SME lending startup, ftcash has received a licence from the Reserve Bank of India to set up a non-banking financial company. With this, the company aims to disburse loans worth INR 100 crore in FY23.

ftcash is one of India's fastest-growing financial technology companies with an aim to empower over 60 million micro-merchants and small businesses by bridging the lending gap with accessible loans.  Headquartered in Mumbai, the company was founded in 2015 by Sanjeev Chandak, Deepak Kothari and Vaibhav Lodha. As a responsible lender, it uses a proprietary algorithm to analyse creditworthiness and offer underserved MSMEs, including retailers, pharmacies, garment stores, automobile shops and mom-and-pop stores, with institutional finance. The company has partnerships with Northern Arc, Ugro and Ambit for providing credit offerings to their customers. 

ftcash Cofounder & CEO Sanjeev Chandak said, “Despite the government announcing several measures to enhance credit availability for the stressed MSMEs segment, nearly 80% of the total MSMEs in India lack access to lending. The NBFC licence will allow us to bridge this credit gap while offering loans with minimal documentation along with daily repayment options via PoS with equated daily instalments.”

“We have over 60,000 merchants in our network currently and have disbursed over INR 600 crore worth of loans till now. We expect the disbursals to grow 3X by 2023.”

ftcash has raised $10.2 million in funding and is backed by several investors including Accion, FMO and IvyCap Ventures.

The global AI in fintech market is estimated at US$ 10.1 Billion in 2021 and is projected to procure US$ 11.76 Billion by 2022 according to a report published by ESOMAR-certified Future Market Insights. The market is anticipated to garner US$ 54 Billion by 2032 while recording a CAGR of 16.5% during the forecast period from 2022 to 2032. Expansion of the market can be attributed to the increasing emphasis on customer safety against cyber and banking frauds across various developing countries.

From 2017 to 2021, the market flourished at a 16% CAGR. Growing application in the business analytics and reporting segment is another salient factor augmenting the industry growth in the assessment period. The managed service is likely to grow quickly owing to its help in administering AI-enabled apps in fintech. Fintech start-ups are using AI to provide professional services expected to drive the development of the segment.

On the contrary, owing to the rising cases of leakage of private information and cloning of debit cards is expected to be the major factor hindering the market expansion. Moreover, the proper integration and analysis of a huge amount of data makes the process even more complex, which is another factor impeding the industry expansion in the forecast period. 

Key Takeaways from the Market Study

• AI in fintech for business analytics and reporting captured a 32% market share, documenting a CAGR of 16% throughout the forecast period
• On-premise segment to expand at a CAGR of 17% during the forecast period 
• North America is expected to secure US$ 35 Billion by 2032, while expanding at a CAGR of 16.5% 
• Asia Pacific to record a CAGR of 16.5% during the forecast period
• Global market for AI in fintech to surge 4.6x from 2022 to 2032

“The global AI in Fintech market is expected to show a remarkable growth in the forecast period owing to the increasing emphasis on customer’s account safety against cyber and banking frauds,” says an FMI analyst.

Competitive Landscape

Key players in the global AI in the Fintech market include Microsoft, Google LLC, Salesforce, Inc., International Business Machines Corp., Amelia U.S. LLC, Nuance Communications, Inc., ComplyAdvantage.com, Narrative Science, Affirm, Inc., Upstart Network, Inc., Instructure, Inc., Intel, Inbenta Technologies, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, among others. Some of the recent key developments among the players are:

• In October 2021, Tech giant Microsoft Wednesday launched a new program Microsoft AI Innovation for nurturing and scaling startups that are leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• In April 2022, Conversational engagement platform Gupshup acquired Active. Ai, a conversational AI startup used by banks and fintech firms in all-cash deals.
• In May 2022, Salesforce has agreed to buy Troops.ai, which provides a revenue communications solution that works with sales velocity, forecasting, visibility, and collaboration. Troops have been designing tools for delivering real-time insights from various systems of record, like Salesforce, to engagement places Like Slack.

More Valuable Insights Available

Future Market Insights, in its new offering, presents an unbiased analysis of the global AI in the Fintech market, presenting historical market data (2017-2021) and forecast statistics for the period of 2022-2032.

The study reveals essential insights based on component (solutions, services), deployment (cloud and on-premise and, application (virtual assistant, business analytics and reporting, customer behavioural analytics, fraud detection, quantitative and asset management and others) across five major regions (North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa).

These insights are based on a report on AI in Fintech Market by Future Market Insights

Cashflows’ Banking Identification Number (BIN) sponsorship solution delivers full service to ATM deployers looking to enter the market or extend their proposition by accepting transactions from all card issuers. This in turn allows companies to process payments through an intermediary that is a direct scheme member, saving on operational costs.

This partnership sees Cashflows offer new and existing ATM clients the Fexco Treasury DCC solution from launch, potentially connecting to more than 20,000 ATMs across Europe. Fexco’s DCC@ATM solution allows international cardholders to withdraw cash and pay the cost of the transaction in their own currency with full disclosure of the exchange rate and margin.

This in turn can deliver a cost-efficient customisable customer transaction suite to the membership of VISA, Mastercard, Diners, Discover, Union Pay and JCB schemes. Cashflows can quickly tailor these services for any ATM deployers who are either looking to enter the market or extend their proposition by accepting transactions from all card issuers.

Founded in 2010, Cashflows is a payments company that focuses on creating solutions to everyday business problems). The company’s ATM organisation processes more than 50 million transactions annually, worth more than £1 billion (€1.13 billion). Cashflows is a principal member of Mastercard and Visa, and hold license agreements with American Express, Discover, Union Pay International and JCB.

“This partnership is a milestone for Fexco as it enables us to rapidly reach a wider market of ATM operators quickly and provides us with the opportunity to deliver our Treasury DCC proposition to as many operators as possible,” said Shane McElroy, Head of Global ATM Strategy at Fexco. “In a rapidly changing ATM sector, we can deploy our DCC solution to over 20,000 customers, but also be a part of the offering from every new ATM deployer coming into the European market, or those seeking extend their proposition by accepting transactions from all card issuers.” “The partnership between Fexco will allow us to offer both new and existing ATM clients the Fexco Treasury DCC solution from launch.” Said Adeel Hussain Director of ATM at Cashflows. This in turn will allow us to deliver maximum revenue opportunities at a lower set-up and reduce ongoing costs. It’s so important that the ATMs industry continues to evolve, innovate, and find new ways to ensure profitability, as ATMS are vital to ensuring cash access and financial inclusion. Through expanding our offering to our clients, we hope to support them in growing their businesses further and providing their own customers with more options.”

The partnership announced at this year’s ATMIA (ATM Industry Association) event in Berlin will see Fexco’s DCC@ATM solution immediately rolled out to ATM deployers. With operations in 60+ countries and €34+ billion annual processed transactions, DCC@ATM is the safest and most popular choice for foreign transactions at local ATMs. 

Finastra, a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces, and Jifiti, a leading global fintech company, today announced a collaboration to extend embedded finance capabilities to all financial institutions in the Finastra BaaS (Banking as a Service) ecosystem. Banks will be able to deliver financing offerings to consumers via merchants at point-of-sale, providing a better digital customer experience and choice for end users.

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is a key component of the fast-growing embedded finance space, and with Jifiti's white-labelled platform financial institutions can easily embed financing or split pay offerings at any merchant's point-of-sale at scale - online, in-store and via call centre. Financial institutions that work with Finastra to power core banking capabilities will benefit from the pre-integration of Jifiti's platform with Finastra's systems. The simple cloud deployment is available via Finastra's FusionFabric.cloud open development platform.

"Complementing the recent launch of our BaaS embedded consumer lending proposition, we look forward to leveraging Jifiti's best-in-class retail point-of-sale solution to give financial institutions a simple way to provide a seamless, embedded finance offering with a fully digital-first experience," commented Jeannette Kescenovitz, Sr. Director Solution Management, BaaS & Orchestration at Finastra. "The move further enhances our BaaS proposition at Finastra and forms part of our commitment to being a leading orchestrator in financial services."

Jifiti's modular platform supports every point-of-sale financing option, including instalment loans, lines of credit, split payments and B2B financing. Because the platform is white-labelled, financial institutions and merchants retain full customer and data ownership.

"At Jifiti we're committed to facilitating responsible, accessible and affordable financial solutions, and have always regarded banks and financial institutions as the future of BNPL. We're excited to be working with Finastra to help financial institutions transform their consumer financing programs and promote their own brands to end users at any point of sale," stated Yaacov Martin, CEO and Co-Founder of Jifiti.

Binance Custody, an institutional-grade digital asset custody solution, has added support for the NEAR Protocol and its native NEP-141 $NEAR token. The integration provides secure custody for this growing Layer 1 ecosystem’s native token, opening the door for projects built on the NEAR blockchain to conveniently onboard their NEP-141 compatible tokens with Binance Custody.

“We’re very excited to be part of NEAR’s journey as their institutional custody partner,” shares Athena Yu, EVP of Binance Custody. “With this integration, $NEAR token holders benefit from our secure, integrated security and liquidity solutions. We welcome any project building on the NEAR protocol to reach out to us to learn how our institutional infrastructure can help them scale with peace of mind.”

Platform security is of the utmost importance for protocols looking to attract investors as well as new projects onto their blockchain. With a focus on creating a developer and user-friendly platform, NEAR’s partnership with Binance Custody allows investors to store their $NEAR tokens securely and benefit from liquidity opportunities thanks to the custodian’s integration with the vast Binance ecosystem.

“A core mission for NEAR is building an ecosystem of diverse communities,” says NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament. “With the Binance partnership, NEAR can welcome to the NEAR ecosystem the many financial institutions that have turned to Binance as their trusted provider for digital assets custody and settlement solutions.”

Launched in December 2021, Binance Custody offers a growing suite of compliant, insured, and audited technology solutions including:
 

• Qualified Wallet: institutional-grade cold vault storage

• Prime Wallet: warm wallet infrastructure offering instantaneous transactions between Binance Custody and the Binance exchange, with sub-accounts.

• Binance Mirror: matches an institution’s cold storage custody funds with 1:1 availability on their Binance exchange account to access deep liquidity venues.

• Cold Convert: trade tokens from cold storage with zero counter-party risk and customized slippage tolerance without compromising on security.

• More competitive features coming soon

Ten promising Dutch fintech startups and scaleups have been selected for Batch 9 of the Rise programme of Techleap.nl, a non-profit organisation aimed at accelerating the tech ecosystem in the Netherlands. Techleap.nl’s Rise programme helps promising tech companies scale their company by creating a learning community to support the development of world champions in the Dutch technology sector.

The ten companies selected are all Dutch companies active in the field of fintech – from investment funds and brokers to providers of payment solutions and employee benefits. They are Bits of Stock, Carbon Equity, Closure, in3, Klippa, Omniboost, Payaut, Peaks, Surepay and YourCampus.

As part of the programme, Techleap.nl ensures that the selected companies have the best learning and network infrastructure at their disposal. Specifically, they gain access to leading experts, networks, and resources to learn from the best entrepreneurs and grow internationally.

Leading fintech hub

The Netherlands is a major European fintech hub that also attracts many non-European companies.  Access to knowledge and talent, a strong digital economy, acceptance of digital payment services, the tax environment and ease of entry are all reasons for fintechs to use the Netherlands as a gateway into Europe.

Tjarda Voorneman, Head of Programmes at Rise, says: “The Netherlands has produced a lot of home-grown fintech successes, like payments providers Adyen and Mollie, online bank Bunq and Mambu, the cloud banking platform. These successes, in turn, have attracted many VCs, making the Netherlands fertile ground for tech startups.”

“This rich environment also means that we can now, for the first time, focus the next edition of our Rise programme specifically on a single sector in tech. The ten companies selected in Batch 9 are just a few of the many ambitious young fintechs active in the Netherlands. Our goal as Techleap.nl is to help these companies unlock their potential and make the fintech ecosystem in the Netherlands even stronger.”

The companies of Batch 9

The ten companies selected for Batch 9 of the Rise programme are a testament to the wide range of services offered in fintech, from Surepay, who provide Confirmation of Payee services to over 40 banks in the Netherlands and abroad, to Omniboost, who offer a range of products and services tailored to the hospitality industry, from accounting services to insights.

Three of the selected companies service retailers, both online and offline: Payaut is a payment solution for online platforms and marketplaces, in3 lets consumers pay purchases in three installments in 60 days, without interest, while Bits of Stock combines loyalty programs with investing by offering stock or equity awards for purchases.

Serving investors are Peaks, an online broker offering ETFs, and Carbon Equity, an investment fund of funds investing in pioneering climate tech companies.

Klippa provides automated document processing solutions such as mobile scanning, data entry and extraction, and spend management solutions, while YourCampus provides employee benefit services, allowing SMEs and scale-ups to offer employees the same benefits as large corporations do.

Finally and fittingly, Closure is a one-stop-shop solution to help family members end contracts or subscriptions after the death of a loved one.

Genesis Global, the low-code application development platform purpose-built for financial markets organizations, today announced Tej Sidhu as Chief Technology Officer.  Sidhu reports to CEO, Stephen Murphy.

He brings to Genesis deep experience developing technology strategy and leading multi-national product development teams in rapidly-growing fintech companies.  Sidhu will direct the technology and engineering strategy for the Genesis low-code platform and will help drive the company’s mission to accelerate innovation in financial markets. He will lead more than 200 developers and technologists at Genesis.

James Harrison, co-founder of Genesis and CTO since 2015, will now focus on engaging with Genesis’ largest clients as they make the Genesis platform a cornerstone of their technology strategies.

“These appointments are important steps in our growth story,” said Stephen Murphy, co-founder and CEO at Genesis Global.  “Tej will propel our platform strategy and lead our global technology team as Genesis becomes the foundation of software development throughout financial markets.  James’ technical and industry expertise make him the perfect evangelist for our low-code platform and uniquely suited to expanding our relationships across the market.”

“I am thrilled to be a part of the Genesis mission to transform software development in financial markets,” said Tej Sidhu, CTO at Genesis Global.  “The Genesis platform accelerates the innovative potential of developers, making Genesis a unique partner for banks, asset managers and others in the industry that wants to realize the customization, control and other benefits of in-house builds with new levels of efficiency and speed.”

“With the Genesis platform already proven in the most demanding financial services environments, I am excited to get even more engaged with our clients and the industry to help them accelerate technology innovation,” said James Harrison, co-founder at Genesis Global.  “The capability in our platform enables business leaders and software developers to transcend the buy versus build dilemmas that impede digital transformation and growth.”

Sidhu was CTO and head of R&D at Calypso (now Adenza), a leader in trading, risk management and post-trade processing solutions for the capital markets, for 16 years.  At Calypso, he oversaw the growth and modernization of the platform and pivoted the company’s technology strategy in response to the global financial crisis in 2008.  In the last year, Sidhu was CTO at Umba, an Africa-focused digital bank.

Sidhu holds a master’s degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s from the University of Pennsylvania.

Making headlines with last year’s edition of UF AWARDS, Ultimate Fintech, the top-tier marketing agency and organiser of the industry-famed iFX EXPO, announces the launch of the UF AWARDS MEA 2023.

The UF AWARDS have been regarded as the standard of excellence and distinction for B2B and B2C brands that spearhead innovation and groundbreaking achievements in the online trading and fintech landscape. The UF AWARDS MEA 2023 carry this legacy forward by honouring excellence across the Middle East and Africa.

Nominations Open Now for UF AWARDS MEA 2023

Brands eager to stand out from the crowd in various categories can register via the Ultimate Fintech website and fill in the nomination form before the 16th of December.

With so many market participants eager to attain recognition in today’s ultra-competitive marketplace, getting nominated for one or more UF Awards is one of the highest privileges that fintech industry players can enjoy and a stride towards receiving industry acknowledgement.

The Award Categories

The UF AWARDS MEA 2023 are designed to crown the achievements of the best brokers and financial technology providers in the Middle East and Africa. With the MEA region emerging as the next Mecca for financial services and fintech innovation in recent years, the time for launching the UF AWARDS MEA 2023 could not have been more appropriate. View the full list of award categories here and nominate your brand in the categories that align with your business strengths.

A Special Place for the Industry Elite

Some of the titles that could propel your brokerage or fintech brand to the vanguard of the industry include:

Best Broker - Middle East

Best Mobile Trading App - Middle East

Most Transparent Broker - Africa

Fastest Growing Broker - Africa

Best Crypto Liquidity Provider - MEA

Best Trading Platform - MEA

Best Payment Service Provider - MEA

Best Technology Provider - MEA

The winners will be selected based on clearly defined criteria targeting service quality, product offering and industry know-how. If you’re looking to increase your visibility and standing industry-wide, winning an UF title is the best way to achieve it.

Join the excitement of the UF AWARDS MEA 2023!

The advantages that an UF Award can bring you are multifold. Passing through the sieve of a high-calibre organisation such as Ultimate Fintech and winning their acclaim is a merit that never goes unnoticed.

Not only will you raise brand awareness but will also gain a hot spot on the industry’s global radar, distinguishing yourself as “the best” in the business.

Lastly, winning an UF Award will boost your clientele’s confidence in your products and services, strengthening your company’s footprint in the international market.

How does it work?

During the Nomination Round, all applications are carefully reviewed, vetted, and approved. To participate, companies must first fill out the Nomination Form available on the Ultimate Fintech website. Interested brands are encouraged to nominate themselves in the categories they are strongest in.

Next, the entire industry will be asked to cast their ballots in the Voting Round. To eliminate suspicions of bias, Ultimate Fintech has created a public voting system, which will be available on the website from the 20th of December until the 10th of January. Only subscribed and logged in users will be able to cast their vote.

The winners will be announced on the 18th of January 2023, the last day of the iFX EXPO Dubai, all the more reason to submit your nomination and compete for an UF Award MEA!

Save the date

Ready to shine? The UF AWARDS MEA 2023 give you the chance to stand out from the crowd. Don’t miss out! Register now to nominate your brand.

Melissa, a leading provider of global data quality, identity verification, and address management solutions, today announced the UK launch of Unison, its next-generation data quality platform. The Unison interface brings together Melissa’s rich set of data quality transformations, including data standardisation, validation, and enrichment, to deliver high-quality information throughout an organisation.

“With customer contact data decaying at around 25 per cent annually, this next-generation data quality platform has already proven itself in the US and is set to provide significant benefits to our clients here in the UK as well,” said Barley Laing, UK Managing Director at Melissa. “By listening to our customers’ needs and tapping into our many years of experience in data management, Melissa designed Unison as a comprehensive, yet easy-to-use, a platform that mimics the steps of the data management workflow. Its fully customisable interface is ideal for IT and business stakeholders tasked with enterprise data stewardship and governance.”

Available securely via the web or on-premise, Unison features best-in-class parsing, matching, profiling, and cleansing. No coding or integration is required; users simply access the browser-based data quality console which offers high-speed and scalable processes adaptable to end-user requirements.

Unison can be deployed to cleanse and verify names, postal addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers from more than 240 countries and territories. Costly duplicate data can be removed using the platform’s advanced proprietary fuzzy matching functionality, while the data profiling component identifies data issues which can be tackled in order of priority.

Unison currently supports Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL databases, and a variety of deliminated flat files to deliver address, email, and phone verification, and geocoding for UK, US and Canadian records.