Financial IT, a leading fintech publication, is excited to announce the launch of its highly anticipated Fintech Pathfinder. This comprehensive report showcases the most promising fintech startups that are revolutionizing the financial services landscape. Alongside the report, Financial IT will also be unveiling a cutting-edge platform that provides detailed information on each startup listed.

Fintech Pathfinder aims to identify and showcase the most innovative fintech startups globally. To ensure the highest quality and relevance, a rigorous selection process was employed using key criteria to evaluate each company. The following selection criteria were applied:

• No company is older than 10 years old: Financial IT recognizes the importance of highlighting the latest and most innovative players in the industry. By focusing on younger startups, the report captures the dynamic nature of fintech innovation.
• Privately held by VC/angel investors: The report emphasizes startups that are privately funded, showcasing their potential for growth and independence.
• Quantifiable funding rounds from publicly available information: Financial IT leverages publicly available information to provide comprehensive insights into the financial backing of each startup.

Fintech Pathfinder will serve as an invaluable resource for investors, financial institutions, and industry professionals seeking to identify and engage with the most promising fintech startups. The report will provide detailed profiles of each selected startup, including key information such as their products and services, funding rounds and investors.

In addition to Fintech Pathfinder report, Financial IT is also launching fintech startup listings platform. This platform will provide in-depth information on each startup, enabling users to explore their offerings, track their progress, and connect with potential partners or investors. It will serve as a one-stop destination for anyone interested in staying at the forefront of fintech innovation.

"We are thrilled to launch Fintech Pathfinder ranking," said Andrew Hutchings, Editor in Chief at Financial IT. "The fintech industry is constantly evolving, and it is essential to recognize and support the emerging players that are driving innovation and disruption. Fintech Pathfinder and our new platform will serve as a catalyst for collaboration and growth within the industry."

Fintech Pathfinder is available for download on Financial IT website.

Global AML specialist Napier has announced the appointment of its chief data scientist, Dr Janet Bastiman, to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)’s newly created Synthetic Data Expert Group, a sub-group of the Innovation Advisory Group (IAG). The IAG, created in March 2023, aims to deepen Innovation’s engagement with industry and to inform the FCA’s forward-looking work programme, including alternate approaches to future TechSprints. 

The new group has been formed to examine the role synthetic data has to play in protecting consumers and encouraging beneficial innovation in financial services through the use of its enhanced capabilities. The group assembles diverse and experienced professionals representing technology and data vendors, regulated firms, consultancies, and public sector organisations. It aims to identify relevant use cases and clarify key issues in the theory and practice of synthetic data in the UK financial market, and create an established framework for collaboration across industry, regulators, academia, and the wider civil society on issues related to synthetic data. 

The appointment comes hot on the heels of Bastiman’s appointment to chair of the Royal Statistical Society’s Data Science and AI Section.  

“It’s a great honour to be appointed by the FCA to the Synthetic Data Expert Group and I’m looking forward to bringing my extensive experience and expertise in data and ethics to help formulate best practices for the UK financial sector” she says. “It’s another amazing tool with huge potential in the armoury of financial crime fighters. Closer working relationships with regulators and law enforcement agencies can only strengthen our response to global money laundering.” 

Bastiman has spent more than 20 years in the industry, pushing the boundaries of data science in telecommunications, marketing, and the financial services sector, where she has helped both start-ups and established businesses implement and improve their AI offering. She regularly speaks at conferences on topics in AI including explainability, testing, efficiency, and ethics.   

Meanwhile, a unique life insurer that operates solely in cryptocurrency, has announced that it has raised around $19m across two seed funding rounds.

This financing puts Meanwhile in an advantageous position, making it the first and only life insurer to operate exclusively in cryptocurrency.

The funding rounds have seen significant participation from high-profile investors. The first round was co-led by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, and Lachy Groom, the former head of Stripe issuing. The second round saw Gradient Ventures, a Google venture, taking the lead. This substantial financial backing has allowed Meanwhile to secure licensing and regulation from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, a leading global insurance regulator. With this financial boost, Meanwhile is set to enhance its team, launch its Bitcoin-denominated whole life insurance product, and move the company forward.

Meanwhile, breaking new ground in the insurance industry, offers life insurance services wholly denominated in Bitcoin. Their ambition is to reach more than a billion people globally by combining Bitcoin with artificial intelligence and creating an innovative full-stack life insurance company. Their services are designed to resonate particularly with long-term Bitcoin holders.

Meanwhile CEO Zac Townsend, who has spent over a decade at the intersection of tech, finance, and public policy, said, “As one of the few innovations in money in the last century, Bitcoin is on track to become a global store of value and functional currency. To start, it makes perfect sense for long-term holders of BTC to invest in life insurance denominated in that asset and to enable a percentage of their BTC holdings to become active.”

The key aim for Meanwhile is to offer a frictionless life insurance product using artificial intelligence, operating completely in digital assets, thereby modernising one of the world’s oldest financial products. The team, led by Max Gasner, CTO and co-founder, leverages AI to reduce manual labour, promote transparency, and bring efficiency to the insurance system.

Anna Patterson, Managing Partner at Gradient Ventures, commented, “Meanwhile is sitting at the confluence of the AI and digital assets transformation. We’re excited to support Zac and Max on their mission.” Likewise, Jon Soberg, Managing Partner of MS&AD Ventures, expressed his enthusiasm about the unique financial products that Meanwhile will bring to the market.

Payrails has raised $14.4 million in a seed extension round led by EQT Ventures to scale its financial operations platform.

Orkhan Abdullayev, CEO, Payrails, says: "As payment processing gets more complex once companies scale, the need to keep advancing the payment stack and leverage multiple processors to improve performance becomes the industry standard.

"Leading companies understand the strategic importance of optimising payments and are searching for flexible solutions that can adapt to their needs."

Keeta, a new global payments platform offering instant and secure cross-border monetary transactions, today announced its official launch with $17 million in funding from investors, including Eric Schmidt.

Powered by a highly scalable proprietary ledger technology, capable of processing more than 50 million transactions per second, and a network of interconnected real-time payment rails, Keeta’s platform dramatically reduces the time and fees typically associated with international money transfers. Whereas current cross-border payments can cost upwards of five per cent of the amount transferred and take nearly a week to process, Keeta empowers customers to send these payments instantly at a fraction of the price.

“We want to make international payments as easy as Venmo,” said Ty Schenk, CEO and Founder of Keeta. “I’m really proud of the technology our team has built. Keeta connects places like São Paolo and New York with more convenient, safe, and secure payments while adhering to the highest regulatory standards.”

“Keeta’s technology is orders of magnitude more scalable and efficient than existing solutions,” said Eric Schmidt, investor and former CEO of Google. “I’m thrilled to support Ty and his team in their mission to modernize global payments.”

By accessing the Keeta Platform via easy-to-use APIs or custom integrations, fintech companies and financial institutions can improve customer experiences by reducing the costs and delays associated with funding customer accounts and delivering payments. In addition to its business tools, Keeta is launching a consumer-facing mobile app, allowing instant transfers between friends and family worldwide.

BlueSnap, a global payment orchestration platform whose embedded payments solution is used by many leading SaaS platforms, today announced the results of its 2023 Embedded Payments Survey.

For this report, BlueSnap collaborated with Gartner Peer Insights to survey 300 B2B executives globally to understand the benefits and challenges of embedded payments for software platforms.  A key takeaway from the findings: software leaders found numerous benefits beyond additional revenue from embedded payments.

Embedded payments have seen a sharp increase in adoption recently with the overall rise in embedded finance innovations across the fintech industry. Software platforms looking to improve customer experience, control the payment process and generate new revenue are embedding payments into their software platforms and seeing results.  

The data shows that software platforms are experiencing numerous benefits from embedding payments into their software in addition to new revenue.  Forty-eight per cent of respondents said embedded payments gave them an advantage over their competition, with 35% of software leaders seeing an increase in client tenure, 34% an increase in new client acquisition and 28% an increase in company valuation.

But software leaders are not choosing to implement embedded payment solutions on their own. Survey data shows that 89% of software leaders chose to work with a payments partner to implement payments rather than become a registered payment facilitator or payment service provider (PSP).  Key barriers reported by software leaders to embedding payments into their platform on their own includes the technical resources needed (58%), time to become a PSP (53%) and staffing for associated roles such as compliance and underwriting/risk (50%).  Of those software leaders who chose to go it alone, 83% of respondents said it took a year or more to become a registered payment facilitator or payment service provider (PSP).

“Our recent data show there are clear, profitable benefits for those software companies taking advantage of embedded payments,” says Ralph Dangelmaier, CEO of BlueSnap.  “An experienced payments partner can provide guidance and support on everything from onboarding and risk to reporting and customer support.  This can help ensure your embedded payments solution is quick to market and provides an ROI.”

To review the full report, please visit https://bit.ly/3N9jTDs

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting (TAA) has reported a significant increase in the number of tax returns electronically filed by practitioners using the CCH iFirm^® Tax solution, the only cloud-based tax compliance solution available in Canada. At the same time the company is celebrating a milestone for its industry-leading CCH Axcess expert solution.

In the 2022 tax-filing season, Wolters Kluwer TAA reported an increase of 63% in the number of T1 returns e-filed by tax practitioners using CCH iFirm Tax, compared to the previous year. This increase in filings continues a trend started in the pandemic. In 2022, 50% of tax firms expressed they were more enthusiastic about cloud-based technology, and 71% of medium to large firms expressed they were more comfortable with the technological shift toward the cloud than they were in previous tax seasons, according to the 2022 Wolters Kluwer Tax Season Report.  “The increased adoption of our browser-based tax solution reflects a broader shift towards cloud technology usage in the accounting industry,” noted Dean Sonderegger, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting Canada in a company statement.

“As technology shifts, firms are looking at how their tools drive efficiency and outcomes,” added Sonderegger. “The investment in cloud technology through CCH iFirm Tax is part of Wolters Kluwer’s continued commitment to invest between 8% and 10% of revenues back into innovation that enables our customers to better service their clients.” 

“Transitioning to the cloud is just the starting point for us,” said Dustin Mansfield, Tax Innovation and Change Leader, at BDO Canada. “We continue to push to provide more value for our clients. The migration to CCH iFirm Tax over the last year has allowed us to use embedded features as well as start building processes and integrations around the platform to work on automating repetitive tasks freeing up time for accountants to spend time on tax strategy and advisory services in support of clients.”  

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting is one of five divisions of Wolters Kluwer, a global information services leader. The division enables tax and accounting professionals and businesses of all sizes to drive productivity, navigate change, and deliver better outcomes.

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting is also currently celebrating the ten-year anniversary of Wolters Kluwer CCH Axcess™, the first modular, cloud-based software solution for the tax and accounting profession in North America. CCH Axcess has grown from five to more than 14 core modules over the past decade, “offering firms comprehensive and flexible solutions to increase productivity, enhance client collaboration, and increase employee engagement.”

An integrated cloud-based platform, CCH Axcess empowers firms of all sizes with streamlined operational workflow, intelligent data integrations and automations, and real-time visibility into firm performance, leading to better outcomes for clients and driving firm growth. Today, the award-winning platform is trusted by tens of thousands of U.S. professional firms, including 94 of Accounting Today’s Top 100 Firms, serving more than 380,000 users.

“CCH Axcess launched 10 years ago as the first cloud platform for the profession, sparking a transformation in how accounting firm serve clients and operate their businesses. Our unwavering focus on innovation continues to help professionals improve how they work, make critical business decisions, and plan for the future of their businesses,” said Jason Marx, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. “This major milestone is only possible because of the continued dedication and contribution from every member of our Tax and Accounting team as well as the trust and partnership of our customers. I am invigorated by the forward-thinking embrace of technological innovations that is occurring in the profession. Every day across the globe, Wolters Kluwer continues to drive the profession forward by incorporating industry-leading technologies into better service and helping our clients navigate through the everchanging industry landscapes,” Marx added.

As previously reported Marx, formerly head of North America Tax & Accounting, became CEO of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting in March this year. The appointments followed Wolters Kluwer’s strategic decision, announced in February of this year ,to create a 5th division, Corporate Performance & ESG (CP & ESG). CP & ESG has been established to meet the growing demand from corporations and banks for integrated financial, operational, and ESG performance management and reporting solutions. Karen Abramson, formerly CEO of Tax & Accounting, became CEO of the new CP & ESG division.