10th African Islamic Finance Summit (AIFS) will be held in The Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center, The Gambia on 22nd February 2022 with two-days post event workshop. The main objective of this event is to designate the significance of Islamic finance, its sustainability, impact on economy and society and opportunities for Africa. West Africa is the emerging market for Islamic Banking and Finance, Anglophone countries Nigeria and Francophone Senegal are the hub, those are playing distinguish role. AlHuda CIBE in reference to its legacy for the promotion of Islamic Finance Industry, by considering the significance of Francophone countries going to host this event in French Language too. It will be a great opportunity for French-speaking nations to participate and explore the opportunities for sustainable socio-economic ventures. The supporters for this event are Egyptian Islamic Finance Association, Heeno International and Microlab Association, the media partners are Micro Capital, Financial IT, IFING Media etc. The Lead Sponsor for this event is Arila Business Management Services Nigeria, and Exhibition sponsor is Forward Enterprise.

Muhammad Zubair Mughal Chief Executive Officer AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics-United Arab Emirates organizer of this event mentioned that Africa is the second largest destination for Islamic Finance Industry. Anglophone countries have advantages in terms of human resource, literature availability and experts availability, while Francophone countries facing many constraints for human resources, literatures, experts and accessibility to advance markets. By understanding these challenges, AlHuda CIBE is creating this opportunity in French Language as well, he believes it will play important role for creating awareness, conceptual framework and from where they can initiate. He is very swayed about African leaders that they are moving in right direction for the development of the region and they will consider significance of Islamic financial system for their socio-economic objectives.

The agenda of this event is about brief introduction of Islamic finance from historical development, regulatory challenges, and opportunities. It will describe how Islamic financial system play role for financial inclusion, Shariah compliance governance and framework, and for the implementation of Shariah audit system to regulate Islamic Financial industry. The significance of Islamic Microfinance, Islamic Agriculture Finance, Fintech, Insurtech, and many advance tool for Islamic financial industry will be part of it. It will highlight the investment opportunities and significance of Islamic Capital Market and will discuss its need for African Financial Industry growth. AIFS will also recognize the role of African Financial Institutions for the development of Islamic financial system through Shariah compliant avenues.

So far AlHuda Centre of Islamic Banking and Economics has organized the African Islamic Finance Summit in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Tanzania and the Gambia. Now we are going to organize this mega conference 2nd edition in Gambia. This conference is the gathering of financial industries like Banking, Insurance, Islamic Microfinance, Funds Management, Agri/Rural Finance, Regulatory Authorities, Government bodies, Ministries, NGO’s, Donor Agencies and Academia. In 2022 this event was held with support of Central Bank of the Gambia, Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment of the Gambia and with collaboration of public and private sector institution.

AppTech Payments Corp., a Fintech company powering commerce experiences, today announced that it has successfully cured the Nasdaq minimum bid price deficiency. Nasdaq has informed AppTech that its Panel has determined to continue the listing of the Company’s securities on the Nasdaq Capital Market and is closing the matter.

AppTech has regained Nasdaq compliance as it has had a closing bid price of above $1.00 per share for 10 consecutive business days. That requirement was met on January 3, 2023.

AppTech CEO, Luke D'Angelo states, “As we continue to grow our business model going into the new year, we are working towards value for our shareholders. In addition to expanding our team, we also have expanded major opportunities with exciting new B2B relationships that will soon be announced. With a strong balance sheet, coupled with our exceptional product and leadership teams, we are well-positioned to successfully execute our plans to become the premier Fintech SaaS platform powering high-conversion, immersive, commerce experiences for businesses and their customers worldwide.”

AppTech was also recently viewed on Fox business as one of the best long-term companies to have in your five-year stock plan, seen here: http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/6317511890112/.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties. Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate, believe, estimate, expect, forecast, intend, may, plan, project, predict, should, will” and similar expressions as they relate to AppTech are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, general economic and business conditions, effects of continued geopolitical unrest and regional conflicts, competition, changes in methods of marketing, delays in manufacturing or distribution, changes in customer order patterns, changes in customer offering mix, and various other factors beyond the company’s control. Actual events or results may differ materially from those described in this press release due to any of these factors. AppTech is under no obligation to update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

HPS, the leading global provider of payment solutions and services, today announced the opening of a new office in Singapore to support the business’ continued growth in Asia.

HPS first established in Singapore in 2017 to take advantage of Asia’s rapidly evolving payments sector. Over the past five years, HPS has onboarded a significant number of financial institutions in the region. Today, the Group’s new office will allow HPS to welcome more than 80 colleagues in support of the continuous HPS’ business in the region.

Revenue coming from the Middle East & Asia region accounts for approximately 25% of HPS’ total revenue, and this figure is expected to grow over the next 12 months.

Located in Changi Business Park, the new office space will enable HPS to meet the needs of its customers and will allow for greater collaboration with its local partners.

Abdeslam Alaoui Smaili, CEO of HPS, commented: “When we first entered the Singaporean market, we were excited by the adventurous payments landscape, and we knew that it is an important hub for the Asian region.”

“We are delighted to be opening a new office, to continue growing our regional team, and to make our complete suite of PowerCARD solutions easily accessible to all of our clients in Asia,” said Mehdi Bennani, HPS’ Asia Regional Director.

Oneiro Solutions, a fintech start-up transforming the syndicated loan industry with its end-to-end digital platform, DLX, has appointed two more members to its board of directors - Chris Hardie and Paul Mitchell. 

Launched in July 2021 by Chris Papathanassi and George Druncea, Oneiro Solutions brings a ground-breaking new way for syndicated loans to be serviced. On its entirely cloud-based platform DLX, borrowers, lenders, and agents have access to all of their deal-related data in real-time, as well as the ability to self-serve.

Paul Mitchell has been supporting Oneiro Solutions since the company’s inception, working with Chris and George on the original pre-fundraising activities. He has considerable hands-on experience in various finance, operational, and M&A roles within fast-growing public and private companies, including Deltex Medical Group plc and Remote Diagnostic Technologies (RDT), the latter of which was sold to Philips Healthcare in 2018.

Since 2018, Paul has continued with Philips to complete the integration of RDT and help to support its continuing success. Paul’s latest venture with Oneiro Solutions will see the company enter a new phase for 2023 - utilising his knowledge within finance and business partnerships, he’s thrilled to be part of the growing team.

“Seeing what Chris and George have achieved to date, as well as the desperate need in this industry for their technology, I do not doubt the company’s success,” said Paul. “I’m very pleased to join the board and look forward to continuing to work with them towards a bright and exciting future for their customers and the company.”

Chris Hardie has over 40 years of experience as a corporate financier for integrated banks Kleinwort Benson and Charterhouse, and most recently at smallcap specialists Arden Partners and WH Ireland.

Hardie has extensive experience in a range of corporate deals and financing transactions, both in the private equity and public markets. The team are confident his depth and breadth of knowledge will help steer the company towards success.

“I’m excited to join the team who are breaking the mould of established operators in their market with a game-changing product,” said Hardie. “I believe that my experience of start-up and early stage companies will prove valuable.”

Since raising over £1million in early 2022, Chris Papathanassi and George Druncea have continued to scale the business and its product development and sales team - which has not only led to the appointment of Paul and Chris on the board, but has also led to the signing of two more early adopter banks.

“The amount of interest the company is seeing has grown exponentially in the last few months,” said Papathanassi. “Financial organisations around the world are waking to the need for innovation within their business models. They are discovering the value of migrating from ‘legacy’ to next generation technology that enables unrivalled customer experience – the gains of which are driving them to take action. These new signings are evidence of this.”

Axyon AI, a leading developer of artificial intelligence-based solutions for asset management, announces its partnership with C8 Technologies, a fintech company that has developed a global platform where customers have access to a marketplace with strategies and can trade underlying assets directly via their own broker.

Through the partnership, a wide selection of Axyon AI’s model strategies is now available via C8 Studio. This makes it easier for asset owners, wealth managers and family offices to add AI-driven performance to their investment portfolios.

Daniele Grassi, CEO of Axyon AI, comments: "We are very pleased to announce this new partnership, which is part of Axyon AI's growth process and marks a further step in expanding our range of artificial intelligence-based solutions strategically with external partners". He adds, "The availability of Axyon AI’s strategies at C8 Studio offers professional investors a practical way to directly incorporate AI into their investment strategies."

Mattias Eriksson, CEO and Founder of C8 Technologies, comments: “We are excited to be working with Axyon AI and welcome their AI indexes onto our platform. We are assisting a growing demand for AI indexes globally, and Axyon AI, a pioneer in this sector, can benefit institutional investors. With the C8 platform, institutional investors can easily access Axyon AI indexes, allowing them to combine and customise, all while generating alpha and reducing risk in volatile markets.”

AccessPay, the leading corporate-to-bank integration partner, today announced the release of its report: The Drive to Digital: Finance Transformation Trends for 2023. The report follows AccessPay’s series of Drive to Digital* events that took place in late 2022 and explores the theme of financial transformation and the possibilities offered by embedded corporate banking.

Anish Kapoor, CEO and Co-founder, AccessPay, explains, “With this report we wanted to highlight the key challenges facing finance teams and how digital transformation can help them. Over the course of our Drive to Digital events we took the opportunity to electronically poll delegates on a range of topics such as regulatory pain points and the challenges of multi-geography, multi-bank relationships. This report shares those results and provides an insight into corporate sentiment on the subject of finance transformation as we go into 2023.”

Key findings from the report include the following:

1. Finance teams are prioritising technology adoption

Technology adoption is the number one challenge or objective of finance departments, according to 58% of those polled. In contrast to the digital transformation that has taken place in consumers’ lives, finance and corporate banking processes remain manual and time-consuming. Corporates recognise the need for finance transformation, but knowing exactly what technology to adopt is a key challenge.

2. Digitisation is considered key to achieving operational resilience

59% of those polled cited reducing risk and increasing operational resilience as a key driver for finance transformation. The concept of operational resilience is particularly important in sectors such as financial services, where regulators will require firms to demonstrate they are operationally resilient by 2025. Processes carried out by people are considered to be higher risk, as they are not readily scalable if volumes increase. They also leave companies open to increased risk of errors and fraud. As such, finance teams are increasingly looking at how to automate key processes.

3. Managing cash visibility is a key concern for international businesses

Conducting business across borders brings additional complexity to finance processes. 40% of those polled flagged visibility of cash across regions or bank accounts as a key issue. Lack of cash visibility can have a number of implications, such as hindering a company’s ability to optimise cash-holdings in interest-bearing accounts. With interest rates now rising in many markets, this is a growing consideration for finance departments and highlights the importance of having a single view of a company’s cash position across banks and borders.

“In the current tough macroeconomic environment, the drive for finance teams to find efficiencies and stimulate growth through digitisation has become more pressing than ever,” comments Anish Kapoor, CEO and Co-founder, AccessPay. “This report highlights these challenges and also reveals the widespread recognition that the manual processes pervasive in the world of finance bring numerous operational issues. Enacting finance transformation and in particular taking an embedded corporate banking approach can overcome many of these issues, by enabling finance teams to centralise disparate data sets and reap the benefits of automation.”

Money20/20, the world’s leading fintech show, appoints Ken Gibbs as the new Editor-in-Chief. Ken Gibbs brings over 20 years of experience in digital and social media marketing to Money20/20 with a track record in delivering growth for several major media companies such as ViacomCBS, BET Networks, Aol Time Warner, and Prime Video.

Ken is a world-class digital marketing and social media leader with a deep understanding of the ever-shifting media landscape. He will focus on building year-round engagement with our growing audience globally, as the place where money does business, regardless of channel and medium.

Prior to this new role, Ken served as Global Head of Social Media Marketing at Spotify where he led and built the global social infrastructure and enterprise publishing for the brand.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join the Money20/20 team. The brand has evolved globally and is today the number one place where money does business and I’m eager to push that evolution into the digital space as the world of fintech continues to grow,” said Ken Gibbs.

Ken is also a member of Adweek’s Social Media Council, and a Co-host of The Art of Storytelling, a monthly celebrity Q&A series at the Soho House in New York City. Ken has also received several NAMIC Excellence in Multicultural Marketing awards.

“Ken joins at an exciting time for the brand following our strong post-pandemic return of Money20/20 USA, Money20/20 Europe, and our upcoming launch of Money20/20 Asia in Bangkok in April 2024. Ken brings a wealth of knowledge to our brand and will play an instrumental role in engaging with our growing audiences globally” said Scarlett Sieber, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Money20/20.

Newcastle Building Society is collaborating with shared bank branch innovator OneBanx, to provide access to a multi-bank kiosk in two of its branches in the North East and North Yorkshire as part of a ground-breaking pilot aiming to keep cash alive and high streets vibrant in local communities.

Backed by global leaders in cash automation GLORY, OneBanx developed the kiosk to support communities without access to everyday banking. The kiosks use Open Banking technology to allow small businesses and personal customers of any bank in the Open Banking network to withdraw and deposit cash from their accounts, and are the first to be located within the branch of a financial services provider anywhere in the world.

Under the pilot, users of the kiosk will be able to deposit notes and coins, and withdraw cash from their bank account. Personal and small business customers of any bank on the Open Banking network will be able to access their UK account, provided they have online banking access and have registered for the OneBanx service.

Andrew Haigh, chief executive officer at Newcastle Building Society, said: “Since January 2015, banks have announced the closure of more than 5,000 branches across the UK, but Newcastle Building Society remains absolutely committed to providing accessible face-to-face financial services in our communities. Our blueprint for a cost-effective branch model, which combines communities, technology and partnership is an approach that has been forged in the North East – but is potentially applicable to every high street.

“Cash is a vital part of daily life for millions of people and businesses and every bank branch closure leaves a damaging legacy in our communities. The kiosk provides people with convenient access to their bank and by providing access to technology like this in our innovative branch model, we’re showing exactly what can be achieved when we put the interests of our members and customers above everything else.”

Duncan Cockburn, chief executive of OneBanx, said: “This exciting collaboration with Newcastle Building Society shows how OneBanx can work with building societies to provide a solution which meets the needs of communities up and down the country to maintain access to cash and basic banking services. We look forward to further announcements in the near future as we bring our flexible, cost effective shared branch banking solution to many more high streets, shopping centres and other convenient locations.”

Alveo, a leading cloud-based data management, analytics, and Data-as-a-Service provider for the financial services industry, has entered into a definitive agreement to receive a majority investment from Symphony Technology Group (STG). Alveo supports mission critical access to mastered market and reference datasets for business applications and end users including trading, portfolio management, risk, and compliance workflows.

“We are excited to partner with Mark Hepsworth and the entire Alveo team to continue enabling the management of complex data at scale for its customers. The increasing quantum of data feeds and evolution of regulatory requirements drives a need for modern, cloud-hosted solutions. Through its recent investments in technology and products, Alveo is well-positioned to capitalise on these trends and we will continue to support further product innovation, as financial institutions navigate growing data processing requirements and a complex regulatory environment. We welcome Alveo to the STG family.” said Marc Bala, Managing Director at STG.

“Alveo’s employees, customers and partners, have helped build a leading solution for the financial services sector. We are excited to partner with STG to continue enhancing our  customer value proposition and expanding the range of products and services we can offer. STG’s experience in investing in software, data and analytics companies and their capital markets domain experience makes them a great partner to accelerate our progress and the development of Alveo in a highly dynamic and regulated market.” said Mark Hepsworth, CEO of Alveo.

Alveo serves a global footprint of blue-chip financial institutions, including investment banks, asset managers, and market infrastructure institutions with customers across 18 countries and operations in London, the Netherlands, Singapore and New York.

Closing of this transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Paul Hastings LLP and KPMG LLP advised STG on the transaction.

The European leader in B2B Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), Hokodo, and leading pan-European payment institution for marketplaces, Lemonway, have announced a partnership that will enable B2B marketplaces to offer buyers trade credit online. While enabling sellers to benefit from upfront payment, risk protection and full regulatory compliance.

Throughout the past five years, there has been a 94% growth in online B2B purchases, while another study predicts that 80% of transactions between B2B buyers and suppliers could be conducted online by 2025, underscoring the need for B2C payment experiences to replicate the ease and fluidity of the existing B2C payments space. Hokodo and Lemonway are seeking to provide the solution. The success of a B2B marketplace depends on many drivers, but the payment experience remains key. The expectations of business buyers demand that payment methods and services be adapted. So, while B2B, transaction amounts may be higher, timely payment is still preferred. BNPL meets these specificities by offering all the advantages of a traditional trade loan without its inconveniences, instantly, which is critical in the context of online trading.

In order to stand out from the crowd, B2B platforms must rely on the best payment technologies. It is therefore only natural that two marketplace experts have joined forces around common values and ambitions. Both have a tailored approach. Hokodo reduces the rate of non-payments thanks to a scoring system that evaluates the buying power of businesses in real-time. Meanwhile, Lemonway reconciles payments and helps the platform to comply with payment regulations.

BNPL unlocks the potential of B2B by perfectly matching the needs of business buyers. This results in higher average basket values, increased conversion rates and higher purchase frequency, as well as increased seller loyalty due to fast and guaranteed payment. This is changing the face of the B2B marketplace.

Antoine Orsini, founder of Lemonway, comments : ‘We are proud to collaborate with the European leader in BNPL. The values and ambitions that bring us together are real vectors of success for B2B marketplaces willing to stand out. Together, we have the potential to create tomorrow's European champions in a market that is expected to grow by 194% by 2025.’

’Lemonway's expertise and human approach fits perfectly with our DNA. We are passionate about the industry and want to offer B2B marketplaces the best possible way to stand out from the competition. The regulatory expertise and robustness of the Lemonway API fits perfectly with our real-time scoring system,’says Louis Carbonnier, founder of Hokodo.