UK-based FinTech Stubben Edge Group (the Company) and National Friendly (the trading name of Mutual, National Deposit Friendly Society Ltd) have announced a new partnership to harness the Company’s technology and distribution expertise to National Friendly’s people-focused bespoke insurance products.

This is the first time the Mutual has worked with a FinTech to distribute its products to affinity groups. The Company’s technology solution provides seamless distribution via a single platform to multiple affinity groups and white-labelled clients, such as those recently announced as affinity partners, the British Pest Control Association, Association of Specialist Fire Protection, and the Institute of the Motor Industry, with new partners due to be onboarded in the next few weeks.

The first product to go live on the platform is Over 50s Guaranteed Life Assurance. This product pays a guaranteed lump sum upon the death of the policyholder, provided they have held the policy for the qualifying period. Acceptance is guaranteed without any medical questions, subject to a two-year qualifying period. If the policy holder dies within that qualifying period (not following an accident), the premiums they have paid to date will be repaid.

However, if the customer answers two questions when taking out the policy, they can be eligible for a lower premium, an increased sum assured and a shorter qualifying period of only six months – the shortest qualification period available in the market today. Built into the policy is the addition of access to National Friendly’s virtual GP service “Friendly GP”, which enables the policyholder to access a GP 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, via telephone, video consultations, and an expedited referral system should further treatment options be investigated.

Oliver Jones, Sales & Distribution Director at National Friendly: “In an ever-changing world it is important that we as a mutual society remain agile and adapt and utilise new technologies to bring protection to customers in a way that’s informative, convenient and time effective. By partnering with Stubben Edge we are able to do just that. Creating a tailored online customer journey bespoke to the affinity group, the collaboration will help empower customers to make their own informed decision as to what insurance products meet their needs with the added confidence that it is endorsed by their trusted professional association.”

Karen Barretto, Deputy CEO of Stubben Edge, said: “The Insurance Industry, Mutual Societies and Trade/ Professional Associations share a long and distinguished history of spreading risk and sharing costs for the benefit of all, in addition to the ability to leverage membership data to provide better quality and better-informed insurance products for the membership base. We’re delighted to announce this partnership which, by harnessing our tech to provide simple to use, online buying journeys and access to our wider distribution network, brings further benefit to the membership base.”

European fintech, Citizen, has today announced it has chosen embedded finance infrastructure provider, OpenPayd, as its real-time payments provider. The partnership will give the end-users of Citizen’s clients a simplified payments experience via OpenPayd’s BaaS platform, which offers plug-and-play banking and payments infrastructure through a single API.

Founded by former Worldpay CTO, James Neville, Citizen harnesses Open Banking to provide simple and secure instant cardless payments for merchants. Citizen is transforming merchant acquiring and processing, bypassing traditional methods with no cards, no codes and no apps - offering cost-effective payments that settle instantly. To deliver an even better experience to its clients, Citizen needed an embedded finance infrastructure provider that could facilitate instant payouts and offer a greater global reach than other providers in the market.

Partnering with OpenPayd enables Citizen to issue virtual International Bank Account Numbers (vIBANs) for every client and enable simpler payouts via OpenPayd’s API. Unlike a traditional business account, OpenPayd’s infrastructure allows Citizen to issue clients with a corporate account and vIBANs that provide real-time data notifications as soon as money reaches their account, delivering better cash flow management and reconciliation. The partnership is already live and is available to Citizen’s multi-industry customer base.

“Through the collaboration of technical expertise, Citizen’s partnership with OpenPayd has opened up new product opportunities for us in even more locations across Europe,”  said James Neville, CEO and co-founder of Citizen. “By offering a more expansive range of solutions to our customers, such as bank account creation and eWallet functionality, Citizen is more than a simple payment method - we are truly a payments ecosystem.”

“Working with Citizen is another example of how versatile our BaaS infrastructure is,” said Iana Dimitrova, CEO of OpenPayd. “Our broad and evolving technology suite can cater for any industry, any payment rail, anywhere. We’re looking forward to a long and successful relationship with Citizen, as they scale their offering and deliver a better payments experience to their clients.”

The cost-of-living crisis is changing how consumers purchase and use gift cards, with almost half (47%) of British consumers taking advantage of gift card promotions such as bonus card value or discounts to combat inflation, according to The UK Prepaid Consumer Insights Survey released today by Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payments and financial technology solutions.

“The rising cost of living is having a direct impact on the gift card market. The way people are buying and using gift cards is changing, with consumers turning to gift cards to budget and to take advantage of discounts and loyalty rewards,” said Sam Lituchy, Vice President and Head of Gift Solutions at Fiserv.

Despite a looming recession and the squeeze on consumer purse strings, gift card purchasing remains steady in the UK. In 2022, 58% of UK consumers purchased the same amount or more gift cards as they did in 2021. Inflation is impacting consumer use of gift cards, with 20% of consumers saying they are using gift cards to help counteract higher prices, and 19% saying inflation is prompting them to use gift cards to purchase items of necessity rather than wants.

At a time when discretionary consumer spending is constrained, with a substantial impact on retail, hospitality and leisure businesses, brands that help customers get more for their money when purchasing gift cards can support purchasing activity and boost retention. Two-thirds of Brits (67%) say promotions would motivate them to purchase more gift cards in future. According to the study, the top incentives for consumers to purchase gift cards include bonus gift cards with a purchase of a gift card (33%), a free item with a purchase (27%), a bonus amount added to the gift card (24%) and monetary discounts (15%).

Gift Cards for You…and Me

Consumers are also looking to gift cards as a present that provides financial freedom to the recipient. Birthdays are the most popular time to give a gift card, with 85% of UK consumers selecting birthdays as a top-three gift card buying occasion, and 56% believing that gift cards are better than giving someone a gift that might be returned.

While the majority of gift cards are purchased for others, consumers are also buying gift cards for themselves. British consumers who purchase gift cards for self-use do so to reap the benefits of a discount (39%), to budget their money (24%), or to participate in loyalty and rewards programmes (32%). Self-gifting is a popular way for consumers to treat themselves or friends and family, with almost one in five (18%) saying most of their gift card purchases were made for themselves rather than for other people.

Gift Card Hot Spots

Retailers, restaurants and entertainment venues were among the most popular brands from which consumers buy gift cards, including department stores (53%), online-only merchants (41%), coffee shops (31%), discount and big box stores (26%), casual restaurants (26%) and entertainment venues such as movie theatres (24%).

“Gift cards are continuing to create opportunities for retailers, restaurants and entertainment brands, and are an excellent instrument for building loyalty, driving footfall and boosting sales,” concluded Lituchy. “Businesses navigating difficult operating conditions can tap into changing demand and put a little extra money back into the pockets of consumers by amplifying promotions to support overall sales.”

In a world 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.

Tazapay, a Singapore-based cross-border payments provider, has partnered with leading global real-time payments gateway Volt to add open banking to its growing stack of payment offerings, as it accelerates its international growth plans across the UK and Europe.

The partnership will enable Tazapay’s customers to roll out and increase their cross-border sales, especially for APAC and MENA-based merchants who are looking to expand and increase sales in the UK and Europe.

Volt's real-time reconciliation capabilities enable businesses to track payments from initiation to receipt, unlocking full visibility of the payment value chain via its data-driven insights and analytics - over 70% of all payments processed via Volt's gateway receive instant confirmation of settlement, a significant feature for cross border merchants and businesses. Tazapay will also leverage Volt's fraud prevention solution to identify and block any suspicious payments by monitoring transactions via a flexible scoring system.

Tazapay currently supports over 2,000 merchants, across 30+ markets. The company provides a full-stack payment solution that includes local payment methods as well as cards globally, with buyer and seller protection. The company has a global network of more than 170 markets for its card coverage, and 85 markets for its local payments collection coverage.

This strategic partnership with Volt, a leading player in open banking and real-time payments, unlocks growth for Tazapay in the UK and Europe and will be further continued by enabling open banking payments in Brazil later this year. Volt processes transactions securely between accounts held at over 5,000 banks in the UK, Europe and Brazil, covering over 680 million accounts.

The partnership marks another significant milestone for Tazapay, which has recently completed a $16.9 million Series A fundraising round, led by Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia, and has received in-principle approval for a major payment institution (MPI) licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

Open banking continues to gain tremendous momentum in payments worldwide. The value of open banking-powered payments reached almost $4bn in 2021 and, by 2027, is expected to exceed $330bn. Over 60 countries currently have or are considering launching open banking frameworks, and Volt is building the global infrastructure to connect all the domestic systems worldwide via one single point of integration (API).

“With the advent of open banking and maturing of real-time payment networks like the PayNow service in Singapore and UPI in India, there is an increase in expectations from businesses and end consumers for payments to be done in real-time. Tazapay is building the payments and compliance infrastructure for cross-border commerce and services, and we continue to focus our attention on growth plans. We are thrilled to be partnering with a like-minded company like Volt, who will support us in enabling seamless, real-time cross-border payments for our customers”, says Rahul Shinghal, CEO and co-founder at Tazapay.

“This partnership demonstrates the global acceleration of real-time payments across many sectors - a complement to the acceleration of online business processes and an obvious fit for businesses now operating in a digital-first economy. We are excited to join forces with Tazapay and support them in their ambitions to offer cross-border instant payments, as well as data-driven analytics for better decision-making, supported by our proprietary solution Connect”, says Matt Komorowski, Chief Revenue Officer at Volt.

Aventus, a Web3 solutions provider for enterprises, has partnered with Nexos Technologies, a digital payments and banking platform providing open banking and payment solutions, in order to bring blockchain-enabled solutions to the digital banking and payments sector.

Nexos Technologies has deep domain expertise in traditional and mobile banking applications, settlement, BSA/AML compliance and technology designs, and Aventus is a leader in next-generation blockchain technologies and applications, working with global Fortune 100 companies to bring them into Web3. 

Together, Aventus and Nexos will combine their respective industry-leading expertise and technologies to explore the design, technology, settlement and regulatory requirements of fiat-crypto data and payments bridges. These bridges, which will link various fiat payment and banking infrastructures to the Aventus block space, will enable the duo to develop a hybrid distributed ledger technology protocol and platform to deliver digital banking and payment-enabled services for both conventional businesses and uses cases as well as new emerging businesses and Web3 ecosystems.  

The partnership will focus primarily on opportunities for existing U.S. and OECD banking, payments and certain qualified securities regulated frameworks. The product roadmap includes potential registered tokenized money market instruments, real-time on and off-chain transaction execution in fiat, digital dollar and certain eligible cryptocurrencies, and the further development of layer 1 and layer 2 programmable block space.           

Alan Vey, Founder & CEO, Aventus, comments: “This partnership with Nexos marks a significant milestone in Aventus’ roadmap to bringing blockchain to businesses. With one in four enterprises anticipated to interact with customers and partners via Web3 by 2024, the time is now to capitalize on the technology. Nexos’ focus on innovation will place them well as a leader of their industry, and we’re excited to partner with them in this important step to future-proof their operations and really bring the world of traditional payments into the twenty-first century.”

Gordon Baird, CEO, Nexos Technologies, adds: “Like many, we are cautious of adopting blockchain given the turbulence of the past year, particularly working in a highly regulated industry.  However, we are optimistic and excited about its potential.  Our team has successfully launched multiple responsible innovative solutions at major financial institutions worldwide over the past three decades and are excited about partnering with Aventus. Aventus has taken the time to get under the hood of our industry and really understand the regulatory requirements, but also the potential for massive growth and improvements in operational efficiencies. The team has recommended blockchain use cases that align with our goal of making reliable trusted financial services available to all at reasonable and transparent prices. The enterprise-grade technology, experienced team and personal approach has given us great confidence in Aventus as our blockchain partner.” 

The rising demand for electronic payments is creating fundamental shifts across Africa and making significant inroads in promoting financial inclusion. A rapidly changing landscape and disruptions mean that incumbent banks need to take radical and concerted action to step up to the competitive challenge, according to a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The report, Reimagining the payments operating model to withstand disruption in Africa, shows that African payments volumes have seen solid growth over the past decade. While cash remains the primary means of payment, digital is growing fast and will continue to gain traction. The report dives into the three drivers behind this shift: the continuing adoption and product deepening of mobile money, new payment competitors entering Africa, and the gaining traction of new payment technologies such as Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) and account-to-account (A2A) technologies.

With the imminent launch of the South African A2A system, known as PayShap, these disruptions are on the banks’ doorstep and, according to the report, South African banks may need to prepare for disruptions to their profitable card businesses.

Considering payment operating models to tackle uncertainty

Faced with disruptions from all sides, banks must ensure they have suitable structures, processes, and partnerships to thrive amidst uncertainty. “Many banks are already beginning these shifts and are reorganising and strengthening their payments infrastructures. In our experience from numerous client engagements, there are four key payment operating models to consider: decentralised, centres of operational excellence, product verticals, and business verticals,” says Yann Sénant, Managing Director and Senior Partner, and Global Head of Payments for BCG.

“In developed markets, where customer needs are relatively similar across operating countries, we have seen a trend of banks taking the bold move to centralise their operating models. In emerging markets, however, banks are taking differing approaches to account for the wide range of consumer and legislative expectations across operating geographies. Selecting the right operating model is highly dependent on the individual bank and their unique goals and ambitions,” says Nadeem Kola, Project Leader in BCG’s Johannesburg office.

The report finds that these disruptions make effective payment partnerships a priority regardless of the chosen organisational structure. Globally, the rate of partnerships between banks and specialised payment service providers (PSPs) is increasing. PSPs tend to operate at a greater scale than traditional banks, enabling them to achieve lower costs. In partnering, banks can also access innovation budgets, people, expertise, and technology solutions that may not be available in-house and refocus their time and efforts on core activities. “To remain competitive in payments, partnering with PSPs is no longer an option; it is a necessity,” says Frédéric Boutet, Managing Director and Partner in BCG’s Johannesburg office.

The 2025 Fintech Pledge (pledge2025.org) has partnered with The Money Charity to launch an ambitious programme of financial education for those hit the hardest by the cost-of-living crisis.

The programme will start immediately and is expected to run until December 2025. Its first year of operations will be funded by Pledge2025 members Zopa bank and credit marketplace ClearScore.

As part of the programme, The Money Charity will set out to reach thousands of people with its financial wellbeing educational training in a free massive open online course (MOOC), as well as through interactive workshops for smaller community groups.

The online course will be broken down into digestible sections that help participants better manage their finances, offering practical tips and actionable insights. The workshops will offer a deeper, more targeted dive into building financial wellbeing & resilience for those seeking more information after completing the online course.

Merve Ferrrero, Chief Strategy Officer at Zopa bank said: “After successful member growth over the last few months, the 2025 Fintech Pledge is now entering its next phase with the launch of a broad financial education programme to drive more financial resilience. We are thrilled to be supporting The Money Charity in this ambitious programme that will help Brits better manage their finances, leading to better financial outcomes for hundreds of consumers."

Michelle Highman, CEO of The Money Charity added: “We are delighted to be partnering with the 2025 Fintech Pledge to reach many more people with our vital financial wellbeing training and through the development of a new and exciting online offering. Now more than ever, we need to work together to reach and help as many people as possible.” 

Justin Basini, CEO and Co-founder of ClearScore said: “Our collaboration with The Money Charity and Zopa via the 2025 Fintech Pledge is delivering the right support at the right time for consumers. Financial wellbeing is critical to help people feel like they are moving forwards.”

Continuing its rapid growth, the Pledge has added five new members to its now 28-strong member cohort of UK fintechs and their industry partners.

New members include:

• Financial coaching & education platform Claro
• Lending platform Freedom Finance
• Cross-border credit bureau Nova Credit
• Financial services API platform Slipstream
• Financial wellbeing provider WealthWizards

Launched by Zopa bank and ClearScore in September 2022, the 2025 Fintech Pledge aims to drive 10 million consumer actions by 2025 that build up the financial resilience of UK consumers.

It will achieve this by connecting people to platforms that make savings work harder, improve credit scores, consolidate debt, and lower utility bills and household outgoing costs.

To date, more than 2 million actions have been reported from all members combined.

Organisations who want to join the pledge and individuals looking to participate in workshops can email join@2025pledge.org to find out more, or visit pledge2025.org.

CleverTap, the modern integrated retention cloud, released its Industry Benchmark Report for Fintech Apps 2022. As fintech apps continue to grow more popular, the number of players vying for market share has increased. This has subsequently reduced customer retention and "stickiness" for any one brand. Therefore, today more than ever, it is crucial that fintech companies find ways to drive customer "stickiness" by engaging users in effective ways that eventually drive transactions and fuel growth. The report reflects data collected from Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, Middle East, and North America. The report gives marketers a truly holistic view of key metrics within the fintech app landscape. It also spans a wide variety of fintech apps, including, but not limited to, mobile payment apps, cryptocurrency, and blockchain services, along with banking and insurance among others. 

These insights will not only serve as a helpful starting point for developing successful engagement strategies but also assist in understanding how an app fares in comparison to global averages. Some of the key metrics in the report include:

- Install to sign-up rate: Only 1 in 5 users that install fintech apps (21%) end up signing up within the first week.
- Average time to sign-up: 70% of the users that sign-up, do so within 75 seconds of launching the app for the first time.
- Sign-up to conversion rate: 95% of newly signed-up users make at least one financial transaction in the first month.
- Average time to convert: 76% of newly signed-up users move from onboarding to deeper-in-the-funnel engagement within an average of 7 days.
- Session frequency: On average, fintech app users launch their app around 11 times a month.
- Average repeat transaction rate for new users: 15% of newly signed-up users complete more than one transaction in the first week.
- Average click-through rate for push notifications: On average, 9% of Android users and 6% of iOS users will click on and interact with push notifications.
- Average click-through rate for in-app notifications: The click-through rate for in-app notifications is 24%, that's about 3 times more than that of push notifications.
- Average email open rate: 34% of users open emails sent by fintech companies.
- Average Stickiness Quotient: Fintech apps enjoy a stickiness quotient of 22%, which indicates nearly one-quarter of MAUs consistently return to their fintech apps.

"The fintech industry has seen exponential growth in the last few years. Given the relentless competition within the space, fintech platforms need to step up their Omnichannel engagement efforts to better retain customers", said Jacob Joseph, VP-Data Science, CleverTap. "The benchmark metrics laid out in our report provide a great starting point for growth marketers looking to develop effective marketing strategies. They will be able to compare numbers against global averages and pinpoint which aspects they are excelling at and which areas could use some attention or innovation."

95% of new fintech users complete a monetary transaction in the first month. This shows that while users see value in fintech apps, it's important to adopt customized user engagement strategies to boost retention on the platform. Today there is a real need for fintech brands to bake in effective marketing strategies within their apps. Users will remain responsive as long as the experience is engaging and seamless. The benchmark report helps fintech apps understand how to build successful mobile communication campaigns, and also allows growth marketers to discover areas that require greater focus.

The report can be downloaded here. https://clevertap.com/insights/mobile-payment-apps-benchmarks-report/

The UK’s largest independent invoice finance provider, Bibby Financial Services (“BFS”) significantly boosted funding for Scotland’s small and medium-sized enterprises in 2022 as part of its ambitious national growth plan.

Debts factored – the total funded turnover of BFS clients in Scotland – grew by 12 per cent to £382m when compared with 2021 with funding advanced growing by 4%.

Mike Day, Head of Sales for BFS Scotland said: “Our team in Scotland had an incredible year in 2022 and we’re already off to a flying start in terms of new business enquiries. We’re in growth mode and ready to support Scottish SMEs and their advisors with working capital and cashflow solutions. We’re now actively recruiting for sales roles to grow our funding further.”

Based in offices on Glasgow’s St Vincent Street, BFS’s sales team is responsible for supporting SMEs with cashflow and working capital solutions to support day-to-day trading, growth and expansion, overseas trade and more complex transactions such as mergers and acquisitions. 

BFS’s recent SME Confidence Tracker survey, undertaken in February, found almost two-fifths of Scottish businesses (39%) don’t have the cash flow they need to operate effectively or grow. 

Mike Day said: “With challenges such as inflation, supply chain disruption and the rising cost of borrowing continuing to hamper the growth of SMEs, we’re committed to doing what we can to help Scottish businesses survive, thrive and grow. We have a fantastic intermediary network of brokers, accountants, insolvency practitioners and advisors who we are working hand-in-hand with to boost our support.”

BFS supports nearly 8,500 SME clients globally through its invoice finance and asset finance solutions. In addition, its product range includes Foreign Exchange, Export and Trade Finance, as well as specialist finance for the construction sector.

In October 2022, it announced its successful securitisation bringing its total funding capacity for SMEs to more than £1.2bn.

Mike Day added: “Our team in Scotland is hugely experienced and we have both the product range and funding capacity to support an expansive range of situations. 

“We look forward to working more closely with the intermediary community from the Lowlands to the Highlands over the coming months to improve outcomes for SMEs in 2023 and beyond.”