Provenir, a global leader in AI-powered risk decisioning software, today announced the appointment of Andres Elizondo as its new Chief Financial Officer. Elizondo brings a wealth of experience which combines both finance and strategy, with a focus on driving and delivering long-term business value.

With more than 15 years of experience, Elizondo has a proven track record in creating and leading the finance functions of global technology companies as well as private equity-backed firms. Previously, Elizondo was the Group CFO at software development platform Builder.ai and served as CFO of the EMEA region at Rackspace Technology and was part of the leadership team that took the company public. In these roles, he implemented strategies that drove growth and delivered exceptional shareholder value.

“Provenir’s mission is to help fintechs and financial services providers around the globe make smarter risk decisions and disrupt the increasingly competitive financial technology landscape,” said Larry Smith, Founder and CEO of Provenir. “Andres brings a unique blend of technical knowledge and financial expertise. I am confident the addition of Andres to our leadership team will help support Provenir’s expansion and market leadership goals.”

“I’m very excited to join Provenir and be part of the company’s growth," said Elizondo. “Provenir has been at the forefront of developing industry-leading risk decisioning and data analytics solutions to meet the rising need for high-quality financial services. I’m looking forward to championing Provenir’s growth plans and delivering even more value for our customers.”

Elizondo received a bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. He completed his master’s degree in Business Administration at London Business School as well as The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. Currently based in London, Elizondo will work with Provenir’s global finance team in New Jersey, the United Kingdom, and India.

Hyperpay, the fastest-growing online payment service provider in the MENAP region, founded by Muhannad Ebwini, is delighted to announce a strategic partnership with Paymentology, the global leading issuer-processor. The collaboration marks a significant milestone in Hyperpay's mission to become a one-stop payment solution for businesses, governments, and SMEs across the Middle East. 

Hyperpay and Paymentology are committed to delivering innovative payment solutions that align with the evolving needs of businesses and consumers. The Fintech industry in the MENAP region is expected to increase from $1.5 billion in 2022 to $4.5 billion in 2025, demonstrating the region's transition towards digital financial services. Hyperpay already offers a wide range of products and services to its customers, including payment processing, risk and fraud management, monitoring systems, instalments, and invoicing solutions, among others. With Paymentology's next-generation payments platform, Hyperpay will effortlessly connect to payment rails, create new payment products for its clients and leverage granular payment data to enhance its offerings.

Muhannad Ebwini, Founder and CEO of HyperPay, shared his view: "Hyperpay's pivotal role aligns seamlessly with Saudi Arabia Vision 2030, driving the nation toward a digital-first era. Our strategic vision to become a one-stop shop for all payment services is a direct response to the pressing needs of businesses and government agencies, who demand instant, user-friendly payments accessible from anywhere, anytime. Embracing a global outlook, we're proud to introduce a versatile offering tailored to both our regional dynamics and the stimulation of cross-border trade. Thus, our choice to partner with Paymentology, a leading global technology player, becomes paramount in this transformative journey."

Nauman Hassan, Regional Director at Paymentology, commented: "Paymentology is proud to be associated with Hyperpay's Saudi Arabia launch. With a strong foothold in the Middle East, particularly in the kingdom, where numerous fintechs and neobanks have sought our expertise in next-generation payments platforms, we're well-equipped to facilitate Hyperpay’s rapid business growth. We firmly believe that Hyperpay's introduction of advanced payment services aligns perfectly with the market's needs, and we eagerly anticipate a successful partnership."

Hyperpay is among the top five payment providers in the MENA region, actively contributing to the shift towards cashless societies. The company recently secured $36.7 million (SAR 138 million) in funding through a round led by Mastercard, with investments from Amwal Capital Partners and AB Ventures. Hyperpay is only at the beginning of its journey and has ambitious plans to go public through an IPO in Saudi Arabia within the next two years. With a strong presence in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, Hyperpay is also set to expand its operations to Egypt, Bahrain, Iraq, and Oman as part of its ambitious growth plan.

BPC, a global specialist in payment solutions, has been recognised as an international category leader in the prestigious Enterprise Fraud Solutions 2023 report by Chartis Research, the leading provider of research and analysis in global risktech and fintech.

The report by Chartis examines the tremendous challenges faced by global financial service providers as they battle with complex fraud in an increasingly digitised world. It also looks at the payment technologies that can help to mitigate risk, including those offered by BPC. 

Banks and financial institutions worldwide are grappling with the escalating threat of digital fraud, which has far-reaching implications for their operations, customer confidence, and adherence to regulations.

The menace of identity theft looms large, with fraudsters leveraging easily accessible personal data online to impersonate individuals, leading to unauthorised account openings and financial misdeeds. Account takeovers have become alarmingly frequent, and the problem of payment card fraud persists. Fraudsters are also capitalising on phishing and social engineering methods.

According to the report, BPC has firmly established itself as the category leader in the realm of fraud prevention, boasting advanced proprietary fraud-detection methodologies, extensive behavioural monitoring, libraries of pre-packaged fraud rules, and superior case management, workflow, and transaction monitoring systems.

“BPC deeply understands the intricacies of risk and fraud management in the fast-paced world of payments, and it's important for us to share our insights with Chartris, a leading market analyst that focuses on this sector and reaches audiences that require our solutions,” said Maxim Kuzin, Head of Fraud for BPC. “We are committed to continual innovation, always seeking to build on our existing technology stack. This ensures we can effectively combat evolving threats and provide our clients with the highest level of security.”

Chartis' exclusive focus on risk and compliance technology gives them a significant edge over other market analysts. Their competitive advantage is further backed by their extensive experience in developing and implementing risk management systems for Fortune 500 companies and consultancy firms.

“BPC is a true leader in this space with strength across diverse sectors, including traditional financial institutions, neobanks and challenger firms, and wide coverage of payment types and use cases,” said Ahmad Kataf, Senior Research Specialist at Chartis. “Among its key differentiators are the flexibility of its risk engine and its implementation of machine learning analytics in a variety of applications.”

BPC has built a strong reputation for understanding and mastering local banking and payment context and behaviour. With 350 customers in more than 120 countries, BPC has collaborated with all ecosystem players ranging from tier-one banks to neobanks, Payment Service Providers (PSPs) to large processors, e-commerce giants to start-up merchants, and government bodies to local hail riding companies, contributing to better financial inclusion using next-generation technology.

Leading paytech payabl., has been announced as the main partner of Reflect Festival and supporter of its most influential and ambitious program to date.

Reflect Festival in Cyprus is one of the fastest-growing tech events in Southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. payabl.’s partnership with Reflect is a testament to the company’s focus on fuelling growth and supporting the tech community in Cyprus, an emerging tech hub in Europe.

Reflect Festival brings together entrepreneurs, investors and decision-makers. Every year, attendees gather along Limassol's coast to discuss ideas, build relationships, and improve regional collaboration.

More than 200 businesses, including Cypriot and international startups, scale-ups, and IT players, will exhibit their innovative concepts, products and services at this year's expo. The event will be hosting C-suite level speakers from organisations in the fintech space such as Vacuumlabs, Limitless., GoodAI and more. In addition to this, Bolt, Visa and Wargaming will be featured speakers on payabl.’s branded Money & New Tech stage, adding further expertise and insights.

With payabl. Group CEO Ugne Buraciene hosting a panel on Payment Localisation and Igor Skachkov, payabl.’s Chief Product Officer, speaking about embedded finance at the branded Money & New Tech stage, the company is set to have a prominent presence at the conference. payabl. will also have its own dedicated podcast booth called 'Pay it forward: in convo with the payment experts', in collaboration with Fintech Finance News,  interviewing the top speakers at the show.

“We are thrilled to be the Platinum Partner of this year’s Reflect Festival in Cyprus. payabl. has been supporting Reflect for quite some time now, being the festival’s top partner previously for two consecutive years. In addition to this partnership, we are very excited to be hosting seasoned experts from the dynamic fintech, Web3, AI and gaming realms on the Money & New Tech stage to provide valuable insights into the future developments within these rapidly evolving domains.” said Ugne Buraciene, Group CEO at payabl. 

“As one of Europe’s fastest growing fintechs, we’re keen to support Reflect with its significant importance for the tech and business, and we take great pride in our backing for this remarkable event.”  Ugne added.

“payabl. has been an important pillar of Reflect Festival for the past couple of years, and we are proud to call them our Platinum Partner. As our festival is the region's largest gathering for major players in technology and innovation, we only partner with the most trusted, reputable and influential organisations within the region, to fulfil the mission of the festival in bringing the key decision-makers in the tech sector together every year.” Stylianos Lambrou, Entrepreneur, Co-founder & CEO of Heart Group, Co-founder of Reflect Festival, Co-founder of Techisland.

Continuing its significant growth trajectory over the past three years, payabl. is in the process of developing payabl.one – a platform that brings payabl.’s entire suite of solutions together in a single portal, including banking services, acquiring, issuing and local payment solutions.

Currencycloud, the experts in simplifying business in a multi-currency world, has partnered with Incard, the digital bank for e-commerce businesses, to enable its digital entrepreneur, influencer and e-marketer customers to make quicker, simpler, and value-for-money international transactions, unlocking global revenue streams and taking their businesses global.

Incard is a tailor-made one-stop-shop financial solution for e-commerce and marketers, a segment often overlooked by traditional banks. Incard’s users get online-first financial management tools for their e-commerce and marketing needs. By partnering with Currencycloud Incard adds even more value to its customers by giving them a fully automated service which gives them access to local and international payment rails. This enables them to get paid by global customers and pay suppliers easily while saving money by having access to GBP and EUR and competitive FX rates.

Soraya Tribouillois, Co-founder and CFO at Incard says, “Incard’s vision is to provide our customers with an increasingly flexible, fast, and seamless international payment system. Currencycloud is a reliable provider we can count on to enable our users to unlock global revenue streams, break down borders, and save money by having access to more currencies and highly competitive FX rates.” 

Nick Cheetham, Chief Revenue Officer at Currencycloud commented, “Like Currencycloud, Incard is focused on helping its customers access a global market, opening up greater opportunities and reaching new audiences. We are looking forward to the continuation of the partnership as Incard continues innovating to serve its growing digital business customer base.”

 wamo, the digital business account provider for SMEs, today announces that it is partnering with Modulr as its new Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider.

Following the integration, the company intends to reignite its EU and UK presence with additional features and services to strengthen its business account offering for SMEs.  Future plans include providing wamo business account holders with access to credit, credit cards and a USD account on top of all of wamo’s current features. 

“We’re excited to partner with Modulr to widen our product offering and services to EU and UK companies,” said Yanki Onen, CEO and founder of wamo. “By actively focusing on our current customers to understand their business needs deeply, we are learning how to meet them better than anyone else. We’re at a point where we can afford to dig in and reflect to see where the fintech industry can go far beyond simply meeting business owner expectations - although that’s a great start! Our commitment to best-in-class customer service is going to lead how we think about launching new services later this year.”

“Modulr is excited to partner with wamo to unleash the power of embedded payments in their business banking platform,” said Tony Byers, Chief Customer Officer at Modulr. “Our rock-solid API payments infrastructure will empower wamo to provide account creation and payment processing, driving efficiency and smoother experiences for their customers.”

Founded in 2018, wamo’s mission is to power the growth of SMEs by making it easy to access a business account and a network of partners. Through human-led support, wamo takes away the obstacles in the way of anyone anywhere looking to do business in the EU or UK. Since its inception, wamo has raised $3.8 million in funding, has processed close to €1.3 billion in transactions to date, and opened business accounts for 7,500 new customers around the world.

“We’re here to stay,” says Onen, “so we’re determined to build on firm foundations. Our goal is to make business banking not just accessible but encouraging for anyone with business ownership ambitions. This is our core value and, I believe, what will make us unique and keep us relevant in the long, long term.”

Currently on offer among the platform’s features are:

• Multi-Currency Accounts and Cards: sub-accounts and linked Visa Debit Cards, each with an option of Euro or GBP IBANs.
• Team Management: team access to selected sub-accounts and debit cards, promoting effective delegation of responsibilities.
• Local and International Payments: quick and cost-effective domestic and international money transfers.
• In-Person Customer Support: help from real people instead of automated responses or chatbots, for personalised assistance.
• wamo Connect Programme: offers from partners like Shopify, Hubspot, and Canva, supporting business growth and development.

Sergio Barbosa, CEO at FutureBank, said, “Generative AI is breeding many different fraud types. With ChatGPT, fraudsters can create very authentic documents and profiles for people at a low cost. We were impressed by IDVerse’s capability to stop fake IDs from making their way through the system and its fully automated approach that works better than humans.”

Barbosa continued, “Cybercrime is currently the third biggest economy in the world, and predictions show that in the next 18 months, it will be the biggest economy in the world. We are delighted to partner with IDVerse to protect our customers from unwanted attacks.”

Russ Cohn, General Manager EMEA at IDVerse, added, “It is already very easy to create a realistic fake person in as little as 15 minutes using online tools readily available on the internet. Synthetic media is becoming the new tool of choice for fraudsters looking to make money. We estimate that there is a 400 percent year-on-year increase in the use of deepfakes in creating fake identities.”

Cohn continued, “Our fully automated identity verification system can offer FutureBank customers a reliable solution to spot deepfake accounts that fraudsters are increasingly trying to create. IDVerse’s cutting-edge technology maps the facial genome and can detect below-the-skin activities, such as a heartbeat changing the colour of the skin, which the human eye cannot see. These natural yet invisible patterns from faces help verify that an image is of a real human, not a deepfake.”

Inpay, one of Europe’s fastest-growing fintech companies, and Cambodia Post Bank Plc. (CPBank), one of Cambodia's leading commercial banks, have entered into a partnership to introduce international money transfer services in Cambodia.

Through the partnership, CPBank’s customers in Cambodia and abroad will benefit from the convenience and extensive network of postal services that Inpay’s Eurogiro network provides. Eurogiro is an Inpay-owned postal network comprised of 70,000 post office locations worldwide, allowing instant, seamless and hassle-free international cash remittances.

With the new partnership, Cambodians abroad can instantly and affordably send money to their friends and family in Cambodia through CPBank's 60+ nationwide branches. It is the first time such cross-border cash remittance services have been made available to Cambodians, providing a much-needed lifeline between Cambodians abroad and their loved ones at home.

CEO of Inpay, Thomas Jul, said; “We are excited to announce our partnership with Cambodia Postbank, which marks a significant step towards enabling international and easy-to-access financial infrastructure in the region. By granting one of the country’s largest post banks access to global remittances from overseas diaspora through Inpay’s Eurogiro network, we make it easier, more affordable and faster than ever before for Cambodians to receive cash transfers from friends and family abroad.”

Toch Choacheck, CEO of CPBank, commented; “Cambodia has a lot of migrant workers who need to send money back home to support their families. With this new service, CPBank will not only provide a wider option for remittances in the country, but also contribute to improve overall economic activity in Cambodia. This is an easy and affordable way for the market to ensure an inclusive financial system.”

The partnership showcases the commitment of CPBank and Inpay to provide innovative and convenient financial solutions, creating a brighter and more connected future for Cambodians worldwide.

NatWest has selected Icon Payments Framework (IPF) to accelerate the bank’s payments modernisation as it continues to align with the new global ISO 20022 payment data message standards.

The partnership allows NatWest to initially leverage a Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) processing engine along with ready-made scheme packs including the recently mandated SEPA Instant capability, in addition to existing Credit Transfer and Direct Debit capabilities that provides customers more choice and establishes the foundation for future innovation. The modernisation will enhance the end-to-end experience for customers as they seek greater flexibility in their initiation of payment flows. 

The IPF framework empowers business payment experts via low code to create industry-leading workflows along with enabling software engineering teams to quickly extend and create highly customizable integrations into existing bank systems.

Ian Povey, CIO Payments Technology, NatWest comments:

“The low code aspect of the framework (Icon’s IPF) empowers and enables organisations to control its delivery and feature richness while the simple extensibility of the capability allows software engineers to focus on high-value integrations and innovation.”

Tom Kelleher, Co-founder and Director of Icon Solutions comments:

“The mission at NatWest is to deliver a sector-agnostic payments platform to connect everything to everyone. IPF provides the best practice platform to enable the change the bank is working towards, increasing the opportunity to enhance business growth. The relationship between the two companies is a close one, where we both strive to achieve best practices on a daily basis. There are many challenges and opportunities ahead, such as New Payments Architecture (NPA), which we will face together.”