Sage, a market leader in cloud business management solutions, has today made its cloud financial management platform, Sage Intacct, available to customers in South Africa. 

By making the product available in four new regions^[1] outside of the USA in less than 12 months, Sage has enabled customers across five countries to benefit from the award-winning Sage Intacct cloud software, which empowers businesses to improve performance and make finance teams more productive.

For the past four years, Sage Intacct has achieved the highest product score for Core Financials for the Lower Midsize Enterprises use case in the Gartner report ‘Critical Capabilities for Cloud Core Financial Management Suites for Midsize, Large, and Global Enterprises’.

Sage Intacct has also been named a Leader in the new IDC MarketScape: Worldwide SaaS and Cloud-Enabled Midmarket Finance and Accounting Software Vendor Assessment (doc #US45837220, April 2020).

Sage Intacct provides finance professionals with:

·         A platform designed for and by CFOs and Finance Professionals: Sage Intacct is a powerful cloud financial management platform, providing deep multi-dimensional accounting, automation for efficient financial operations and sophisticated visibility for real-time decision making

·         Best of breed integration: Sage Intacct’s technology uses open APIs, making it easy to connect with third-party cloud applications, including Salesforce, providing a highly extensible and scalable platform

·         Lower cost of ownership: Sage Intacct is a modular solution where customers pay for what they need, get more efficient and cost-effective implementations, world class security backups and disaster recovery delivering a lower total cost of ownership

Furthermore, Sage Intacct consistently achieves high marks for customer satisfaction. G2, a leading marketplace for business software and services, named Sage Intacct a Leader in their Midmarket Grid Reports focused on both ERP Systems and Subscription Billing. Sage Intacct achieved the highest customer satisfaction score amongst all solutions on both reports.

“We are strongly committed to the continued global expansion of this product,” said Marc Linden, EVP and GM, Medium Segment Native Cloud Solutions for Sage. “As we adjust to the next normal, organisations of all kinds must be prepared to make choices about how they recover, or even reinvent themselves. Navigating difficult times is a pivotal point in most finance leaders’ career and having a cloud-based system like Sage Intacct puts the right digital tools at their fingertips to drive greater agility and better current and forward looking visibility for improved decision making.”

Update on international availability

Service Fabric has accelerated the entry of Sage Intacct into new markets by delivering reusable services at speed. By using a set of common capabilities and services, the product was ready for international markets two years faster than planned.

Service Fabric and local teams helped unlock technologies and use existing expertise to make Sage Intacct relevant and available through the following services:

•          Banking Service (Bank feeds)

•          Payments Service (Payments Out)

•          Compliance Service (Regulatory reports & Government submissions)

United Kingdom

Sage Intacct was launched in the UK in November 2019, and is sold, and implemented both direct and through the Sage Partner Channel. 

Correlation Risk Partners (CRP), an insurance distribution business based in London, and L W Cole, a white goods distributor based in Sutton Coldfield, were the first two UK customers to go live on the solution. These solutions were sold and implemented through the Sage Partner Channel via Acuity Solutions and Solutions for Accountants, respectively.

“You can’t underestimate the importance of having a truly automated and data-sophisticated software solution. We now have a more efficient finance team and a clearer view of the entire business with one system in operation. This means greater sharing capabilities due to working in real-time, a more accurate understanding of the company, and fewer errors; all of which result in time efficiencies.” said Debbie Allery, Correlation Risk Partners (CRP).

Mike Newton, Finance Director, from L W Cole (Distributors) Limited, said: “For us, Sage Intacct was integral to the successful running of our business that we had full integration of our financial management software and our front office solution. The introduction of Sage Intacct has meant no timely and error prone rekeying of information. We now have a single source of truth knowing that all relevant information between the two systems is always up to date.

Additionally, bank file payments out of Sage Intacct, with the associated automated approval processes, greatly simplify our previous supplier payments’ process. As well as this, the multi-entity environment also allows for consolidated reporting across the Group and has introduced a uniformity to each entities’ accounting processes.”

Other countries:

U.S.A.

Sage Intacct, has been a fixture in the U.S. market, delighting CFOs for over 20 years. First launched in 1999, Sage acquired Intacct in 2017, using its service fabric technology to bring the product to market in four additional regions, with local statutory and legislative requirements available as standard. 

Halloran Consulting Group, a top life science regulatory, quality, and clinical consulting firm, switched to Sage Intacct and achieved impressive results. The firm increase its project margins by 12%, expanded billable utilization by 36%, and generated an additional $4 million USD from a new billing model based on insights from Sage Intacct. 

“The visibility we have through Sage Intacct is great. It’s helped us improve profitability and make faster, better decisions because at literally the click of a button, we can see what’s going on in the business," said Tania Zieja, CFO of Halloran Consulting Group.

The Seattle Indian Health Board, a community health centre specializing in the care of Native people, upgraded its financial systems using Sage Intacct. The non-profit organization increased finance team productivity by 50%, cut their close process from two month to just three weeks, and gained real-time access to key data using performance dashboards.

“Moving to Sage Intacct has made a night-and-day difference. The ability to track, plan, and measure data and get information into the hands of decision-makers to ultimately benefit the community we serve has been invaluable," commented Ben Luety, CFO of Seattle Indian Health Board.

Canada

In Canada Sage Intacct is sold and implemented through value-added resellers, with certified Canadian business partners.

“We were really focused on making sure we had a cloud-first solution. But, the big difference for us that made the decision was the API integration,” said Corrine Hua, CFO at Traction on Demand. “The best thing I like about Sage Intacct is that our employees love it. That’s what matters the most to me. They enjoy working in it every day. It makes their jobs easier.”

Scott Carney, a controller at AIM Environmental Group, said: “It simplifies the accounting process, unifying different departments and facilities into one consolidated, cloud-based system. Part of the initiative at AIM is to become as innovative as we can. Sage Intacct was really a perfect fit for us to grab that next level and start integrating some of those systems into one ERP.”

Australia

Sage Intacct, which was launched in Australia in August 2019, is sold and implemented through value added resellers, with certified Australian business partners; Akuna Solutions, Alphasys, Giuntabell, Progressive Banking Technologies, Forpoint Solutions, Cattledog Digital, Leverage Technologies, Microchannel, Thrive Technologies, Synergy Information Systems, Axiom Business Systems, CitySoft and Aptus Business Solutions. 

Since its launch to the Australian market last year, Sage Intacct is servicing 26 new customers, including ASX listed fund management company 360 Capital. 
 

“Since implementing Sage Intacct, our ability to monitor and report asset level performance across our funds has improved significantly due to the enhanced use of the dimension functionality. This was one of the key business requirements that attracted to us to the product, so it’s great to see Sage Intacct is delivering.” said Glenn Butterworth, CFO, 360 Capital Group.

South Africa

Available as of today, Sage Intacctis sold and implemented through value added resellers in South Africa. At the point of launch 12 certified VARs are available to support customers with sales and implementation.

^[1] The technology was developed since 2017, and now available across Canada, Australia UK and South Africa will offer the products to customers from August 2020

Banking Circle, the financial infrastructure provider to Payments businesses and Banks has secured 5 finalist slots in the 2020 Emerging Payments Awards. Designed to celebrate innovation, collaboration and emerging payments, the Emerging Payments Awards recognise companies that have made significant advances in how businesses and individuals pay.
 

As Anders la Cour, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Banking Circle, explains, the company’s success in becoming finalists in so many categories underlines the focus it has placed on sustained innovation. “Banking Circle has achieved success in the Emerging Payments Awards for the last five years; it’s therefore incredibly rewarding to see that we continue to be recognised for addressing the payments challenges faced by businesses. Our goal remains to provide financial institutions with the infrastructure to enable them to deliver cost-effective and time-efficient payment services to their customers. To be recognised for this important work is confirmation that we are delivering valuable and truly ground-breaking solutions which are helping businesses around the world.”
 

Banking Circle has been named as finalists in the following categories: 

- Best International Payments, Remittance or use of FX
- Best Financial Inclusion Payments Programme
- Best B2B Payments Programme
- Best Partnership Initiative – with Cardstream
- Best Back Office Innovation
 

Winners will be announced on 26th November 2020.

RTGS Global, the world’s first cross border liquidity network, has appointed a stellar advisory board of fintech industry titans, who will guide the business as it navigates the delivery of stage one of its network. The first advisors to be announced are Phil Kenworthy and Dr Ruth Wandhöfer, with more to be revealed in the coming weeks. This announcement follows news in June that RTGS Global has hired ex-Citi EMEA CEO, Jim Cowles as executive director. 

Dr. Wandhöfer is an international banking and regulations expert and author; after more than a decade with Citi, she was an independent Non-Executive Director on the board of the London Stock Exchange Group and Pendo Systems Inc. She worked as Senior Adviser of KPMG and currently serves on the boards of Permanent TSB and Digital Identity Net Ltd. She is also a Partner at Gauss Ventures, Strategic Adviser of the ETPPA and Adviser at Coinfirm.

Mr Kenworthy has worked in payments and financial services for over 30 years, with considerable experience of working with the regulatory community. After nine years at CHAPS Clearing Co, first as a Non-Executive Director and then as CEO, in 2015, he started Payment Systems Consultancy Ltd, an advisory company specialising in payments and settlement. Here, he has worked with a number of high-profile organisations including PwC, LINK and SWIFT. Mr Kenworthy is also a Non-Executive Director of ClearBank, a Member of the UK Access to Cash Panel, and sat on two of the UK Payment Strategy Forum Working Groups responsible for developing the future strategy around market access and payment system operator governance.

RTGS Global, the brainchild of Nick Ogden, fintech entrepreneur and founder of Worldpay and ClearBank, brings the benefits and transparency of real-time domestic gross settlement to a global level, delivering instant transactional integrity, security, risk reduction and settlement finality.

Earlier this year, the G20, under the 2020 Saudi Arabian Presidency, declared cross-border payments a priority. This decision recognises the widespread benefits for global citizens and economies that will result from ‘faster, cheaper, more transparent and more inclusive cross border payments’. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) and Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) subsequently began developing a roadmap for realising a solution to this challenge. The RTGS.global network already dovetails into the identified building blocks, demonstrating its potential to revolutionise cross-border payments. 

Nick Ogden, CEO and founder, RTGS Global, says: “Today’s market is witnessing the global ramifications of the Covid-19 pandemic. Prior to this event the FSB and CPMI in their response to the G20, had highlighted that the global financial services industry required new, technology-driven solutions that make interbank liquidity auditable and visible. In doing so every financial transaction can be made based on fact. The RTGS.global network was specifically designed to deliver the global solution to liquidity visibility. I am delighted to work with our highly experienced advisory board who are focused on assisting with developing the capabilities of our technology in our ongoing discussions with commercial banks and regulators around the world.”

Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer, says: “The global cross-border payments infrastructure has long been in need of improvement and, in these turbulent economic times, the challenges created by invisible liquidity become even more critical. I am therefore excited to be working with RTGS Global, to help shape the global payments solution of the future and in doing so being able to realise our vision for a fit-for-purpose cross-border payments network.”

Phil Kenworthy, says: “The legacy correspondent banking system with its requirements for inter-bank pre-funding, elongated payment timescales and the lack of visibility from end originator through to end beneficiary is one that is crying out for change. Until now, this system has lagged behind the disruptive innovation we are seeing in domestic payment markets. Now, following advances in technology, a new way is finally possible. I am therefore excited to be brought on to advise this world-class team to help realise a new and improved cross-border payments network.”

Worldline [Euronext: WLN], the European market leader in payment and transaction services, is proud to announce it will be hosting the third edition of its e-Payments Challenge, to take place in an innovative fully virtual format for the first time ever on 17-18 September 2020.

The e-Payments Challenge is Worldline’s annual forum that brings together all parties involved in the payment technology ecosystem, including Fintechs, banks, merchants and Worldline’s own technology experts. After two successful years of facilitating and supporting collaboration between enterprises and Fintechs, this year’s e-Payments Challenge will be conducted completely online through a virtual environment, making the co-creation process an entirely digital journey.

Participating enterprises and business partners will be able to present their very own challenges based on their market strategies to Fintech teams for competitive selection and work together with them to co-create innovations on a given topic.

As a brand-new formula, customers can also participate in the event in a ‘spectator mode’ meaning customers can join without a challenge but explore all the latest innovation ideas raised by fintechs and startups

In addition to the new virtual and open setting, this year’s e-Payments Challenge will also introduce two entry options for participating Fintechs to choose from - open entry and closed entry. Fintechs participating in an open entry will answer a challenge that is inspired from the three main categories Financial Sustainability, Consumer Experience, and Digital Disruption, while those that chose a closed entry will have to respond to a challenge raised by a customer of Worldline.

All Fintech teams, regardless of the type of entry they select, will have the opportunity to work closely with sponsoring or participating enterprises, and bring their ideas to life using Worldline’s assets – including APIs, offerings and expertise in R&D and regulation.

Digital co-creation journey

The overarching challenge of this year’s edition is to “co-create a cashless society powered by data”. Participants will be tasked with creating solutions to the various challenges, from B2C payments, P2P and B2B payments to payment data analysis, fraud management and open banking. Worldline will select participating Fintechs from applicants from across all segments of payment technology - and beyond.

Participating Worldline customers will not only be a part of the e-Payments Challenge by contributing to some tasks, they will also have the opportunity to nominate Fintechs and experiment with them. As a result of the co-creation process, they will ideally have put together an applicable solution that significantly shortens their go-to-market cycle.

A wide range of themes will be covered, throughout the following key topics:

•    Strengthen financial sustainability through innovative payment services

•    Create an efficient and seamless consumer experience with new cross-channel use cases

•    Co-create a cashless society and stimulate economy through digital disruption powered by data

Out now: the e-Payments Innovation Playbook

While people, companies and governments are looking at ways to recover from the pressure that came along with COVID-19, new technologies are seeing rise. In its recent whitepaper, Worldline analysed the influence factors, the drivers and the opportunities for technologies that will reshape the payments landscape, bring transformation through transactions and create renewed opportunities for growth and prosperity. Free copy available here: https://fairs.worldline.com/content/worldline-fairs/epayments-challenge-2020/home/download.html.

Pascal Mauz, Head of Global Sales and Marketing at Worldline, says: "The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the emergence of the cashless society and the arrival of the open data economy. It is changing the way we shop, the way we pay, how we manage our money and the way we authenticate our identities online. The e-Payments industry is thus playing an increasingly critical role in shaping the world to become a better place. I am looking forward to the new fully digitised e-Payments Challenge and to facilitating with our customers many exciting projects for our ambitious Fintech participants to work on.”

Refinitiv, one of the world’s largest providers of data, is expanding the scope of its Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) reports with the inclusion of NGO sourced data from Sigwatch, a UK-based provider of global NGO and ESG issue tracking and reputational impact data. The agreement enables Refinitiv customers to vet companies and investments against a reliable and unique source of alternative data on reputational and governance risk.

Enhanced Due Diligence reports from Refinitiv provide detailed background checks on companies and investors that require a higher level of scrutiny. The reports support compliance teams as they look to meet their regulatory obligations, optimize the due diligence process and protect company reputation.

Data from Sigwatch shows NGOs are regularly taking corporates to task on ESG-related issues.

• According to Sigwatch there have been almost 11,000 ESG-related NGO actions since January 2019, nearly 1,300 of these have been against the financial services sector.

• The collaboration enables Refinitiv to offer insight into NGO campaigns affecting more than 19,000 companies, brands and projects, plus details on more than 80,000 campaign actions and up to 40 new campaigns reported daily.

The data is particularly useful when assessing global supply chain risk, or when entering into higher-risk transactions such as IPOs and mergers and acquisitions. Reputational impact data is valuable to investors, banks and corporates as they increasingly look to use environmental, social and governance factors to decide where to allocate capital, the value they place on a company and how they manage risk.

“Data is at the heart of what we do at Refinitiv and that’s why I’m very excited about our content partnership with Sigwatch,” said Charles Minutella, head of Refinitiv’s Enhanced Due Diligence business. “This alternative dataset will provide our customers with unique ‘on the ground’ insight, with a focus on critical ESG factors that have become increasingly significant in the decision to conduct business with a company.”

“Sigwatch offers businesses valuable insights into where NGOs are applying their campaigning resources and we are looking forward to offering this insight through Refinitiv’s extensive customer base,” said Robert Blood, Managing Director at Sigwatch. “NGO groups are ‘early adopters’ of issues and knowing what they are worrying and talking about helps business understand the problems that might confront them or their sector today, and in the months and years ahead.”

Refinitiv will feature data from Sigwatch in all three categories of Enhanced Due Diligence reports it offers to customers. The level of data included will vary according to whether customers opt for Refinitiv’s Lite, Standard or Premium EDD report. The Premium report will feature the full range of Sigwatch data, including the trends and top issues affecting the industry of the company under review, a summary table featuring the number of criticisms of the company in the last 12 months, the number of praises and the total number of NGO actions. It will also include charts on the top issues affecting the company, the top NGO criticisms, as well as a detailed elaboration of the five most recent NGO criticisms of the company. 

To learn more about Refinitiv’s ESG due diligence visit: https://www.refinitiv.com/en/risk-and-compliance/enhanced-due-diligence/esg-due-diligence

Refinitiv is the only EDD provider with ISAE 3000 certification for its technology and process, which are endorsed by an external auditor. Refinitiv’s secure online portal makes it easy to order, track and administer report requirements and its API allows for integration into a customer’s third-party management system.

Sigwatch operates a global network of multilingual researchers monitoring major and emerging economies in 19 languages. It monitors on a daily basis how environmental, human and animal rights and consumer related NGOs are driving current and emerging issues. The company tracks more than 10,000 NGO groups on over 1,000 issues worldwide. It has more than 80,000 campaign actions detailed in their database and 30-40 new campaigns are reported daily.

Cloud9 Technologies ("Cloud9"), a leader in cloud-based communications, has partnered with comitFS, a UK-based provider of voice middleware and API abstraction capabilities for financial service organizations, to provide more robust real-time call control capabilities for voice trading within the institutional marketplace. 

comitFS’s sophisticated mix of trader voice applications and API’s combined with Cloud9’s advanced solutions for voice collaboration and metadata capture allow institutional traders to seamlessly access workflows, whether working remotely or on the trading floor. The collaboration provides normalized Call Data Records that can be easily added to compliance and reconciliation processes.

“As trading dynamics shift to a more digitally-driven environment, firms want the peace of mind that their voice metadata and daily workflows will not be hampered,” said Brian Hunt, Chief Administrative Officer and Head of Partnerships for Cloud9. “Partnering with comitFS makes perfect sense as the industry continues to adjust to a virtual trading environment that will become more prevalent in the months ahead.”

“We have been building specialist voice API’s using open source technologies for our banking clients throughout our seventeen-year history. We are excited to be partnering with Cloud9 to expose their call data records and call control capabilities to our common customers,” said comitFS CEO and Managing Director Jappy Takhar.

comitFS is the only provider of specialist voice middleware to tier-one banks that tightly integrate their in-house and third-party applications, such as Salesforce’s CRM to report on real-time voice calls and Client voice interactions. This collaboration between Cloud9 and comitFS will offer for the first time its voice middleware in the cloud and it will work seamlessly with on-site setups for call control, CDR reconciliation, and meeting compliance regulations. 

Through this collaboration, Cloud9 and comitFS allow financial institutions to address the data storage, workflow, and trade reconstruction rules stipulated under key regulatory mandates and directives such as MiFID II.

New solution provides global multi-currency accounts to Fintechs and FIs

Currencycloud, the leader in providing embedded cross-border payments, today announces the wider rollout of Currencycloud Spark – its multi-currency wallet infrastructure – with Starling Bank, TranSwap and Remitr among the first customers to sign up to the service. Currencycloud Spark enables businesses – and their customers - the ability to receive, store funds and make payments in more than 30+ different currencies, almost anywhere in the world.

For too long businesses around the world have faced unacceptable levels of friction when trading with each other. The difficulty in opening accounts in a foreign currency means that firms regularly run into invoicing hurdles. Payment processes are opaque, expensive and protracted. And businesses end up over-charged for needless FX transactions when they are unable to store foreign currencies.

Currencycloud Spark allows Fintechs and Financial Institutions (FIs) to easily create accounts for their customers to receive, pay-out, and move money in different currencies at their convenience. Using unique International Bank Account Numbers (IBANs) that are able to be issued in 30+ currencies means that for customers, this is all done via one multi-currency wallet in their own name.

The pilot programme for Currencycloud Spark was announced in 2019. Ahead of launch, over 30 Fintechs around the world have already signed up to benefit from the functionality.

Remitr Global Business Account (GBA) recently launched with the help of Currencycloud Spark. In just a few weeks, it has already received elated responses from Remitr customers who now have predictability of cash-flow and control over receivables. Remitr’s GBA empowers small businesses to get paid in multiple currencies without paying exorbitant bank fees or having to open an overseas bank account. One of their newest customers has already saved upwards of $1400 in less than two months of using GBA.

Others to participate in the pilot include Starling Bank who are helping their SME customers open USD accounts and TranSwap who utilitized Currencycloud Spark to power their Global Borderless Virtual Account (GBVA).

iProov, the leading provider of biometric authentication technology for Genuine Presence Assurance, today announced that Acuant, a global leader in identity verification solutions, has integrated iProov into its platform to provide robust online face authentication services.

Acuant, which provides identity verification services to all industries, selected iProov’s patented Flashmark technology to deliver the highest level of trust during the online authentication of a remote individual for customer onboarding, customer authentication, age verification, fraud prevention and regulatory compliance.

iProov’s Flashmark is the only device-independent solution proven to assure that an online user is the right person, a real person, and that the authentication is taking place right now. Yet it requires absolutely no effort from the user at all.

The technology is unique in creating a “one-time biometric”. By projecting a cryptographic sequence of colours from the device screen onto the user’s face for a few seconds, the face imagery is stamped with a one-time code. This means that the imagery is useless if intercepted, stolen, recorded or reproduced by deepfake, protecting users from the most dangerous threats to facial authentication. It has been tested by governments and banks and shown to deliver far stronger security than any alternative. Its great usability and excellent performance have been demonstrated on a vast scale through deployment in national programs such as the British EU Settlement Scheme.

“We’re delighted to be working with Acuant,” said Andrew Bud, CEO of iProov. “As a world leader in identity management solutions, Acuant delivers trust and security to all facets of our lives. Across the world iProov is securing the link between digital identity and physical human beings. We’re excited about this partnership, which will deliver simpler, faster and safer digital identity solutions globally.”

“The demand for online authentication and genuine presence assurance is growing every day,” said Yossi Zekri, CEO of Acuant. “We were impressed by iProov’s innovative technology that secures and streamlines the verification process. iProov addresses the increasing threat of replay attacks and other spoofing tactics like no other solution today.”

Tinkoff is happy to announce the launch of its new charitable scheme Cashback to Give Back. The aim of the project is to help get more people donating to worthy causes in Russia. The scheme allows Tinkoff customers to transfer any cashback they receive directly to some of Russia’s biggest charities.

The programme’s main aim is to give those who want to help others a convenient way to make regular donations to reputable Russian charities. Tinkoff customers have the opportunity to make donations of up to RUB 9,000 each month to over 300 of the Group’s partner charities.

Some of Tinkoff’s partner charities include:

• Gift of Life

• The Konstantin Khabensky Charitable Foundation

• Enjoying Old Age

• The Hospice Charity Fund Vera

• Lighthouse Charity Foundation

• Sozidanie Charity Foundation

• WWF Russia

• Second Breath

• Rusfond

At a touch of a button, Tinkoff customers can start transferring donations to their chosen charity and using their cashback to help people in need. The cashback will be automatically transferred to a charity of their choice on a monthly basis and  customers will get a notification for every transaction. There is also an option to change the charity to which you donate every month.

Customers can get involved in this new programme by using the Tinkoff mobile app, available on iOS. The function will be available on Android devices from September. To transfer your cashback to a charity, all you need to do is:

1. Head over to the Home page of our mobile app, open your Tinkoff Black account (dependant on which card you have) and click on Menu.

2. Click on Settings (the cog icon in top right-hand corner).

3. Under ‘Where to send cashback’, click on ‘Charity’

4. Pick a charity from the list.

5. Sit back and relax, as your cashback goes to a good cause every month.

If you have trouble finding this option to transfer your cashback to charity, please make sure you have the latest version of our app. You can update it here: App Store.

With purchases made using the Tinkoff Black Debit Card and several other cards, you can get cashback bonusesto  use to pay for goods and services. With the Rouble Debit Card you can get 1% cashback for every RUB 100 spent, up to 15% for purchases made within your favourite categories and up to 30% for purchases made at our partner businesses. Using our debit cards, you can get cashback of up to RUB 3,000.

At Tinkoff you can also use our cashback programme Tinkoff Target to get special offers. The programme lets retailers keep track of consumer behaviour and make special cashback offers to those customers, who are interested in particular products and services and have spent money on them before. With Tinkoff Target special offers, you can get up to RUB 6 000 back every month. Using both of these schemes, Tinkoff customers can get as much as RUB 9 000 back every month.

You can find out more about our Tinkoff's cashback bonuses here.

Chairman of Tinkoff Bank’s Management Board Oliver Hughes commented:

“Cashback to Give Back is the latest in a number of steps we have taken to help further the work of charities. The first step saw us give our clients the opportunity to make donations directly via our SuperApp. As a result, the number of contributions Tinkoff customers made to charity doubled over the course of one year.

This new function now lets people automate their donations. With just one click, you send cashback to your chosen charity, and from then on, all donations will be made automatically every month. In just one month, the amount donated by one client can total several thousand roubles. Experience has shown that small but regular donations make all the difference. They add up, improving the lives of  those in need.

Together with our partner charities, we hope that Cashback to Give Back will help foster a culture of charitable giving in Russia. Our goal is to make giving to charity something routine for each and every one of us. We want to lift any barriers and make helping others much easier for everyone.”

PPRO, the world’s leading local payments platform-as-a-service, reports today an 85% increase in transaction volume from last year, highlighting the exponential opportunities for cross-border e-commerce amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Due in part to a massive digital shift in e-commerce consumer behaviour, PPRO is now processing an annual run rate of USD 9bn in payment transaction volume.

Following their ongoing success, the company announces today the closing of a USD 50 million financing round led by Sprints Capital with participation from existing investors Citi Ventures and HPE Growth. Financial Technology Partners acted as exclusive financial advisor and Noerr as legal advisor to PPRO in this transaction. PPRO will use the funds to scale the organisation and accelerate strategic growth plans for its global platform.

PPRO has already grown the size of its team by 25% since the beginning of the year. The majority of these new hires are positioned to strengthen PPRO’s three product development centres in Germany, Singapore and Brazil; teams which are focused on delivering high-quality integrations to popular payment methods in key e-commerce markets across Europe, APAC and the Americas.

PPRO partners with payment service providers (PSPs) around the world to serve millions of merchants, dramatically expanding their cross-border market opportunity. Through one contract and one API, PSPs and merchants can simply plug into PPRO’s powerful platform and switch on the ability to accept local payment methods in over 175 e-commerce markets.

“We enable our partners to globalise their payments offering at a faster speed and with a level of quality that wouldn’t be feasible to achieve in-house. Despite any challenges created by the pandemic, we’ve made great progress this year on our mission to turbocharge growth for our partners and their merchants. We’ve been able to make their expansion into new markets more lucrative,” comments Simon Black, CEO of PPRO.

“Now more than ever, companies are pressed to offer localised experiences to consumers worldwide. We are delighted that Sprints Capital and Citi Ventures see the growth potential of our business and are passionate about helping build the payments infrastructure that drives growth in global markets,” adds Black.

“We are excited about the opportunity our investment in PPRO brings. E-commerce is a complicated, dynamic growth area, and even the most sophisticated PSPs and merchants need companies like PPRO to help them overcome complexities on the infrastructure and enablement level. The momentum that PPRO has been building the last few years is most impressive,” says Voria Fattahi, Partner at Sprints Capital.

“We have invested in PPRO for the second time because we believe in the company’s strategy, and we’ve seen their power to deliver. With their local payment methods, PPRO fuels our consumer payments offering for institutional clients, Spring by Citi. Our partnership will help to empower Spring by Citi clients to deliver a seamless payments experience for their customers,” adds Luis Valdich, Managing Director, Citi Ventures.

Further PPRO highlights for 2020 include:

●        New top LPMs integrated, including Grabpay, UnionPay, Konbini, Pay-easy, Paysafecash and more

●        The PPRO 2020 Payment Almanac launched; the third edition of the most comprehensive source of payments insights in the industry

●        New offices in Singapore, London and Munich to accommodate expanding staff