Lasse Skog, Director of Development at State Treasury of Finland, comments: “Certain public administrative organisations are obligated by the Finnish law, decrees, and other norms to disburse benefits, compensations, subsidies, and other payments to beneficiaries. For a legitimate reason, a part of these payments requires an alternative payment method to complement traditional account transfers. These organisations have been using an existing prepaid payment card solution. Public procurement is typically characterised by fixed-term contracts, and the previous framework contract reaching the end of its life cycle called for a new public procurement round.”

Denise Johansson, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Enfuce, says: “We are honoured that the State Treasury of Finland and Kela trust our expertise in building a service that guarantees secure payments for those who need them as well as efficient and transparent payment processes for the Finnish government and Kela. Enfuce boasts an SLA of 99.99%, which makes the prepaid card highly reliable. The beneficiaries never have to worry whether their card works at the shop checkout.”

Lasse Skog, Director of Development at State Treasury of Finland, comments: “For governmental organisations and Kela, the core of the partnership is to get a payment method that meets our requirements, is cost-efficient, and is easy to use for our prepaid card users. In addition to that, we expect Enfuce to be able to deliver the service, further develop the features according to our needs, and support us in our work to develop efficient processes. We also hope to gain an open and goal-oriented cooperation with Enfuce building on a tight partnership.”

Monika Liikamaa, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Enfuce, says: “We are excited to be a part of building an exceptional user experience for the customers of the government. Us founders of Enfuce have a background and experience in building banks, and Enfuce’s clients serve cardholders on a wide scale. The government gets access to all of this experience – we are able to deeply understand the needs of their different user groups and deliver a payment card service to match those needs.” 

Exciting news for online merchants as Boodil, the specialist account-to-account payments solution, announces its partnership with Aero Commerce, one of the UK’s fastest-growing e-commerce platforms. The partnership will allow consumers to make highly secure payments in just three taps, making the payment process quick, easy and secure, whilst eliminating slow and clunky traditional payment methods. With online transaction volumes for mobile payments expected to grow from 26 billion in 2021 to 49 billion in 2023 representing a 92% growth, the partnership will enable merchants to extract even more value from their transactions. 

Merchants can now access Boodil's Pay by Bank account-to-account payment solution, which offers plug-and-play onboarding, so no bespoke integration is required. This means merchants can be saving up to 75% per transaction compared to card payments. Boodil's frictionless payment process increases conversion rates, streamlines cash flow via instant settlements and rewards customers every time they spend; similar to using a rewards credit card. Security is also improved, significantly reducing fraud and eliminating chargebacks entirely, as all transactions are Secure Customer Authentication (SCA) compliant. 

Shane Williams, CCO of Boodil, comments: “We’re delighted to be Aero Commerces’ first Open  Banking payment provider, directly integrated within their platform. Aero Commerce has one of the most innovative and feature-rich e-commerce platforms in the market and we are excited to roll our solution out with their various merchants. Our partnership will deliver quick and easy  payments to their online merchants, ensuring that the process of completing a checkout is a  seamless and secure experience for consumers whilst rewarding them every time they spend.” 

Richard Bendelow, CEO of Aero Commerce explains: It’s essential that online merchants allow their customers to pay for goods and services easily, seamlessly, and in line with their personal preferences. Our partnership with Boodil delivers all of these benefits. The team’s respected  knowledge of the payments landscape and the advanced functionality of its platform makes them  an obvious partner to support Aero Commerce with offering our agencies merchants an Open  Banking payments solution.” 

With Boodil's easy-to-use payment solution, merchants can now materialize the benefits of  Open Banking payments, streamlining their own cash flow whilst exciting and rewarding their customers. The partnership with Aero Commerce is a significant step on this journey, and with  Boodil's deep understanding of the payments landscape, the possibilities here are endless.

AppTech Payments Corp., an innovative Fintech company powering seamless, omni-channel commerce between businesses and consumers, has engaged international investor relations specialists MZ Group (MZ) to lead a comprehensive strategic investor relations and financial communications program across all key markets.

MZ Group will work closely with AppTech management to develop and implement a comprehensive capital markets strategy designed to increase the Company’s visibility throughout the investment community. The campaign will highlight AppTech’s Commerce Experiences-as-a-Service (“CXS”) platform, which is the first-to-market, cloud-based program backed by AppTech’s mobile commerce patents, core partner technology and other related internal intellectual property. CXS solutions seamlessly deliver digital banking, text-to-pay, and merchant services altogether from a single, unified platform to create flexible, rich, personalized payments and banking experiences for end users.

With a strong balance sheet and exceptional product and leadership teams, the Company is well-positioned to become the premier Fintech SaaS platform powering high-conversion, immersive, commerce experiences for businesses and their customers worldwide.

MZ has developed a distinguished reputation as a premier resource for institutional investors, brokers, analysts and private investors and maintains offices worldwide. Michael Kim, Managing Director at MZ North America—who brings over 20 years of experience in financial services—will advise AppTech’s IR team in all facets of investor relations, including the coordination of roadshows and investment conferences across key cities and building brand awareness with financial and social media outlets.

According to Research and Markets, the global market for Digital Commerce Platforms is estimated at $12.8 billion in 2022 and projected to reach $38 billion by 2030, representing a CAGR of 14.6%.

Greg Falensik, Chief Executive Officer of MZ Group North America, commented: “With the rise of Fintech and emergence of a variety of payment types and platforms, businesses are increasingly looking for a better way to provide their customers with immersive commerce experiences. The commerce experience, or buying journey, begins with customer awareness and continues through purchase and post-purchase feedback. This experience is supported by programmed interactions that center on improving customer satisfaction and a seamless journey. By 2024, 15% of B2B organizations will use digital commerce platforms to support both customers and sales reps in all sales activities. The Covid pandemic intensified the use of digital commerce platforms at an exponential rate as businesses looked to cloud-based digital commerce solutions. AppTech is well positioned to capture market share with its first-to-market, cloud-based CXS platform that offers a truly omni-channel payment experience delivered through feature-rich embedded payment processing. Differentiated by its entire approach, from strategy and development to packaging and delivery of CXS, we believe AppTech presents an exciting opportunity, and we look forward to sharing this with our network of institutional, family offices and retail investors.”

Michael Kim, Managing Director of MZ Group North America, added: “AppTech’s CXS platform provides businesses with everything they need to accept digital payments, including credit card and alternative payment processing services. It’s Payments-as-a-Service equips businesses with merchant services from physical credit and debit card processing to e-commerce, mobile, and new forms of contactless payments. Banking-as-a-Service offers transformative digital banking capabilities that drive efficiency by automating financial control and reconciliation. Taken together, CXS solutions incorporate PaaS, BaaS, Data, AI/ML, MarTech and other features to create flexible, rich, personalized payment and banking experiences for end users. We look forward to working with management to communicate the immense value proposition AppTech represents as the business scales in 2023 and beyond.”

“Over the past year, we have made tremendous progress in positioning AppTech for accelerated growth,” said Luke D’Angelo, Chief Executive Officer of AppTech. “Not only did we successfully complete a raise to strengthen our balance sheet, but we continued to reinvest in the business by expanding our leadership team, while also announcing new strategic partnerships with leading global companies. Looking ahead, we are highly focused on monetizing our growing pipeline of clients to drive revenue, profitability, and ultimately, shareholder value.”

“We look forward to working with Michael and the entire team at MZ Group to communicate the potential of our revolutionary, cloud-hosted Fintech platform that delivers a seamless Commerce Experiences from a fully integrated, modular technology stack,” concluded D’Angelo.

Iliad Solutions Ltd, the world’s foremost payment testing company, has announced a strategic partnership with Serquo Ltd, adding Serquo's leading ATM / Device testing to its t3 testing platform. 

Initially the companies will work together offering this extended capability to all existing customers, where relevant, providing an end-to-end testing capability. As both companies extend their international reach they will work in partnership on new customer opportunities.

Iliad Solutions’ products and services, used by leading financial institutions around the globe, help to minimise the risk when deploying new payments technology, reducing the costs associated with testing and improve the speed of launching new systems.

t3, with its new ATM application testing capability, orchestrates and simplifies the process of payment testing and certification. Sophisticated controls can be applied to projects at every level, with real-time data available via intuitive dashboard views. Customers can test complex transactions with schemes simply and with efficiency - tests are fully automated and can run at up to 5000 transactions per second. 

Serquo is a global company with experience in technology, banking and payment solutions for over 30 years.  The high quality of its developments and products as well as the flexibility of its team are some of the reasons for Serquo's success.

Atmirage is a simulator for ATMs and other self-service machines. In addition to developing applications with no need for a physical ATM/hardware, it allows the user to automate all the tests, generating detailed reports.

Anthony Walton, Iliad Solutions CEO commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with Serquo, it’s a collaboration which will benefit both businesses and our respective customers. Interfacing with an established ATM simulator effectively extends t3’s end-to-end capability allowing us to be a one stop, payments testing provider for our roster of international financial institutions.”

Walton adds: “Those licensing the enhanced t3 testing platform will be able to bring their digital payments and transaction solutions to market quicker and more efficiently via the high-level of automation and configurability the t3 platform provides.”

Galia Gómez, CEO of Serquo added: “We are delighted to be partnering with Iliad. Their payment testing solutions are world class, making them a perfect choice to integrate with our ATM simulator and propose a complete solution to clients and prospects. This collaboration will open doors in new markets for both parties.”

ebankIT, an omnichannel digital banking platform, has signed a partnership with °neo by Five Degrees, the cloud-native core banking platform. The collaboration seeks to improve digital experiences by creating a more robust end-to-end banking platform for banks and other lenders. This gives them the modern financial tools to reduce their time-to-market and stay ahead of the competition.

ebankIT, with its headquarters in Porto, Portugal complements Five Degrees’ cloud-native core banking which has a robust lending and account engines to enable the banks to deliver more humanized, personalized, and accessible digital experiences across all channels. ebankIT found a committed partner in °neo by Five Degrees, which also has a dedicated team in Lisbon, Portugal and is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

The core of the collaboration is built around the need of today’s banks and lenders to continuously innovate to stay ahead in the market. In this environment, institutions can only remain competitive if they quickly adapt and fully embrace the digital banking transformation. The collaboration between °neo by Five Degrees and ebankIT delivers on this need, providing a best-of-breed approach and an expedited time-to-market.

Larissa Cavalcante, Alliances & Partnerships Manager at ebankIT said: “At ebankIT, we have no doubts that cloud solutions, combined with omnichannel technology, will represent a crucial role in the future of the banking industry. That's why we are very pleased to partner with °neo by Five Degrees on what we believe will be a very fruitful and innovative collaboration. With the joint portfolio of both companies, our labs will be able to offer increasingly powerful solutions to banks and credit unions all over the world."

Stefan Wittens, Platform Experience & Ecosystem lead at °neo by Five Degrees said: "We are excited to announce a partnership with ebankIT for our cloud-native core banking offering °neo. Together with ebankIT, we pursue opportunities to make the life of our clients more straightforward and more efficient with the best of both worlds, a best-of-breed core banking offering with a complete digital banking platform on top. ebankIT's impressive portfolio, footprint, and strive for digital transformation make our collaboration a natural fit. Our partnership will improve the time-to-market and speed up innovation for the many joint clients to come."

Nexi, the European PayTech, in partnership with Jakala, the leading Italian Martech company, has founded CVM Martech Lab, the new Customer Value Management centre for the financial services sector, which aims to provide banks and fintechs with the best data science, marketing know-how and technologies for CVM development, through solutions that leverage the key role of digital payments in customer engagement.

Established in Milan but with a European reach, CVM Martech Lab stems from the desire of the two companies to pool engagement best practices within the evolution of digital payments for the benefit of banks and financial service institutions. Banks, fintechs and industry players will be able to tap into the significant economies of scale and scope guaranteed by CVM Martech Lab, while also benefiting from the complementary nature of the tools and practices that Nexi and Jakala plan to bring into the mix.

"Customer Value Management today has a strategic value in financial services for both traditional players and newcomers - for the former it is an essential acquisition lever, almost always as an investment in and subsequent development of customer value, while for the latter it is a key retention and loyalty driver. In this scenario, digital payments play a key role because they are, together with bank current accounts, the most widespread service, they are used on a daily basis and they carry useful data,” said Flaminio Francisci, Customer Value Management Director at Nexi.

“CVM Martech Lab aims to be a powerful accelerator to develop customer engagement at a systemic level. We at Nexi, after more than six years of work to develop multiple solutions for a large number of banks, have built up a wealth of experience and processes that, together with those of Jakala, represent a real value for Italy and we intend to export this value to Europe."

In fact, currently over 150 Italian banks already have access to the cutting-edge CVM solutions and methodologies offered by Nexi and Jakala, which result in engaged customers, high value-added services and products that enable the development of healthy customer value throughout the customer lifecycle from acquisition to retention, engagement programs included.

Similarly, Jakala, on the back of its know-how in combining marketing and technology, has set out on a specific path that in recent years has seen the company bring together centres of expertise that are unique in the Italian and European market scenario.

Gabriele Pozzi, Managing Director of Jakala commented: "At Jakala we drive technological transformation and promote innovation through a mix of talent, technology, data and analytics. The success of any engagement program is closely linked to an understanding of its target market. We are proud of the partnership with Nexi, because it allows us to apply our know-how in the field of engagement, intervening in a key moment of the customer engagement process like digital payments. Indeed, in this process it is essential to implement a data-driven profiling approach and real-time interaction aimed at being relevant when it counts."

Digital payments represent, therefore, the best possible customer engagement opportunity, both because of the large amount of data and information they carry, and because of their cross-generational nature and ease of use. Nexi's CVM Martech Lab enables organisations offering products and services based on the payment experience to maximise the value of their customers by engaging them through digital payments and developing new business propositions aimed at the customers themselves.

UK car finance fintech Carmoola has raised a £8.5 million Series A round and £95 million debt facility to revolutionise the way people pay for car purchases.

The round was led by US-based fintech specialists QED Investors, with participation from existing investors VentureFriends and InMotion Ventures, the investment arm of Jaguar Land Rover. It also includes a debt facility provided by Natwest, priming Carmoola for rapid growth in a lucrative market worth £120 billion in the UK alone.

Launched only ten months ago, Carmoola is liberating the archaic, slow, and backwards car finance market with a new, straightforward “neo car finance” product that is effortless to use and reduces the time taken to complete a car purchase from days to just minutes. Carmoola’s exclusive proprietary technology and systems enable a streamlined process that provides buyers with a budget, generates a free history check on the car, and allows payment to be made both instantly online and at the showroom within just 60 seconds using a Carmoola virtual card for a seamless consumer experience.

Carmoola CEO Aidan Rushby said: “Used-car finance couldn’t be more ready for a fintech revolution. Consumers want the freedom to go shopping anywhere, knowing what they can spend, without sending off reams of forms and payslips.

“Frustrated consumers are being put in a corner with excessive rates, manipulated commission, and poor customer service, but it’s the very process of getting finance that is at the heart of the problem. It’s full of paperwork, lengthy processes, and lack of certainty, but most importantly, car finance is obtained after the consumer has fallen in love with the car they want, which wholly puts them on the back foot. Until now, that is.”  

With 7.5 million used car purchases being completed in the UK alone in 2022 - at an average price of £13,705, Carmoola is serving a £120 billion market for pre-approved car finance.  

Yusuf Özdalga, Partner and Head of Europe at QED Investors, the backer of finance unicorns Remitly and NuBank that led the round into Carmoola, said: “Having not adapted to modern expectations for the consumer, the car finance industry has been caught off guard by the new neo-car finance brand Carmoola, who champion the consumer at every part of the process. Carmoola is on track to dominate the car finance sector with a game-changing approach to purchasing.”

The funding will be immediately deployed to continue to scale the business and support the rapid customer adoption Carmoola has seen since launching just ten months ago. The plan is to grow the team to 20 people to meet demand, with the customer at the heart of their business. This championing of customer service and experience has earned Carmoola ratings at a minimum of 4.9 out of 5 across all review platforms. 

Rushby added: “This funding will not only drive our ambitious growth aspirations but enable us to continue putting the customer at the forefront of everything we do.”

Carmoola will also be launching green discounts in the coming months, which aim to incentivise consumers to utilise more sustainable choices. Pure-electric cars rose by 57% to take a 1% share of the used market, which will become a continuing trend for Carmoola to capitalise on.

Medius, a leading provider of AP Automation and wider spend management solutions, has been selected by clothing and lifestyle retailer  White Stuff, to automate its Accounts Payable process, in a move to improve visibility and autonomy across its invoice processing.

White Stuff selected Medius’s AP Automation solution to boost efficiency and transparency across the finance department, recognising that Medius’s “plug-and-play” solution could be integrated seamlessly into White Stuff’s ERP system, thereby replacing manual processes.

Implementation was delivered on time and on schedule and with Medius’ pre-built connectors, White Stuff was able to integrate seamlessly. “The process was smooth, fast and well managed and we were able to plug into our ERP system,” noted Rory Whitman.

Rory Whitman, Accounts Payable and Receivable Manager at White Stuff, says: “Switching to Medius has been a game changer for our accounts team, who are now able to process our invoice volumes with greater speed, accuracy, and efficiency by automating manual systems. The team was also impressed by how easy the system is to use and the seamless integration into our existing payment processes. We have established an automated workflow, which has increased visibility and tracking, enabling us to reach a level of unprecedented efficiency!”

Daniel Ball, Executive Vice President of Product at Medius says: “We are delighted that Medius has helped White Stuff to operate more sustainably and with more transparency and efficiency - and it’s been a privilege to work alongside them in achieving this.” 

Blockchain and IoT connectivity leaders, Minima and stacuity are teaming up to revolutionise IoT installations across multiple industries. The partnership will integrate Minima's decentralised blockchain capabilities with stacuity's programmable core mobile network and SIM cards, providing an exciting set of tools for IoT customers.

This collaboration between Minima and stacuity is set to democratise access to mobile connectivity by combining their powerful and complementary technology, making it easier for telecom operators, service providers, and IoT solution developers to innovate at the intersection of blockchain and IoT.

The partnership will provide IoT customers with the tools they need to enhance their IoT installations across numerous industries, including smart buildings, energy, automotive, health, logistics, and water.

By combining the strengths of their respective networks, Minima and stacuity are opening up new possibilities for IoT connectivity, security, identity, and decentralisation. This partnership has the potential to accelerate innovation in the IoT market by making these technologies more accessible and user-friendly.

"We are excited to partner with stacuity to offer a powerful set of tools for industrial IoT installations in a secure decentralised manner,” said Hugo Feiler, CEO of Minima. “By integrating Minima's blockchain technology with stacuity's programmable core mobile network, we can offer telecom operators secure data handling and users a simple SIM-based product."

"This partnership has the potential to democratise access to two powerful and complementary sets of technology," says Mike Bromwich, stacuity's founder and a telecom industry veteran. "We are excited by this partnership to accelerate innovation in the IoT market and offer our customers the tools they need to succeed in the IoT industry."

Working together, the two companies have the potential to change the way IoT devices are connected and managed, allowing IoT customers to innovate more easily and quickly.

Minima and stacuity will be attending the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from February 27 to March 2.

Computop, the international payment service provider (PSP), will be presenting its new series of card terminals at the EuroShop 2023 trade fair in Dusseldorf (26 Feb – 2 Mar). The Linux-based devices from Swiss partner, PayTec, expand the existing range with three options for the most typical use cases in retail.
 
With the support of ZVT and OPI, the new Computop models have been designed for the most common international connection protocols of POS terminals. They enable card acceptance via magnetic stripe, chip and contactless NFC transmission and are certified according to the PCI PTS* 5.x and 6.x security standards. This guarantees that they can be used for at least 10 years.
 
Direct connection to omnichannel platform
The new terminals are fully installed with software and communicate directly with the Computop Paygate payment platform. On this platform, Computop, as an authorised girocard network operator, combines POS and e-commerce payments into a uniform omnichannel payment. POS customers also benefit from the acquirer-agnostic approach of Computop Paygate, as they are not tied to a specific acquirer for card acceptance.
For the first time, Computop is using hardware manufactured by Castle to underpin the hardware of its new POS terminals, an indicator that it is continuing to diversify its supplier relationships. Like all other Computop terminals, the new series will also be approved according to the PCI P2PE* security standard and is suitable for highly secure encrypted data transmission.
 
The devices in detail:
- The V3 PIN Pad is a compact card terminal for stationary use at the checkout, which is connected via an Ethernet connection.
- The V3 Countertop is equipped with a thermal printer and can be connected via Ethernet or optionally via Wi-Fi. It is suitable for both cash register connection and as a standalone device.
- The V3 Mobile is a portable terminal with thermal printer that can be accessed via Wi-Fi or 4G / LTE / 3G.
 
All three card terminals can be updated via remote maintenance. The new devices will be available from June 2023.

Stephan Kück, Managing Director of Computop, said of the new terminal launch: "The requirements of various major customers have prompted us to supplement our offering. The three new terminals are extremely powerful and very secure due to the upcoming P2PE approval. With them, we cover all important application scenarios in retail."