Digital Asset Research (DAR), a leading provider of ‘clean’ crypto data, insights, and research, announced today that it joined the Pyth network, an oracle solution designed to deliver real-time, high-fidelity, market data on the blockchain on a sub-second timescale.

Pyth network has established itself as the leading oracle solution for financial data, with more than 75 data providers contributing real-time prices across asset classes including FX, Equities and Commodities apart from Crypto. Pyth data oracles are available to consume off-chain and on-chain across blockchains via the Wormhole network. Initially, DAR will publish real-time prices for 125+ crypto assets to the Pyth oracle, with plans to expand its data contribution as the network grows in scope.

Known for its transparent pricing methodologies, DAR brings quality to crypto pricing data through a process that starts by assessing over 450 exchanges quarterly to qualify only ~5% of evaluated exchanges as inputs for the calculation of institutional-quality prices. This rigorous process makes DAR’s contribution to the Pyth oracle reflect the highest standards in crypto pricing.

Doug Schwenk, DAR’s CEO, stated, “As a specialized provider of digital asset data, we’re honoured to join Pyth in growing their oracle network and to contribute to the DeFi ecosystem overall. We look forward to furthering their greater mission of delivering reliable, accurate, real-time pricing data to hundreds of applications from lending protocols to derivative platforms.”

Abhimanyu Bansal, a contributor to the Pyth network, stated, “DAR is trusted by leading institutions for the quality and depth of their crypto market data. In the same vein, Pyth, as the leading oracle, has been immensely successful in bridging the gap between traditional and decentralized finance. We are confident that our partnership together will promote the growth of and attract new participants to DeFi.”

Informa PLC (“Informa”), a London-based events production, digital products and academic research services agency will host FinovateEurope. A cutting-edge fintech conference catering to the digital future of financial institutions, the event will be held in person from March 14-15, 2023, at the Intercontinental O2 Hotel in London, England.

Finovate events are world-class fintech happenings drawing attendees from across the globe. 1,000+ senior financial and fintech thought leaders are expected to be in attendance at FinovateEurope alongside 100+ globally renowned speakers. Each event is geared to help navigate the changing environment and discover new opportunities.

Invited speakers are sought-after analysts and innovators from the world of fintech, digital finance and financial institutions who will outline their unique perspectives on emerging technologies, regulatory trends and the evolving landscape via specially designed sessions that amplify knowledge sharing and encourage networking. The audience is highly intellectual and incredibly well-versed in the financial space, with C-suite leaders, senior executives, new-age financial innovators and financial journalists in attendance.

Speakers will participate in numerous formats including keynotes, general sessions, special addresses, executive briefings, interactive workshops, fireside chats, panel discussions and thematically focused streams.

A selection of the industry leaders who will be sharing strategic insights crafted through years of expertise includes Michael Ramsbacker, chief product officer at Trulioo; Guy Mettrick, industry vice president of financial services at Appian; Malin Lignell, VP digitalisation & innovation at Handelsbanken; Elizabeth Rossiello, CEO at AZA Finance; and renowned authors Steven Van Belleghem and Leda Glyptis.

Several live product demo sessions will be conducted by senior management of carefully selected, innovative companies such as Five Degrees, Refine Intelligence, Merlin Investor, Trulioo, Your Juno, Quoroom and others. These short sessions will offer attendees a glimpse into the latest technological trends in fintech and provide invaluable insights into the market outlook as well as future direction of C-suite leaders.
Attendees will have the rare opportunity to delve into the minds of elite thinkers during energetic panel discussions across a wide spectrum of topics including:

• We're In the Revenue - Now What?
• The Fintech Ecosystem & Strategic Partnerships – From Competition to Collaboration & Co-Creation
• What Are the Next Big Opportunities in Fintech?
• Digital Transformation: How Can Banks that were Born Analogue Compete with Fintechs & Big Tech that were Born Digital?
• How Will New Competitors and New Business Models Shape the Future of Payments? How Will Open Banking & Embedded Payments Change the Competitive Landscape?

FinovateEurope will also feature punchy and on-point startup booster sessions to highlight founder insights, developments in the investor landscape, customer acquisition models and strategies to optimize content marketing for wider market reach. These insights will prove invaluable to financial players looking to adapt to the evolving fintech environment.

Greg Palmer, Vice President of Finovate, will offer the welcome address on Day One and Day Two. The event will be precisely designed to optimize business efficiency and cultivate unparalleled networking opportunities. Scheduled networking events will drive high-powered relationship building, strengthen the broader fintech community and exploration of potential synergies with platform players, financial institutions, regulators and investment houses that are poised to redefine the coming age of financial services.

SESAMm, a leader in natural language processing (NLP), a field of artificial intelligence, today announced the close of a Series B2 funding round of €35 million (USD 37 million) to accelerate its ambitious growth and global expansion plans. 

Securing this funding will enable SESAMm to further expand into U.S. and Asian markets, support technology development to generate AI-powered ESG and sentiment analytics, and hire key talent across sustainability, technology, sales, and marketing.

The Series B2 round was co-led by Elaia, a deep tech VC firm, and Opera Tech Ventures, the venture capital arm of BNP Paribas (BNP). Other participating companies include asset manager Unigestion, Raiffeisen Bank International’s (RBI) venture capital entity Elevator Ventures, AFG Partners, CEGEE Capital, and historical backers, including Carlyle (CG) and New Alpha Asset Management, who participated in the previous Series B1 round. This latest round brings the total funding raised to €50 million.

“We are delighted to support SESAMm's ambitious journey to leverage deep technology and create actionable data insights on ESG analysis and monitoring. We are impressed by the quality and seniority of the executive team, already leading operations in every continent with anchor and Tier 1 clients. The vision of bringing technology to the Finance industry and the corporate world to empower with ESG insights is a game changer, and we are very excited to be part of the adventure by their side,” said Pauline Roux, Partner at Elaia.

“In a context where it is increasingly critical for decision makers to feed their assessments with deeper data points, we found SESAMm’s product very relevant to help identify, filter out, weigh and report key data insights on companies ranging from small private firms to large corporations. We have found deep common ground with the team and are very proud to support SESAMm in its journey onward,” said Thibaut Schlaeppi, Managing Director at Opera Tech Ventures.

SESAMm is one of the fastest-growing natural language analytics data providers, serving global investment firms such as top private equity firms, hedge funds, and other asset management companies, in addition to corporations of all sizes. Leveraging its data lake, which comprises more than 20 billion articles and grows by 20% per year, SESAMm provides datasets and NLP capabilities to generate innovative analytics for use cases such as controversy detection, ESG and SDG sentiment scores, private equity due diligence, suppliers monitoring, and more.

“Since we started working with SESAMm as investors and clients over two years ago, we’ve been impressed with both the company’s growth and the advanced analytics that have supported our deal sourcing, diligence, and portfolio company value creation efforts,” said Matt Anderson, Carlyle’s Chief Digital Officer. “We are delighted to build on our strong partnership with SESAMm by participating in this latest round.”

CEO Sylvain Forté, COO Pierre Rinaldi, and CTO Florian Aubry co-founded SESAMm in 2014. With their team of nearly 100 data experts, they leverage the vast amount of textual information on the web, from news websites to NGO reports and social media, to translate it into powerful, digestible, and actionable insights. 

Sylvain Forté, CEO and Co-Founder of SESAMm, said, “We are happy and grateful to close this €35 million Series B2 round to continue our growth journey and expand to new international markets such as Singapore. Raising a significant amount during challenging market conditions highlights the relevancy of SESAMm's focus on two key trends: AI and sustainability. In turn, these tools enable organizations to make better decisions and fill the data gaps, particularly in ESG, on both public and private companies.”

Metia Group, the global B2B marketing agency, has appointed Liz High to the position of Practice Lead, Financial Services with a focus on growing Metia’s business in the financial services sector, supporting clients with data-driven insight, strategy, research, brand, PR, AR and digital marketing programmes.  

Based in Seattle, Liz joins Metia from banking technology provider Nymbus, where she held the role of EVP, Nymbus Labs, supporting financial institutions in creating niche banking solutions and unique customer experiences to take to market. Liz also recently co-authored the book ‘Think like a brand, not a bank’ which provides banks and fintechs with strategies to create new products and compelling customer experiences. 

Andrew Martin, CEO at Metia Group, said: “We’re thrilled to appoint Liz to head up our Financial Services practice. Liz’s skills as a data-driven strategist, brand builder and innovator with a passion for financial services, fintech and SaaS technology, complement the talents of our existing team. We look forward to the opportunities ahead.” 

Liz High, Practice Lead, Financial Services, Metia Group said: “I’m excited to join Metia to expand our existing portfolio of banking and fintech clients in US, Europe and Asia. Our financial services practice is here to help clients grow, build compelling financial brands, create best in class customer experiences and market creatively.”  

Metia has over thirty years of experience fast-tracking agile fintechs, building established financial technology vendors, and serving banks and financial institutions. This includes providing insight into audiences and marketplaces, building strong brands, raising awareness and generating demand for clients’ products and services. We create preference through reputation building among fintech media and tech analysts, and through content-based thought leadership programmes.  

iFX EXPO Asia 2023 is the premier event for business networking and collaboration in the financial and fintech space. The event is set to take place from June 20 to 22, 2023, in the vibrant city of Bangkok, Thailand. Following the resounding success of the previous edition, this year the event returns to the exotic city, greater and more vibrant than ever. For over a decade, iFX EXPO has set the standard for high-calibre fintech exhibitions.

Why Bangkok?

Bangkok is a bustling metropolis and an emerging hub for finance and technology in Asia, with 182 fintech startups and established financial companies based in the city, according to data collected by Tracxn.com.

Currently valued at $1 billion, the Thai fintech sector continues to see growth, especially across the digital payments sector with a total estimated transaction value of $34.82 billion by the end of 2023, according to Statista.

With a rising number of fintech buyers - which, according to the same Statista report, is expected to hit 70.66 million in the next four years - Thailand is set to become Asia’s next tech heartland. Therefore, Bangkok is the perfect place to be for fintech leaders.

iFX EXPO Asia in a nutshell

The event is expected to bring together a diverse range of stakeholders, including technology and service providers, digital assets, blockchain, retail and institutional brokers, payment providers, banks and liquidity providers, affiliates and IBs, as well as regulators and compliance officers. With such a broad range of attendees, the expo offers the perfect stage for collaboration, networking and insightful debate.

More than an exhibition, iFX EXPO provides countless opportunities to showcase your fintech brand, share ideas with industry peers and engage with inspiring content during the Speaker sessions and Idea Hub discussions.

Conceived as a continuum of business showcases, exhibition centres and conferences, the expo smoothly transitions from one to the other, presenting attendees with a wealth of opportunities to make their mark in the industry by either exhibiting or sponsoring the event.

Securing a booth at iFX EXPO Asia gives fintech brands the chance to stand out from the crowd and showcase their innovative products and services. Each edition brings more and more stellar exhibitors from across fintech and finance - from well-established prime brokerages and liquidity providers to ambitious startups. Contact sales@ifxexpo.com to reserve your booth today. The best spots sell out fast!

If exhibiting at the expo brings you in front of potential clients, sponsoring iFX EXPO Asia takes it up another notch, enabling you to strengthen your position in the industry and putting your brand name front and centre. To sponsor iFX EXPO Asia 2023, contact sales@ifxexpo.com.

Get Your Free Pass!
To gain access to everything the event has to offer, you need to register for a Free Pass. The Free Pass grants you:

●Entry to the Expo Venue

●Access to iFX EXPO Networking App

●Speaker Hall & Idea Hub Entry

●Access to Sponsored F&B Areas and Business Lounges

●Admission to the exuberant iFX EXPO Parties

To make the event more interactive, Ultimate Fintech, the organisers of the grand international iFX expos, encourage you to share your ideas and perspectives on the latest trends or suggest the Speakers & thought leaders you want to see on stage at iFX EXPO Asia. You can do so here.

Leaving nothing to chance, iFX EXPO comes with a dedicated networking app that allows you to connect with other delegates, schedule meetings, navigate through the floorplan and event agenda, and explore profiles of sponsors, exhibitors, and attendees.

Don’t miss out! Register today.

Wise, the global technology company building the best way to move and manage money is today rolling out a new look and feel. This comes as the company announced that it has reached 16 million customers served worldwide, and revealed plans for further global expansion.

The complete visual makeover features a fresh green palette and a bold new font, and draws from global currencies, languages, alphabets and places around the world. 

Designed to make the Wise customer experience consistent regardless of the place or language they sign up in, the look also underscores Wise’s mission to build money without borders and its ambition to create a fast, convenient, cost-effective and transparent global alternative to the traditional correspondent system.

With 6 million active customers moving over £25 billion each quarter, the company welcomes around 100,000 new customers every week. 

Wise continues to take on the world

First launched in 2011, Wise continues to invest in expanding its unique international account offer and underlying infrastructure:

• Wise Account: The world’s first international account for people, the account enables customers to send, spend, receive and hold money in 50+ currencies. Wise most recently introduced “Interest” in Assets in the UK, and “Balance Cashback” in Europe to the account 一 features to allow customers to earn a return on the money they hold in Wise, without compromising on their ability to instantly access their money when they need. Today, Wise also announced the launch of Assets in Singapore, and the feature will become available to customers in Europe next. 

In India and Israel, Wise has secured licences to launch more services including the multi-currency account and card soon.

• Wise Business: The one account for international businesses, Wise Business offers everything the personal account has along with business-specific tools like multi-user access, approval workflows, integrations into accounting software like Xero and expense cards for employees. Wise Business is used by over 300,000 businesses each quarter. In the US, Wise has begun rolling out cards to LLCs and sole proprietors. 

• Wise Platform: More than 60 banks and large businesses including GooglePay, Deel and Monzo offer their own customers faster, cheaper and more efficient international payments, powered by Wise, through Wise Platform partnerships. Wise Platform today also went live with Bank Mandiri, Indonesia's second-largest bank.

Kristo Käärmann, co-founder and CEO of Wise commented:

“Our new look is inspired by the millions of people and businesses worldwide that use Wise today. It draws from where they come from but also represents the excitement of the world open for them to conquer. 

“Over the past year, we’ve introduced new features to make Wise more useful to our customers and made payments faster. We now deliver over half our payments to their recipient in less than 20 seconds. We also helped our customers save on fees 一 £1.5 billion compared to banks in 2022 alone. 

“But there’s a long way to go. People and businesses are still being duped by hidden fees and losing over £180 billion each year to their banks. This is money they could have otherwise used to pay bills, expand their businesses or even save for a rainy day. We don’t accept it and we’re committed to solving this for everyone, everywhere.”

The new look is rolling out across Wise’s website and mobile apps, and across the company’s digital channels such as social media over the day from 7 am GMT.

Cohesity has announced that it has been named a Leader in the Omdia Universe: Protecting and Recovering Data in the Cloud Era, 2022–23 report.

Omdia, a global technology research leader, positioned Cohesity as a leading solution provider for its latest Omdia Universe for Data Protection and Backup in the Cloud report. Cohesity is recognised for its modernised data protection approach and strong capabilities in core backup and recovery, and monitoring and reporting. Additionally, Cohesity earned the top capability score, above other market vendors, due to its high ratings in solution breadth, roadmap and strategy, and solution capability – underscoring Cohesity’s robust innovations for data security and management, and value to customers. 

Other highlights in Omdia’s report include: 

• Strong Security and Ransomware Capabilities: Cohesity ranked at the top in the subcategory score in the security & ransomware category, largely in its capabilities to “protect the data from attack, detect an attack early, and recover rapidly from an attack” with automated management approaches. Cohesity grants customers the ability to safely recover their data through control over its storage repository and immutable backup architecture. 

• Cohesity DataProtect: Omdia acknowledged Cohesity’s unified and highly automated data protection solution offering easy recovery by eliminating the complexity found in traditional or legacy solutions. This is thanks to DataProtect’s data store mapping capabilities and more controlled appliance approach that is “paramount to providing near-instant recoverings, individual file restores and automating the process of recovery.”

• Cohesity Helios: Cohesity’s all-in-one management and reporting solution earned high reviews from Omdia with its holistic view of monitoring and recovery of data. Helios offers robust end-to-end monitoring and granular-level analysis to ensure operational efficiency and agility. 

• Quality Customer Experience: Cohesity received the highest recommendation score from its customers, proving Cohesity’s strength in delivering on customer experience beyond its technology. 

“Our customers continue to face an evolving and complex cybersecurity threat landscape, and the protection and recovery of their data remains our top priority,” said Lynn Lucas, CMO, Cohesity. “Omdia’s recognition further validates our commitment to providing innovative and reliable solutions to this growing challenge for our customers.”

VizyPay, an industry-disrupting payment processing fintech with a mission to empower small-town businesses with simple, reliable and transparent services, ranked No. 86 on the 2023 Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest. This prestigious list includes the fastest-growing private companies in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In VizyPay’s second consecutive appearance on the prestigious list, it ranked No. 2 in Iowa and No. 5 in financial services.

“Year after year, VizyPay is shaking up the Midwest by bringing innovation and opportunity to the region. Our transparent payments solutions, powerful technology and rapidly growing, dedicated team are reshaping the stagnant payments industry for the better,” said CEO and Founder Austin Mac Nab. “We’re proud to be a key pillar of the Midwest’s flourishing economy. By eliminating unnecessary payment processing fees, small business owners across rural America can keep more of their hard-earned money and reinvest it back into the communities they serve.”

The companies on this list show a remarkable rate of growth across all industries in the Midwest region. Between 2019 and 2021, the private companies on the list had an average growth rate of 535 percent and, in 2021 alone, they added 22,750 jobs and nearly $13.9 billion to the Midwest region’s economy.

“This year’s Inc. 5000 Regional winners represent one of the most exceptional and exciting lists of America’s off-the-charts growth companies. They’re disrupters and job creators, and all delivered an outsize impact on the economy. Remember their names and follow their lead. These are the companies you’ll be hearing about for years to come,” said Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. magazine.

Completely bootstrapped since its inception in 2017, VizyPay has achieved outstanding success, ranking No. 918 in America and No. 4 in Iowa on the 2022 Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America with a three-year revenue growth of 695 percent. The company has rapidly expanded in recent years, installing more than 12,000 merchants across the nation, partnering with more than 700 independent sales contractors and onboarding 100 talented, in-house employees.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Midwest, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, metro area, and other criteria, can be found at inc.com/midwest.

Auriga, a global software provider for the omnichannel banking and payments industry, today announced a partnership with CMS Business Solutions, a Latin American financial technology solutions business, to collaborate on self-service banking technology for the Ecuadorian market.

Founded in 2003, CMS Business Solutions provides financial self-service hardware, software and maintenance services.

This new relationship reinforces Auriga’s position in the digital transformation of ATMs and banking environment in Latin America where the company already works with customers in Mexico and Guatemala. Among its biggest customers in the region, is 5B, which runs large ATM networks in several Latin American countries.

Through this partnership, CMS Business Solutions will distribute Auriga’s WinWebServer (WWS) solution in Ecuador. The solution enables banks and ATM operators to provide their customers with an efficient omnichannel banking experience including 24/7 access to personalised, real-time services, while delivering significant operational efficiencies.

Commenting on this new partnership, Vincenzo Fiore, CEO, and Founder of Auriga, “Latin America is key market for us and this new partnership with CMS will enable us to extend our presence into Ecuador which has a strong retail banking sector. Like us, CMS shares a passion for building customer-centric digital self-service banking solutions that transform the ATM channel and branch banking.”

Ricardo Guzman, General Director from CMS, added "At CMS Business Solutions we offer a wide range of services and now with the versatility of Auriga's multi-vendor software, cutting-edge interface, lead generation thanks to bank marketing, mobile integration and online monitoring. Working with Auriga, we will be able to offer our customers the ability to drive profitable customer relationships through the provision of personalised services, where and when customers need them.”

nCino, Inc., a pioneer in cloud banking for the global financial services industry, today announced that Johnson Financial Group (JFG), a privately-held financial services company and registered investment advisor, will be using nCino’s cloud banking platform across multiple lines of business, including Commercial, Small Business, Retail and Deposit Account Openings. JFG will also be adding nCino solutions for Commercial Pricing and Profitability, as well as Auto Spreading to further harness the advantage of a single platform. nCino’s customizable platform will help JFG modernize its front, middle and back offices and successfully put the customer at the centre of every interaction to ensure they have complete insight into their loan status at any point in the cycle.

“Our institution is built on trust, integrity, and a deep focus on providing the best-in-class financial service for our clients,” said Dan Defnet, EVP - President, Johnson Bank. “As Wisconsin's largest family-owned financial services company, we provide our clients with solutions that will help them thrive throughout their financial journey. nCino will be a catalyst in that journey across every aspect of our bank.”

With more than $6 billion in assets, JFG has been serving the families and clients of Wisconsin and Minnesota for more than 50 years. By selecting every solution on the nCino platform, JFG will add extensive value for their clients’ financial needs, eliminating siloed transformation, due to outdated legacy disparate systems, creating one open, single ecosystem.

“JFG is not only putting their client’s experience at the centre of everything, but they are making forward-looking change that can provide the very best experiences for every family that uses its services,” said nCino’s SVP of Community and Regional Banking Will Cameron. “JFG is laying the groundwork for a scalable and sustainable technological foundation, which will empower it further in providing its clients what they need, while still upholding its commitment to personal service and attention. We're incredibly proud to be working with JFG and eager to see the value that the nCino platform will bring.”