deployments in the region include BM Technologies, Inc. (BMTX) and community institution Republic Bank & Trust Company who join BMO Harris and Citi in enabling True Name for their cardholders.

“We are excited to partner with Mastercard’s initiative of fostering a more inclusive and diverse community by providing our issuers and their cardholders the opportunity to participate in the True Name program,” said Gaylon Jowers, Senior Executive Vice President, Global Payments and President, TSYS Issuer Solutions. “We have a longstanding record of providing innovative solutions that put people at the center of payments.”

“We are proud that Mastercard is partnering with BM Technologies (BMTX) on its True Name initiative, which will become part of our white label banking product offering,” stated Luvleen Sidhu, Chair, CEO and Founder of BM Technologies (BMTX). “Diversity and inclusion are fundamental components of our company and we hope our banking experience makes all of our customers feel empowered both individually and financially.”

True Name Achieves First Deployments Across Europe: True Name is expanding into the European market with the card feature being made available via challenger bank bunq in 30 markets across Europe. In addition, challenger bank Monzo becomes the first U.K. based issuer to partner with Mastercard on the True Name initiative, having enabled its customers to leverage their preferred name on their Monzo card and in the Monzo app since 2016.

“At bunq we believe in the freedom to live your life the way you want to,” said Ali Niknam, CEO and founder of bunq. “True Name helps ensure that everyone who chooses to bank with bunq is able to do just that, enabling the use of your chosen name on your bunq banking solutions. We’re thrilled to join Mastercard in this important initiative.”

“Inclusion is the foundation of what we stand for as a company, which is why we continue to call on the industry to join this effort and enable cardholders to leverage their chosen name because everyone deserves financial products that reflect their true identity,” said Cheryl Guerin, EVP of Marketing and Communications in North America for Mastercard.

True Name has no incremental compliance requirements above typical credit or debit card programs, making implementation with Mastercard simple. Accessibility and enablement are vitally important to the LGBTQIA+ community. Nearly one-third (32%) of individuals who have shown IDs with a name or gender that did not match their presentation reported negative experiences, such as being harassed, denied services, and/or attacked**.

For more information on global inclusion and diversity at Mastercard, click here.

Stephen Kelso, Head of Markets, ITI Capital

“Speculative reports suggest that bitcoin could soon drop to $20,000, referencing the looming bearing cross of the 50 and 200 daily moving averages"

“However, there are still some positive signs for the price of digital assets to build again, for example the encouraging price action overnight, stabilising funding spreads for futures and a decline in the implied volatilities of options. More significantly, there has been continued accrual of Bitcoin by bigger institutional wallets and Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy has increased the size of its current junk bond offering to $500m to buy more BTC at these levels.  These will have more impact on macro hedge funds who will look to take advantage of the pullback opportunity.

“The motive force behind the bull run that started last year remains unchanged - the unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus that has spurred asset price inflation to protect from the debasement of fiat currency.  ITI has seen more buyers of BTCE and ZETH, exchange traded products on Bitcoin and Ethereum as well as structured products on these and  ITI's new DeFi fund."

Leading independent research firm includes Nuxeo, now part of Hyland, among 36 DAM vendors in Q2 2021 report
 
Nuxeo, a content services platform and digital asset management (DAM) provider, now a part of leading content services provider Hyland, has been named in Forrester’s “Now Tech: Digital Asset Management for Customer Experience, Q2 2021” research report. The latest report features an overview of 36 digital asset management (DAM) vendors, to help marketing professionals understand the value they can expect from each company, and select one based on the needs of their organisation.
 
“We believe our inclusion in Forrester’s latest Now Tech report on DAM for Customer Experience reflects our commitment to making it easier for brands to deliver an engaging customer experience while effectively managing all of their digital assets at incredible scale,” said Chad Malley, global director, digital asset management practice at Hyland. “DAM has never been more important than it is today, with global brands recognising the need to provide more personalised customer experiences through images, videos and other rich media assets that can only be delivered when DAM becomes the centre of the digital content supply chain.”
 
Forrester based its analysis of the DAM market on two factors: market presence and functionality. Nuxeo’s primary functionality segments noted in the report were Enterprise and Media & Production. Forrester states organisations have increasingly turned to DAM to support their broader digital experience agendas and when doing so, they can:
 • Reduce content creation costs
 • Increase operational efficiency
 • Improve rights management and compliance
As many of Nuxeo’s customers deploy enterprise-wide DAM applications with complex requirements, Nuxeo also offers an AI service – Nuxeo Insight – that enables DAM users to quickly generate intelligent predictions based on information the organisation already possesses. This allows enterprises to leverage the Nuxeo Platform with Nuxeo Insight to classify, predict, and enrich rich media, documents and other content – at scale – to improve search results, reduce rework, reuse assets globally and automate workflows.
Forrester's report comes as DAM gains broader adoption in more organisations, requiring leading vendors to provide improved support for usability, work-in-progress assets and enterprise integrations. To access a full copy of the report, visit Nuxeo.com.

FinGo, the fintech behind the world’s first biometric identity authentication and payments platform, has entered a strategic partnership with Mastercard. The new agreement will significantly expand the company’s global reach, opening up access to a global network of acquirers and millions of merchants worldwide.

The partnership gives FinGo access to the white labelled Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MPGS) enabling the FinGo to grow its footprint for payment services across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, Asia Pacific, Australia, and North America.  

As part of the partnership, FinGo will be integrating the MPGS tokenisation service to securely store personal data associated with any transactions, which allows registered users to make payments by scanning their unique finger vein pattern. With digital payments on the rise and an increased focus on security for both consumers and vendors, biometric authentication will make payments simpler, quicker and more secure.

The collaboration comes as FinGo continues to augment its technology for non-payment applications. The platform is also used for age verification, identity and membership and loyalty schemes, giving users the ability to register their vein pattern once, facilitating the use of vein ID in a variety of other settings.

Simon Binns, FinGo’s Chief Commercial Officer, commented: “Our partnership with MPGS will allow us to bring biometric payments to a much wider global audience and accelerate our expansion  particularly within MENA, which is one of our key strategic regions. With MPGS integrated, we are able to access hundreds of acquirers, and in turn, millions of merchants, to help them make payment transactions as simple and frictionless as possible.

“We’re delighted that MPGS recognises the added value and potential of FinGo, and fully shares our commitment towards making payments accessible for all by embracing biometric identity technology. You don’t need a card or smartphone to pay with FinGo as point of purchase.”

Keith Douglas, Executive Vice President, Payment Gateway Services: “FinGo’s focus on identity-enabled transactions and the work the team is doing in biometric applications will add to the checkout choice vendors can offer their customers. We look forward to working with the team to bring more safe, simple and smart ways to pay.”

Over the last 12 months, FinGo has adapted its solutions to integrate with COVID-support services, including secure contact tracing within hospitality settings and verification of employee COVID test results within the care industry. The company is also in talks with policy makers over the use of FinGo and vein ID for vaccine certification.

The technology is also currently being assessed for use in national and regional identity schemes. In Cairo, FinGo is working with the Egyptian government to apply biometric technology across their healthcare, food subsidy and housing programmes; and in Greater Manchester, Mayor Andy Burnham initiated a working group to explore using Vein ID biometrics for the region’s transport, education and healthcare networks.