Pasi Ilola, Founder and CEO at Starcart, comments: “Starcart wants to take the pain away from online shopping. We don't want people to waste their time opening endless browser tabs or spending hours looking for things that they need. What Starcart is doing is unique in the market, and offering a service that has not existed in the market before brings a whole host of technical, legal and operational challenges. Monika Liikamaa, Enfuce’s Co-founder and Co-CEO, was one of the first people I spoke to when I first had the idea for the company. Monika’s deep expertise in payments, and Enfuce’s stellar reputation in empowering clients with CaaS and digital wallet capabilities meant they were my first choice of partner.

 

“Enfuce have been a very friendly partner to us, and they have solved all the technical and legal challenges we were faced with as a completely new kind of business. It’s been amazing to see how quickly they’ve enabled us to get up and running with card payments and to see how our service is meeting a real need in the market. Enfuce’s capabilities have enabled us to enjoy consistent growth and offer our customers even more choice and convenience.”

Denise Johansson, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Enfuce, says: “We’re absolutely delighted that we’ve helped a fellow Finnish pioneer to achieve so much success in such a short space of time. We have been and are there to support Starcart to create a seamless and smooth user experience. Payment often is the least fun part of online shopping, but together we are making it as slick and as smooth as possible. Our partnership is a fantastic example of how Enfuce does the heavy lifting of card issuing and processing, empowering businesses to focus on their core operations with the reassurance of a trusted compliant partner helping them in their quests to drive growth and customer loyalty.”

Mooncascade, the design and software development company, announced a strategic partnership with Salt Edge, the leading provider of open banking solutions. Together they want to ensure full PSD2 compliance while delivering seamless customer journeys. Their aim is to bring the latest advancements regarding UX, security, and open banking, while providing innovative fintech services to customers around the world.

"We are thrilled to partner with Mooncascade and bring their cutting-edge technology to our customers," said Mihaela Babici, Business Growth Manager at Salt Edge. "We strive to create innovative solutions that will improve financial services for both institutions and consumers. By teaming up, we bring innovations, and stay ahead of the curve in the evolving financial services industry."

Mooncascade’s German General Manager, Jan Kloth, added, "We are excited to partner up with Salt Edge, and strive to offer quality and security in banking integrations for both our clients. Our services and knowledge complement each other and we share similar values. Together we offer better value to the fintech community not only today but also tomorrow."

Soldo, the London-based fintech creating the next generation of payments and expense management solutions, has today selected Form3, the cloud-native account-to-account platform, to provide SEPA Credit Transfer and Instant connectivity.

Soldo’s upgraded SEPA capabilities will allow it to update its payment technology to boost customer growth as its business expands, taking advantage of SEPA Instant adoption mandate in 2023.

Julian Colls, Form3’s Chief Customer Officer, said: “We are excited to be partnering with Soldo to help realise their exciting ambitions in Europe as they benefit from the flexibility and resilience of Form3’s fully managed, cloud-native, account-to-account technology platform.  Soldo’s customers will now also experience true real-time payments previously only available to direct scheme participants.”

The new partnership sees Form3 providing Soldo with direct technical access to the SEPA clearing system via its cloud-based, single payment API account-to-account platform, using a direct non-settling participant model provided in collaboration with Barclays Bank.

Carlo Gualandri, Soldo’s CEO, commented: “Secure, reliable and scalable real-time financial interactions are the foundation of everything we do. So, we're delighted to partner with Form3 to provide bank-strength connections for instant payments in the UK and across the SEPA region. This is another example of our deep investment in the best infrastructure for our customers, as they look for new, digital ways to manage their money.”

Soldo’s new SEPA offerings, underpinned by Form3’s cloud technology, are now live for customers.

Digital Wallet Infrastructure platform ‘Liminal’ announces a partnership with ‘Notabene’, the leading end-to-end solution for crypto Travel Rule compliance, enabling safe and compliant crypto transactions. As a part of this partnership, both companies will work together to create a safe and compliant crypto ecosystem.

The collaboration allows Liminal and Notabene to provide an integrated solution for compliant crypto transactions. While Liminal's blockchain platform enables secure digital asset management, Notabene's compliance technology ensures that all transactions comply with Travel Rule requirements. Together, the two companies are offering a comprehensive suite of compliance solutions that will help users efficiently execute and track their digital asset transactions in a compliant manner.

As a part of this partnership, Liminal will integrate Notabene’s Travel Rule solution with a set of standard rules to provide a plug-and-play Travel Rule solution within its platform for its clients. Under this, Liminal’s clients would create profiles in Notabene’s VASP network, where they can also join online product training sessions.

Commenting on the collaboration, Manan Vora, SVP of Strategy & Operations at Liminal, said, “Liminal and Notabene are committed to making digital asset transactions more secure and compliant. With this partnership, we are taking a significant step towards achieving this goal. The integrated solution will help to ensure that the cryptocurrency market remains compliant and secure for all users.”

"Through Travel Rule compliance, we're not just raising the bar for the industry - we're building a foundation of trust that will help bring cryptocurrency into the mainstream economy. We're thrilled to be teaming up with Liminal to make the crypto world a safer and more compliant place for everyone."

The partnership is expected to benefit both companies as well as the cryptocurrency market as a whole. It will help to reduce the risk of non-compliance while providing users with a secure and reliable way to manage their digital assets. Additionally, the partnership will provide industry-leading compliance technology and expertise, as well as a seamless user experience.

OKX, the world-leading cryptocurrency platform, has issued updates for the week of February 13, 2023.

OKX Web3 Wallet integrates with Core Network
The OKX Web3 Wallet has integrated with the Core Network to allow Core users to take advantage of OKX’s leading Web3 ecosystem.

The integration allows eligible users to claim airdrops from Core and receive CORE tokens directly to their OKX Wallets. OKX listed CORE for spot trading on its exchange on February 8, 2023.

Core is an L1 blockchain that combines the composability of an EVM chain, with the decentralization and security of Bitcoin.

The OKX Web3 Wallet is a decentralized, multi-chain wallet that gives users control over their own private keys and serves as a portal to the wider Web3 ecosystem in addition to OKX’s own multi-chain, cross-chain DEX and NFT aggregation trading platform.

CURVE integrates OKX Web3 Wallet web extension
The OKX Web3 Wallet has also partnered with Curve, an exchange liquidity pool on Ethereum and multi-chains. The partnership involves the OKX DEX aggregating Curve’s liquidity, OKX Discover offering support for Curve, and Curve integrating the OKX Wallet web extension on its website.

Curve is designed for extremely efficient stablecoin trading achieved by implementing the StableSwap invariant, which has significantly lower slippage for stablecoin trades than many other prominent invariants.

OKX announces $BLUR listing
OKX is pleased to announce that it now lists $BLUR on its exchange as of February 13, 2023. $BLUR withdrawals are set to open on February 16, 2023 at 8:00am UTC.

Blur is an NFT marketplace and aggregator for pro traders. It lets users sweep and list across marketplaces, snipe reveals, and manage their portfolio at faster speeds.

Quanloop, a European alternative investment fund, announced today that it has surpassed a new milestone, having funded over 940 commercial projects worth more than 20 million euros since February 2020.

In three years, Quanloop investors have earned over 1.6 million euros in interest revenue while investing in loans. As of today, the fund has 88,000+ registered investors and a total capital of 12.2 million euros.

“Our mission is to provide a simple investing solution with stable returns for retail investors while also supporting European businesses in search of financing,” said Valentin Ivanov, co-founder and fund manager at Quanloop. “We are thrilled to have achieved this milestone and are excited to see where Quanloop will go from here.”

Accessible via website and iOS application, Quanloop is an alternative investment fund with a minimum entrance of 1 euro and an average return of 12.5% p.a. It applies a unique business model sourcing money for only 24 hours and splitting the capital in need into a myriad of tiny loan agreements, each valued at 1 euro. 

Quanloop pools capital from investors every midnight and returns it to their Quanloop accounts the following day, only to be borrowed again at midnight. This process keeps repeating until the investor decides to withdraw the money, at which point it will be released the very next day.

The innovative business model based on 24-hour investment loops provides higher liquidity to investors and keeps them free from vendor lock-in, taking the sharing economy concept one step further from p2p lending and crowdfunding platforms.

The built-in diversification model helps to minimise the risk of loss by splitting the investment capital among debt projects of different risk ratios: low (5.5% to 8.9%), medium (9% and 12.9%), and high (13% to 25%). 

Dragonfly Financial Technologies Corp., a digital banking and treasury management FinTech, today announced three new C-level team hires as part of its double-digit employee growth. Dragonfly welcomed La Dell Diaz as chief legal officer (CLO), Derly Gutierrez as chief information security officer (CISO) and Carolina Reddy as chief administration and risk officer (CARO). In addition to this growth, Dragonfly has also expanded its partner ecosystem and product portfolio. 

“The addition of La Dell, Derly and Carolina to our leadership team marks an extraordinary milestone in our initial launch phase,” said Johan Roets, CEO of Dragonfly Financial Technologies. “Each brings a unique perspective to our organization and will help us elevate and strengthen our security and business operations. We have also expanded our development and product teams and look forward to introducing new products and services that improve the overall digital banking experience for corporate and small business clients.” 

Dragonfly’s new executives have decades of experience in their respective roles and are poised to help the digital banking leader continue its impressive growth: 

• La Dell Diaz brings more than 25 years of experience in corporate law and will oversee Dragonfly’s legal department. Prior to joining Dragonfly, La Dell was senior vice president, legal, at ACI Worldwide, where she used her strategic management and planning skills to run the global legal operations at the organization.  
• Derly Gutierrez has nearly 25 years of experience in defending modern environments while implementing risk management, governance, and compliance programs and will lead Dragonfly’s cybersecurity department.  Prior to joining Dragonfly, he was the CISO at 1010data and was director of information security at Bank of New York Mellon. He is also a founding board member of the Cloud Security Alliance. 
• Carolina Reddy brings decades of experience managing risk and administration and will oversee Dragonfly’s administration department. Prior to joining Dragonfly, she was Head of Business Risk and Cybercrime, Group Card & Emerging Payments at Standard Bank Group. She has a proven track record in strategy definition, contracts negotiation, revenue leakage identification and continuous improvement programs designed to significantly improve the performance of businesses. 

In addition to these executive hires, Dragonfly has expanded its products and service teams to reinforce its commitment to innovation and the delivery of world-class digital banking solutions and services that help banks power differentiating customer experiences for their corporate and small business customers.  

The company has also made a series of announcements to boost its solution portfolio and partner ecosystem. Building on its market-leading Universal Online Banker solution, Dragonfly launched the FinTech Integration Center, which provides banks with secure, seamless connections to leading FinTech applications, including QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Oracle NetSuite, Xero and Quicken and more. The company also expanded its FinTech ecosystem, announcing strategic partnerships with open finance platforms Ninth Wave and Prolific Banking. The partnerships will help Dragonfly further provide banks with secure, seamless connections to popular fintech applications and industry-leading enrollment-as-a-service solutions.

“I’m incredibly proud of Provenir and our talented global workforce as we celebrate a year of exciting milestones and continued growth,” said Larry Smith, Founder and CEO of Provenir. “Our results, despite uncertain economic conditions globally, underscore the fact that fintechs and financial services providers need a flexible platform that can provide deep insights instantly. Those organizations that can leverage additional data sources and use AI to test and deploy new strategies quickly will be able to better serve their customers, detect fraud, and capture new market share.”

• TransUnion Strategic Alliance Distribution Program – Through this alliance, TransUnion clients can take advantage of Provenir’s platform to gain deeper insights from more data sources to power a new level of decisioning speed and accuracy.
• Visa Ready for BNPL – As a member of the Visa Ready for BNPL program, Provenir provides lenders offering Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services the ability to make data-fueled and AI-powered intelligent decisions.

• Named to Credit & Collections Technology Power List of Top 20 Companies in 2022.
• Winner - “Best Credit Risk Solution” in the Credit & Collections Technology Awards 2022.
• Winner - “Data Solution of the Year for Finance" in the Data Breakthrough Awards 2022.
• Gold Winner - “AI Platform” in the Juniper Research Future Digital Awards for Fintech & Payments 2022.

“Our goal is to show the mom and pop shops of the Midwest that adopting new technology tools and CRM processes doesn’t have to be intimidating. It is my job to coach our ISO partners so they can provide that expert insight and introduce simple but powerful payments technology to small businesses that’ll only elevate their capabilities,” said Onofre. “I’m so excited to be in a place that is supporting the backbone of the country - small business owners - and ensuring their success through innovation.” 

“We’re thrilled to see the promotion of a hard worker such as Ricky and to have Tod and Erik join a robust group of individuals who are passionate about disrupting payments and helping small businesses,” said VizyPay CEO Austin Mac Nab. “Erik and Tod will be bringing in the next generation of payments professionals and I have no doubt they’ll bring excellence and quality service to our merchants across the country.”  

Clip Money, Inc. (“Clip”), a first-to-market cash deposit solution that brings fast, convenient, cost-effective cash management for businesses, is now serving Pepper Palace, a niche and rapidly growing specialty food and hot sauce retailer with over 160 locations across the U.S. and Canada.

Pepper Palace joins hundreds of other retailers who are using the Clip solution. Presently, Clip is accessible in nearly 400 locations, as the company reported last month.

Since October 2022, Pepper Palace has been using Clip in numerous locations, and has reported that the innovative fintech has resolved their cash management challenges. “Implementing Clip was a no-brainer,” said Chris Horton, Facility Manager at Pepper Palace. “With nearly 70 stores using Clip and more to be added this year, Pepper Palace will be saving an average of 10 hours and hundreds of dollars per month in cash management costs per location. Not having to close store locations to make deposits has saved us a tremendous amount of time, money, and frustration. Because we use Clip, I no longer need to worry about staff leaving stores to travel to a bank branch which negatively impacts the retail experience for our customers. Staff can remain in the store to help our valued shoppers pick their pepper, so to speak!”

The Clip network is bank-agnostic, meaning any business can make deposits to any existing bank account in convenient, accessible locations via a ClipDrop. Deposits can be made at any time during store hours by designated business employees. Clip customers are also provided with powerful technology through the ClipApp to manage their cash, assign employees to perform deposit transactions, track transaction history, and collect cash and payment analytics. Retailers receive next-business-day credit for their deposits which improves cash flow.

Clip Founder and CEO Joseph Arrage said, “We consistently hear similar complaints from retailers who are frustrated with today’s challenges like overextended staff, how to identify missing cash, and more effectively reconcile and track deposits. It is an honor to be able to respond to retailers like Pepper Palace who choose to prioritize their staff, customers, while they expand and grow.”