Tabby, MENA’s leading shopping and financial services app has introduced Tabby+, a monthly subscription service in the UAE. With Tabby+, shoppers unlock the power of Pay in 4 anywhere, whether its groceries, utilities, fuel, food delivery apps or anywhere VISA is accepted using their Tabby Card.

Tabby+ lets customers use their Tabby Card as their daily spending card and enables them to make the most out of their money for all their purchases. The subscription presents a significant step forward in empowering customers to effortlessly stay in control of their finances.

Tabby+ is an alternative to high-cost credit cards that average 30 to 40% in APR, since Tabby does not charge hidden fees or interest. Instead, Tabby+ runs on a fair and transparent model of only AED 49 per month with the first month being free to try. If Tabby Card holders choose not to opt in for Tabby+, Tabby Card remains free for in-store purchases within the partner network which they can find on the Tabby app.

Tabby Card is the first of its kind, unlike traditional debit or credit cards, daily purchases are split into 4 monthly statements without revolving interest. Tabby Card holders can settle their card purchases on the Tabby app with transparent, monthly statements that make it effortless to manage and keep track of all outstanding payments. In the app, consumers can choose to pay their statement early or automatically make a payment on the due date. The Tabby app also notifies customers in real time of all card transactions and sends alerts for upcoming payments.

Take Tabby anywhere you go

Whether you are purchasing groceries, utilities, fuel or food delivery apps with Tabby+ you can pay in 4 anywhere VISA is accepted with your Tabby Card.

Earn 1% cashback

Tabby+ lets you earn 1%* in cashback on all Tabby Card purchases. Shop anywhere and earn cash in your Tabby wallet every month.

24/7 priority support

Customers get priority chat support with Tabby+, offering unparalleled customer support when you need help with your orders, payments and returns.

Hosam Arab, CEO and Co-Founder of Tabby, said: “Tabby+ is a significant step towards our vision. We’re taking the best of Tabby, flexible and interest-free payments, wherever people go without barriers.”

With over 600,000 Tabby Cards issued in the UAE, the introduction of Tabby+ underscores the company’s consistent growth in the region as the leading shopping and financial services provider and follows its latest announcement of releasing the region’s biggest ever Middle East Shopping Survey, providing retailers and shoppers with data-driven insights of shopping preferences in the e-commerce space.

European equity management platform Ledgy has hired Svein Petter Undheim, an executive with almost two decades’ experience in enterprise share plan management, as the company’s first Head of Financial Reporting.

As companies around the world distribute equity to more employees, it becomes more complex to manage the accounting, reporting and compliance implications. Companies approaching inflection points such as internationalisation, IPOs or acquisitions must be confident their equity and share plan management is compliant with regulations wherever they operate.

Svein’s hire comes as Ledgy builds out its leading suite of reporting tools, which allow companies to complete filings to tax authorities and manage international accounting more quickly and easily. Recently, Ledgy launched share-based payments reporting compliant with IFRS 2 accounting guidelines for its Enterprise customer segment.

Svein joins Ledgy from Computershare, where he served as Head of Financial Reporting Products from 2018 following Computershare’s acquisition of Equatex, where he was Financial Reporting Competence Center head. He joined Equatex, formerly the equity and share plan business of UBS, in 2015 shortly after Equatex’s acquisition of Accurate Equity, where he latterly served as Chief Product and Business Development Officer.

Ledgy CEO Yoko Spirig said: “I’m excited to welcome Svein to Ledgy. His extensive experience solving complex equity challenges for mature businesses in Europe and beyond will help us accelerate our work building best-in-class financial reporting and compliance infrastructure for our customers. 

“Ledgy already works with some of the world’s most sophisticated and innovative tech companies, such as Getir, Tide, Motorway and Airwallex. As our customers grow and scale internationally, they confront new challenges around international accounting and financial reporting. Svein’s leadership will help our customers get this important work done quickly and simply while remaining compliant with international regulations.”

Svein said: “We are at a very exciting time for equity in Europe, but scaling companies need to be on top of international reporting and accounting requirements. Overall, accounting standards are necessary to ensure that financial information is accurate, consistent, and transparent. By building best-in-class compliance infrastructure, we can help customers be confident in their financial reporting, which is essential for investors, regulators, and other stakeholders.

“We have the opportunity to significantly ease our customers’ workloads, across many teams from finance, tax and accounting through to legal and operations. I am excited to partner with Ledgy’s founders Yoko, Ben and Timo, and I can’t wait to contribute to the excellent work of our product and go-to-market teams.”

Nexi Group, the European PayTech, has partnered with Woo, the open e-commerce platform. The partnership will enable Woo merchants to offer customers a wider range of payment options, which can be customized to local preferences across Europe.

The new strategic partnership will see Nexi integrate its leading payment technologies with WooCommerce’s e-commerce platform, serving European mid-market merchants by leveraging a larger network of partner agencies from both companies.

The partnership includes the integration of Nexi checkout plug-ins, which are dedicated e-commerce payment acceptance solutions built for each market and/or region, into the WooCommerce Marketplace.

“The European e-commerce market is highly fragmented, due in part to the wide variation of local payment method preferences,” said Omar Haque, Head of Group e-commerce at Nexi. “Our local checkout solutions are tailored to the specific needs of each market, unlocking value for Woo merchants by reducing cart abandonment and giving them the power to expand their operations overseas.

“Partnering with Woo – the market leader in e-commerce software – helps us to serve more mid-market merchants in Europe, supporting scalable growth across the region. We are proud that integrating our gateways will strengthen the Woo payment proposition, further enhancing a strong e-commerce agency partner ecosystem.”

Web Griebel, Head of Payment Partnerships & Business Development at Woo added: “Nexi’s arrival in the WooCommerce Marketplace is a big step forward in our mission to bring the widest range of local payment options to our merchants, who value freedom of choice and integration with the latest innovations in financial services. Nexi’s products provide flexible access to payment acceptance platforms, delivering local expertise at scale across the European market.”

Chetwood Financial has appointed Roselle Allsop as its new director of marketing.

Founded in 2016, Wrexham-based Chetwood Financial is a digital bank that has multiple consumer products and is soon to launch ModaMortgages, a new specialist buy-to-let (BTL) mortgage lender.

Allsop has more than 23 years’ experience in marketing within financial services, including several roles at senior management level, providing strategic direction, setting strategy, and specialising in brand creation.

She has played an instrumental role in developing some of the UK’s leading specialist lender and challenger bank brands. These include the award-winning brands Precise Mortgages, Charter Savings Bank and Charter Court Financial Services. Allsop was also fundamental in the nurturing and growth of the FTSE 250 brands OneSavings Bank (OSB), Kent Reliance for intermediaries and InterBay Commercial.

As well as overseeing the marketing strategies for each of the Chetwood brands, Allsop will lead on the marketing for the new ModaMortgages proposition, building upon the brand creation work she has carried out as a consultant in the last 12 months.

ModaMortgages is to be the home of ‘smarter, faster, simpler’ BTL mortgages. Working exclusively through intermediaries, ModaMortgages will lend to a wide variety of landlords, including small and large portfolios, limited companies, individuals, and first-time landlords.

In September 2023, Chetwood announced Ian Lonergan as its new group chair. Lonergan was previously CEO and founder of Precise Mortgages, which grew to be one of the largest BTL and residential specialist mortgage lenders in the UK. Meanwhile, Darrell Walker, who previously worked at OSB, Prestige Finance and Interbay Commercial, was revealed as ModaMortgages’ head of mortgage sales and distribution last November.

Allsop said: “I’m delighted to officially join Chetwood Financial. It’s a really exciting time for the company – with several consumer-facing products already established, and the new ModaMortgages proposition launching soon, there is a huge amount happening, and the future looks very bright. I am looking forward to applying my financial services marketing experience, particularly in the mortgage space, to help grow the Chetwood name and reach more and more customers.”

Chetwood’s founder and CEO, Andy Mielczarek, added: “It is great to welcome Roselle to the Chetwood team. Her experience across many renowned financial services brands will be a great asset to us, and her knowledge of how to build successful brands will undoubtedly help as we roll out the ModaMortgages propositions. We have a big year ahead and Roselle will play a key role in helping us execute our bold plans for the future.”

Issuer processing powerhouse Enfuce today announces it has secured an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This is a key achievement for Enfuce as it continues to accelerate its expansion across the UK and Europe, where it already holds an EMI licence from the Finnish FSA. 

With the FCA’s EMI licence, Enfuce will be able to provide electronic money services as well as card issuing and payment solutions directly to new and existing UK customers. Enfuce will now have full control over the entire payment process, ensuring a seamless onboarding experience and providing its UK clients with a comprehensive and complete Enfuce solution, which is even more secure, efficient and scalable.

This announcement comes less than two years after Enfuce’s first launch in the UK in June 2022 and marks an important milestone for the company’s continued expansion into the country. To date, Enfuce has successfully established key strategic partnerships with prominent UK fintech and financial services companies including the leading small business platform, Funding Circle, and a UK neo-banking start-up focused on scientific research, Science Card. 

The FCA’s EMI licence, which builds on the company’s previous accreditation as an authorised payment institution in Europe, is a testament to Enfuce's dedication to the highest standards of regulatory compliance. Enfuce has prioritised compliance and security since day one, implementing a state-of-the-art infrastructure, bringing payment processing in the public cloud for the first time ever, and conducting regular audits and monitoring. This commitment is an integral part of Enfuce's overarching governance strategy that puts Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles at its very centre.

Denise Johansson, co-founder and co-CEO of Enfuce Group, commented: “This is a major step forward for Enfuce. Our ambition from the start has been to expand our presence across Europe and the world. The UK is a key market for us in this endeavour. The FCA’s seal of approval is not only a testament to Enfuce’s commitment to uphold the highest regulatory standards, but will also provide us with the market access, operational ownership and flexibility that are necessary for long-term growth and success in the ever-changing payments landscape.” 

Monika Liikamaa, co-founder and co-CEO of Enfuce Group, said: “Our Nordic values of collaboration, customer-centricity, and integrity drive our commitment to delivering the best products and services for our clients. With the FCA’s licence we can truly bring the entire Enfuce experience to our current and future partners across the UK to allow them to unlock the full potential of their card payments solutions.”

Fernley Blackler, CEO of Enfuce UK, who leads the company’s operations in the UK, added: “We are incredibly proud to have received the e-money licence from the FCA, which is renowned for its tough regulatory standards. The authorisation process for EMIs has become more difficult in recent years, so our approval further confirms Enfuce’s compliance with the highest regulatory standards as well as the trust from the regulator in our business model and management team.”

In addition to receiving the FCA’s EMI licence, Enfuce is also strengthening its leadership team with the appointment of Laurence Krieger as the Chairman of the Enfuce Board of Directors. Laurence, formerly Tide’s UK CEO and Revolut’s COO, will bring his unparalleled expertise in the fintech and challenger banking industry to support Enfuce in its next phase of growth. 

Laurence Krieger, Chairman of the Board of Directors, commented: “I’m thrilled to be joining Enfuce at a time of significant momentum for the company. Enfuce has been at the forefront of financial services since day one, pioneering payment processing in the public cloud. Receiving the FCA’s EMI licence is an incredible achievement that will play a crucial role in fuelling the company’s ambition to expand its global presence and revolutionise the payment landscape.”

American Express has today launched ‘Plan It’ – a new offering for the UK market that allows credit Cardmembers to pay off purchases on their statement, or a portion of their monthly bill, in instalments. 

Cardmembers with a Credit Card can select a transaction, or an amount from their most recent statement, to put into an instalment plan for 3, 6 or 12 months. They will be charged a fixed monthly fee for their instalment plan, which will be clearly displayed at set up, however they will not be charged interest on any balance in their instalment plan. Cardmembers still earn rewards (e.g. Membership Rewards® points) on any purchase in their plan, as usual. 

Instalment plans can be set up from the American Express® App, or in a Cardmember’s online account. Once set up, the instalment plan is automatically included in the ‘minimum due’ payment each month. 

Ricky Bonham, Vice President, American Express, said: “We know our Cardmembers value flexibility including in how they pay. With Plan It, our credit card customers can now pay at their own pace, continuing to earn rewards as they do so on everything from a new vacuum cleaner to their next big holiday. As a business regulated by the FCA, we’re also delighted to be launching an instalment plan that offers transparent fees and no hidden charges.” 

Charge Cards are not eligible. There must be a minimum of £100, and a maximum of 85% of the statement balance, in a plan. 

Myko, the conversational AI for sales and revenue team data, announced it has secured $2.7 million in seed capital from Khosla Ventures to reach new customers and expand its offerings. The round also included participation from Zero Knowledge Ventures, DayDream Ventures, the AngelList Early-Stage Quant Fund, and others.

Myko is a conversational AI that enables companies to drive more revenue by giving their teams deeper analytical capabilities. The fast and secure AI allows sales and revenue teams to ask questions and get answers instantly, so they can self-serve their data and uncover hidden insights with simple text prompts. Myko plugs directly into users’ existing CRM platforms such as Salesforce, and chat apps including Slack and Microsoft Teams, so data can be analyzed within seconds.

“Reporting and analysis are still massive pain points for most sales and revenue teams,” said Myko AI co-founder and CEO, Trevor Lee. “With the power of AI, Myko learns from each user’s metadata so they can get instant insights straight from the source.”

“Sales is a key area where AI can be used to unlock valuable data insights,” said Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. “Myko’s conversational AI is designed to help sales teams get better insights faster to make effective revenue-driving decisions.”

Myko’s trusted model adapts to each user

By learning from users’ existing CRM and BI infrastructure, Myko’s natural language model automatically understands each company's specific terminology and KPIs with minimal onboarding. Myko’s technology digests vast quantities of information and translates it into concise formats. This information can be understood by a language model in one shot, without querying all of the data with each user question. Their code generation model has been fine-tuned with an extensive amount of training data for sales-related insights.

These breakthroughs enable a very high level of accuracy and reliability. Myko is able to link to all data sources, preventing inadvertent hallucinations and can show fully auditable results for users, giving teams the confidence to trust Myko’s results.

For example, a customer could ask, “Which outbound channel had the largest decrease in average sales cycle between Q3 and Q4?” Within seconds, Myko will generate the analysis and the user would be able to ask follow-up questions and interact with the output until they achieve the desired outcome.

New funding will accelerate growth plans

With this new funding, Myko will be able to offer its product to even more users, enabling any sales or revenue team to better explore and unlock the power of their data. Myko is currently accepting new users from their waitlist.

Temenos, today announced that Šiaulių Bankas, the largest independently-owned bank in Lithuania with over €4 billion in assets, has selected Temenos to modernize its core banking platform. Šiaulių Bankas will migrate its retail and corporate banking including trade finance to Temenos Banking Cloud, supporting the bank’s growing business needs with increased flexibility and resilience.

The move to Temenos core banking software-as-a-service (SaaS) is part of a strategic transformation at Šiaulių Bankas following the merger of its retail business with Invalda INVL. Šiaulių Bankas, which is under the joint supervision of the Bank of Lithuania and the European Central Bank, is a leader in SME and mid-cap enterprise financing in Lithuania. Powered by Temenos SaaS, the bank aims to double the number of business customers and private clients to reach 1 million customers by 2029.

Temenos SaaS enables Šiaulių Bankas to take advantage of a modern, cloud-native architecture and composable banking services to increase business agility and benefit from faster time to market, while also ensuring the highest standards of compliance and risk management on a trusted, secure and continuously updated service.

The core banking solution includes Temenos banking capabilities for Product and Pricing, Data and Analytics, Servicing of Accounts, Deposits and SME Loans, as well as Anti Money Laundering (AML). On Temenos Banking Cloud Šiaulių Bankas benefits from continuous updates, state-of-the-art security controls, resilience and high-performance Service Level Agreements.

Temenos core banking clients using its modern banking platform benefit from 24% higher growth and innovation share of their IT spend according to the Temenos Value Benchmark, an industry leading benchmark of 146 banks globally across all segments. Šiaulių Bankas participated in Temenos’ benchmark as part of its evaluation to better understand how to optimize its technology investments to drive business value.

Vytautas Sinius, Chief Executive Officer at Šiaulių Bankas, commented: “Our ambitious growth strategy requires a next-generation technology platform. We partnered with Temenos, a trusted SaaS provider for hundreds of banks, to benefit from its extensive experience and a broad set of composable banking capabilities. The new platform will enable us to move forward faster and to respond to evolving client needs quicker, delivering exceptional customer services and experiences.”

Mark Yamin-Ali, Managing Director - Europe, Temenos, said: “We are now seeing regulated traditional banks in Europe going to SaaS, not only fintechs and neo banks and delighted to welcome Šiaulių Bankas as our first client in Lithuania. Šiaulių Bankas is a significant systemic bank directly supervised by ECB and a strategic win for Temenos that demonstrate the trust in our SaaS offering. On Temenos Banking Cloud, Šiaulių Bankas can get to market faster with new solutions while also driving down costs compared to running legacy systems.”

BNP Paribas and Citi have become the first institutional investors in United Fintech Group Limited (“United Fintech”), a neutral Digital Transformation Platform, as part of a strategic investment round led by Citi. United Fintech is also in advanced talks with other leading strategic investors to join its transformative journey, signalling a broad industry shift towards collaborative fintech innovation.

Rotating board seats and quarterly industry roundtables

As part of the deal, two rotating board seats will go to BNP Paribas and Citi. The unique governance model allows institutional investors to contribute to the platform’s strategic direction. United Fintech has committed to host quarterly industry roundtables on shared challenges and innovation to facilitate industry dialogue and foster a collaborative ecosystem where pooling resources and ideas will enable financial institutions to accelerate their leap into the digital era.

“To BNP Paribas, it is all about trust in the validation of fintechs, ensuring they meet the highest standards of excellence and offering a robust ecosystem for innovation. Managing to combine the best of both worlds, we see this as the beginning of a new era where industry participants can grow together”, says Junaid Baig, Head of Strategic Investments & Co-Head of Strategy with BNP Paribas Global Markets.

“Procuring specialist fintech firms is increasingly challenging for large institutions. United Fintech's neutral Digital Transformation Platform fills gaps in the market, complements our overall offering, and drives market innovation through collective efforts,” says Ayesa Latif, Global Head of Foreign Exchange Products at Citi.

CEO: Investments demonstrate “forward-thinking leadership”

Founded in 2020 by CEO Christian Frahm, United Fintech has rapidly expanded to employ over 160 people across 8 countries. The investment round is a major milestone that United Fintech expects will facilitate further backing from strategic investors:

“More than a significant milestone for United Fintech, the backing of Citi and BNP Paribas is a testimony of forward-thinking leadership. As momentum builds, we project that more financial institutions will soon follow: Our vision of a neutral industry platform for digital transformation, to swiftly enable access to the world’s most innovative fintechs, is shared by every single C-level executive we’ve spoken with for the past four years, and their support energises our pursuit of a unified ecosystem”, ends United Fintech CEO Christian Frahm.

Visa, a leading global payments technology company, and the GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation (GSMA Foundation) announced the launch of the Digital Finance for All (DFA) Initiative, furthering Visa’s decades-long efforts to increase access to the global economy for everyone, everywhere. This five-year initiative aims to advance digital financial inclusion for 20 million individuals, including women, small holder farmers (SHF), and nano, micro and small enterprise (NMSE) owners across low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

While digital payments use by adults in low- and middle-income countries is up 66% from 20141, women, SHFs, NMSE owners and globally displaced individuals continue to face barriers accessing the digital economy. Women in low- and middle-income countries are 20% less likely than men to hold a formal financial account2 and more than 30% of the world’s food is produced by SHFs3 yet most have limited or no access to formal financial services like credit, loans, savings, or insurance4.

“At Visa, we believe that digital payments are critical to including everyone in the digital economy by helping provide access to economic livelihood,” said Chiagozie Nwabuebo, Vice President of Global Growth & Social Impact, Visa. “Together with the GSMA Foundation, we seek to empower those in underserved communities across the world and provide equal access to help build better financial futures for all.”

To help improve financial health, the DFA will:

• Deliver financial education resources through a jointly developed mobile financial literacy toolkit that enables easy delivery and scaling across markets to help enable successful access to and participation in mobile money services;
• Develop joint research through the Visa Economic Empowerment Institute (VEEI) and the GSMA Foundation focused on financial inclusion, advocacy and product innovation for women, SHFs, NMSEs and globally displaced individuals;
• Digitize SHFs and NMSEs to support their adoption of digital financial services to enable their resilience and growth; and
• Support meaningful financial inclusion and well-being for refugees and the communities who host them.

“Mobile money can play a transformative role in advancing financial inclusion and resilience for the nearly 2 billion people who remain unbanked globally. However, poor digital and financial literacy is a key barrier to accessing digital financial services, especially for certain population segments like women, farmers and micro-merchants,” said Ashley Olson Onyango, Head of Financial Inclusion and AgriTech, GSMA. “We are very excited about our partnership with Visa enabling us to further drive economic empowerment and support millions of users to access life changing financial services.”