Virgin Money has chosen mental health charities Mind and SAMH (Scottish Action for Mental Health) as new corporate charity partners.

Given the intrinsic link between money and mental health, Virgin Money will work alongside Mind and SAMH to support anyone affected by mental health problems and money worries and direct them to the vital services the charities provide - regardless of whether they are a Virgin Money customer or not.

The charitable partnership, which was voted for by Virgin Money colleagues and will run for two years, will also raise funds to support the charities’ vital work. In addition, Mind and SAMH will explore specialist training opportunities for Virgin Money colleagues, which could involve upskilling them to better understand how financial difficulty can impact mental health and how to identify the best support for anyone experiencing a mental health problem.

Mind works across England and Wales to ensure everyone experiencing a mental health problem gets support and respect. This includes information and support services, as well as campaigning for improvements and reform. SAMH has been a pioneering change in Scotland since 1923 and campaigns for better mental health support while also operating an infoline, national programs and over 70 services in communities across Scotland.

James Peirson, General Counsel & Purpose Officer at Virgin Money, said: “Our colleagues voted for Mind and SAMH as our chosen charity partners because they recognise the vital impact that these charities can have, both on people that use their services and on raising awareness and reducing the stigma around mental health problems.

“We understand that financial difficulties can have a devastating impact on mental health and how experiencing mental health problems can affect how people manage their finances. We must do all we can to create an inclusive banking experience and offer additional support for those who may need it, which is why we’re proud to be working with Mind and SAMH and are confident that together we can make a difference.”

Jack Matthews, Associate Director of Fundraising at Mind, said: “We are delighted to start a new partnership with Virgin Money, and want to say a huge thank you to them for choosing to support Mind in being there for the growing number of us affected by a mental health problem.

“We are continuing to see a huge toll being taken on the nation’s mental health because of the pandemic and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. That’s why the money raised through this partnership is crucial. It will allow us to continue to provide our support services, like our confidential phone service, Mind Infoline, and online peer support service, Side by Side, so people have somewhere to turn to for advice and information. It will also enable us to continue campaigning, so everyone gets the support and respect they deserve.

“We’re really looking forward to working with Virgin Money colleagues, customers and communities over the next two years and can’t wait to see what we can achieve together.”

Billy Watson, Chief Executive at SAMH, said: “We want to say a huge thank you to Virgin Money colleagues for choosing to support SAMH in our work to improve people’s mental health across Scotland.

“In December, the latest Scottish Health Survey showed that Scotland’s mental health is in particularly bad shape and, on several measures, the worst ever recorded. The money raised through this partnership is so important, as it will allow us to continue to provide our person-centered, community support services and help us campaign for change at the national level.

“We’re looking forward to working with everyone at Virgin Money over the next two years to help support even more people with their mental health and wellbeing.”

European employee benefits platform, Club Employés, has partnered with embedded finance specialists, Weavr, to power a debit card solution for employee benefits, which gives employees the power to pick the perks they prefer. By expanding access to relevant benefits through the capabilities of embedded finance, employees are more likely to engage with the benefits provided by their employers.

According to a recent study, 79% of individuals who quit their previous jobs did so because of a lack of appreciation. Club Employés is on a mission to turn this around by giving employees the choice of a range of relevant offers, discounts, and exclusive experiences to use within their app. At present, over 1 million active users across 4000 business customers benefit from the Club Employés platform. 

Utilising Weavr’s Employee Benefits solution, the Club Employés card empowers employees to make their own decisions regarding the benefits they want. Employees can pick from a huge range of perks thanks to 98% coverage of French cinemas, plus 500 leisure parks, 3,000 sports halls, and thousands of concerts and shows. Available now in France, but soon to expand internationally, employees can access over 500,000 offers at attractive prices in both major brands and independent stores. 

Lack of employee engagement with benefits is an age-old issue in the industry. Through collaboration, employees have full visibility over their benefits allowance whilst gaining control over where they spend it, and in a payment form, they readily understand. Club Employés demonstrates that employee engagement with benefits can be developed through flexible, convenient, and user-friendly solutions with financial services as a key enabler. 

Speaking on Weavr’s new partnership with Club Employés, Alex Mifsud, CEO and Co-founder of Weavr commented:

“At Weavr, we’re passionate about using embedded finance to revolutionise existing industries by injecting additional value through integrating financial services. This is especially true with Club Employés’ employee benefits solution, which directly targets the very real issue of employee churn resulting from a lack of appreciation in the workplace. We’re excited to see how embedded finance transforms the freedoms of these end users.”

Speaking on the new partnership, Romain Rostagnat, CEO and co-founder at Club Employés commented:

“Club Employés has been in pursuit of revolutionising the employee benefits landscape since 2016, offering businesses an efficient route to improving employee satisfaction. We chose Weavr as it was the most complete solution that offers the best combination of speed to market, simplicity to run, and seamless customer experience. In the next phase of Club Employés development, we are confident the team will help us with our international expansion and product development goals.”

“Tango pioneered the digital-first reward experience through its powerful API, coupled with world-class service and exceptional breadth of global content, making it the perfect complement to BHN’s global product portfolio,” said

Talbott Roche, CEO & president, BHN. “We have been a longtime partner to Tango and were also an early investor. We are thrilled with the opportunity to combine the best of BHN with the best of Tango to provide leading, global, scalable solutions and innovation to the rewards and incentives industry.”

“I started Tango 15 years ago to fundamentally improve the incentives industry for customers and their recipients,” said David Leeds, Tango’s founder and CEO. “Customers today need global rewards, innovative technology, reliable supply chains, and an unwavering focus on support and service. Joining BHN at this time provides a once-in-a-company opportunity to continue innovating in this space, better support our customers’ evolving global needs and create awesome experiences for recipients.”

Paystand, the only feeless B2B blockchain-enabled payment platform, today brings its automated payment solution to Acumatica, an all-in-one cloud-based ERP system for business management that includes finance, inventory, CRM, and payroll. Now, finance departments using Acumatica can accelerate AR processes to reduce days sales outstanding (DSO) and speed time-to-cash, all with zero transaction fees.

Acumatica users, who number in the thousands across multiple industries from construction to distribution and retail, will be able to fully leverage digital finance and automation as part of a modern Payments-as-a-Service model. Finance departments looking to move away from antiquated, expensive payment methods that delay settlement can use Paystand tools to incentivize customers to change financial behaviors including earlier payment. Additionally, AR staff can utilize full reconciliation automation and feeless bank-to-bank payment options that eliminate card fees.

“Many SMB finance AR departments are still stuck in a time-consuming and error-prone manual accounting mode where spreadsheets must be reconciled and emails are sent independently of the ERP system, creating tracking headaches,” said Jeremy Almond, CEO and co-founder, Paystand. “With the new Acumatica integration, accounting teams can achieve accelerated payments, synchronize payment data and achieve more efficiency that serve to increase margins and operational cash flow.”

Paystand’s Acumatica native integration allows users to take advantage of multiple time-saving tools and processes:

• It enables access to Paystand’s Bank-to-Bank Network – the only zero-fee, real-time payment rail available for business
• It unlocks Paystand’s profitability behavior model
• It creates smart invoices and flexible email templates with embedded payment options that incentivize customers and to make earlier payments, while sending them through the Paystand Checkout experience

The Paystand Checkout experience allows payers to choose payments via the zero-fee Paystand Bank Networks, via ACH or credit card. Acumatica users have the option of setting convenience fees, or creating incentives that encourage earlier payment. When payers complete the Checkout experience, the cash is immediately applied as well as any merchant-set convenience fees, enabling CFOs to have the cash on hand immediately.

“By embracing complete digital automation and integrating blockchain technology in finance, Paystand empowers companies to scrap the constraints of outdated systems. This shift allows for significant cost reductions and the advantage of near-instantaneous transactions,” said Bindu Gakhar, head of product at Paystand. She estimates that Paystand can save Acumatica users 50% or more on receivables costs by eliminating transaction fees. She adds that finance departments can also speed up time to cash by up to 60%, which is important for helping them scale and increase ROI.

The integration with Acumatica helps users to move their entire chain and customer environments into a fully digital B2B payments structure – providing all businesses within the Acumatica ecosystem a way to streamline processing of receivables and revenue.

The Acumatica integration is Paystand’s fourth native integration, expanding its proven record and its reach to SMB finance departments. Paystand first integrated with NetSuite, then Sage in 2021 and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central in 2023.

As investor demand for private debt and direct lending investments grows, Silverview Credit Partners has optimized its technology capabilities to support this asset class with global Fintech leader Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc’s. Sentry Portfolio Management solution. This technology will enable Silverview Credit Partners to achieve greater operational efficiencies and increase transparency in its portfolio management activities for its direct lending business.

“Through the partnership with Broadridge and their innovative Sentry cloud-based solution, we are able to customize, automate, and streamline our portfolio management, reporting, and loan administration process to scale and support the ongoing growth of our business,” said Garrett Yuan Managing Director, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Compliance Officer at Silverview Credit Partners. “This enhancement is helping us meet the growing reporting demands of our investment team, borrowers and investors, and has had a valuable impact on our day-to-day operations.”

“There is a surge in interest in direct lending, and especially among private credit firms, it has caused a more urgent focus on modernizing legacy investment management systems so organizations can efficiently scale,” said Mike Sleightholme, President of Broadridge International and Head of Asset Management Solutions. “Broadridge is thrilled that Silverview Credit Partners has chosen Sentry to build the infrastructure to help them scale their business for front, middle and back-office functionality, and gain greater visibility into the investment management lifecycle.”

Broadridge’s Sentry cloud-based technology supports private debt investment and portfolio management processes, enabling firms to increase control and efficiently strengthen investment decision workflows and deal performance. The scalable platform provides an integrated approach to tracking private debt investment as well as syndicated loan markets in real-time. Sentry supports firms' compliance, operations, research and pipeline management through analysis of hypothetical trade scenarios, dynamic waterfall projections, loan administration, and data aggregation across strategies, portfolios, and assets.

Kore.ai, a leader in enterprise conversational and generative AI platform technology, today announced $150 million in funding. The strategic growth investment was led by FTV Capital, a sector-focused growth equity investor with a successful 25+ year track record investing across enterprise technology, along with participation from NVIDIA and existing investors such as Vistara Growth, Sweetwater PE, NextEquity, Nicola and Beedie. The new funding will accelerate Kore.ai’s market expansion and continuous innovation in AI to deliver tangible business and human value at scale.

Poised to seize market momentum around putting AI to work

The AI market has seen rapid growth and disruption driven by advancements in technology and shifting user expectations. Gartner estimates the conversational AI market to reach $377 billion in revenue by 2032, up from $66 billion in 2023. This reflects an exponential demand for enhanced customer experiences, streamlined business operations and innovative generative AI (GenAI) applications addressing specific business tasks.

Kore.ai provides an enterprise-grade no-code platform to help companies of all sizes power business interactions with AI safely and responsibly while driving significant revenue and cost savings. From conversational virtual assistants to GenAI applications, Kore.ai’s differentiated platform offers purpose-built workflows, highly configurable tools and a flexible, open architecture that are recognized as the leading approach by customers and analysts. This gives teams the ability to craft custom solutions or deploy pre-built, domain-trained virtual assistants across multiple industries such as banking, healthcare and retail and across a variety of functional roles such as IT, HR and others, to accelerate time-to-value. 

“We have been working with advanced AI for a decade now – our deep technology expertise and market understanding put us in a prime position to take advantage of the momentum and to do AI right in order to meet growing customer needs,” said Raj Koneru, founder and CEO of Kore.ai. “Sitting above the infrastructure layer and LLM chaos, our open approach grants businesses freedom of choice with built-in guardrails for effective AI implementation. As we look to enhance our Gen AI-powered innovations and drive wider adoption across a variety of market segments, we are pleased to have the backing of FTV Capital, a firm that has significant experience in our space and invaluable connections across the enterprise to augment our exciting growth trajectory.”

“We’ve spent significant time examining the landscape and evaluating advanced-AI platforms, and Kore.ai clearly stood out with its proven enterprise-grade platform capabilities, visionary leadership, strong R&D focus, established global customer base and clear path to profitability,” said Kapil Venkatachalam, partner at FTV Capital. “We’re excited to partner with such an experienced and high-caliber team that consistently delivers world-class innovations, and we look forward to leveraging our deep knowledge and network to catalyze Kore.ai’s success.”

Market understanding and expertise across diverse use cases

Today, Fortune 2000 companies across a variety of industry verticals leverage Kore.ai to enhance their customer, employee, and contact center agent experiences and drive measurable ROI. Customers include leading financial institutions, such as PNC Bank, and large global banks, as well as major brands such as AT&T, Cigna, Coca-Cola, Airbus, and Roche.

Over the past years, Kore.ai has consistently demonstrated triple-digit year-over-year growth in revenues. The company automates 450 million interactions a day for about 200 million consumers and two million enterprise users worldwide. In addition to domestic growth, Kore.ai’s growth has been fueled by rising demand from emerging markets in Asia Pacific, Europe, LatAm, and the Middle East. As a result, Kore.ai has added new Global 2000 enterprise customers across major verticals. 

The UK’s first Sharia-compliant bridge finance provider, Offa, has partnered with cloud-based mortgage and savings provider finova to develop an innovative end-to-end digital platform to support its growing portfolio of property finance products. Offa’s new origination platform will be delivered by finova and its implementation partner Hexaware in the first half of 2024.

The innovative project – part of a £1 million investment by Offa into its IT systems – is expected to transform the way Islamic property finance is conducted in Britain, creating a tech-driven “faster, smarter and easier” service for intermediaries and direct customers that start with their initial enquiry and concludes with the release of funds.

Offa will leverage finova’s fully customizable Apprivo software, giving it access to multiple data points, including ID verification, credit reference agencies, and automated valuation models. Additional services can also be integrated via finova’s API ecosystem, including conveyancing, valuations, and payment processing and those services specific to Offa and Sharia-compliancy. The result will be a smoother and far quicker application process for Offa’s trusted intermediaries, direct customers, and others involved in the property finance chain.

Sagheer Malik, Offa’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “Speed is especially important in the real estate market segments we target. We know from past experience a key issue for customers and intermediaries seeking Islamic finance is the slow, cumbersome and complicated application processes involved. Offa is making a significant investment into the digital technologies that underpin our business, and in finova we have a trusted and highly experienced technology partner, whose Apprivo software will transform our service by streamlining our processes to create a faster, smarter and easier system for all.”

Offa was launched in 2019 as an ethical alternative to conventional bridging. The Birmingham-headquartered company currently offers short-term property finance in line with Islamic finance principles, which means products are not based on interest or finance-prohibited activities that are regarded as damaging to society, such as alcohol, gambling, and the arms trade. Islamic finance applications have a reputation for taking longer than they should, an issue addressed in the new architecture built for Offa by finova.

Chris Little, Chief Revenue Officer at finova, commented: “Clients have become accustomed to a seamless digital experience across every aspect of their lives, including their finances. As a fully open API, Apprivo has many applications for the Islamic Finance market and will support Offa’s end-to-end digital processes with ease. Moving forward, we’re excited to activate the next stages of delivery and play a part in Offa’s growth journey as it rapidly expands its portfolio of products.

“Our partnership with Offa also marks an important milestone for finova as the first project where we collaborated with Hexaware, our new implementation partner. Hexaware has played a critical role in the delivery of this platform, with oversight from the finova team, and we look forward to building on this new strategic partnership that is already off to a strong start - with Offa.”

Conferma Pay has partnered with ConnexPay to allow businesses to simplify their payment processes by issuing virtual cards for improved cash flow management. The partnership brings together Conferma Pay’s leading virtual card ecosystem and ConnexPay’s world-class virtual card issuing engine and real-time funding processes to create a seamless and secure all-in-one payment experience.

The new solution is ideal for businesses with a high traffic of both incoming and outgoing payments, and that are being held back by cash-flow issues. ConnexPay’s multifunctional platform allows businesses to gain immediate access to incoming customer payments, which they can then use in real-time to fund ConnexPay virtual cards through the Conferma Pay platform to pay suppliers. This eliminates the waiting for settlement and funds to clear, as well as funding requirements —  a process that can take days or weeks, and something many companies are unable to do.

ConnexPay’s Intelligent Purchases Routing technology automatically issues the type of card that will provide the maximum rebate, meaning businesses increase revenue share on every payment — improving both cash flow and growth. The integrated fraud prevention and analytics suite means users also have greater control and overview of their live finances.

Jason Lalor, CEO at Conferma Pay, said: “The partnership with ConnexPay is another step towards simplifying global payments process for businesses globally. Our end goal is to make it easier to do business. By managing all your payments through virtual cards all on one platform, it’s much easier to connect and do business at a global scale.”

Bob Kaufman, Founder and CEO at ConnexPay, said: “By partnering with Conferma Pay, a company that shares our customer-first approach, we are continuing to eliminate payments pain points for businesses across the travel sector. Improving cash flow and paying suppliers in a fast and secure way boosts purchaser-supplier relationships and expedites business growth.”

Dynatrace, the leader in unified observability and security, today announced that it is working with Lloyds Banking Group, one of the UK’s largest financial services providers, to measure the environmental carbon impact of its IT ecosystem, contributing to the organization’s sustainability goals.

To help address this need, Dynatrace is using insights and feedback from Lloyds Banking Group to further develop Dynatrace® Carbon Impact. The app translates utilization metrics, including CPU, memory, disk, and network I/O, into their CO2 equivalent (CO2e). It also provides actionable guidance for how to reduce the overall IT carbon footprint. Additionally, it details energy and CO2e consumption per source with filters to help narrow the focus to high-impact areas. For example, it highlights underutilized instances in a specific data center along with top CO2e emitters within a distinct host group. To achieve these objectives, Carbon Impact leverages the Dynatrace® platform and its Smartscape® topology and dependency mapping, providing precise optimization insights and automatic application and process context to establish the foundation for green coding initiatives.

Klaus Enzenhofer, Product Lead at Dynatrace, said: “Dynatrace successfully rolled out the Carbon Impact app last year, and we’ve been working with Lloyds Banking Group to develop it further to support our customers’ hybrid and multicloud environments. This has allowed us to accelerate and focus on our product development while helping our customers meet their sustainability goals.”

Kevin Bird, Operational Performance and Analytics Lead at Lloyds Banking Group said: “Working with Dynatrace has helped us to assess the visibility and impact of our IT carbon emissions. Our sustainability efforts require deep granularity, and collaborating has allowed us to see where our efforts are most impactful in the context of our broader IT architecture. This helps us identify more meaningful opportunities to optimize our digital infrastructure and will be a critical step forward as we work to reduce our operational sector’s direct carbon emissions by at least 75%.”

Klarna, the AI-powered global payments network, and shopping assistant, is bringing back Money Story in the Klarna App, revealing consumers’ personal spending summaries of 2023. How did you decide to spend your hard-earned cash, and what can you learn from it for the new year? Money Story offers a snapshot of your spending patterns while inspiring new ways to budget, save, and shop smarter. 

This year, the top financial New Year’s resolutions for US consumers included paying off credit card debt, creating a budget, and saving money. According to Klarna’s 2023 Holiday Survey, 65% of US consumers planned to stick to a holiday budget surrounding the biggest shopping season of the year. With Money Story, consumers can unlock their spending insights by discovering their peak spending months, top purchases of 2023, and categories they purchased the most in that they can convert into financial goals for 2024 using Klarna’s money management tools. 

Money Story includes data from all spending with Klarna, such as purchases made with the Klarna App, the Klarna Card, and at partnered retailers’ checkouts. In 2023, one of the top categories on consumers’ global shopping lists was Clothing & Shoes followed by Leisure Sport & Hobby in the US. Additionally, the month consumers spent the most shopping across markets was November, in line with the peak holiday season. 

"With Money Story, we aim to make financial wellness more approachable for millions of consumers worldwide," said Erin Jaeger, Head of North America, Klarna. "By gamifying a typically tedious and daunting task of managing finances, we hope to inspire users to take control of their finances and optimize their spending in 2024 and beyond."

To help consumers translate the insights from their Money Story into smart spending habits, each user’s insights include prompts to discover and use Klarna’s money management tools, such as setting and tracking a monthly budget, and on which categories, and more. The number of people who have set a budget or updated their budget globally in the Klarna App has increased by 68% YOY, suggesting the importance of this feature for consumers looking to shop smarter. By offering money management tools alongside Klarna’s shopping features, including price comparison, exclusive deals, delivery tracking, and more, consumers can feel empowered to make more informed decisions across the entire shopping journey. 

Catering to over 37 million consumers and 7 million monthly app users in the US, Money Story supports Klarna’s mission to help consumers save time, and money, and worry less about their finances by better understanding their spending and creating smart budgeting goals for the new year. Money Story is currently available in the Klarna App globally across 25 markets including, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Sweden.