Over the years, QR code payments have witnessed impressive but fragmented global growth, with significant transaction value differences between the regions. Their ability to combine payments and loyalty makes them ideal for retailers seeking to leverage valuable transactional data, while their low-cost nature is expected to drive growth in the years to come.

According to data presented by AksjeBloggen.com, global QR code payments are expected to reach $2.21trn value this year and then continue rising to $2.71trn by 2025. As the world's largest QR code payments market, China is forecast to generate 85% of that value.

QR Code Transactions in Latin America to Soar by 3,500% by 2025

Compared to contactless payments, QR code transactions have a low acceptance cost, making them appealing to retailers in emerging markets, with the lack of card infrastructure.

In 2020, the entire market hit $2.11trn transaction value, revealed the Statista and Juniper Research data. After rising to $2.21trn this year, the combined value of all QR code payments worldwide is expected to jump by another $495bn by 2025.

As the world's largest QR code payments market, China is set to reach $2.37trn transaction value by 2025, or 46 times more than all other regions combined. Although there are a number of QR code schemes around the world, none of them is more successful than the two primary Chinese players, Alipay and WeChat Pay. In February 2021, Alibaba Group`s Alipay was the leading payment app in China, with over 658 million monthly active users.

However, other markets, especially the emerging ones, are set to witness a staggering growth of QR code payments.

Although the smallest of all regions by total transaction value, Latin America is expected to see its QR code payments explode by 3,500% and hit $21.2bn value by 2025, compared to $582 million in 2021.

North America is set to witness a 205% growth in this period, with the transaction value of QR code payments rising from $8.9bn in 2021 to $27.2bn in 2025.

The statistics show that national QR code payment standards, like SGQR in Singapore, will be powerful accelerators to the global growth of QR code payments. In the next four years, national QR code payment schemes will account for 22% of all QR code payments, up from 8% in 2020.

European QR Code Transactions Lag Behind

Although Europe also witnessed an increase in QR code payments in recent years, its growth rate is considerably lower than other regions.

The providers of six mobile e-wallets in Europe, including Austria’s Bluecode, Finland’s ePassi and Pivo, Oslo-based Vipps, Spain’s Momo and Portugal’s Pagaqui, are collaborating with China’s Alipay in a QR code mobile payment network that allows users of each wallet to pay for their purchases across ten countries in Europe.

Statistics show the combined transaction value of all QR code payments in European countries is expected to grow by 37% to $2.2bn in 2025, which is twelve times less than North America and nine times less than Latin American countries.

The full story can be read here: https://aksjebloggen.com/qr-code-payments-to-hit-2-7t-value-by-2025-china-to-generate-85-of-all-transactions/

KX continues to add senior talent to its sales team with four recent hires focusing on its FX Solutions business as part of a broader global expansion of its sales force under the leadership of new Chief Revenue Officer, Alan Coad.

Sharon Yuen and Chetan (CJ) Mhatre have recently joined in Singapore with a focus on extending the KX Financial Services business in the region. Sharon joins most recently from R3 and IHS Markit and will focus on Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Following stints at SWIFT, Integral and Thomson Reuters, CJ will look to grow the business in developing markets of South Asia, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.  In addition to FX, Sharon and CJ will also cover KX Platform Sales including multi-asset Surveillance and Algo trading solutions.

Karl Dundon recently joined the FX Sales team based in New York and will drive FX sales across North America having joined from Exegy with prior FX experience at Bloomberg and Citi/Lava FX.

Finn Jakobsen is the most recent addition and will lead FX Sales in EMEA based in Copenhagen. Most recently running his own consulting business, Finn has a lengthy entrepreneurial background working at a number of FX fintechs following his time at Saxo Bank.

Rich Kiel, KX’s Head of FX Solutions states: “The addition of these experienced and talented colleagues demonstrates our commitment to the FX industry. They bring insights and expertise across banking, brokerage, exchanges, platform operators and asset management firms that will prove invaluable as we continue to drive the growth of our FX Solutions and KX Streaming Analytics businesses.”

Alveo, a leading financial data management solutions provider, announces new environmental, social and governance (ESG) data management functionality. The new functionality includes an extension of Alveo’s standard industry data model and UI functionality that helps clients understand data quality, data lineage and divergence between third party ratings.

Driven by regulation such as the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), the data model now incorporates the data fields required to address the SFDR’s indicators applicable to investments in investee companies, sovereigns and supranationals, and real estate assets. (Tables 1,2 and 3 in the Regulatory Technical Standards [RTS]).

Alveo’s business rules allow for completing missing data points based on peer group analysis, converting reporting bases and units of measurement and proxying information based on historical records. 

Alveo has also extended its standard library of off-the-shelf connectors with financial data feeds. Alveo’s Ops360 user experience includes dashboards showing the sourcing, processing and completion status of data requirements as well as insight into data quality metrics and complete lineage to show the provenance of reported data fields. Clients can also use Alveo to integrate multiple sources of ESG data and derive analytics, for example showing the divergence between third party ratings or the creation of clients’ own proprietary ratings.

“ESG is the biggest data management requirement to hit the buyside for some time”, said Mark Hepsworth, CEO Alveo. “We see clients requiring access to multiple ESG data sources and increasing volumes of data. At the same time clients want to manipulate this data and make their own decisions about it and how they present it to their clients.”

“Alveo’s multisource approach to data management is well suited to address ESG data management requirements”, said Neil Sandle, Head of Product Management, Alveo. “With wide dispersion in third party ESG ratings and the need for granular reporting against the SFDR’s PAIs, firms need to combine different sources with their own expertise. ESG data is essentially reference data which we have been helping clients manage for many years. In addition, Alveo’s targeted data sourcing and advanced data derivation and distribution capabilities make it the ideal solution to help firms address new ESG requirements “, Sandle concludes.

About Alveo

Alveo is the leader in market data integration and analytics solutions for financial services. Focused on optimizing data flows for business user self-service, we provide cloud-native data aggregation and data quality management that enables clients to easily access trusted data while maximizing their data ROI.

Through our managed services, we ensure that clients can smoothly onboard, prepare and validate data for use in operations, trading, investment management, pricing, risk, reporting and machine learning.

We service a global client base and our award-winning technology provides easy integration into business user workflows and a proven platform for advanced analytics. Through combining deep domain expertise with the latest open-source technologies, we help financial institutions ensure high-quality data, optimize market data cost and maximize productivity.

 Mphasis, an Information Technology (IT) solutions provider specializing in cloud and cognitive services, is expanding its footprint in the UK with a special focus on Customer led Digital Transformation initiatives in banking & insurance, by establishing a nearshore center, outside of London.

Mphasis expects to:

1. Create close to 1000 UK jobs to begin with; capability to scale and cater to customers even beyond the UK, thus potentially creating a much larger opportunity in the job market
2. Invest over GBP 25 million upfront towards establishing a UK center 
3. Provide best in class upskill and training in both digital transformation as well as domain expertise in the UK banking & insurance segments.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, UK said, “Trade and investment between the UK and India is creating good jobs and sustaining livelihoods in both of our countries. I’m very pleased that Mphasis has decided to join the legions of Indian companies investing in the UK, boosting our tech sector, and driving economic growth.”

“Having successfully executed at least half a dozen similar transformational partnerships in the banking and insurance industry, we are confident of building for the future and ensuring a client-first approach. I am excited to elevate our presence in the UK to support future growth, improve operating agility, flexibility and harness local capabilities towards bolstering our offerings over the long term,” said Nitin Rakesh, CEO and Executive Director, Mphasis.

Focused on the insurance market, this centre aims to deliver the best technology and insurance operations services to clients through innovation in operational, technological, and service excellence. Mphasis brings its existing digital & domain expertise, as well as global capabilities to constitute a proposition and capability that can be harnessed and tailored to meet individual UK client needs. 

B-North, the Manchester-based firm building an SME lending bank for the UK, has so far raised more than £560,000, exceeding the £500,000 target set in an extension of its latest funding round.

B-North will use the investment to further extend their cash runway as the business continues to make strong progress with the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA) and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) licensing process and closes in on completing a £20m 'Series A' funding round.

The latest crowdfunding success follows on from previous raises on the GrowthFunders and Crowdcube platforms, as well as securing investment from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Channel 4 Ventures and a £4.455m commitment from leading Estonian banking group LHV.

Once licensed, B-North will operate via a UK-wide network of ‘lending Pods’ to provide finance dynamically to regional SME businesses that are often poorly served by traditional lenders. Through its network, combined with a state-of-the-art cloud-native banking system, B-North aims to deliver loans to businesses 10x faster than the industry standard. The first of B-North's Pods are expected to open in Manchester later this year. The firm aims to disrupt the UK's £150 billion SME lending market by establishing the first truly regional lending bank in 150 years.

Investors wishing to take part in B-North’s latest funding round can find more details here.

Jonathan Thompson, Co-Founder and CEO of B-North said: “We are delighted to continue to welcome investors to B-North at such an exciting stage in our journey. Our initial target of £500,000 to add to our £3m bridge round will provide B-North with an extended cash runway to ensure that our activities can continue at pace – and allows investors to back our vision for the future of UK lending. We continue to make good progress on the banking licence process and the completion of our £20 million ‘Series A’ round ahead of the mobilisation stage which will see us start to provide much-needed funding into the underserved SME lending market.

Nordea Life & Pension is now imposing a new requirement on asset managers to have committed to a net zero target in line with a 1.5-degree scenario in 2024 at the latest in order to manage assets on behalf of Nordea Life & Pension. This has been announced today by Nordea Life & Pension in its climate targets for 2025, which also include the target to reduce the carbon intensity of its portfolios by at least 25 per cent by the end of 2024.

Nordea Life & Pension, with around EUR 62 billion in assets under management, co-founded the UN initiative Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance in September 2019. The alliance has received significant recognition and the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has described it as one of the most ambitious and concrete climate actions. All members have committed to a net zero target for 2050 and will present individual sub-targets for 2025 this year. Today, Nordea Life & Pension presents its new climate sub-targets.

One of Nordea Life & Pension’s new targets is imposing a net zero target requirement on asset managers who wish to manage capital on behalf of Nordea Life & Pension and its pension savers.

“For us and our customers, sustainability is essential, and as an asset owner we have a great opportunity to influence how the assets are managed. We are now requiring asset managers to have committed to a net zero target in line with a 1.5-degree scenario no later than in 2024 to be able to manage assets on behalf of Nordea Life & Pension’s customers”, says Katja Bergqvist, CEO of Nordea Life & Pension.

Continue to reduce carbon intensity
Nordea Life & Pension will also reduce the carbon intensity of its portfolios by at least 25 per cent by the end of 2024, compared with the beginning of 2020. This is an extension of the ambitious efforts already made, which have reduced the carbon intensity by around 20 per cent in the past few years.

“The coming ten years are crucial. Long-term net zero targets must contain short-term concrete goals and transparent reporting. We have, in the past few years, been working persistently to reduce the carbon intensity of our portfolios. This work continues with our target to reduce the carbon intensity by at least an additional 25 per cent by the end of 2024”, says Katja Bergqvist.

Nordea Life & Pension has set the following climate targets by 2025:

• Asset managers must have committed to a net zero target in line with a 1.5-degree scenario in 2024 at the latest in order to manage assets on behalf of Nordea Life & Pension.
• The carbon intensity of Nordea Life & Pension’s portfolios will be reduced by at least 25 per cent by the end of 2024.
• The Nordea Group announced earlier this year its ambition to become a bank with net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. To reach this goal, Nordea has set a mid-term objective to reduce carbon emissions from its lending and investment portfolios by 40-50 per cent by 2030. Nordea will also reduce its internal carbon emissions by at least 50 per cent and achieve net positive carbon contribution by 2030. The baseline measurement for the objectives is 2019. Please read more on our website Nordea.com.

Technology group Prytek today announces it has made a significant investment in TipRanks as part of its wider investment strategy. TipRanks, is an Israeli-based fintech company using capital market data driven by machine learning and NLP technology with over 4 million active retail investment users. 

TipRanks mission is to make investment decisions easier for retail investors, by providing them access to professional tools via a simple interface. It allows them to track professional traders and their records to help make their own investment decisions.

In addition to the investment, TipRanks is able to leverage Prytek’s solution suite, including new tools and datasets, each designed to bring transparency to online investment advice. The Prytek group build financial services and education technologies to deliver BOPaaS (Business Operating Platform-as-a-Service) to enterprises institutions. 

The latest funding from Prytek will enable TipRanks to expand its technological capabilities, with plans to carry out a new generation of data products. Prytek intends to implement these technologies with other subsidiaries through the vertically integrated ecosystem it has created. 

Andrey Yashunsky, CEO and Founder of Prytek said “We are witnessing huge growth in the number of investment platforms which is fantastic as it is making investing accessible to all. However, this has dramatically increased the need for reliable, unbiased, and objective financial advice. Our future vision is to work closely with TipRanks to create a super app enabling investors to trade in various ways including equities and ETFs all in one simple place.”

Uri Gruenbaum, Co-Founder and CEO of TipRanks said “Our platform is driven by smart technologies to help millions of investors evaluate ideas and make data-driven decisions. Through our partnership with Prytek, we will create and acquire more exclusive datasets that will give retail investors a real edge. We will also expand our coverage to other asset classes and markets including crypto and ETFs.”

Identitii Limited is pleased to announce that the former Head of Payments for Investec Bank (UK) (Investec), Joe Higginson, has joined Identitii as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO).

Commenting on the announcement, Joe Higginson, Chief Commercial Officer, Identitii, says:

“The global payments landscape is changing rapidly, as financial institutions accelerate their move to digital to better leverage Open Banking and meet changing customer and regulatory demands. It’s easy to underestimate how hard it is for banks to make these changes, but the reality is that they are operating tens or hundreds of different interconnected systems that are decades old and so complex it’s impossible to simply turn one off so you can connect a new one.

In essence, banks must perform critical technology upgrades while still flying the plane, which carries significant risk to compliance, customer experience and data security. This is exactly the problem Identitii solves and it’s why I joined at such an exciting time in our journey. I believe Identitii has the technology and the capabilities to help financial institutions all around the world overcome legacy technology challenges and accelerate digital adoption. I’m thrilled to be part of the team.”

Joe’s career has seen him move from selling complex technology solutions to financial institutions all over the world, to working within banks to improve their systems and processes at a time where they are accelerating digital adoption and considering whether to build or buy technology. Where once technology purchases were for large multi-year and multi-million dollar implementations delivered on-site, today’s financial institutions purchase targeted services from a range of specialist providers to solve specific challenges. The industry is also looking more towards cloud-based products and services that enable them to move faster and more seamlessly to support growing customer demands and increased scrutiny from regulators.

As Head of Payments at Investec, Joe was responsible for designing, building, and implementing a next generation payments infrastructure for the bank, reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer. The new platform sits at the heart of the bank’s technology architecture, enabling it to scale quickly to meet increasing customer demand for faster payments and more streamlined products.

Prior to Investec Bank, Joe was Global Head of Payments for Travelex, where he was responsible for innovating across Travelex’s suite of products to help increase revenue and grow the bank’s payments business. He also held roles with Western Union Business Solutions, where he established and ran the company’s financial institution division, responsible for product development and sales to financial institution clients.

As CCO at Identitii, Joe will use this industry experience and significant payments expertise to drive Identitii’s commercial strategy and go to market activities.