iFX EXPO Dubai 2023 was a resounding success in the financial and fintech space, attracting over 3500 attendees and over 120 industry-leading brands. Held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from the 16^th to the 18^th of January 2023, the event featured over 100 speakers and provided a platform for networking and learning from industry leaders. With an impressive list of sponsors and exhibitors, the event covered a wide range of services and products and provided valuable insights into the industry.

The event’s list of sponsors and exhibitors was impressive, with notable names such as Exness, ZuluTrade, Multibank Group, CMC Markets, B2Broker and many more. These companies represented a wide range of services and products that the financial services and fintech space offers.

The event was also filled with impactful speakers who provided invaluable insights.

Some of the most popular sessions included:

• Next Tech Industry Trends: Growth Drivers in 2023 - Industry veterans shared perspectives and discussed the technology driving innovation in the brokerage sector, how brokers can keep up with the future of trading technology, and the potential benefits of using Tradetech and RegTech in online trading.
• Survival Kit: The Payments Landscape in MENA - The panel shed light on the importance of cross-border and cross-asset payments in the MENA region and how innovation is shaping the landscape of payments for merchants, with a focus on the UAE and KSA as two of the world's most significant remittance corridors.
• The Financial Melting Pot of MENA: Dos & Don’ts - Experts revealed the opportunities for businesses in online trading, fintech, and other industries in the MENA region. They provided practical insights on business operations, best practices, and compliance in the region, including how to expand their footprint, strategies for successfully offering unique experiences to the MENA audience, and the role of the metaverse in developing a business in MENA.

In addition to the informative and educational sessions, the iFX EXPO Dubai 2023 also provided attendees with opportunities to network and socialise through a series of parties.

Both events were held at the luxurious and flagship Soho Garden DXB and New Soho Garden DXB venues, which are known for their stunning natural elements, cosmopolitan atmosphere and diverse mix of lounging and nightlife experiences which was the perfect place to socialise, network and enjoy a fun-filled evening with industry peers.

Upcoming Event: iFX EXPO Asia 2023

We're excited to announce that iFX EXPO Asia 2023 is just around the corner! This year's event will take place in Bangkok at Centara Grand & Bangkok Convention Centre at CentralWorld from the 20^th to the 22^nd of June and is planned to be even bigger than our event in Bangkok last year.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to:

• Engage with top companies and explore potential business opportunities with them.
• Network with industry leaders and gain valuable insights.
• Learn about the latest fintech trends and developments and gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of online trading.
• Showcase your brand and stand out from the competition at the event, where you can promote your products and services and connect with potential clients and business partners.

Booths and sponsorships are selling out fast, so to secure your spot at iFX EXPO Asia 2023, contact Sales@ifxexpo.com and book your booth and sponsorship today.

Keep an eye out for more information by visiting the official event website.

Save Your Spot at iFX EXPO Asia 2023!

Marqeta, the global modern card issuing platform, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire credit card program management platform Power Finance, Inc. (“Power”). The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2023, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

“We’re thrilled to welcome the Power team and product to Marqeta. We already see considerable demand for differentiated credit products from companies looking to innovate in this space who are held back by the constraints of legacy technology,” said Simon Khalaf, incoming CEO at Marqeta. “We thoroughly examined possible acquisitions to more quickly establish Marqeta’s leadership in the modern credit space. It became clear to us that Power would strengthen Marqeta’s platform with a best-in-class tech stack for credit card program management.”

Power’s cloud-native platform offers credit card program management services for companies creating new credit card programs. The company was founded in early 2021 by fintech veterans CEO Randy Fernando and CFO Andrew Dust. Power’s investors include Anthemis, Fin Capital, CRV, Dash Fund and Restive Ventures. As part of this acquisition, Power Finance CEO Randy Fernando will now lead the product management of Marqeta’s credit card platform.
 
The combination of Marqeta and Power’s platforms allows Marqeta to directly offer its customers the tools they need to create innovative credit products that meet the changing demands and expectations for credit cards from consumers and businesses. Power and Marqeta were founded on similar core product principles, with a modern and easily scalable platform built with today’s developer in mind. This acquisition will allow Marqeta customers to launch a wide range of credit products and constructs. It will combine Power’s next-generation rewards engine with Marqeta’s own rewards innovations and add in Power’s data science toolbox and ability to embed experiences inside existing mobile and web applications. Marqeta expects to use the acquisition of Power to significantly accelerate the capabilities offered in its credit product.

“Companies like ours were made possible because of the path Marqeta blazed in modern card issuing, demonstrating the possibilities in payments with flexible and modern payment infrastructure,” said Randy Fernando, co-founder and CEO at Power Finance. “At Power, we built a full-stack, cloud-native credit card issuance platform, and by becoming a part of Marqeta we have the ability now to bring this innovation to a much larger market at global scale.”

The purchase price, which is subject to customary adjustments, consists of $223 million in cash, approximately one-third of which is payable over a two-year period subject to certain conditions, plus $52 million in cash subject to a milestone that is expected to be achieved within the next 12 months.

In Q1 2023, Refinitiv intends to publish new USD IBOR Cash Fallbacks that are consistent with the Federal Reserve Board’s benchmark replacements for FHFA-regulated-entity contracts (except Federal Home Loan Bank advances) and Federal Family Education Loan Program Asset-Backed Securitizations. 

On March 15, 2022, congress enacted the Adjustable Interest Rate (LIBOR) Act to support legacy LIBOR contracts to smoothly transition to a replacement benchmark. On December 16, 2022, the Federal Reserve Board issued its Final Regulation Implementing the Adjustable Interest Rate (LIBOR) Act, which specifies the Board-selected benchmark replacements. 

In 2021 the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC) selected Refinitiv to calculate and publish industry-recommended fallback rates for cash products. This benchmark family, USD IBOR Cash Fallbacks, first launched on November 30, 2021, and supports a range of different conventions for both consumer and institutional products. 

Refinitiv intends to supplement existing USD IBOR Cash Fallbacks with new rates that are consistent with the Federal Reserve Board’s December 2022 announcement. These new rates will adopt the Federal Reserve Board’s selected benchmark replacements methodology for LIBOR contracts that are an FHFA-regulated-entity contract (except Federal Home Loan Bank advances) and LIBOR contracts that are a 1-, 6- or 12-months Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) Asset-Backed Securitizations (ABS). They will be based on 30-day compounded average SOFR published by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) plus the applicable static tenor spread adjustment used in other USD IBOR Institutional Cash Fallbacks. 

Refinitiv already calculates the 1-month rate based on 30-day average SOFR and will complement this with the new 3-months, 6-months and 12-months rates. In an updated methodology document these rates will be referred to as: 

·         Refinitiv USD IBOR Institutional Cash Fallbacks (In-Advance, 30-day Average SOFR) 1 Month¹ 

·         Refinitiv USD IBOR Institutional Cash Fallbacks (In-Advance, 30-day Average SOFR) 3 Months² 

·         Refinitiv USD IBOR Institutional Cash Fallbacks (In-Advance, 30-day Average SOFR) 6 Months³ 

·         Refinitiv USD IBOR Institutional Cash Fallbacks (In-Advance, 30-day Average SOFR) 12 Months⁴ 

Following the launch of these new rates as production-regulated benchmarks in Q1 2023, firms will be able to receive the new versions of Refinitiv USD IBOR Cash Fallbacks through the full suite of Refinitiv products, including Refinitiv Workspace, Refinitiv Eikon, Refinitiv Real-Time and Refinitiv DataScope as well as via the Refinitiv website.  

For more information about Refinitiv USD IBOR Cash Fallbacks. 

Refinitiv has many years’ experience designing, calculating, governing, administering and publishing financial benchmarks that lie at the heart of the global financial system.  For more information about Refinitiv benchmarks. 

CloudMargin, creator of the world’s first and only collateral and margin management solution native to the cloud, has won the 2023 Risk Markets Technology Award for Collateral Management & Optimisation Product of the Year. This is CloudMargin’s second consecutive win and third win since 2019 in the category, marking its fifth award from Risk.net. Last month, the firm won the FOW International Award for Collateral Management Solution of the Year.

The Risk Markets Technology Awards recognise excellence in markets technology. A judging panel composed of technology users and Risk.net editors select the winners. The judges referred to the CloudMargin platform as “cutting-edge” and called it an “excellent product with a wide set of important capabilities.”

CloudMargin CEO Stuart Connolly said: “We are grateful to Risk.net for recognising our platform once again as we continually deliver new enhancements and functionality that bring efficiencies to our growing client base. With the recent macroeconomic challenges globally, our buy-side and sell-side clients’ collateral management challenges are only getting bigger, and they rely on us to automate, centralise and streamline their workflow and ensure they are optimising collateral allocation across the business while minimising risk. We’re proud to offer the industry’s most flexible collateral and margin management workflow capability, along with newly enhanced and unparalleled pre- and post-trade optimisation and analytics functionality, combined with feature-rich reporting tools that drive improved financial performance.”

For the year ending December 31, CloudMargin’s platform saw $1.5 trillion exchanges in collateral; helped clients with more than 800,000 margin calls; managed more than $750 billion in daily inventory loaded on the platform; was accessed by clients in more than 50 countries; and introduced nearly 900 enhancements to features and functionality.

FINBOURNE Technology today announces its partnership with market-leading debt provider, Kreos Capital, to secure up to a £30 million debt facility. The funding forms an extension to FINBOURNE’s Series A round (April 2021). The partnership with Kreos Capital further strengthens FINBOURNE’s efficient capital structure, enabling it to meet growth plans and swiftly respond to market opportunities, as it expands its international footprint.

The funding follows six successful years for the fintech and LUSID®, its flagship Modern Financial Data Stack solution, designed to lower the cost and complexity of investment data management. Serving a wide spectrum of the Financial Services industry, the scale-up is a trusted partner to Fidelity International, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Baillie Gifford and Railpen among other global institutions. FINBOURNE will leverage the debt facility to grow its value proposition beyond its investment management origins and into banking and capital markets, while also building out global capacity and capability across the business.

Founded in 2016 with seven founders and one mission; to reduce the cost of investing and improve efficiency, transparency and trust in capital markets, FINBOURNE has heavily focussed on talent acquisition. In 2022, it increased headcount by nearly 50%, with total employees now standing at over 190 worldwide. Most recently, it has launched operations in the North America and Asia-Pacific regions, announcing new offices in New York and Singapore. These new locations enable FINBOURNE to deliver a 24/7 follow-the-sun support model to its global client base, while being able to target new opportunities more closely on the ground.

FINBOURNE expects to build on this strong foundation and global growth, by broadening the coverage of its award-winning investment data management solutions; LUSID®, LUSID PMS™ and Luminesce®. This includes developing new SaaS capabilities across portfolio and fund accounting to support asset servicers in their digital transformation.

Planned developments also include the launch of FINBOURNE Horizon; a global community of mutually beneficial integration partnerships across the wider ecosystem, designed to meet clients’ evolving needs. It aims to remove the barriers to external innovation, by giving clients access to compelling technologies to future-proof operations, augment processes, and outsource non-differentiating activities.   

In parallel, the fintech has invested in building out its training program in response to clients and consultant demand. The FINBOURNE University program and accreditation scheme is a key milestone for the company’s market maturity. Usually a feature of larger incumbent providers, it will form a key deliverable as part of FINBOURNE’s operations in new markets and will further support fast-growing engagement with specialist and global consulting houses.

Tim Fenwick, Principal at Kreos Capital commented: “We are pleased to partner with FINBOURNE at this exciting time in its growth journey. Together with a strong balance sheet and pipeline, we are confident that our investment will further fuel FINBOURNE’s strategy and execution, as it widens the net and delivers change-ready technology and data management tools, critical to supporting global financial institutions in this fast-moving economic landscape.”

Thomas McHugh, CEO and Co-Founder at FINBOURNE Technology, adds: “The partnership with Kreos Capital is a vote of confidence for FINBOURNE and our growth plans. Their support and experience in working with high-growth companies will be critical in our onward success. When we set out on our mission to deliver cost and operational efficiencies, we were clear we wanted to build a future where we support the financial services ecosystem to become change-ready. In six years, we have shown that we can help eliminate the risk associated with traditional operational transformation and at the same time address growing costs, so that firms can win back margins and productivity.”

“With disruption now a constant force, achieving this, through clean, interoperable data has never been so vital and this is validated by the growing client community we are empowering. The driving force behind our achievements, and value creation is our team. As we continue to pursue a global remit, we are committed to setting a high standard in the market, not only through the continued provision of deep technology but also by investing in our domain expertise, skills and knowledge, supporting our clients with the best talent in the market.”

Tracxn, a leading global SaaS-based market intelligence platform, has released its Fintech UK Report. The report, based on Tracxn’s extensive database, provides insights into the UK’s Fintech space.

The UK has been one of the top Fintech centres and has even been dubbed the global Fintech capital. In terms of startup funding, Fintech is the leading segment in the country. 

Total funding into Fintech startups in the UK fell 13% to $11.2 billion in 2022 from $12.9 billion in 2021. This was largely due to a sharp 26% drop in late-stage funding to $7.2 billion in 2022 from $9.8 billion in 2021. Early-stage investments rose sharply by 34% to $3.4 billion this year, compared with $2.6 billion last year.

The average ticket size for seed-stage investments increased by 26%, while the average ticket size for early-stage funding has increased by 76% in 2022, compared with 2021. The number of $100 million+ funding rounds fell by 34% to 23 rounds in 2022 from 35 rounds in 2021. 

Q1 of 2022 witnessed the highest-ever funding in the UK Fintech sector, after which investments started to decline. The total funding fell by 66.7% from $8.4 billion in H1 to $2.8 billion in H2 of 2022. This plunge in investments was mainly due to the ongoing war, which has increased the cost of energy and other dependent products and caused a slowdown in economic activity across the region. However, the UK's Fintech sector is doing relatively better in terms of funding, when compared with countries such as the US, China, and India.

Y Combinator, SFC Capital, and Development Bank of Wales are the top seed-stage investors in the space, while the top early-stage Investors are Octopus Ventures, Force Over Mass, and LocalGlobe. The leading late-stage investors are Dawn Capital, BlackRock, and Toscafund Asset Management.

Wealth management tech company FNZ, which raised $1.4 billion from Motive Partners and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in a private equity round, recorded the highest funding round in 2022.

There were fewer new entrants to the Unicorn club this year, with only 6 companies joining the list, compared with 14 in 2021. InsurTech company Ondo was the only IPO from the Fintech space in 2022, a far cry from 8 IPOs in 2021. 

Payments, Investment Tech, Cryptocurrencies, and Banking Tech were the top-performing business models in terms of funding in 2022. Despite being the top-performing sectors, Banking Tech and Payments sectors have seen a drop in funding of 55.7% and 31.4% respectively, when compared with 2021. This was due to rising inflation, which is restricting consumers from spending on services that are not absolutely necessary. 

In 2022, the Investment Tech and Cryptocurrencies sectors saw a massive rise of 206.6% and 107% respectively from 2021. In Europe, the UK is currently the largest market for cryptocurrencies in terms of the transaction value. This has made the UK an attractive investment opportunity for investors looking to venture in this space. 

The UK government has taken measures to make the UK a global hub for crypto asset technology. This provides power to the government to regulate activities related to crypto assets. This includes limits on foreign companies selling into the UK, restrictions on advertising on crypto products, and provisions on how to deal with collapsed companies. This regulatory framework will encourage investment into the sector and build trust among consumers. 

In terms of total funding till date, London has attracted the maximum investment ($43 billion), followed by Edinburgh ($1.5 billion) and Blyth ($731 million). 

Sentry Enterprises has selected the IDEX Biometrics sensor solution and the SLC38 chip from Infineon Technologies to power their next-generation biometric identity platform. Sentry is the creator and maker of the SentryCardTM, a private biometric identity and security solution that operates at the edge, and the soon-to-be-released Sentinel biometric cold storage crypto wallet. The Sentry platform and capabilities compete horizontally across all security, payment, and crypto sectors, as well as across all market segments. This partnership addresses today’s security vulnerabilities while preparing the industry for the future of Web 3.0 and self-sovereign identity applications. ­­

Establishing proof-of-identity and trust are paramount to protecting critical infrastructure, enterprise and government assets, and cryptocurrencies. The IDEX Biometrics superior biometric technology and Infineon’s latest chip solution provides the perfect balance between performance, power and uncompromising security to the SentryCard and Sentinel biometric platforms.

“Partnering with IDEX Biometrics and Infineon was a natural complement to Sentry’s growing ecosystem of identity-based solutions”, says Mark Bennett, CEO of Sentry Enterprises. “We believe absolute trust of identity is a fundamental necessity for any secure interaction, whether it’s an employee badging through the front door or a person trading crypto currencies. The challenge is providing resilient solutions that are both secure and respect people’s privacy. The SentryCard biometric identity platform and the Sentinel Wallet represent cutting-edge solutions that deliver on that promise of ensuring absolute identity and trust.”

“IDEX Biometrics, Sentry Enterprises and Infineon Technologies are transforming what identity means in today’s highly connected world – a user controlled absolute proof-of-identity that readily integrates with the world’s existing infrastructure. These privacy-centric, biometric solutions will play a critical role within the digital identity markets, meeting universal needs for increased security” said Vince Graziani, CEO of IDEX Biometrics.

Intellect Global Transaction Banking (iGTB), the transaction banking arm of Intellect Design Arena, a cloud-native, future-ready, new-gen multi-product FinTech company for the world’s leading financial and insurance institutions, has been named as a leader and ‘Best in Class’ Payments platform by Aite-Novarica Group in a report that evaluates the overall competitive position of payments technology providers, focusing on stability, client strength, product features, and client services.