Ecospend, the UK’s leading Open Banking payment provider, today announces that more than £2.3 billion in Self Assessment payments were made to HMRC using Ecospend’s ‘Pay-by-Bank’ technology ahead of 2023’s Self Assessment deadline – 64% more than last year. The total volume of transactions was 47% higher than in 2022, with 869,000 payments having been made to HMRC using the technology.

In the last two days before the Self Assessment tax deadline alone, customers paid almost £600 million in tax via Ecospend’s 'Pay-by-Bank' technology. In February last year, HMRC launched an app incorporating Ecospend’s technology, which has significantly contributed to the increase in ‘Pay-by-Bank' payments.

Ecospend’s work with HMRC marks the first time that an Open Banking payment method has been embedded within a government department’s system. Payments made online are sent directly from the taxpayer’s bank account, using validated HMRC details. Therefore, in addition to increased speed, a reduced risk of customer error and cost savings, paying this way also has the potential to limit fraud.

James Hickman, CCO of Ecospend comments:

“The rapid adoption our Open Banking payment solution by HMRC’s customers is hard evidence that account-to-account payments are the best way to meet consumers’ expectations for a fast and simple payment journey.

“We hope that the success of our work with HMRC is a clear demonstration of the benefits that Open Banking can provide to the public sector, businesses and consumers alike and look forward to working with other Government departments, as well as businesses from a range of industries to support them with our innovative payment solution.

Clarency takes a further significant step in integrating its KYC-first payments and liquidity platform into core banking with its announcement today of selecting Form3, the cloud-native account-to-account platform, to provide it with direct access to the Swift network. The move extends its support for international payments and enables further customer growth. Clarency is the first customer on Form3’s Swift-as-a-service solution.

The new collaboration will enable Clarency’s international customers, mainly financial institutions, challenger banks, remittance firms and small businesses, to send and receive international payments on the Swift network. The company currently processes transactions across its twelve core, instant-liquidity currencies and more than 100 less frequently requested exotics.

Clarency will have easy access to the full Swift network via Form3’s cloud-based API. Once live, the new service will be fully automated and allow over 11,000 financial institutions to communicate using their accustomed channel for international payments and cash-management services.  

Michael Mueller, Form3’s CEO, says: “As financial institutions make the shift from MT to ISO 20022 for payments, Form3’s account-to-account cloud technology platform is fast, reliable and adaptable to modernize and upgrade their underlying Swift infrastructure. The collaboration with Clarency further demonstrates our ambition to extend our offering to providing international and cross-border payment services to organisations globally.”

A key business benefit of Form3’s Swift-as-a-service solution includes reduction of operational costs and overheads by leveraging scalable cloud-based services. It also enables customers to future proof their payment systems and remain compliant with new Swift messaging standards. 

Bob Blower, Clarency’s CEO Designate, adds: “Seamless Swift integration has been part of our progress plan since our launch of the biz.Clarency platform. It allows us to greatly extend the transaction information available to our partners beyond the 140 characters supported by the MT103 message. We looked for a technology partner that could connect us to Swift and had the partnership mindset that allows us to innovate together. Form3 ticked both boxes with the enthusiasm that we hoped for. Their cloud platform will expand our payment capabilities safely and reliably and keep pushing forward. The Swift integration is a key element of our move towards self-clearing. I’m convinced Form3 are the guys to help us get there.”

Clarency will offer customer access to Form3’s Swift-as-a-service solution from May this year.

Stubben Edge (Risk) Limited (SERL), wholly owned subsidiary of UK-based FinTech Stubben Edge Group has announced that it has launched three new partnerships with the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI), British Pest Control Association (BPCA) and the Association of Specialist Fire Protection (ASFP). The partnerships provide personalised insurance products for each associations’ members, through a fully white-labelled buying journey, and with 24-hour call-centre support.

Institute of the Motor Industry

The IMI, founded in 1920, is the world’s leading professional body for the automotive industry with 90,000 members in the UK. The partnership has launched with nine products with a fully online buying journey, as well as simple enquiry forms enabling members to access specialist group life and commercial vehicle quotes.

Sarah Whiteside-Jones, Head of Member Engagement at the IMI said: “The core mission of the IMI is to give those working in the automotive sector the support they need both professionally and personally, whether that’s specific training for new automotive skills or ways to help our members outside of the workplace. Our members asked if we could help them save money in the current cost of living crisis, so it made complete sense to us to add a range of insurance offers to our range of benefits; the current economic pressures make it vital that individuals can insure their home and vehicle as cost-effectively as possible, safe in the knowledge that they have the right level of cover.

“The white-label capabilities of Stubben Edge were particularly important to us in ensuring that our members have confidence in the IMI brand and values.”

Association of Specialist Fire Protection

The ASFP is a specialist association which works with personal and commercial customers to lower their exposure to fire and the associated risks. The company has launched this partnership with four products and will expand the product offering once new motor and home products come online.

Rich Green, Commercial Manager at ASFP said, “The Association for Specialist Fire Protection is very pleased to add Stubben Edge to our Member Benefits Hub. The benefits of being an ASFP member go far beyond technical and regulatory support.

“The ASFP Hub is a collection of discounts, free support and advice, and industry initiatives designed to make membership more rewarding. The Stubben Edge products are a valuable addition to the Hub, enabling our members to make real business savings when taking advantage of the service deals the ASFP has negotiated their behalf.”

British Pest Control Association

The partnership with the BPCA introduces a range of bespoke new products for their members. Dee Ward Thompson, Head of Membership, BPCA said, “We regularly get asked by members for help with finding insurance products, particularly for vans and fleets. We’re really excited to have a bespoke range of products for pest companies.

“Our partnership with Stubben Edge (Risk) is an important step for us to continue to support members and we’ll looking forward to growing the relationship. The team has been a great support helping us understand the insurance sector and we’re very much looking forward to sharing their insights with the pest control community.”

Karen Barretto, Deputy CEO of Stubben Edge, said: “The launch of these partnerships demonstrates the huge benefits that harnessing our tech to provide simple to use, online buying journeys makes to members of the UK’s trade and business associations. Along with a significant percentage of the wider community, these members are often under increasing time pressure within their own businesses and not able to access the most appropriate insurance for their specific needs. These partnerships are an important milestone in the growth of Stubben Edge Group and particularly the Affinity Team, led by David Tranter.”

Global Processing Services (“GPS”), a fast-growing next-gen global payments technology platform, today announced the appointment of Paulette Rowe, Shane Happach, and Lynn McCreary as independent Non-Executive Directors. 

Paulette Rowe is one of the most influential women in payments, recognised by American Banker in its annual honours list for three consecutive years, and was formerly CEO of Paysafe’s Integrated and Ecommerce Solutions (IES) division. Paulette brings a wealth of experience across card-based and virtual wallet payment solutions. Prior to Paysafe, Paulette was Head of Payments and Financial Services Partnerships for Facebook and held senior roles in a variety of financial organisations over a 20-year period, including Barclaycard, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Tesco Bank, and GE Capital.  

Shane Happach is an experienced global payments executive with strengths in enterprise sales and fintech-led disruption. Shane was recently named as CEO of Singapore-based fintech, Coda Payments. Prior to Coda, Shane was CEO of payments fintech Mollie for two years, and spent more than a decade at Worldpay, where he held a number of senior positions, including EVP, Head of Global Ecommerce and Chief Commercial Officer. Before Worldpay, he worked with GlobalCollect – acquired by Ingenico in 2014 – in business development roles across the Americas and EMEA. 

Lynn McCreary brings over three decades of experience in legal, business and executive leadership roles to GPS, having worked at financial services and payments firm Fiserv for 11 years, serving as Chief Legal Officer since 2013. Her responsibilities at Fiserv included directing the firm’s global legal, ethical and compliance activities, as well as taking an active role in coordinating its M&A strategy. Prior to joining Fiserv, Lynn was an equity partner at Bryan Cave LLP, now Bryan Cave Lighton Paisner, where she represented the interests of financial services companies, insurance companies, retailers and others in a broad range of commercial disputes. Lynn is currently Chief Legal Officer of Sportradar. 

“Paulette, Shane and Lynn bring a wealth of experience to our Board and will support our team to capitalise on the enormous potential for disruption in the issuer processing space,” said Gene Lockhart, Chair of GPS. “GPS is committed to investing for the long-term to support our clients in accelerating innovation, diversifying product capabilities and facilitating new payments programmes worldwide.”  

GPS has attracted a number of highly experienced global payments executives under the leadership of Kevin Schultz as Chief Executive Officer since July 2022. The company most recently announced the appointment of Visa veteran Jim McCarthy as Executive Vice President – Global Product and Sales, who has more than 30 years of payments experience; Kevin Fox as Chief Revenue Officer, and Jeff Burns as Chief Financial Officer. 

ThetaRay, a leading provider of AI-powered transaction monitoring technology, today announced that Tudi, enabling a digital financial community through its mobile app, has chosen ThetaRay’s cloud-based AML solution to monitor its transactions in Mexico for financial crime. 

A Stella Tech technology company, Tudi is helping the Mexican payment market move to cashless services in a one-stop application that solves the end-user transactional needs, including paying bills, money transfers, top-ups, entertainment services, and government fees. The app also promotes community brand engagement with consumers at merchant point-of-purchase.

Through the agreement, ThetaRay will provide Tudi its SONAR SaaS solution for AI-powered transaction monitoring that can detect the earliest signs of sophisticated financial crimes, including money laundering, narco-trafficking, terrorist financing, and human trafficking, including known and unknown crime patterns.  This will enable Tudi to provide a compliant service under the new Mexican law that regulates fintechs (LRITF) and grow its business with a trusted and safe payment service. 

“Mexican regulators are requiring non-bank payment providers to operate sophisticated AML systems that can prevent money laundering. We were searching for a proven solution that would enable us to be compliant and stay one step ahead of developing AML scenarios in the country that challenge and risk our operations,” said Andrés Adame Guajardo, VP Product at Tudi. “ThetaRay’s technology will help us realize our vision to serve the unbanked in Mexico with low-cost and convenient digital financial services. The younger generations are not deterred by technology, and digital platforms will enable them to become stronger financial players, reduce the cash-based economy, and increase economic prosperity through the use of modern financial services.”

According to the World Bank, in Mexico only 37 per cent of adults in Mexico have accounts, and just 32 per cent have made or received digital payments, both significantly below numbers in countries with similar levels of development.

“Tudi is a digital financial services leader that is helping promote financial inclusion by bringing innovative services to underserved economic players.  With ThetaRay’s advanced and effective AI-driven AML technology these services can also be trusted by financial partners and regulators,” said Mark Gazit, CEO of ThetaRay. “The ThetaRay AI solution also makes the entire process of transaction monitoring efficient and effective, while improving customer satisfaction, reducing compliance costs, and increasing risk coverage with safe and secure payments.”

ThetaRay’s award-winning SONAR solution is based on a proprietary form of AI, artificial intelligence intuition, that replaces human bias, giving the system the power to recognize anomalies and find unknowns outside of normal behaviour, including completely new typologies. It enables fintechs and banks to implement a risk-based approach to effectively identify truly suspicious activity and create a full picture of customer identities, including across complex, cross-border transaction paths. This allows the rapid discovery of both known and unknown money laundering threats.

Metaco announces today its cooperation with DZ BANK AG, the central institution to the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken cooperative financial network, one of the largest banking groups in Germany. As a central institution, DZ BANK provides a multitude of services, particularly asset management services, being one of the largest German custodians, with €297 billion assets under custody at the end of 2022.

DZ BANK, a BaFin-regulated financial institution and custody provider, places the foremost importance on regulatory compliance and security. Metaco’s custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize™, was selected by DZ BANK through an extensive proof-of-concept and diligence process. Harmonize™ has proven to be a powerful solution, helping DZ BANK to build an attractive and secure offering to institutional clients in the space of crypto securities (German eWpG) and digital currencies – fully integrated into its current asset management services.

Metaco’s agnostic model enables different deployment methods, as well as a hardware-enforced key management infrastructure, securing multiple types of digital assets – including tokenized securities like bonds and equities. Harmonize™ offers a versatile governance framework with customizable risk and compliance controls, with full segregation of multiple business units and clients, guaranteeing isolation of policies, users, accounts, and assets

Nils Christopeit, Lead Solution Design Digital Custody at DZ BANK, commented: “In terms of our security, scalability, and future requirements of our digital asset custody initiative for institutional clients, starting with crypto securities as per the German eWpG, Metaco Harmonize has proven to be a powerful solution that is fit for purpose and can support our intended operating model. With the offering we can build by using this technology, we trust to create a durable and fast-growing business cooperation as well as an attractive solution for our clients that can also meet the requirements of digital currencies and decentralized financial instruments."

Craig Perrin, Chief Sales Officer at Metaco, commented: “Metaco’s digital asset technology infrastructure is purposely designed to support financial institutions to capitalize on the digital asset economy. We are excited to announce this cooperation as it further establishes Metaco as a market leader in Germany, trusted by some of the country’s largest banks and exchanges.”

Nils Christopeit, Lead Solution Design Digital Custody at DZ BANK, commented: “In terms of our security, scalability, and future requirements of our digital asset custody initiative for institutional clients, starting with crypto securities as per the German eWpG, Metaco Harmonize has proven to be a powerful solution that is fit for purpose and can support our intended operating model. With the offering we can build by using this technology, we trust to create a durable and fast-growing business cooperation as well as an attractive solution for our clients that can also meet the requirements of digital currencies and decentralized financial instruments."

Craig Perrin, Chief Sales Officer at Metaco, commented: “Metaco’s digital asset technology infrastructure is purposely designed to support financial institutions to capitalize on the digital asset economy. We are excited to announce this cooperation as it further establishes Metaco as a market leader in Germany, trusted by some of the country’s largest banks and exchanges.”

In 2022, the countries of South & Southeast Asia saw a YoY decline of 83% in new fintechs, with only 349 startups emerging in the region. However, the volume of investments has not decreased so dramatically, with investors choosing less risky strategies, as revealed by the analytical centre of Robocash Group.

The newly formed fintechs were able to raise about USD 153 M via various financing rounds. This is 1.4% of the total attracted investments in fintech in this region.

The Payments & Transfers sector accounted for the largest number of new companies in SEA & SA - 72 (20.6% of the total), mostly concentrated in India. Meanwhile, Blockchain & Crypto and Exchange-traded assets featured 47 companies each (13.5%), most of which were based in Singapore. Finally, there were 38 new alternative lending companies (10.9%).
 

However, the total amount raised by all fintech companies in the region decreased to USD 12.7 Bn (-38.6% compared to 2021). Robocash Group analysts cite the lack of public information, as investment aggregators are still adding new company profiles. Still, the missing data is unlikely to make a significant difference in the total showing for 2022, especially compared to the previous year.

“The decline in the number of new fintechs greatly exceeds the reduction in the volume of investment attraction. Investors are opting for less risky strategies, wary of the incoming worldwide recession. The market is "cleansing", leaving room for only the most sustainable fintech companies”, comment the analysts at Robocash Group.
 

Assuming the current decade-long trend holds, the number of new companies may grow by 21.6% in 2023 from the current 349 to 425. At the same time, the attraction of funds for all fintech companies may reach USD 13.2 Bn.

Temenos has been awarded AnchorGold Class distinction in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook for 2023 with the highest score (80/100) for the Software industry.

The Yearbook is based on the S&P 2022 Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) of 7,822 of the world's largest companies using an extensive set of criteria that includes climate strategy and operational eco-efficiency, talent attraction and retention and corporate governance.

Based on this evaluation, Temenos was awarded a Top 1% S&P Global ESG Score and ranked joint-first among 244 companies assessed in the Software category.

This latest recognition reinforces Temenos' position as a leader in sustainability. In 2022, Temenos was also awarded a triple-A rating in the Morgan Stanley Capital Investment’s (MSCI)  ESG rating, the highest possible score, and stays a constituent of the FTSE4Good Index Series, created by the global index provider FTSE Russell. Temenos has also been awarded an A- rating by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) for the second year running.

Kalliopi Chioti, Chief Marketing & ESG Officer at Temenos, said: “We are proud to once again join the world’s best-performing businesses in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook. To be placed at the top in our industry shows our strong commitment to sustainability and transparent disclosure, having set ambitious targets validated by the Science Based Target Initiative and integrating ESG into our operations and product offerings.”

Last year, Temenos launched the Temenos carbon emissions calculator to give customers deeper insight into carbon emissions data associated with their consumption of Temenos Banking Cloud services. It also announced a new ESG Investing as-a-service, helping banks and wealth managers meet the growing demand for sustainable investing.

This latest accolade further reflects Temenos’ commitment to ESG disclosure and transparency. The company has endorsed the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), it supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and communicates its non-financial performance annually in the Sustainability Report within its Annual Report following Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards.

Temenos is included in the SXI Switzerland Sustainability 25® Index, among the 25 Swiss stocks from the SMI® Expanded Index with the best sustainability scores. In addition to its S&P ESG and FTSE4Good index ratings, Temenos has also been awarded an A- rating by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and obtained platinum recognition, placing Temenos among the top 1% performers assessed by EcoVadis.

As an industry first, Wagepay, the earned-wages access fintech based in Brisbane, has switched on  PayTo for real-time customer payments. This has been done in partnership with Monoova, the award-winning Sydney-based payment service provider. 

Spearheaded by the Reserve Bank of Australia, PayTo is a fast and data-rich service suitable for both one-off and recurring payments. Over time, it is expected that PayTo will replace several current payment methods such as traditional direct debits and online card payments. 

Built on the New Payments Platform’s real-time infrastructure, PayTo debits are actioned and cleared instantly, which means that merchants do not have to wait days before money arrives, as is currently the case with direct debits. The immediacy and transparency of the experience also delivers confidence to consumers that they have paid their bills in the right amount at the right time.  

Already, existing customers of Wagepay are being encouraged to create a PayTo mandate. In the first three weeks of going live, more than 3,000 PayTo agreements were issued by Monoova to  Wagepay customers.  

Wagepay’s Founder and CEO Tony Chan said: “Our customers are jumping straight in. They are moving away from direct debits. Now we really just need more banks to enable PayTo.” 

Additional features of PayTo include stronger consumer controls and visibility of their active PayTo agreements/mandates, automated and versatile payment agreements, and more data, creating a  better experience for both consumers and merchants. 

“We see clear benefits in moving our customers onto PayTo so they can enjoy better visibility and control over their money. For us as a business, reconciliations are easier too, so PayTo is a much better user experience for everyone,” said Mr Chan. 

Increasingly sophisticated payments options like PayTo have the potential to revolutionise how merchants, lenders and other businesses handle large volumes of payments.  

Monoova’s CEO Christian Westerlind Wigstrom said: “For businesses, PayTo improves cash flow with real-time transactions and funds verification. Receiving cleared funds straight away is a big change to the way we think of debits in Australia. It also offers an interesting alternative to card schemes.”