Building on its commitment to drive positive change through its data and insights, Refinitiv today announced the expansion of its economic data coverage of Africa. The new data set allows investment managers, central bankers, economists, and research teams to use Refinitiv Datasteam analytical data for detailed exploration of economic relationships and investment opportunities among data series covering the African continent.    

Securing reliable, detailed, timely, locally sourced data has not been easy for economists who have in the past had to use international sources which often can take many months to update and opportunities to monitor the market can be missed. Because Africa is a diverse continent, economists and strategists need more timely access to country-specific data via national sources to create tailored business, policy, trading and investment strategies to meet specific goals.

Africa continues to develop critical infrastructure, telecommunications, digital technology and access to financial services for its 1.3bn people. The World Bank estimates that over 50% of African inhabitants will be under 25 by 2050. This presents substantial opportunities for investors who can spot important trends and make informed decisions based on robust and timely economic data.

Stuart Brown, Group Head of Enterprise Data Solutions, Refinitiv, said: “Africa’s growing, dynamic and fast evolving economies makes it a focal point for financial markets today and in the coming decades.  As part of LSEG’s commitment to empowering the global markets with accurate and timely data, we are excited about making these unique datasets available via the Refinitiv Data Platform. Our economic data coverage of Africa will provide our customers with deeper and broader inputs for macroeconomic analyses and enable more effective investment strategies and economic research.”

Refinitiv Africa economic data coverage:

• Africa economics content comprises around 500,000 nationally sourced time series data covering 54 African nations
• Content is sourced from national statistical offices, central banks and other key national institutions
• The full breadth of economics categories in Datastream including national accounts, money and finance, prices, surveys, labor market, consumer, industry, government and external sectors 
• International sources including OECD, World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank, Oxford Economics & more provide comparable data & forecasts across the continent

Refinitiv® Datastream® has global macroeconomics coverage to analyze virtually any macro environment, and better understand economic cycles to uncover trends and forecast market conditions. With over 14.2 million economic times series map trends, customers can validate ideas and identify opportunities using Refinitiv Datastream. Access its powerful charting tools, 9,000 pre-built chart templates and chart studies for commonly used valuation, performance, and technical and fundamental analysis.

Refinitiv continually grows available data – the China expansion in 2019 covered a unique combination of economic and financial indicators. Refinitiv plans to expand Southeast Asia covering Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia with delivery expected in 2021. This ensures that Refinitiv will have much needed emerging market economic content.  To learn more about Refinitiv® Datastream® economic content, visit: https://www.refinitiv.com/en/products/datastream-macroeconomic-analysis

SimplyBiz Mortgages has added new lender MPowered Mortgages to its lender panel.

MPowered Mortgages, brought to you by MQube, offers lending for buy-to-let individual, limited company and portfolio landlords, now available to members of SimplyBiz Mortgages.

MPowered Mortgages’ product offering comes alongside the innovative MPowered system which SimplyBiz Mortgages members will have access to. SimplyBiz Mortgages advisers will benefit from a simple and intuitive system which enables cases to be submitted with ease, with a simple document upload and a full application process for brokers that takes up to just 10 minutes, leapfrogging the DIP stage.

MPowered Mortgages aim to deliver lending with certainty and control. The application process has been built alongside advisers to give them the tools they need to better serve their clients.

Makyala Everitt, Head of SimplyBiz Mortgages commented: “If the last twelve months have taught us anything in business, it is that we need to be willing to be nimble in times of change and open to harnessing technology to ensure we are still able to meet our clients’ requirements, whilst also ensuring our firms run smoothly and efficiently. MQube’s unique approach, through its MPowered platform is refreshingly simple and appealing and their addition to the panel adds another opportunity for our advisers looking to place their clients buy to let requirements.”.

Emma Hollingworth, distribution director at MPowered Mortgages, added: “We’re delighted to be launching with SimplyBiz Mortgages today, and look forward to supporting their members. We want to ensure that advisers have access to the best mortgage lending for their customers. We believe combining a competitive product range with an innovative tech offering to SimplyBiz Mortgagess’

Having built a strong initial reputation in the rapidly growing open banking space of Northern Europe, Nordic API Gateway is announcing that its fully rebranding to Aiia to reflect the company’s pan-European focus of delivering open banking ‘that simply works’. 

The European roll-out and a rebrand process that started out last year is now moving into full effect for Nordic API Gateway, a fintech company that’s been on the map for more than a decade, building APIs for third-parties to access financial data and perform seamless account-to-account payments. 

With the name switch, Aiia also sets the bar to further support financial innovation across new European markets with its focus on quality and in-depth coverage of its open banking rails. 

New markets count Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland, where the company already has live customers ranging from accounting software providers and fintechs to financial institutions and payment service providers. 

To deliver high-quality open banking APIs, scaling with customers is a strategy that’s been a part of the company's DNA since day one and is set in place to ensure full market coverage of Aiia’s data and payment capabilities to a wide range of businesses. 

Commenting on the full European roll-out strategy, CEO & Founder of Aiia, Rune Mai, says: 

“There’s no doubt it has been a hassle for many European businesses to get started with open banking. With Aiia in place, we’re now fully switching on open banking simplicity across Europe enabling access to more than 240 million Europeans through more than 2000 banks.” He says and adds: 

“We differentiate Aiia from others by ensuring we have solid roots in the markets we’re entering by maturing the bank integrations with actual customers and knowing all aspects of local regulations. Our drive is to be the craftsmen of open banking and we’ve been working hard to develop high-quality API’s in the markets we’re entering to give others the best tools to innovate and scale with a platform that simply works.” 

New name, same ambitions 

Today, Aiia is one of the well-known players when it comes to making open banking payments an actual competitor to card schemes. Set to challenge existing players like Visa and Mastercard, the open banking platform is on a mission to simplify payments through its

open banking initiatives. The new name doesn’t change the company’s ambitions, however, but it better reflects its offerings, ambitions and flourish across Europe. 

Commenting on the new name, look and feel, Isak Nuur, Chief Experience Officer at Aiia says: 

“As our focus has moved far beyond supporting the Nordics and will continue to do so. Us changing our name and brand to Aiia catches up to what we come from as a company and where we’re heading with account-to-account payment solutions in the future. Aiia is all about switching on simplicity in open banking through a product fleet that empowers all aspects of open banking. With the full roll-out of Aiia, we’ll continue to expand our fleet with even more types of payments ranging from recurring payments to our recently launched bulk payments, storage-options and consent management tools for end-users alongside further enrichment of data.” 

Today, Aiia (formerly Nordic API Gateway) switches its brand fully and will keep delivering its services with connectivity to millions of European consumers and businesses already servicing companies like Danske Bank, DNB, OP Financial Group, Svea Payments, Pleo, Lunar, Santander Consumer Bank and more under their new name.

ikigai, the new premium fintech bringing self-care to personal finance, today announced it has extended its relationship with WealthKernel, choosing them as custodian to safeguard the financial assets of its clients in line with the current permissions of the FCA. Prior to selecting WealthKernel as its custodian, ikigai’s clients’ assets were held by investment platform, Third Financial. 

WealthKernel will be responsible for the custody of money and assets for ikigai’s UK clients, which will be held in separate WealthKernel Nominee Accounts, inline with FCA CASS regulations and guidelines. Alongside custodian services, WealthKernel also handles reconciliation, settlement, dividends, corporate actions processing, and transfers on behalf of ikigai and its clients.  

The custodian partnership will ensure the safety of financial assets held by ikigai’s customers, and allows it to continue delivering on its commitment to best-in-class banking and wealth management services. The announcement comes as a natural extension to ikigai’s pre-existing partnership with WealthKernel, which already provides a number of investment services to the firm.

Maurizio Kaiser, co-founder of ikigai, says: 

 “WealthKernel’s custodian services deliver exactly what we need to remain agile in a fast changing landscape. Its capabilities are a natural fit as ikigai is committed to delivering world-class services using cutting-edge technologies. We are ruthless about client-centricity and, like WealthKernel, are fully committed to transforming banking and wealth management. This partnership means we are able to truly focus on continuously providing the best-in-class products and services to our clients, bringing us a step closer to redefining the future of wealth.”  

Karan Shanmugarajah, CEO of WealthKernel, comments:

“Ikigai is proof that we are the perfect fit for companies that require fast integration and feedback when deploying premium financial services. Our infrastructure enables ikigai to deliver high-touch investment and wealth management services. And by using best-in class, regulated financial technologies, ikigai can offer the asssurities required when managing its clients’ portfolios. We are delighted to extend our relationship, and look forward to seeing how ikigai continues to grow.”

In addition to the new custodian solution, WealthKernel already provides its portfolio management and order management system to ikigai.These integrations help automate investment capabilities such as bulk trade processing, payment flows and portfolio rebalancing, helping ikigai grow its business at scale. The solutions also help remove a layer of human error, and the manual, time intensive processes typically associated with investment services. 

WealthKernel works alongside ikigai’s other API financial partners, such as Railsbank, so that ikigai can focus on delivering best-in-class, premium products and services to its clients.

 The custodian appointment comes ahead of ikigai’s crowdfunding campaign, kicking-off in mid-April, where it aims to raise a further £1.2 million. Previously, ikigai raised £2 million from private and angel investors in a pre-seed round completed in 2020. 

Digital payments provider, Paydoo, has partnered with technology company Tribe Payments to provide processing, gateway and POS services across the UK and Europe. Under Tribe’s acquirer processing programme, Paydoo will gain instant access to the latest technology to manage their merchants’ success and support ongoing growth.

With merchants embracing omnichannel payments, they require increasing customisation across multiple verticals. As payments become more complex and customers more demanding, there is a clear need to provide a payments-in-a-box solution; putting merchants in charge when it comes to real-time reporting and value-added services. 

“We are excited to partner with Tribe to offer our merchants the unrivalled experience and improved service levels that our customers deserve,” said Sam Kohli, Founder of Paydoo. "Since its conception, Paydoo has dedicated itself to offering Acquiring-as-a-Service; providing much-needed versatility, reliability, and transparency for payments on and offline. Our value lies in the ability to provide integrated payments for the needs of all merchants - and Tribe is enabling us to do just that." 

“The modularity of Tribe’s technology will allow Paydoo to quickly incorporate a number of products into their offering, to enable true omnichannel payments and support options that are growing in popularity, such as subscription payments.” said Alex Reddish, Chief Commercial Officer of Tribe Payments. “We are excited to partner with Paydoo as we continue to strengthen our acquiring platform.”

The payment processing element of the partnership is already live, with gateway, POS and SoftPOS services all set to follow over the next few months; helping Paydoo to deliver a full range of flexible acquiring solutions to support merchants who want to innovate and grow.

About Paydoo

Paydoo Payments is an authorised and registered E-money Institution, with its license passported across 31 European Union member states. Paydoo provides Visa and Mastercard card acquiring services in Card Not Present (CNP) and Card Present (CP) environments. As well as offering these services, Paydoo offers in-house developed technology including tools to optimise smart merchant onboarding, automated boarding logic, risk management, monitoring interfaces, and payout reporting for ISO's, ISV's, IPSPs. Paydoo has positioned itself as a technology company that provides integrated payment solutions offering what is called acquiring-as-a-service as its flagship product.

About Tribe Payments

Tribe Payments provides modular technology to banks, fintechs and acquirers, enabling them to offer innovative payments services without compromising on speed, scalability or quality.

Tribe’s core platform - ISAAC – supports issuer and acquirer processing and offers a range of API-led enhanced services including a proprietary 3D Secure solution, data insights fraud and risk monitoring. Tribe’s technology stack also includes its Digital Banking, Bank Connect and Open Banking solutions which give fintechs and payments companies fast, easy access to banking rails and financial services capabilities.

Tribe’s cloud-based services provide clients and partners with enhanced flexibility and rapid speed to market, along with the ability to scale, expand across borders, and work better in complex regulatory environments.

Launched in 2019, Tribe is a pioneering payment technology provider. Tribe was the first processor to allow service providers to harness the power of Open Banking without developing their own APIs. As Europe's first issuer processor to work with Mastercard, Visa and UnionPay International, Tribe supports unrivalled connectivity for card payments. And with PCI Level 1 compliance and supported by Level 4 data centres, Tribe builds global scale, safely and securely. 

Find out more: https://tribepayments.com/

Modulr, a leading Payments-as-a-Service applications programming interface (API) platform, has secured new investment from FIS Ventures, the corporate venture arm of global financial technology leader FIS, for an undisclosed amount.

FIS plans to leverage Modulr’s API-based payments infrastructure to facilitate and automate realtime, business-to-business, payments in the U.K. and Europe as part of FIS’ broader real-time payments strategy.

Modulr is tapping into the massive business-to-business payments digitisation opportunity by working with software platforms that serve small and medium-sized businesses. 2020 was a breakout year for the company as it signed up a number of large enterprise customers, despite the macro economic challenges posed by COVID-19.

Myles Stephenson, CEO at Modulr comments: “FIS and Modulr share the same ambition, to enable businesses to move fast and transform their payment processes, software and experiences in line with the digital world. We look forward to working with FIS to develop and deliver better payments solutions and innovative services to businesses of all sizes.” 

Asif Ramji, chief growth officer at FIS, comments: “Our investment in Modulr is a key component of our comprehensive vision at FIS to bring the full power and potential of real-time payments to organizations at a global scale. Working with Modulr, we’ll be able to help our clients in the UK and EEA market accelerate their journey to digital payments, as well as work towards delivering a suite of new global real-time payment propositions.”

Modulr enables digital businesses and software platforms across a growing range of sectors including lending, banking, fintech, travel, employment services and accounting to easily automate, embed and build new payment services within their customer journey. With its full stack Payments-as-a-Service API, it handles much of the complexities and regulatory overhead, so that its clients can focus on their own unique value proposition.

In the last year, Modulr became a directly connected participant of the Bacs scheme, alongside direct participation in the Faster Payments scheme, enabling Modulr to settle and hold funds at the Bank of England. Modulr has further added direct access to Visa and Mastercard, as well as delivering innovative new products including Payment Initiation and Confirmation of Payee. Modulr was most recently granted an electronic money licence from the Central Bank of Ireland which marks an important step in the company’s European ambitions.

CloudMargin, creator of the world’s first and only collateral and margin management solution native to the cloud, today announced the appointment of industry professional Helen Nicol to the role of Senior Vice President, Head of Product. Nicol has more than 20 years of experience in collateral management, financial markets and law, including senior positions at two global banks.

Nicol joins CloudMargin after serving for over 14 years as Global Product Director for Lombard Risk, which was acquired by VERMEG in 2018. In that role, she was responsible for the firm’s collateral management, clearing and optimisation solution, managing teams in London, Singapore and New York.

Now a member of the CloudMargin Leadership Team and operating out of London, Nicol reports to Stuart Connolly, CEO.

Connolly said: “We’re truly excited to welcome Helen to CloudMargin to run our benchmark product, the CloudMargin platform. Her deep experience and expertise in collateral management – both as a service provider and a sell-side market participant – make her ideally suited to lead our product team and bring us to the next level as we continue to grow and enhance our offering. We are also very fortunate to add another strong woman with extensive management skills to our executive team, and we recognise that diversity in our organisation and managers make our company ever stronger.”

Nicol said: “I am delighted to be joining CloudMargin at such an exciting time in the financial technology industry. CloudMargin has laid the foundation to enable standardisation of data parameters, creation of efficiencies through configurable workflows and enhanced connectivity to the market across all sectors, and I am looking forward to working with the team on the expansion of the CloudMargin product suite.”

Prior to joining Lombard Risk in 2006, Nicol held several banking roles at both UBS and then Credit Suisse in London. In her ultimate role, she was responsible for new business and derivative legal agreements, including day-to-day management of the bank’s over-the-counter (OTC), repo and foreign exchange (FX) collateral legal agreements. She was also a key collateral contact for relationships with front-office, credit risk management and corporate treasury personnel. Prior to that role, she was Collateral Manager for the bank’s OTC, repo and exchange-traded derivatives.

She has an LLB Honours Law degree and a further Law Society Final Exam qualification from the College of Law in Guildford, UK. Nicol is a member of Women in Listed Derivatives, as well as Women in Derivatives and is an active participant on the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) working groups.

About CloudMargin

Headquartered in London, CloudMargin created the world’s first cloud-based collateral management workflow tool, which has earned more than 20 industry awards and honours since 2015 for innovation and best-in-class technology. The firm’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model helps leading sell-side and buy-side financial institutions globally – including banks, brokerage and asset management firms, pension funds and insurance companies meet time-critical regulatory deadlines and reduce dramatically growing costs associated with collateral requirements. CloudMargin delivers its robust, secure platform directly as well as through outsourcers and major industry service providers. Partner to and owned by the market, CloudMargin’s strategic investors include Deutsche Bank, Citi, Deutsche Börse, IHS Markit and Jefferies, as well as venture capital firm Illuminate Financial. With more than 20 integration partnerships, CloudMargin was the first collateral management solution provider to be a member of the SWIFT network, facilitating straight-through processing through settlement. For more information, visit www.cloudmargin.com.