Nordigen, an open banking provider and a GoCardless company, has signed accounting software firm NoCFO to provide entrepreneurs and small businesses a more intelligent way to manage their books and run their business.

NoCFO can now offer users access to their business banking transaction data, directly within nocfo, its easy-to-use accounting platform, via Nordigen’s open banking connections. By gaining access to transaction data, users can make better business decisions, reduce the time spent on accounting admin and increase the efficiency and accuracy of their financial reporting and analysis.

nocfo is a cloud-based accounting platform that helps entrepreneurs and small businesses keep on top of their bookkeeping and invoicing and maintains records of key financial documents, such as bills and receipts. The integration of users’ business banking data will add even more value to the platform, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the accounting process. 

“Working with Nordigen enables us to build a modern accounting platform. From its broad open banking connectivity, which allows us to connect to almost every single bank in Finland through one simple step, to the fast and secure access to bank account data that gives entrepreneurs and small businesses an unparalleled view of their financial position, Nordigen’s network and expertise helps us cater to our customers’ demands for easy-to-use and efficient services. Nordigen also provides additional insight, such as ways to organise transactions into different categories, which will help us make our software smarter in the future. This will deliver more value by saving time and money for customers,“ says Teemu Karuluoto, co-founder and CEO of NoCFO.

“Small business leaders and entrepreneurs have enough on their to-do list, so anything we can do to eliminate the need for reconciling receipts and picking through piles of invoices can only be a good thing. That’s why we’re excited to work with NoCFO, delivering open banking data straight into its platform. This way, leaders everywhere can make better decisions and free up time for the activities that will truly drive their growth,”  says Rolands Mesters, co-founder and CEO of Nordigen. 

Digital lending platform mPokket plans to expand its team strength by March 2023 across all verticals, as part of its mission to empower India’s youth and maintain its growth trajectory. The total number of employees at the Kolkata-based company stands at  2700 including employees at it’s Bangalore office.

Commenting on the hiring plans, Gaurav Jalan, Founder and CEO, mPokket, said, “As a leading digital lending player, our hiring is connected to either bolstering cutting-edge technology or fostering deeper customer relationships. The ongoing hiring is aimed at empowering young professionals from vast domains for a better future. The new pool of talent will support mPokket’s mission of making young India financially independent. Accordingly, it will augment business outcomes by creating positive product and digital experiences, besides improving our go-to-market efforts.”

The hiring strategy plans to onboard diverse young people for various positions, such as technology, product, data analytics, and digital customer expert. The technology recruitment is targeted at individuals skilled in SDET, Python, Android, Java, NodeJS, and DevOps. mPokket believes in building a positive work culture and fostering the intellectual development of employees.

Geographical diversity apart, mPokket has been promoting gender diversity at work. In the customer experience domain, leadership roles begin at Team leaders and higher levels. Here, the company comprises about 61 women leaders out of a base of 177 employees, which makes a total of 34% of the women workforce.

The company resonates with the ethos of inclusivity, people-driven work culture and a mission to empower India’s youth via employment generation and upskilling.

Lentra, a leading digital lending cloud platform has announced its entry into South East Asian economies of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam to cater to their growing digital lending needs. With this expansion, Lentra aims to reach $100M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by March 2024. The move follows the company’s latest fundraise of USD 60 million in a Series B round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Susquehanna International Group (SIG), and Citi Ventures.

With this expansion, Lentra will build a stronger market presence and increase credit disbursal by replicating its India growth in the three South East Asian countries. Founded in 2019 by Venkatesh, Lentra provides an application programming interface (API)-driven modular architecture to create tailored retail and business loan products for banks and other regulated lending institutions. In addition, its purpose-built AI/ML platform for a unified 360-degree customer view creates impactful marketing/credit opportunities.

Lentra already has a couple of clients in the Philippines. It has a robust presence across India with 60 partner banks and NBFCs and over 50 million loans processed through its platform. By 2027, the company aims to onboard 250 banking partners, expand its footprint into five other countries, and reach $250 million in ARR.

Lentra’s expansion comes at an interesting time when there is an increased demand for digital lending platforms in these economies. Vietnam forecasts its digital lending loan book value to reach $18 billion in 2025 from $2 billion in 2021. According to PwC, Indonesia is expected to be the fourth largest economy in the world, a potential that can be leveraged by facilitating better access to financing. Similarly, MSMEs in the Philippines contributing to 36% of the country’s GDP remain largely underfinanced making digital lending platforms critical to reimagining economic growth.

Commenting on the business’ growth, D Venkatesh, Founder, Lentra said, “We are at a major inflection point in Lentra’s growth journey. The financial landscape has never been more dynamic. Our learnings over the past few years and beyond will prove critical in delivering future performance and innovation at the levels we demand of ourselves in pursuit of our mission.”

Some of Lentra’s key banking partners include HDFC Bank, Federal Bank, Standard Chartered, IDFC, Aditya Birla Finance, Tata Capital, Tata Motor Finance, and TVS Credit, among others.

Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE) is an industry body of fintech lenders working towards building a consumer-first ecosystem for digital lending that is responsible and responsive to consumers’ needs. FACE wholeheartedly supports the Central Government's actions and the policy intent to ban predatory lending apps with dubious antecedents. This would ensure that only legitimate lending apps operating under the RBI’s regulatory framework are available.

Commenting on the Government’s actions on illegal lending apps, Sugandh Saxena, CEO at FACE, said, “All of us as industry stakeholders, including fintech entities and investors and lenders, draw huge confidence from the Government’s actions to create a safe and robust ecosystem for consumers and the fact that Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) is resolving the issue for legitimate entities with the highest priority. Steps like this will improve customer trust in digital lending and expand the market for legitimate entities”.

She further highlighted that “The fintech lenders, who have built their offerings leveraging India’s digital public infrastructure and under the applicable regulations and laws of the land, have long faced the onslaught of illegal lending apps and recognise them as the most significant risk to the entire industry, as our Fintech Lending Risk Barometer Report 2022-23 captured. Such illegal lending apps erode the consumers’ trust and encroach the market of legitimate players.”

FACE, convening the fintech lenders, looks forward to engaging with and contributing to efforts by RBI, and relevant government departments, such as MEITY and state governments, in creating a trustworthy digital lending environment that links consumers and legitimate lending apps. All FACE members are committed to setting the highest benchmarks for customer service, innovation, and impact, in line with the public policy goals.

Wise, the global technology company building the best way to move money around the world, has today released new research showing that banks took £3.6bn in often hidden FX fees from small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in 2022 alone. 

Detailed in a new report, The Cost of Going Global: How are banks stifling dreams of overseas growth for UK SMBs?, the research finds that SMBs last year lost £3.6bn in FX fees when selling goods and services overseas, with all UK businesses losing £4.2bn. The report details the scale of the problem for SMBs, which is compounded by exchange rate volatility and banks often hiding their fees. 

While banks often profess their love for SMBs, their use of hidden and high fees suggests a one-sided relationship. So, Wise is asking banks to treat SMBs better this Valentine’s Day by showing their markups and, ideally, reducing their fees. 

And, if they don’t act, Wise is also calling on the Government to tighten existing regulations to make fees clearer and the market more competitive, giving SMBs the knowledge they need to decide whether to stick with their bank, or swipe left and find a new partner. 

Existing legislation should force banks to disclose their fees, but is currently falling short. The Cross Border Payment Regulation 2 (CBPR2) rules state that banks should make clear fees when business customers trade in Euros. However, the regulation is often ignored or circumvented by banks through hiding fees in marked-up exchange rates. 

The situation is even worse for businesses trading overseas outside the EU. The Payments Services Regulations (PSRs), currently under review, are clear in their aim to achieve greater transparency, but because the language is vague, they provide very weak protections for transparency across international banking services. 

Worse, the PSRs allow banks a ‘corporate opt out’ when dealing with business customers, meaning that already weak legislation deliberately excludes SMBs. 

Wise is therefore asking the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to:

• Better enforce CBPR rules and provide additional guidance to banks so their intention to ban hidden fees rules is respected

• Ensure that, as part of its PSR review, all payments overseas are subject to transparency, with banks forced to make fees clear

• End the ‘corporate opt out’, which penalises SMBs for no good reason

The report also finds that banks’ poor services are leading to SMBs staying at home. Almost a quarter (24%) of SMBs have been put off from expanding abroad by the cost and inconvenience of banks’ international services, making it a more significant deterrent than inflation (22%), regulation (21%), energy costs (20%) and supply chain disruption (19%).*

Harsh Sinha, Chief Technology Officer, Wise, said:

“Each week, there seems to be a new marketing campaign from a big bank claiming their love for SMBs. And yet - the best relationships are marked by honesty and trust. It’s wrong that banks feel able to charge SMBs such high fees and worse than they believe these fees should be hidden. It’s time for banks to come clean about their fees. 

“Expecting banks to change might be a romantic idea, but tighter regulation should not be. The Government - at no cost to the taxpayer - could improve and enforce existing regulation to give SMBs the power to know how much they’re being charged, and where they can get a better deal.

“Transparency would, at least, give SMBs the information they need to decide whether their bank is the right partner - or if they’re just not that into them.”

Wise believes strong relationships have trust and honesty at its core. Hence we never markup exchange rates and always show our fees transparently. This allows customers to make an informed choice and know what they are getting into. 

Wise is committed to helping SMBs find the best opportunities to grow their business locally and abroad. Wise Business allows businesses to pay employees and suppliers, get paid and manage cash flow overseas all in one place, and all while benefiting from Wise’s speed, transparency, convenience and low costs.

Today, Wise Business has more than 400,000 active customers.

Paris Blockchain Week, jointly with Partisia Blockchain, today announces a Paris Blockchain Week first: Paris Blockchain Week Awards - inaugural edition.  The Awards will recognise the most notable individuals, projects, and organisations across this innovative sector at Europe’s largest gathering of thought leaders, innovators, and experts from around the world convening to discuss and advance the state of blockchain and web3 technologies.

The awards recognizing the efforts of the blockchain community members are in perfect alignment with Paris Blockchain Week’s vision that emphasises the development of the ecosystem through education, flagship projects and community collaboration to build tomorrow’s digital economy. The award ceremony scheduled on 23rd of March 2023 will celebrate those who have significantly contributed to the transition to the digital assets industry at large. 

Voting for these outstanding contributors will fittingly take a future-forward perspective using Parti.com, a blockchain-powered social network and voting platform allowing people to vote easily, anonymously, and securely “on-chain” using blockchain voting ballots available to anyone who wants to take part. Each vote is recorded transparently and openly on the Partisia Blockchain for public audit.

The Paris Blockchain Week awards are designed to celebrate the achievements and contributions of individuals, organisations, and projects, specifically in these eight award categories:

The Web3 Personality of the Year Award will recognise overall outstanding achievements in the past months, towards the whole blockchain ecosystem, while the People’s Choice Award will go to the best conference speech, panel discussion, or workshop. The Best Impact Blockchain Project Award will recognise the ‘blockchain for good’ project delivering significant social impact and the Web3 Brand Initiative of the Year Award will honour a project that innovatively uses web3 to interact with their audience. Relatedly, the Enterprise Blockchain Project of the Year Award will highlight the best corporate blockchain project not only from a technological standpoint, but in terms of value creation and industrial impact for the company.

The Awards will also centre on education, undoubtedly the most crucial building block in blockchain today. The Best Web3 Educational Platform and Best Web3 Content Creator will recognise an outstanding organisation and an individual working to educate the wider community about Web3 and blockchain technology to address the knowledge and skills gap and gender imbalance. Finally, the Prix du Jury, which will be selected by the organisers and main sponsors of Paris Blockchain Week, to highlight an outstanding individual or organisational achievement.

On top of being recognised and celebrated by industry leaders and peers, winners will also be able to widen their reach by appearing on mainstream TV media and receiving press coverage. The winners will serve as an inspiration for others to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible with this transformative technology.

Emmanuel Fenet, CEO at Paris Blockchain Week said, “These awards are designed to honour and recognise some of the amazing people and projects that are moving the industry forward.  And also to inspire our youth to join this fast-paced industry and help build the future.  There is so much innovation in blockchain and web3; we need to recognise the work of those who achieve greatness through their leadership in helping promote blockchain which holds so much potential in so many domains.  The Paris Blockchain Awards is the platform that allows these individuals and teams to lead by example and inspire others to follow in their footsteps.” 

Brian Gallagher, Co-Founder of Partisia Blockchain added, “We are immensely proud to play an essential role in not only the voting infrastructure for the Awards, but even more to concretely illustrate an amazing use case of blockchain which is privacy-preserving, on-chain voting.  We have built a one-of-a-kind, best-in-class platform - to bring the Paris Blockchain Week Awards to life.  These tools will accelerate the transition to meet some of society’s most pressing needs, which include democratic and secure elections where people can vote without needing to get to a ballot box.  Thanks to this strategic collaboration with Paris Blockchain Week, Partisia Blockchain is once again positioned at the forefront of blockchain endeavours that are helping society progress toward a more fair, transparent and inclusive digital future.”

Jennifer de Broglie, host of the i24 News show D’Crypt and Director of Thought Leadership at Partisia Blockchain, will present the Awards ceremony.  Jennifer commented, “I’m really excited about this first edition of Paris Blockchain Week Awards!  We want this to be the most coveted awards event in blockchain, recognising the industry's very best!  Nominees will be drawn from all genders and all geographies, representing the diversity and global reach of blockchain and web3.  Voting in each of the categories will be based on a variety of factors, including technology, business model, adoption, impact, innovation, leadership, community involvement and inclusiveness.  The Paris Blockchain Week Awards symbolise the inclusive nature of the industry and, with the new blockchain voting platform, everybody can try first-hand a major use-case of blockchain technology: fully transparent and anonymous fraud-free voting from the convenience of your phone!”

Juniper Square, the leading provider of partnership enablement for the private funds industry, today announced it has raised $133 million in growth capital. This investment was led by Owl Rock, a division of Blue Owl, with contributions from existing investors Ribbit Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Felicis Ventures and new investors Fifth Wall and Pappy Capital. Designed to provide GPs and LPs with a universal system to manage their private partnerships, Juniper Square will utilize this investment to accelerate innovation, expand its fund administration services and fuel rapid growth in private markets.  

This fundraise is yet another milestone in a nine-year history of innovation and growth for Juniper Square. To date, more than 1,800 GPs use Juniper Square to support more than 32,000 investment partnerships that span over 500,000 LPs and $700 billion in LP capital. From commercial real estate to venture capital, many of the largest and most sophisticated GPs within the private equity industry adopted Juniper Square’s platform and solutions in 2022. Select client wins included: Avanath Capital Management, Berkshire Residential Investments, BentallGreenOak, CBRE Investment Management, GSV Ventures, Haun Ventures, LaSalle Investment Management, and Ribbit Capital.

“We are very excited to lead this round of financing for Juniper Square - we’re seeing significant adoption of Juniper Square’s products among GPs in private markets as demand continues to increase for modern investor relations and administration solutions,” said Darragh O’Flaherty, Principal at Owl Rock, a division of Blue Owl. “As a leading provider of capital solutions for GPs operating private funds, Blue Owl understands firsthand how digital can transform private markets by reducing costs, improving efficiency and building transparency and trust at every stage of an investment partnership.”

Building on its track record of modernizing the LP's experience, Juniper Square plans to roll out an industry-first adaptive investor portal in 2023. The most significant enhancement to the company’s investor portal since its launch, the new portal will dynamically present the appropriate level of information based on the sophistication of GP and LP reporting relationships. This capability will enable better comprehension, information retrieval and ultimately ease of use for LPs in private markets. In addition, Juniper Square is enhancing the security and workflows that underpin the portal, making sharing sensitive financial documents safer and easier than ever.

The company’s modern approach to fund administration -- uniting expert practitioners with innovative and efficient workflows to improve quality, transparency and the investor experience-- has resulted in rapid growth of the service. In the past year, Juniper Square Administration grew assets under administration (AUM) by more than 4x and customers by more than 2.5x. In the coming year, Juniper Square plans to expand its administration organization and services further while investing in the security and efficiency of administration workflow through deep integrations with banking partners.

“Juniper Square provides GPs and LPs with a common record for their partnership data while delivering seamless, integrated and cost-effective administration to their investment funds,” said Alex Robinson, co-founder and CEO of Juniper Square. “The significant growth we’ve seen in GPs and funds served underscores the rapid digitization of private markets that is underway and accelerating. We are eager to use this investment to bolster our administration services and accelerate our growth.”

Juniper Square’s growth is also attributable to its leadership in customer success and data security. The retention rate for the company’s portal solution is greater than 99%, and Juniper Square maintains both SOC-1 and SOC-2 compliance for the management of customer data. In addition, customers rate Juniper Square a 4.9 out of 5 stars on both Capterra and G2, two leading vendor review websites.

JCB International Co., Ltd., the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd., Japan's only international payment brand, today announced issuance of one million Rupay JCB Cards in India. These credit and debit cards, issued by 12 public and private sector banks and co-badged as RuPay JCB Cards, offer their cardmembers a seamless payment experience within and outside India.

Along with the 3-fold growth in card issuance, a significant growth in Rupay JCB Card usage was also seen with international spending growing 8-fold between April 2022 to December 2022. This is expected to further grow rapidly given the extremely lucrative international campaign currently available for RuPay JCB cardmembers. All RuPay JCB cardmembers are eligible for a whopping 40% cashback on face-to-face transactions in Singapore, Thailand and Bahrain. The maximum cashback amount per transaction is 3,000 INR and maximum cashback amount per one card is 15,000 INR within the campaign period. The current campaign started on December 29, 2022 and will conclude on March 31, 2023.

This is the second such campaign as RuPay JCB just concluded a similar 40% cashback campaign in UAE, Qatar and Australia. The offer was on face-to-face transactions from October 1 to December 31, 2022. This campaign has also successfully increased the number of transactions and was well appreciated by bank issuers and cardmembers.

In addition to this, there are multiple on-going offers across countries in different categories such as retail store, restaurant, hotel and transport.

Mr. Yoshiki Kaneko, President & COO, JCB International Co., Ltd. said, "We are very proud of our strategic partnership with NPCI. This first million Rupay JCB issuance milestone is a testament to the strength of our partnership which will continue to grow in the coming years. India is a key market for JCB with huge potential given the aspirational young and vibrant base of consumers who especially enjoy international travel and new experiences. We are confident the feature-rich RuPay JCB Card, which offers many international benefits to its cardmembers including international airport and JCB PLAZA Lounge access, besides many special offers, discounts, and cashbacks that saves our cardmembers' money, will be well enjoyed outside India. We will continue to focus on and invest in growing the India business through our esteemed partner, NPCI, to ensure that our issuing partners always have access to the best-in-class technology to create path-breaking products."

Savii, the financial platform designed for teens and young adults, today announced their official product launch in the UAE.  The Savii banking app and Visa prepaid card allows teenagers and young adults to make payments independently and relieve parents of the anxiety of giving them premature access to their own credit card.

Jane Harvey, Co-founder and CEO of Savii commented “If you are a parent, giving your teens some financial responsibility early on is a smart move. They'll get to flex their money management skills, like budgeting and saving, learn the value of a dirham and begin to appreciate the consequences of overspending. And yes, they may make small mistakes along the way, but that's all part of the journey, right? By the time they're adults, they'll be more confident with their finances which will boost their overall confidence and independence.”

With the newly launched Savii app, parents can now send money to their teens instantly through the app making the distribution of monthly allowances a lot easier. As an important bonus, Savii allows parents to view all the transactions made by their children giving them further peace of mind.  The app is accompanied by the Savii card, a numberless Visa payment instrument which means all card details are stored securely in the Savii app. The numberless card feature eliminates the risk of personal card information getting disclosed if the card gets lost or stolen, and the card can be paused or blocked at the click of a button in the app.

Nichola Collinson, Co-founder of Savii added “We have designed a product with the worries and concerns of the parents in mind, and we managed to bring to the market a product that will bring financial independence to the teenagers while parents can be at peace that the systems in place are designed to protect the identity and financial security of their kids. We partnered with the best in the market at Visa to create a truly secure card.”

Alex McCrea, Visa’s Vice President, Head of Strategic Partnerships and Ventures for Central Europe, Middle East and Africa, added “At Visa, we understand the importance of empowering the next generation with the tools they need to independently manage their finances. Our partnership with Savii will provide young adults in the UAE with the freedom and flexibility to make purchases, build their credit history, and take control of their financial future. We are delighted to partner with Savii as part of our pledge to enabling financial inclusion for everyone, everywhere, and are confident that this partnership will make a positive impact on the lives of young people in the region.“

Savii’s product roll-out in the UAE is the first of a series of regional launches set to be announced in the coming months.

SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Yabx, a company incubated by Comviva and part of the Mahindra Group, to address a deep-rooted need for responsible consumer finance in Africa.

Africa has over 700 million mobile wallets, and about 450 million bank accounts but access to formal credit remain severely constrained due to poor credit infrastructure and the slowly evolving risk appetite of financial services players, especially traditional banks. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digitization in the financial sector and created a fertile environment for new and disruptive products to be taken to the market. The partnership between SC Ventures and Yabx is leveraging on this to create unique, Africa-specific products that will increase access of credit to the underbanked across Africa.

Nimble future-ready technology, data analytics combined with a deep understanding of banking will reduce the cost of delivery of innovative credit products, thereby widening inclusion across underserved segments in Africa where it is needed most. Given the scale and the complexity of the opportunity, SC Ventures and Yabx have taken a collaborative approach to jointly address the challenge. Loans will be provided to customers for specific purposes like education and skill development using an innovative data-driven scoring and analytics engine that has been built with rich experience from African markets. These loan products will be initially launched in Uganda and then subsequently expanded to other countries in Africa.

Jiten Arora, Member SC Ventures said, “We are excited at the prospect of using a data-driven, technology-enabled partnership model to serve the underbanked through purpose-driven loans in Africa, a continent for which we have a deep understanding and a strong commitment towards.” 

Manoranjan Mohapatra, Chief Executive Officer at Comviva, commented, “Yabx has seen exponential growth over the past one year, and we will continue to invest in its mission to serve millions of consumers and MSMEs in emerging markets who have limited traditional sources of funding available to them.”

Rajat Dayal, CEO at Yabx, said, “We have a lot of synergy with SC Ventures in Africa and together we are uniquely positioned to create a seamless embedded finance experience. This partnership further bridges the gaps in the current market, driving digital innovations and bringing significant benefits to the underserved population of Africa.”