MYPINPAD, a global leader in secure personal authentication solutions has received certification from the Australian Payments Network (AusPayNet), the self-regulatory body for Australian payments. Australian payment regulations stipulate that all new card-acceptance technology must undergo an evaluation to assess the security, integrity and network operability and be approved by AusPayNet prior to market deployment. Today’s announcement makes history as the first Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council (SSC) Contactless Payments on Commercial off-the-shelf (CPoC) Solution to attain approval for Australia.

The certification will enable MYPINPAD to deploy its software-based payments solutions to thousands of merchants in the region.

This is a significant step in mobile payment acceptance for Australia. By transforming mobile devices into payment terminals, all types of merchant including micro and SMEs can now securely accept card payments on everyday mobile devices, particularly in situations where cash may have historically been the only accessible payment option.

As of December 2020, Australia had 923,691 active POS terminals, a slight decrease from the same time in 2019. This decrease, however, was caused primarily by the impact of COVID-19 lockdown, making many terminals inactive. With MYPINPAD set to deploy its contactless (CPoC) solution across Australia, this number is expected to increase.  

MYPINPAD was the first company globally to have its CPoC solution certified by the PCI SSC.

Morten Hofstad, Head of APAC at MYPINPAD comments: “As the first provider in the world to be globally certified by PCI to accept payments on smart devices without additional hardware, we’re delighted to mark another milestone by being the first to be certified in the incredibly dynamic Australian market.

The APAC region is a hub of innovation for payments and we’re thrilled to gain certification from AusPayNet. We are about to unlock opportunities in seamless payments and customer experience for thousands of merchants in the region and have our first six deployments lined up to go live this year, and we look forward to many more in 2022.”

To discover more about this transformational technology, visit the MYPINPAD website: https://mypinpad.com/

HSBC is announcing a new programme to introduce sustainable payment cards across all its global locations. By the end of 2026 it will eliminate single-use PVC plastic, in favour of recycled PVC plastic (rPVC).

The programme - which includes HSBC’s debit, credit and commercial cards - is part of the bank’s strategy to reduce its carbon emissions and achieve net zero in its operations and supply chain by 2030 or sooner.

Working with global cards manufacturer IDEMIA, the bank will introduce new cards gradually across its locations. Rollout started in Malaysia in January 2021 and will continue in Sri Lanka this month; followed by the UK this summer. It will then extend across further countries and markets by the end of 2021, including Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Macau, Mexico, Singapore, UAE and US.

Based on the current volume of cards issued by HSBC per year (23m), the move to rPVC will reduce CO² emissions by 161 tonnes a year. Each card will also reduce plastic waste - 73 tonnes per year, that’s the weight of over 40 cars.

Richard Harvey, Group Head of Retail Banking Products, at HSBC, said: “We’re delighted that recycled plastic materials are now available at a scale that enables us progressively to replace our payment cards around the world. This will reduce our carbon emissions as we transition to sustainable materials throughout the card production process. This is another step as we move towards a net zero business, to help the bank and our customers make a positive impact on the environment.”

As locations begin issuing rPVC cards, customers requiring new or replacement cards will be the first recipients. To preserve the life of their existing cards for as long as possible, recycled plastic cards will be issued as their old cards naturally expire. The availability of rPVC cards will vary by location, as each country joins the programme.

The move to rPVC underpins HSBC’s global ambition to build a thriving and resilient future and is part of the bank’s transition to be a net zero business. The switch is a first step in a gradual transition to issue cards made from sustainable materials, and HSBC will continue to evaluate other alternative materials too.

Taylan Turan Group Head of Customers, Products and Strategy at HSBC, said: “HSBC is committed to achieving net zero by 2050 or sooner; and we’ve pledged to work with our customers in all sectors to reduce emissions. Evolving our payment cards to eliminate single-use plastic cards is part of our aim to be net zero in our operations and supply chain by 2030 or sooner. New sustainable materials, such as rPVC, offer the financial services industry a clear way to accelerate its efforts to build a more sustainable future, and we’re proud to be part of a movement which is gathering momentum across the world.”

Global research conducted for HSBC by Mintel found a majority (77%) of consumers agree that ‘financial services firms have an important role to play in creating a more sustainable society’; when it comes to their appetite for payment cards made from sustainable materials, over two-thirds (67%) showed high levels of interest. A separate global survey, conducted for IDEMIA by Dentsu Data Labs found that most people (92%) think their bank should actively contribute to preserving the planet; and a majority (87%) expect their banks to offer eco-friendly cards.

IDEMIA’s Executive VP Financial Institutions Amanda Gourbault said: “IDEMIA is proud to be a long term global partner of HSBC and to be supporting its sustainability goals with our GREENPAY solution - part of our portfolio of sustainable solutions for financial institutions. We fully share HSBC’s goals of sustainability - we believe bank cards shouldn’t cost the earth; and we look forward to working with HSBC as it migrates its card portfolio worldwide to rPVC. Manufactured from waste materials, rPVC cards significantly reduce plastic waste, which is one of the most pressing problems of our modern world. Migrating to recycled plastic also saves energy, limits oil consumption and reduces greenhouse gas emissions, to help mitigate global warming and reduce air pollution.”

Adviscent, a Zurich-based fintech, is connecting with the recently launched Avaloq Wealth Platform to accelerate the transformation of established financial institutions’ advisory business by means of an innovative content hub.

Given the exponential growth of available financial market information, investors are oftentimes overwhelmed and struggling to find relevant content and ideas for their investment decisions. Professional investment advisors are equally tested by well-informed customers and the increased demand for truly personalized investment advice which meet the individual preferences and risk/return profiles.

In response to this challenge, Adviscent developed a savvy content hub called Interactive Advisor for content owners like research analysts, investment writers and sales managers to create, manage and distribute guided investment stories tailored to the respective customer profiles.

Launched in 2020, Avaloq Wealth enables wealth managers and private banks to provide highly personalized investment advice and bespoke services to their customers, while reducing the time spent on preparing and analysing investment proposals.

Santiago Schuppisser, Avaloq Group Product Manager, Wealth, said: “We are truly impressed by Adviscent’s powerful solutions to orchestrate research, advisory and content functions for an engaging investment journey. This partnership is in line with our mission to redefine investment advice and to always put our users and their clients in the centre of all our efforts.”

Thomas Bosshard, CEO of Adviscent, said: “By partnering with Avaloq we gain access to a collaborative ecosystem in which established financial institutions and ambitious fintechs like Adviscent come together. We are looking forward to supporting Avaloq’s private banking and wealth management clients in providing their clients with the right content in the right format at the right time.”

Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, today announces that it has completed the second phase of development of its new “Payments Platform as a Service” (PPaaS) solution. The commercial launch of PPaaS is scheduled for the second half of 2021, supporting the Group’s Terminals, Solutions & Services division’s (TSS) transformation towards being an ecosystem enabler and trusted technology partner in the new world of cloud-based payments acceptance. As of today, Worldline has onboarded 16 foundational partners to co-design and test the solution with its TSS business line.

PPaaS will enable Worldline partners to orchestrate state-of-the-art payment solutions for their merchant customers across all commerce channels. The solution is an open ecosystem combining natively built services with connections to third-party applications. Designed to be device and partner agnostic, PPaaS will allow Worldline partners to easily activate features in order to create or enhance the experience of their merchants’ offerings through open APIs.

Banks and acquirers will be able to significantly simplify their payment acceptance operations and provide their end-customers with a variety of value-added services. In parallel, banks and acquirers will be able to offer their services to Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), gateways and integrators connected to the PPaaS platform, developing new partnerships and gaining access to new merchant customers.

ISVs and solution integrators can incorporate payment solutions into their products through a single integration process, benefiting from connections with regional and international payment processors through PPaaS. Solution providers of a broad range of services such as Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL), loyalty, data intelligence, fraud management, and merchant onboarding digitization, will be able to seamlessly access new routes to market and extend their reach to new geographies and merchant categories. Acquirers, gateways, and ISVs can easily enable these services through PPaaS, enriching their own offering to their end-merchant customers.

16 foundational partners have already chosen to be part of the PPaaS journey. These include leading acquirer, Bambora; global PSP, PayU; the leading mobile payment and daily life services platform, Alipay; Discover Global Network, BNPL and consumer credit global providers, Afterpay and Fiizy; leading eCash and digital wallet provider, Paysafe; fraud prevention specialist, Forter; loyalty services provider, CardGenY; hospitality solutions integrator, Shiji; risk and compliance technology provider, Sphonic; Brazilian ISV, POS Controle; AI-based identity technology provider Onfido; and enterprise-grade blockchain solution provider, nChain.   

Giulio Montemagno, SVP and Managing Director PPaaS at Worldline, TSS, said: "We build the core capabilities as well as the connections to a variety of players in different fields of the commerce ecosystem, so that whether you’re a payment processor or a solutions integrator, when you join the PPaaS ecosystem, you can pick and choose the elements that you want in order to design and deliver the best experience to your merchant customers".

“As a leader in payment and credit services in emerging markets, we are delighted to be part of this journey. Our focus is to consistently provide the most relevant payment options to our merchants and their customers in every market and we see a clear strategic opportunity to create exciting new offers across multiple channels in partnership with PPaaS”, said Mario Shiliashki, CEO of PayU Global Payments

“Consumers are increasingly looking for flexible and innovative ways to pay. With the Afterpay platform and increased consumer loyalty and frequency, merchants experience a higher number of new and returning consumers via referral traffic, higher conversions, increasing basket size and lower return rate of goods. In partnering with PPaaS, we will continue to expand the ways we serve merchants instore and online”, said Carl-Olav Scheible, CEO Clearpay and EVP Afterpay International.

“As the world's leading mobile payment and digital daily life services platform, we are constantly looking for ways to accompany Alipay consumers wherever they shop as well as enable merchants to expand their business by exposing them to millions of potential new customers and by providing a high performing, safe and trusted shopping experience. We are excited to partner with PPaaS on this initiative and we strongly believe PPaaS can help us deepen our strategic cooperation with Worldline/Ingenico”, said Roland Palmer, Director Alipay North-West Europe at Ant Group.

“Working with Worldline will present the opportunity for Discover Global Network to play a key role in driving forward new developments in acceptance creating new innovative digital pathways in the industry. It will give us a unique view into the digital transformation taking place in the industry, resulting in learnings that we can use to simplify, streamline and improve the adoption of services for our global partners. We look forward to a fruitful collaboration” said Alisa Ellis, global Head of Innovation and emerging products at Discover. 

LenDenClub, India’s fastest growing peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform recently announced that they have scaled up their hiring by threefold vis-à-vis last year, offering employment to approximately 45 new candidates including both lateral and campus hires. The company is eyeing to triple its current team size from a headcount of 60 to approximately 180 by the end of the financial year.  

With the second wave of the pandemic hitting the country once again, digitization is likely to see acceleration across all sectors. With essential services like banking being conducted remotely, online banking is yet again seeing a huge surge among the population. In these unprecedented times, digital lending companies have come to the rescue of the unbanked and underbanked who lack a credit history and cannot avail traditional loans.  

LenDenClub has been riding on this wave, witnessing a spike in demand for digital loans availed on its platform. The company has observed a huge surge especially in small ticket loans, owing to which it has upscaled its offering ‘InstaMoney’, from its presence across 7 cities to pan-India. InstaMoney is an instant short term cash loan product for salaried individuals, ranging between Rs. 5000 & Rs. 10000 and offered for a tenure of 1-3 months.  

To keep up with the growth, the company has expanded its team size as well. They have aggressively shot up hiring to 83% as compared to the last year, having completed a selection of management trainees (MTs) and graduate engineering trainees (GETs) through Campus Placements and having successfully selected them from IIMs, top B-Schools and engineering colleges. The recruits will carefully be mentored to make them industry ready for departments like marketing, product & technology and risk management. 

Speaking on the development, Bhavin Patel, Co-founder & CEO, LendenClub said, “We are excited to announce our expansion plans at a time where it is critical to offer alternative channels of credit to the masses of the country. The company has set itself aggressive goals and we are well placed to meet the surge of digital loans during the pandemic. We have invested heavily in technology since automation and data analytics are the key to modernizing the lending space, while providing tailor-made solutions to consumers. The rapid expansion of our team itself is a testimony to the potential of the sector, and we look forward to welcoming individuals who share our vision for the P2P lending space in the country while driving growth and competitiveness for LenDenClub.”  

LenDenClub is looking to hire individuals to take up leadership positions to drive the P2P lending space while growing further as a market leader. The company is looking to hire vertical leads and managers for Branding, Digital Marketing, Sales & Distribution, and investment etc. They are also looking for management trainees to help with Business Development, Alliances, Product Development & Strategy, Customer Support, and Wealth Management, along with graduate trainees for software development and market analysis.   

The P2P Lending sector in the country has seen huge boost over last year, owing to their USPs’ such as -- small ticket size, simple and intuitive onboarding procedure and faster loan disbursals. Players such as LenDenClub has expanded aggressively through the year reaching out to a much wider customer base that was not served by the traditional lenders. 

Fast-growing bank challenger Rocker chooses to partner with Vilja when expanding its business to offer consumer savings accounts with a deposit guarantee.

Swedish fintech Rocker, formerly known as Bynk, is expanding its mobile services offering to include savings accounts for its customers as part of its ambition to help consumers optimize their spending and finances.

Rocker has joined forces with Erik Penser Bank and Vilja to deliver a smooth end-to-end solution for their customers – everything from an easy KYC and onboarding process when creating the savings accounts to ongoing administration and communication directly in the Rocker app. Everything is automated and in real-time, coupled with the highest security and compliance standards.

- Expanding our services within savings is instrumental in our ambition to challenge high street banks by offering financial services that are smarter, easier to use, and more affordable for consumers. Offering a great customer experience is everything to us and to reach our vision of offering the world’s best app for banking services, we partner with companies and people who share our mindset. Vilja has been a great partner for us in setting up the deposit solution, says Andreas Norberg, Head of Rocker’s Business Area Save & Spend, Head of Rocker’s Business Area Save & Spend.

- We are thrilled to be part of Rocker’s journey by enabling them to offer their customers unique digital banking services. This exciting partnership is another proof that our cloud-based banking platform meets the highest expectations of performance, flexibility, and speed, concludes Fredrik Ulvenholm, CEO at Vilja.

Liberis, a leading global embedded business finance provider, has today announced a shift in strategy: it will only fund SMEs through partnerships with ecommerce and payments companies, rather than direct to SMEs. 

Rob Straathof, CEO Liberis: “Today, only 25% of SMEs that apply for funding through banks are successful. Liberis has proven that the businesses that get rejected by traditional banks are suitable for pre-approved financing. 

Until now, we have been offering SMEs revenue-based finance directly, as well as through partners. However, through our growing partner ecosystem we reach far more SMEs, and the economies of scale we can achieve enable us to pass on our savings to their users. By getting a different view of customers’ businesses through revenue data, we can pre-approve personalised financing offers that work for everyone. 

This system works: we are seeing an 80% renewal rate from SMEs who are able to access the funds they need through the services they already use. Our partners are adding a new value stream to their customers, and everyone is happy.”

International expansion

As part of the company’s recent rapid growth spurt, it also announces today that it has expanded to Denmark, serving 34,000 local SMEs through partnerships with local companies. Liberis is now active in seven countries across three continents. 

Pedram Tadayon, Chief Commercial Officer for Liberis: “As Denmark starts to emerge from lockdown, we are thrilled to be able to provide its owner-managed businesses cashflow support for staff, stock and utilities. We are excited to now be the largest revenue-based finance (merchant cash advance) provider in Denmark, offering a much-needed solution and new approach to help local businesses fund their growth.”

With its new launch in Denmark, Liberis is now the largest provider of revenue-based financing options for Danish SMEs.

Tech Nation’s Future Fifty and Liberis momentum

Liberis has been selected to Tech Nation’s Future Fifty list of late-stage tech companies and future global leaders from the UK. Recognising the company’s growth, team, industry leadership and potential, previous Future Fifty winners include Farfetch, Deliveroo, Zoopla and many more. 

Rob Straathof, CEO of Liberis, commented: “We are thrilled that Tech Nation has recognised the potential of revenue-based finance to drive the shift away from traditional channels with a new way to support the world’s SMEs with fair, quick and easy funding.” 

Other notable company achievements include:

• Over $700 million of funding already delivered to 17,000 businesses

• Supported by the UK Government backed BBIA 

• The only embedded finance provider with a proven track record across 3 continents

• 30+ global partners including eCommerce platforms, payment processors, SaaS providers, online marketplaces and ISOs, including Worldpay from FIS and Global Payments, to reach 1m SMEs

• Danish partners include the country’s largest payment processors

• A fresh new brand identity and website to better represent the company’s leadership as the only global embedded business finance provider

For information on how to partner with Liberis or the company’s international expansion plans, please visit www.liberis.com. 

About Liberis

Liberis is the leading global embedded finance platform. Founded in 2007, it provides partners with the technology platforms and financial solutions for hyper-personalised, fair funding for their small business customers. Headquartered in the UK, Liberis empowers businesses and provides positive impact. It has financed more than 17,000 SMEs worldwide with more than $700m. Liberis is supported by British Business Investments, Paragon and SVB. Learn more at liberis.com.

TransferGo, one of the world’s fastest growing money transfer companies, today showcases the strength and importance of digital remittances by hitting new milestones in total transactions and in cross-border payment flows. It has now recorded over £3billion in international money flows and over 10 million customer transactions, demonstrating both its resilience and value in keeping its global migrant customers connected with loved ones during a turbulent year. 

In April 2020, the World Bank predicted the pandemic would cause the sharpest decline in remittances in recent history, and would ultimately affect providers in the market. However, TransferGo has proven that the migrant community continues to rely upon instant and affordable cross-border payments with registered customers on the platform increasing to 2.5million. 

In fact, demand for global real-time transfer services has been so high that TransferGo has unlocked 95 new markets this year through key industry partnerships with Mastercard and Visa. By integrating with Mastercard Send™ and Visa’s real-time push payments platform, Visa Direct, TransferGo has empowered new customers in countries like Nigeria, Moldova, Georgia, Ghana, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam to send payments directly to a card without having to navigate online banking or find the International Banking Account Number. 

What’s more, this heightened interest for globally accessible money transfer services has enabled TransferGo to explore send-markets outside of the European Economic Area for the first time. By working with Birleşik Ödeme, a leading Turkish payment services company, TransferGo has become available to consumers in Turkey looking to take advantage of high speed, low fee cross-border payments. 

Commenting on the news, Daumantas Dvilinskas, CEO and Co-Founder of TransferGo said: “Today’s milestones are in honour of our fantastic employees and their endeavours to put our customers’ needs at the heart of everything we do. We have always championed fast, cost-effective and simple money transfers and despite the challenges of the last year, our programme of innovation and expansion has paid dividends in accomplishing what matters most - keeping the migrant community in touch with friends and family back home.”  

Today’s announcement follows multi-million financing from Silicon Valley Bank in November, allowing TransferGo to power instant money transfers and pursue an accelerated programme of digital payments transformation. Digital remittances have proven to be a mainstay of financial inclusion and this funding continues to enable TransferGo to provide globally accessible services both during and beyond the pandemic. 

Kennet Partners Limited (“Kennet”), a leading European technology growth equity investor focused on bootstrapped and capital efficient companies, has agreed to sell its stake in Dext (formerly ReceiptBank), the digital, multi-product platform for accountants and bookkeepers, to Hg, a leading global software and services investor. The sale will provide Kennet with a 4.4 times return on its investment. 

Kennet was the first institutional investor in Dext and acquired its stake in the company in 2016. The sale of Kennet’s stake in Dext comes after a record-breaking financial quarter following its rebrand (from Receiptbank) earlier this year.  

Over the last five years, funding from Kennet and subsequent investors including Insight Ventures, has helped Dext to build a world class management team, to accelerate its capabilities to support customers in their digitisation of accounts and book-keeping, and to expand internationally. Dext now supports over one million users in 242 countries and has digitised over 408 million pieces of paper. The company currently processes millions of financial documents per week.  

Hillel Zidel, Managing Director, Kennet Partners, said: 

“As the first institutional investors in Dext back in 2016, we saw the potential and opportunity to build a market leading position in the bookkeeping automation category. Dext’s capital efficiency, business model, strong foundations and ethos is exactly in line with Kennet’s investment strategy. We wish Adrian and the team the best of luck on the next stage of what will continue to be a great journey.”

Adrian Blair, CEO, Dext, said: "As an original backer of Dext, Kennet have played a key part in our growth to over 1 million users.  Our record-breaking start to 2021 is testament to the stewardship that Kennet and our investors have provided."

The announcement follows Kennet’s recent successful exit from Nuxeo which saw Kennet realise more than 5x return on its investment.