Temenos Exchange clients can now access a suite of top identity verification solutions to streamline customer onboarding, manage digital identity, mitigate fraud and simplify the KYC processes.  

Facephi, a leading provider of secure identity verification solutions today announced the availability of its suite of technology solutions on Temenos Exchange, the open marketplace for innovative solutions. 

As financial services continue to digitise and fraud becomes more prevalent, businesses face a growing demand for secure and efficient KYC and AML processes that prioritise the customer experience. Facephi’s cutting-edge identity verifcation solutions meet these needs by streamlining KYC and identity verification processes, reducing fraud, and enhancing the customer experience with secure and convenient authentication and onboarding methods. 

Facephi will offer a range of solutions created for the comprehensive management of Tenemos Exhange customers’s identity, including digital onboarding and KYC, advanced OCR data capture, authentication, Facephi Identity Platform, document verification, real-time AML screening, video onboarding and other multi-biometric digital identity verification capabilities.   

Facephi and Temenos will also collaborate to conduct a POC project to ensure the best adoption of the Facephi’s solutions on Temenos Banking Cloud. Through this partnership, Facephi aims to demonstrate its commitment to providing the highest quality solutions that meet the evolving needs of businesses and customers alike. 

Temenos Exchange brings open innovation to market faster and at scale. The marketplace offers pre-integrated and approved fintech solutions that can be easily deployed on top of Temenos open platform, enabling banks to accelerate the creation of new financial services, while reducing the costs of development. 

Martin Bailey, Director of Innovation and Ecosystems, Temenos, said: “Temenos Exchange acts as an accelerator for fintechs and software developers, helping them develop, validate and monetise new banking solutions. Joining Temenos Exchange means Facephi can write once and sell its solution across a vast banking audience of more than 3,000 clients in 150 countries. Collectively, this community serves the banking needs of 1.2 billion people worldwide.” 

“For over ten years, we have been working with partners, customers, and consumers to deliver more protection around digital IDs, contributing to building trust. We look forward to collaborating with Temenos to benefit more organisations around the world,” said Carlos Oderiz, Strategy Director at Facephi 

Germany's largest automotive marketplace mobile.de has appointed Mangopay, a modular and flexible payment infrastructure provider for marketplaces and platforms, to launch a tailored payment solution for its end users. Thanks to the new collaboration, consumers buying or selling through mobile.de are now able to pay or get paid for their vehicle within the trusted environment of the marketplace. By embedding payments within the platform the new solution is more user friendly for consumers making transactions when buying or selling their car.

Using Mangopay’s wallet-based payment technology, following an easy money transfer process, consumers buying a car through mobile.de’s marketplace can rest assured that their funds will be transferred only once they confirm that the purchase is safely in their hands and they are happy with it. Sellers are also given peace of mind that the funds are being processed in a trusted environment and the transaction will be made into an account of their choice. The new end-to-end user journey means consumers do not need to leave the mobile.de-branded experience which they know and trust.

Founded in 1996, mobile.de is Germany's largest automotive marketplace with around 1.4 million advertised cars, commercial vehicles and motorcycles. Both private customers and about 40,000 registered automotive dealers use the platform. Together with its partner platform Kleinanzeigen, mobile.de is visited by around 20 million unique users every month. mobile.de also offers financing and leasing options.

Ajay Bhatia, CEO at mobile.de said: “For many people, buying a car is one of their biggest investments, and there is a great need for a safe payment solution. Therefore mobile.de has launched "Safe Pay" in close cooperation with Mangopay. We are convinced that Safe Pay will drastically improve the user's car buying journey.”

Romain Mazeries, CEO at Mangopay, added: “Supporting the growth ambitions of the marketplaces we work with is core to our mission at Mangopay, and we are delighted to be working with mobile.de to transform its offer and customer journey. We are committed to driving their growth and delivering an exceptional user experience through our solutions.”

Ripple, the leader in enterprise blockchain and crypto solutions, announced today that it has agreed to acquire Standard Custody & Trust Company, an enterprise-grade regulated platform for digital assets. This move further underscores Ripple's commitment to regulatory compliance and enables the company to strengthen its existing product offerings, as well as explore new, complementary products.

The increase in institutional adoption of crypto and blockchain is a result of more mature and highly secure products in the market that are fully regulated and compliant. With this acquisition, Standard Custody's limited purpose trust charter and its money transmitter licenses will contribute to Ripple’s growing portfolio of regulatory licenses. Ripple and its subsidiaries collectively hold a New York BitLicense, nearly 40 money transmitter licenses across the U.S., a Major Payment Institution License from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and a Virtual Asset Service Provider registration with the Central Bank of Ireland.

“Ripple and Standard Custody are dedicated to enabling enterprises to reap the benefits of blockchain across a host of financial use cases building institutional-grade solutions to tokenize, store, move, and exchange value. By expanding our licenses portfolio and making smart acquisitions, Ripple is well-positioned to take advantage of the current market opportunities and further strengthen our crypto infrastructure solutions,” said Monica Long, Ripple President. “We will continue to leverage our strong financial standing to expand our product offerings, support new initiatives on the product roadmap and serve a broader segment of customers.”

Ripple's global momentum remains unmatched, serving enterprises globally. The acquisition of Standard Custody follows last year’s acquisition of Metaco, a custody solution preferred by banks around the world. Recently, Ripple announced its custody partnerships with top-tier banks, such as HSBC, BBVA, and Zodia Custody, and expansion to new territories for its Ripple Payments offering, such as Africa. Doubling down on its core businesses in Payments and Custody, Ripple supports live commercial custody offerings in 20 regulatory jurisdictions, and payments into 70 countries around the world.

“Standard Custody provides financial institutions with the confidence and platform to safeguard their digital assets. Ripple continues to lead the industry with its deep crypto expertise, relationships with financial institutions and strong product offerings, across both payments and custody. Together with Ripple, we will further innovate and extend our leadership position in providing crypto infrastructure,” says Jack McDonald, Standard Custody CEO.

The closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval and standard closing conditions. TD Cowen served as the exclusive financial advisor to PolySign.

Float, one of Canada’s fastest-growing fintechs, has kicked off 2024 with an aggressive expansion plan and the backing of a C$50 million credit facility in partnership with Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a division of First Citizens Bank.  

Under the terms of the deal, Float CEO Rob Khazzam confirms the company has access to C$50 million to expand its innovative Charge Card program, which achieved nearly 300% YOY payment volume growth in 2023. This growth has been fueled by Float’s expansion of its business finance platform to serve midmarket Canadian companies across industry sectors including technology, media, manufacturing and CPG, reinforcing its position as a challenger to traditional financial institutions.

Milestone Deal Enables Accelerated Expansion  

“At a time when other financial institutions are pulling back on serving Canadian SMBs, our partnership with SVB is a powerful reflection of the strength of Float’s vision, strategic direction and hyper-growth in 2023,” explains Khazzam, adding that the milestone deal required a partner with deep tech roots and experience with companies on a fast scaling trajectory.  

“Float is challenging the status quo when it comes to providing payment solutions for Canadian companies and teams. Our strong partnership demonstrates SVB’s commitment in helping fintech companies succeed and scale. We’re thrilled to be a part of Float’s growth and bolster its expansion across the country.” said Brian Foley, Market Manager for Silicon Valley Bank’s Warehouse and Fintech group. 

“Float’s Charge Card product, and Float’s business finance platform more broadly, has transformed the way we handle payments and expenses,” said Erin Bury, Co-Founder and CEO of Willful, an online estate planning company. “Their focus on product innovation and customer satisfaction sets them apart in Canada, and has helped us to drive efficiency at Willful.”

Since it launched as a payments and software platform for Canadian businesses in 2022, Float’s Charge Card product has seen exceptional adoption, with the launch of credit limits in both CAD and USD, and 7x customer growth since its introduction, says Khazzam. In 2024, Float will continue to expand its footprint with new payment and software solutions purpose-built for Canadian companies.  

DTCC, the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced that Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC has achieved a greater than 99% same day affirmation rate and a significant improvement in settlement rates for transactions leveraging CTM’s Match to Instruct (M2i) workflow in Q4 2023. In addition, Goldman Sachs was able to achieve a 38% reduction in same-day affirmation exceptions and a 64% reduction in US settlement fails by value, when matching and affirming trades with investment manager counterparties who also use CTM’s M2i.

CTM’s M2i workflow significantly increases same-day affirmation (SDA) rates on DTC-eligible securities when a trade match occurs between an investment manager and executing broker. Clients utilizing CTM’s M2i workflow benefit from central matching and auto-affirmation capabilities that are typically more efficient than local matching and affirmation by custodians. Today, most CTM investment managers leveraging M2i to match and affirm their U.S. trades achieve a near 100% affirmation rate by 9:00pm ET on trade date, achieving the level of straight-through processing necessary to meet their counterparties’ T+1 SDA requirements and cut-off times.

As the financial services industry prepares for the upcoming U.S. move to T+1 settlement on May 28, 2024, firms are looking closely at their post-trade processes to increase automation and to remove inefficiency. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, a self-clearing broker-dealer, implemented CTM’s M2i workflow in Q4 2022 as part of their broader strategy to improve settlement efficiency and create a streamlined post trade experience for clients. They performed an impact analysis across the investment managers leveraging the M2i workflow and observed an increase in same-day affirmations.

“Automation is a key enabler of operational efficiency and enhanced client experience. We were pleased to validate through our analysis that our settlement efficiency strategy, supported by CTM’s M2i workflow, has resulted in a significant reduction in settlement fails for our clients. We found that M2i’s process increased affirmation rates by 9pm ET on T, a key objective as we prepare for the move to T+1. In addition, the M2i platform’s enhanced SSI enrichment capabilities resulted in more settlements occurring without additional input from our Operations teams,” said Risa Lederhandler, Global Head of Equities and Securities Services Operations at Goldman Sachs. “As the industry continues to prepare for T+1, we are focused on further increasing our automation of allocations in the US market. M2i is core to this objective.”

“It is exciting to see Goldman Sachs’ results from leveraging CTM’s M2i workflow, a critical enabler of T+1 that helps to significantly reduce trade fails and facilitates straight-through processing,” said Val Wotton, Managing Director and General Manager of DTCC Institutional Trade Processing. “Clients utilizing M2i benefit from a significant increase in SDA rates for DTC-eligible trades, ultimately reducing costs related to trade fails, exception resolution costs, and operational friction. We are pleased to provide these benefits to the financial services industry.”

CTM, part of DTCC’s ITP suite of products, is a central matching service for cross-border and domestic transactions across multiple asset classes that has become a global best practice. The adoption of CTM’s M2i workflow, which requires subscriptions to CTM, TradeSuite ID, and SSI enrichment via ALERT, helps clients improve T+1 affirmation. By automating and streamlining the allocation, confirmation and affirmation processes, clients can significantly reduce trade lifecycle and achieve an accelerated settlement.

Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial technology solutions, is expanding its CheckFreePay® network for in-person bill payment to include the ATM network of NCR Atleos Corporation (NYSE: NATL) (“Atleos”), a leader in expanding financial access for financial institutions, retailers and consumers. Cash-preferred consumers will be able to pay a wide array of household bills simply and securely at thousands of ATM locations, including at top 10 U.S. retailers, grocery stores, convenience stores, and pharmacies.

“Our partnership with Fiserv benefits consumers, billers, and merchants and is another example of how Atleos is committed to innovating and expanding the transactions supported by our self-service devices.”

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Bill payment capabilities will initially be available at thousands of Atleos ATMs that accept cash today, expanding as more cash-in ATMs are rolled out across the United States.

“Many consumers prefer to pay bills in person in cash, and CheckFreePay helps them streamline financial tasks with multiple ways to pay in places they visit every day,” said Brian Seemann, senior vice president of Biller Solutions at Fiserv. “Adding a self-service bill payment option at thousands of Atleos ATM locations will expand consumer access to these capabilities while enhancing efficiency and increasing foot traffic for merchants.”

Traditionally, ATMs that accept cash have primarily been available at bank and credit union branches. With more of these ATMs now in place at retail locations, consumers can pay utility, phone, cable, insurance, credit card, auto and other bills securely via self-service instead of walking up to a counter or paying in the checkout line. Merchants can shift cash payments previously made with assistance from store personnel to self-service ATMs, automating transactions and improving the efficiency of store operations, while still benefitting from increased foot traffic.

Customers can search for locations where they can pay their bill in person by referring to their statement or visiting the CheckFreePay payment locator website or their biller’s website. Consumers will receive a receipt once payment is complete.

“Enabling reliable in-person bill payments via CheckFreePay allows us to expand financial access for consumers, providing them fast credit for funds received, and benefits merchants by building brand loyalty,” said Ben Bregman, vice president of Product Management for Atleos. “Our partnership with Fiserv benefits consumers, billers, and merchants and is another example of how Atleos is committed to innovating and expanding the transactions supported by our self-service devices.”

Through CheckFreePay, Fiserv is the largest processor of walk-in bill payments in the United States. For more than 30 years, Fiserv has provided reliable bill payment services to consumers who prefer to pay their bills in person, with over 30,000 bill-pay locations where people are already shopping.

In a world that is moving faster than ever before, Fiserv helps clients deliver solutions in step with the way people live and work today – financial services at the speed of life.

 FIS®, a global leader in financial technology, today announced it has entered a strategic partnership with Banked, a leading provider of open banking solutions, to drive new pay-by-bank offerings for both businesses and consumers. 

Pay-by-bank solutions simplify payments by combining the benefits of real-time payment rails with the flexibility and efficiency of open banking, where third-party financial service providers have direct access to banking data to complete digital payments. As a result, businesses and consumers can make payments directly between business and consumer bank accounts without the need for card details, account numbers or sort codes. Businesses benefit from less fraud, reduced friction, faster settlements and lower processing fees, while consumers enjoy a smoother payment experience, easier verification and faster access to funds.

"Corporations and consumers are clamoring for solutions that move their money easier and faster, and as open banking and fraud prevention mature, FIS is in a unique position to start offering pay-by-bank solutions for both businesses and consumers,” said Seamus Smith, Group President, Global Business to Business Payments, FIS. "Partnering with Banked is a proof point of FIS’ commitment to bring frictionless payments to a wider spectrum of critical industries in a secure, convenient and cost-effective manner and complements the investments we’re making in next-gen payments infrastructure.”

Digital payments are experiencing significant growth due to consumers’ increased adoption of digital wallets and mobile payments apps. Digital payments have become the preferred method of fulfilling payments for both merchants and consumers, and account-to-account (A2A) payments like pay-by-bank generated an estimated $525 billion in 2022 e-commerce transaction value alone. According to the 2023 FIS Global Payments report, A2A payments are also projected to grow at a 13 percent compound annual growth rate. 

"Our mission at Banked is to make payments better for everyone, and we are excited to join forces with FIS to make that vision a reality," said Brad Goodall, co-founder and CEO of Banked. "Together, we are enabling businesses to leverage the power of open banking and real-time payments to offer their customers a superior payment experience. “FIS takes a highly innovative approach to solving real pain points for their clients. They see the value pay-by-bank solutions can bring for a variety of use cases now and in the future, and we are excited to build out the partnership and bring new payment capabilities to market.”

In 2023, FIS helped spur the adoption of real-time payments by being one of the first in the fintech industry to complete testing and certification for the FedNow Service, and its new partnership with Banked promises to capitalize on that momentum to modernize a payments segment ripe for disruption. 

Cake, a transactional marketplace designed for independent insurance agents, has announced the completion of a $1.3M pre-seed funding round led by venture capital company Markd. Additional sponsors included 2ndF, Iridium Bloom LLC, 101 Weston Labs, IIANC, and other industry-specific strategic partners. The close of this round marks a step towards its vision of reshaping Insurance M&A, democratizing it, and widening its reach to agents across various levels.

Launched in 2021, Cake's platform connects independent agents aiming to sell whole businesses or partial accounts with those keen to expand their operations.

Co-Founder and CEO, Adam Bowe, emphasizes the importance of this tool, given the aging demographic among the industry's principal agents and the sizable amount of sub-$1.25M ARR agency books managed by older producers. He insists on facilitating easy access to liquidity from these assets to spur growth for all independent insurance agents.

"As we witness a shift away from private equity dominance, our platform makes it progressively simpler for agents to adapt to the changing insurance landscape. We offer a unique opportunity for agents to buy and sell their books of business, or even fractional sales with slices of their books, with each other." says Adam Bowe, Co-founder, and CEO.

"Our focus on innovative technology, connectivity, and independent agents makes us exceptional."

Parker Beauchamp, Managing Partner at Markd, notes: "I sure wish this tool had been available to me during my time in distribution. What an opportunity for those trying to scale or exit parts of or their entire agencies fast and effectively. There is a tremendous amount of scale for those seeking it before they reach typical private equity scenarios by buying and selling books or slices of agency businesses. Adam and John built a solution that eases the process of liquidating assets and fostering independent insurance agents' strategic growth — an endeavor worth investing in. Whether on the brink of acquiring one's first book of business, ready to retire by selling, or aiming to grow an existing agency, Cake could be a go-to platform."

Backed by this funding, Cake's next steps are to further improve its platform, ramp up customer acquisition, and broaden essential services, such as in-platform lending and legal support.

Mastercard and the Bank of Punjab (BOP) have expanded their partnership to cover the commercial segment, ranging from large corporate entities and Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) to freelancers and gig workers.

BOP will become the first bank in Pakistan to issue Mastercard BusinessCards® for SMEs, offering a range of solutions designed to cater to the country’s 5.2 million-strong SME market.  BoP has also launched the first Foreign Currency Business Debit Card, enabling more than 2.5 million freelancers to digitize their payments. By facilitating a shift from cash to digital payments, BOP is not only revolutionizing the SME sector but also promoting financial inclusion in Pakistan’s burgeoning gig economy.

The extended partnership will also see the introduction of the Mastercard Corporate Card, which will offer larger businesses a customized, flexible and secure digital payment solution to manage employees’ travel, entertainment and procurement expenses, with a high level of expense visibility. This will enable Corporates to manage payments more efficiently and reduce friction in making B2B payments.

“Building on a market legacy that spans over two decades, Mastercard collaborates with our partners to accelerate Pakistan’s digital transformation, drive financial inclusion and fuel its economy. In line with our pledge to bring 50 million SMEs worldwide into the digital economy by 2025, we are harnessing the power of our technology to help businesses of all sizes pay and get paid. The expansion of our partnership with BOP marks a transformative step in modernizing payment methods and making them widely accessible to Pakistan’s businesses and individuals alike,” said Arslan Khan, Vice President and Country Business Manager, Pakistan, Mastercard.

“We are proud to venture into the SME space with Mastercard. In Pakistan, this segment was previously largely neglected, whereas freelancers faced barriers to entry. Extended credit to SME segment is a top priority for BOP, and winning PBA’s Best Bank for SME Awards twice and Best SME Bank Award by Asia Money is a testament to our ambition. Similarly, we are aggressively marketing our Freelancer offering enabling young IT professionals bring their foreign earnings back home conveniently. Our extended collaboration will enable us to tackle the cash flows challenges being faced by SMEs and provide seamless payment services for the nation’s businesses,” said Nofel Daud, Group Head Strategy and Strategic Initiatives, BOP.

Mastercard and BOP have enjoyed a long-standing productive partnership. Most recently, the two leaders launched a freelancer digital account and card, catering to the needs of gig workers in the IT sector, in collaboration with the Pakistan Software Export Board.