Lloyds Bank Corporate & Institutional Banking has continued to strengthen its Transaction Banking Solutions team with the appointment of Mansour Davarian.

In his role as Head of Corporate Trade Finance and Working Capital Sales, Mansour will be responsible for delivering Lloyds Bank’s full range of trade and working capital solutions to corporate clients.

Lloyds Bank’s existing corporate trade, working capital and asset finance sales teams will be brought together under Mansour’s leadership to support the delivery of bespoke multi-product solutions that meet specific client needs.  

Mansour joins Lloyds Bank from fintech Demica, where he was Head of Platform Sales. Prior to Demica, he worked at Hitachi Capital and at HSBC’s global banking and markets division. 

Alongside his work at Lloyds Bank, he currently serves as the Chief Examiner for the London Institute of Banking and Finance’s Certificate in Supply Chain Finance (CSCF) course – taking a leading role in the training and development of the next generation of finance professionals.

Alex Young, Managing Director and Head of Transaction Banking Solutions, Lloyds Bank Corporate & Institutional Banking, said: “The working capital needs of our clients are becoming more and more complex. They want bespoke, integrated solutions that incorporate the specialist financial tools available to them, alongside expert consultancy, which we strive for. 

“Mansour will help us meet this demand and drive our continued growth in the market. His breadth of experience – from financial institutions, to fintechs – is perfectly suited for our clients, together with his in-depth knowledge of trade and working capital needs our clients face. I’m excited to welcome him to the team.”

Mansour Davarian, Managing Director and Head of Corporate Trade Finance and Working Capital Sales, Lloyds Bank Corporate & Institutional Banking, said: “Alex and his team have demonstrated a real focus and clear vision when it comes to delivering the holistic solutions that corporates require.

“Along with a reputation for being at the cutting edge of product innovation, Lloyds Bank has a fantastic, inclusive workplace culture that prioritises team development – all things that are really important to me. I’m looking forward to working with Alex and the team across the business to help continue to build this culture and deliver the solutions our clients need to meet their objectives.”

Mansour’s appointment comes as Lloyds Bank continues to broaden its range of trade and working capital products, build new partnerships and unlock synergies between its solution teams.

In March, it unveiled a new partnership with fintech Satago to deliver the first end-to-end digital single invoice finance and whole-book invoice factoring solution on a single platform offered by any UK bank.

And in August, it revealed that it had successfully completed the UK’s first transaction utilising a digital promissory note. This landmark transaction dramatically increases speed of payment, and paves the way for a significant increase in the use of promissory notes for a broad range of transactions.

Paga, Nigeria’s leading payments and financial services company, is delighted to announce the launch of its Visa cards. Consumers now have the option of both virtual and physical cards that give them the ability to pay at over 100m+ merchant locations where Visa is accepted globally. The cards will be available first in naira, soon to be followed by US dollar-denominated cards.

The decision to launch with a virtual naira card first is deliberate. Nigeria is Paga’s largest market, and there has been a demand for virtual cards that work effectively. As a digital financial services company, launching a digital product that meets the needs of its largest market quickly is in line with Paga's customer-first approach.

In addition to providing consumers with more freedom and convenience when making online transactions, Paga has made its virtual cards simple and fast to activate, taking less than 20 seconds! To access the virtual cards, consumers need to update their Paga app or download it if they're yet to. Once in the app, they’ll click on “Get Card”, and the card is ready to use in making payments online.

Paga cards are different from the cards in the market today -

1. They can be funded from any financial institution in real-time. Each card has its unique NUBAN number that enables interoperability with all financial institutions for real-time funding by bank transfers, deposits at bank branches or agents (not just Paga agents), and from any fintech app. 

2. Each card has its unique JustPaga.me payment page, enabling Paga customers to send payment links to their friends or family and have the money deposited directly into their Paga card in real-time. 

Customers also get real-time notifications of transactions on their card, and can freeze or unfreeze the card if needed right from the Paga app.

The launch is a major milestone for Paga. By improving the payment experiences of consumers with its cards, Paga is delivering on its mission to make it simple for one billion people to access and use money. 

Paga is building an ecosystem with deep digital payments infrastructure to serve consumers. Paga currently has over 20 million customers and over 140,000 agent points across Nigeria. With its Visa cards, Paga will reach even more consumers, introducing some of them to new financial experiences.

Tayo Oviosu, Founder and CEO of Paga Group, says:

“We are thrilled about the launch of our Visa-branded cards. This is a significant milestone because it aligns with our goal of making it simple for people to access and use money. Customers now have access to Visa’s global network through Paga cards. I’m really excited about how Paga cards will make life easier for our customers in Nigeria and beyond.”

The Paga Group-Visa partnership is not new; both companies have been executing on a range of areas of collaboration for merchant acceptance and issuance. On merchant acceptance, both companies collaborated on the launch of Doroki, a commerce offering for retailers launched in November 2021. Additionally, Paga recently launched its direct online card processing in collaboration with Visa’s Cybersource – bringing greater reliability of card transactions on Paga platforms by removing dependency on other card processors. The launch of the Paga card is in line with the shared vision of the two companies to reach across the African continent and widen the pool of consumers who have access to simpler payment methods and financial services.  

Andrew Uaboi, Vice President and Head, Visa West Africa, says:

“We believe in innovation-led collaborations, and fintechs remain core to solving the access to financial services gap in Africa. Partnerships are fundamental to our business model and this expansion of our strategic alliance with Paga is another example of how we can help our clients deliver improved customer experiences. Whether it is changing the way people invest, manage money, or sending real-time payments to friends and family, Visa is a natural partner for fintechs, providing them with new ways to reach their customers through Visa’s vast network and global scale. We are proud to partner with Paga and support their ambitions to bring more Africans into the financial system with relevant digital solutions.” 

“Paga plays a critical role within the fintech ecosystem as they deliver solutions that solve customer and merchant needs. We are excited for the launch of Paga’s Visa cards that connects and their consumers and merchants to global commerce through the Visa network, with access to Visa innovation and digital experiences at the center,” Alex McCrea, Vice President, Head of Digital Partnerships, Fintech and Ventures, for Visa Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.

United Bank for Africa is the bank sponsor for Paga cards, and transactions at the bank's ATMs will always be free for customers.

This announcement builds on an already impressive 2022 for Paga as the company moves further on its mission to make it easier for people to access and use their money.

As part of its continued efforts to democratize the fight against online fraud for businesses of all sizes, SEON has officially launched a ‘forever free’ version of its industry-leading fraud prevention platform accessible to any online business.

Since its inception, SEON has been making effective online fraud prevention more accessible for all businesses operating online. Now, the company has taken the next step in that mission by announcing a ‘forever free’ version of its online fraud prevention platform. The free plan will help SEON to support businesses across countless verticals, including iGaming, payments, BNPL, online lending, as well as crypto exchanges, and marks a significant advancement in the company’s commitment to building a fraud-free world.

Simply put, SEON is not a typical fraud prevention company. The business operates on a product-led growth (PLG) strategy, which is a first within the broader online fraud prevention space. What’s more, by offering its solution through a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, SEON provides a platform that’s perfectly aligned with modern buying behaviours and highly accessible to businesses of all sizes. Now, by launching the free version of its solution, the company has gone further than ever before in opening access to a leading fraud prevention solution.

The exciting announcement will be officially made as part of SEON’s CEO and co-founder, Tamas Kadar’s Keynote Speech live at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, between 1^st to 4^th November. The business has chosen to make the announcement at the conference to ensure the news reaches as many online innovators and start-up businesses as possible.

The free plan will support up to 2000 API calls each month at a rate of two queries per second (QPS). As such, the free version is an ideal solution for any small business that needs immediate and effective fraud prevention. The free version also includes email support from the company’s top-class customer success team. This leading team is made up entirely of ex-fraud managers with the expert industry knowledge to assist businesses as they tackle fraud head-on.

As always, all new SEON users can access the full power of the company’s fraud detection solution on a 14-day free trial. However, at the end of this trial, users will now be automatically moved onto a ‘forever free’ plan. Alongside this, SEON continues to offer its industry-leading Pro plan, which supports businesses that need to process volumes of transactions or data at speed. The Pro service is tailored to serve bulk API calls in real-time responses at 10 QPS, or even faster.

Speaking on the launch, Tamas Kadar CEO and Co-Founder of SEON commented: “We’re determined to tackle fraud head on. To do this effectively, we need everyone to have access to sufficient tools and education, and we have therefore chosen to launch a ‘forever free’ version of our platform. This version will help us to serve a greater number of online businesses than ever before, and it is a major step towards building a truly fraud free world.

“Research shows that online fraud rises in moments of economic strife. Therefore, as we brace for a downturn, the tools we use to stop online fraud need to become more robust. Sadly, for too long, this level of protection has only been available at a very high price point. That’s why for years, we’ve strived to make our service as accessible as possible. Through our ‘forever free’ option we’re able to go even further in that effort.”

“As a company, we make it tough for fraudsters by intelligently combining real-time social signals, phone, email, and IP lookup details with device intelligence and machine learning to uncover fraud patterns and discover revenue opportunities. We enable fraud prevention teams to go further with access to insightful, real-time data from one source.”

SEON’s latest announcement comes off the back of a busy period for the company. In the last few weeks, SEON has announced several important updates to its system, including the continuous improvement to the accuracy of its IP, BIN, email, phone, and platform checks. Fuelled by these updates, the company’s innovative platform continues to achieve exceptional results for its users.

This performance has been highlighted in several recent projects, including an exciting partnership with chargeback management service, Chargeflow. In the past couple of months, SEON has also achieved outstanding results through its partnerships with innovative SaaS anti-money laundering company, Lucinity and AI-powered decisioning platform, Provenir. In addition, SEON continues to operate as the go-to fraud prevention solution of choice for companies like Revolut, NuBank, Afterpay, Patreon, Sorare and mollie.

Ezra, the fintech company that partners with financial service providers to offer credit solutions to financially underserved consumers and SMEs, has appointed Erwan Gelebart as its new CEO to drive its agenda for growth.

Built upon 12 years of success, Ezra was born from TransferTo Group along with leading Fintech companies including DTOne and Thunes. Gelebart now leads a 100-strong team which operates across three offices in Dubai, Nairobi and Singapore.

Ezra is committed to providing embedded lending solutions which promote sustainable economic growth, particularly in emerging markets and with a focus on individuals and SMEs. Its partners include mobile wallets, banks, network operators, utility companies and e-commerce platforms. To date, Ezra has partnered with leading organisations across Africa and Asia, including Airtel, Vodacom, mpesa, Access Bank and Interswitch, and it services 35 million users each month in more than 20 countries. And, with more than $1.6 billion worth of loans provided last year, Ezra is set to build upon its track record for industry success with more exciting and innovative partnerships to be announced shortly that will accelerate financial inclusion in more markets than ever.

Gelebart says:

“At Ezra, we work hard to financially empower people who have historically been denied access to basic financial services, to uplift their lives and businesses. I am delighted to be part of an exceptional team which is committed to improving financial inclusion across emerging markets. We take pride in our ability to deliver fully managed products, tailored to each beneficiary, end-to-end in just a few weeks. I look forward to building upon Ezra’s global reputation for excellence”.

Gelebart brings 14 years of experience in digital financial services to Ezra, and he has worked extensively across Africa and Asia for companies such as Orange Money, JazzCash and Grameenphone. After graduating with a Masters degree in Management from SKEMA Business School and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Technology, he began his career in strategic consulting. He oversaw the launch of one of Africa’s first mobile money products in 2008 and went on to lead mobile money business units and subsidiaries, as well as several successful digital lending products.

Gelebart grew up in Africa, where he experienced first-hand the difficulties that many faces in gaining access to essential financial services. He cites Ezra’s mission, of providing access to credit for more people in more places, as a driving factor in his decision to join the Ezra team.

His appointment comes at a pivotal moment for Ezra’s continued expansion in emerging markets, particularly across Africa. Digital services have quickly become one of the most popular means of depositing, borrowing and investing on a continent where many have previously been excluded from accessing traditional banking and credit solutions.

Cinchy Announces $14.5 Million Series B Funding Led by Forgepoint

Cinchy, the pioneer of dataware technology and leader of data liberation, announced a $14.5 million USD Series B financing round led by Forgepoint Capital. Forgepoint Managing Director Leo Casusol will join Cinchy’s Board of Directors, while Reynaldo Kirton comes on board as an advisor. Cinchy can leverage on the global demand for data fabric and mesh solutions that enable enterprises recover control of their data.

Asian Fintech iLex Passes $10B Assets Milestone

iLex, a Platform-as-a-Service fintech that designs, builds and operates digital market infrastructures for the US$6 trillion syndicated loans and private credit market, announced that it has US$10 billion of assets listed on its platform. In the last year, iLex's APAC and EMEA market participants tripled. The loan assets are displayed on iLex's Marketplace TM, which has open and private venues to distribute and source loans.

Zest AI Secures Growth Capital from Fintech Investors, Strategic Partners, and Customers to Advance the Next Generation of AI-Automated Underwriting 

Zest AI, the leader in automating underwriting with more accurate and inclusive lending insights powered by AI, announced that the company has raised over $50 million in a new growth round. The round was co-led by existing global software investor Insight Partners and new investor CMFG Ventures, with participation from CU Direct, Curql, Suncoast Credit Union, Golden1 Credit Union, Hawaii USA Federal Credit Union, and NorthGate Capital.

Darwinium, a Next-generation Fraud and Security Platform, Secures an Initial $10 Million Funding Round

Darwinium, a pioneering new Customer Protection Platform, announced a seed funding round of $10 million USD led by Blackbird alongside Airtree, both Australian headquartered Venture Capitalist firms. The initial capital round will be used to expand the company's product line and customer base. Additional funding was supported by several prominent angel investors including Naval Ravikant and Jeff Fagnan.

InterPrice Technologies Announces $7.3 Million Series A Funding Round Co-Led by Nasdaq Ventures and DRW Venture Capital

InterPrice Technologies, Inc., a treasury capital markets funding platform, announced the closing of its Series A funding. The $7.3 million investment was co-led by Nasdaq Ventures and DRW Venture Capital, with participation from existing investors including Bowery Capital. InterPrice’s solutions streamline bond, commercial paper, and loan pricing indications into intuitive dashboards across currencies and financing products.

Egyptian Fintech MoneyFellows Raises $31M to Digitise ‘Money Circles’ Between Friends and Family

Egyptian fintech MoneyFellows has raised $31 million for its mobile-based platform for money circles - where a group of people put money into a pot for a specific period so that they can save and borrow together. Popular in Egypt and other Arab countries under the name “Gameya”, Money Circles are also known as Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs). ROSCAs bring together persons who agree to pay a specific amount each month for a set duration. 

Form3 Secures EUR23 million Funding To Continue Exponential Growth Journey

Form3, the leading cloud-native payment technology provider, announced it has secured a EUR23 million venture debt facility to continue its rapid global expansion and follows its $160 million Series C funding led by Goldman Sachs last year. Atempo Growth, whose LPs include the European Investment Bank, Santander, and the British Business Bank, will give Form3 with venture loan investment to explore acquisitions, launch into new markets, and support new product growth.

Partnerships 

NEAR Wallet Users Soar to 20+ Million Thanks to Groundbreaking Partnership with SWEAT Economy

NEAR Foundation, the Swiss non-profit supporting the governance and development of the NEAR protocol, announced a tenfold increase in the number of NEAR Wallet users since the start of this year, rising from 2 million to over 20 million. The sudden rise has been ascribed to NEAR's easy-to-use, highly scalable, climate-neutral blockchain and its successful relationship with SWEAT Economy, the world's most popular workout program.

METACO Partners with OneInfinity by OneDegree for Digital Asset Insurance

OneDegree, the first Asia-headquartered insurer to provide coverage for digital assets, announces that it has entered into a strategic partnership with METACO, the market-leading provider of digital asset custody orchestration technology. The partnership sees OneDegree provide its pioneering digital wallet insurance product OneInfinity to financial institutions that leverage METACO’s flagship digital asset custody orchestration platform Harmonize™.

BlueSnap Partners with Objectsource to Enhance Magento Integration for Evolving EU Market

BlueSnap, the payment orchestration platform of choice for leading B2B and B2C businesses has expandedits partnership with top eCommerce agency, objectsource to support online sellers across Europe. The paytech firm has teamed up with the London-based consultancy to enhance its integration with popular shopping cart plug-in Magento /Adobe Commerce, adding new payment methods – GooglePay and ApplePay, iDeal and Sofort.

Cross-border Payments Leader Thunes Partners with Saudi Arabia’s Leading Fintech Enjaz

Enjaz Payment Services Company, a leading Fintech company licensed by the Saudi Central Bank announceda partnership with Thunes, a global leader in cross-border payments. This agreement will help our customers in Saudi Arabia to make instant international transfers globally to bank accounts and digital wallets using Thunes payment  network. The signing ceremony took place at the Seamless Conference held in Riyadh.

Skilling Announces TradingView Partnership

Skilling, the Scandinavian-founded fintech, has announced a partnership with TradingView, the all-things trading platform for traders and the global leader in charting and analysis tools. Traders may now locate, appraise, and trade opportunities through Skilling without leaving TradingView. It will allow consumers of both platforms to chart and trade concurrently for the first time.

Leading UK LendTech DivideBuy Partners with Salesforce to Offer Instant Onboarding for Merchants

DivideBuy, the leading UK Point of Sale (POS) finance pioneer, has announced a partnership with Salesforce, the world's foremost cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform, to offer instant onboarding for DivideBuy’s merchants and partners. LendTech's relationship with Salesforce promises to break merchant onboarding records, boosting POS financing adoption in additional sectors.

Tailwind Partners with Nordigen to Launch a Visual Cash Flow Management Tool

Tailwind is teaming up with Nordigen to provide the next-generation cash flow predictions and visualisations tool based on open banking transaction data. Tailwind is a cash flow management tool designed to help owners and managers of professional services firms save time and instantly see actionable insights. Simplicity, visualisation and ease of what-if modelling are the main  advantages of Tailwind.

Liminal Collaborates with Metamask Institutional to Boost Institutional Crypto Adoption

Liminal, a digital wallet infrastructure platform, established a strategic agreement with Metamask Institutional to boost institutional crypto adoption. As part of the agreement, Liminal users may link their Liminal wallets at the click of a button with Metamask Institutional and use it much like they would use the defacto Ethereum wallet programme, MetaMask, with Multi-Sig and all perks of Liminal wallets. Institutional users can now access Defi dApp liquidity.

Ecospend Partners with Whisky Partners to offer ‘Pay-by-Bank’ Services

Ecospend, the UK’s leading open banking payment provider, announced its partnership with Whisky Partners. The firm will begin processing customer payments using Ecospend’s account-to-account payment services.Whisky Partners leads the way in UK and European whisky investments. Its service provides a way for customers to invest in whisky casks, as well as providing expert advice on buying and selling whisky for a maximum return on investment.

IQ-EQ Employs Leading AI Compliance Capabilities with Napier

Napier, provider of leading anti-financial crime compliance solutions, announced that investor services group IQ-EQ is upgrading its screening capabilities to Napier’s AI-enhanced Client Screening. Napier’s Client Screening solution will further enhance IQ-EQ’s existing systems by automatically screening clients at relevant intervals against sanctions, Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) lists, and other key watchlists. 

Clearpay Partners With Smart Works To Support Economic Opportunities For Women

Clearpay, the leader in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) payments, has partnered with leading UK charity Smart Works, which exists to give women the confidence they need to secure employment and change the trajectory of their lives. The new cooperation will help more women in the UK succeed. Smart Works uses high-quality clothes and one-on-one coaching to help women realise their full potential.

Finastra and InfoTech Help NBP to Modernize Trade Finance Operations and Boost Growth

Finastra has announced that NBP (National Bank of Pakistan) has implemented Finastra’s Fusion Trade Innovation solution to power its trade finance operations. InfoTech (Pvt) Ltd., a leading systems integrator and Finastra’s exclusive authorized and certified reseller in Pakistan, led the deal and implemented the solution, which will enable NBP to lower transaction costs and provide corporate customers with a superior user experience.

UnionBank Goes Live on METACO Harmonize to Launch Cryptocurrency Services

METACO, the leading provider of digital asset management technology to complex, global financial institutions, announces that Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank), one of the largest universal banks in the Philippines, has gone live on METACO’s flagship platform, Harmonize, to pilot the launch of crypto services for its clients. UnionBank has a crypto licence from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). 

UnionDigital Bank Partners with Thought Machine to Power its Digital Banking Platform

UnionDigital Bank, the digital banking subsidiary of Union Bank of the Philippines, announces its partnership with cloud-native banking technology company Thought Machine and has deployed its core banking engine, Vault Core. Thought Machine’s next-generation core technology has enabled UnionDigital Bank to swiftly build its products while offering flexibility, control, and ease of integration with other technology systems.

Karta.io Joins Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program

U.S. startup Karta.io, the financial OS for e-commerce teams, announced that it joined Visa’s Fintech Fast Track Program. Karta.io may build and expand innovative spend management experiences for businesses and a financial ecosystem for managing company cash flows with improved tools for organising costs and controlling business finances through Visa's Fintech Fast Track Program.

AccessPay and Finastra Announce Collaboration to Deliver Corporate-to-bank Connectivity

AccessPay, the leading corporate-to-bank integration partner, and Finastra, a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces, have teamed up to remove the challenges and reduce the costs associated with traditional corporate banking’s host-to-host connections.  Enabling banks to offer direct connectivity for payments to a wider range of corporate customers, the partnership strengthens corporate relationships.

Launches 

Phos Launches Tap to Pay Solution in the US with Elavon

Phos, the global leader in software point of sale (softpos) orchestration for businesses, has launched a Tap to Pay solution in North America with global acquirer Elavon. The solution will enable Independent Sales Organisations (ISOs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in the US and Canada to turn mobile devices into contactless payment terminals. The transaction is the first of many phos seeks as it expands across North America.

Unlimint Expands into the Crypto Space with the Launch of GateFi at Web Summit

London-based global fintech Unlimint announced the launch of GateFi, marking their expansion into the crypto space. The service allows customers throughout the world to seamlessly trade fiat money to crypto and crypto to fiat money. It also acts as a Web3 onboarding solution, opening the doors to Web 3 and DeFi for mainstream users. Unlimint is a global all-in-one fintech that offers sophisticated payment capabilities to startups and companies. 

Square Appointments Launches for Irish Businesses

Square, the technology company helping businesses of all sizes more easily run and grow their business with its integrated ecosystem of commerce solutions, announces the launch of Square Appointments. The product is now available to all sellers in the Republic of Ireland and provides a combined solution that integrates booking software with an all-in-one point of sale built for the Beauty and Personal Care sector. 

Episode Six and Immersve Partner to Launch World’s Most Decentralised Scheme Payment Card

Episode Six, the leading global payments and banking infrastructure provider, and Immersve, a multichain payments protocol and Scheme card issuer, announced a partnership to facilitate Scheme payments directly from Web3 digital wallets. This partnership brings together Episode Six’s globally distributed issuer processing expertise and Immersve’s blockchain technology to give consumers access to a truly decentralized scheme payment product.

Weavr Announces Singapore Launch at Web Summit

Weavr, a London-headquartered technology provider that empowers businesses with plug-and-play embedded finance solutions, announced its launch in Singapore. Weavr's launch in Singapore, backed by a US$40m Series A round led by Tiger Global, marks its global ambition. Companies are reorienting their business strategies to become more resilient in the face of increased economic instability, inflation, and geopolitical concerns.

NetGuardians Launches Innovative AML Solution Using its Award-winning AI Risk Platform

Award-winning Swiss FinTech NetGuardians, renowned for its enterprise risk platform combating bank fraud, announced the launch of its anti-money-laundering (AML) transaction monitoring solution. NetGuardians has enhanced its NG|Screener platform to monitor money-laundering transactions, bringing financial institutions effectiveness and efficiency.

Wirex Launches New Dual-Asset Yield-Earning Tool

Wirex, a leading crypto wealth and payment platform, has launched DUO, the dual-asset high yield-generating tool that earns users up to 200% returns. DUO will make earning simpler than ever before with guaranteed yield paid in crypto every time. As part of their mission to bridge the gap between the traditional and digital economies, Wirex has brought together the best of DeFi yield generation strategies and traditional financial trading platforms to create DUO.

Zaggle and NPCI Partner to Launch Multiple Credit Cards on RuPay Network

Zaggle, a profitable SaaS FinTech company and a pioneer in digitizing business spends has collaborated with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to issue contactless credit cards on the RuPay network. Zaggle and NPCI along with partner banks would use this platform to launch multiple credit cards to address the ever-growing demand of Corporates, SMEs, and consumers.

Room Zero Launches Innovative AUM & Flow System

Room Zero, an exciting new provider of specialist software to the asset management industry, is supportingGAM Investments in meeting all its needs for Assets Under Management (AUM) & Flow information from across the entire firm with a single, golden source dataset. Room Zero’s cloud-based software stems from the need to join up the datasets springing from the worlds of Finance and Distribution (Sales & Marketing).

Merger & Acquisition

Bakkt to Acquire Apex Crypto

Bakkt Holdings, Inc., a digital asset platform that unlocks crypto and drives loyalty to create delightful, connected experiences for a broad range of clients, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Apex Crypto, LLC from Apex Fintech Solutions, Inc. This acquisition will boost Bakkt's bitcoin product offering and expand its footprint to fintechs, trading app platforms, and neo-banks.

impak Ratings Acquires Exerica, a London-based Fintech Data Extraction Firm

impak Ratings, a leading impact analysis and ratings fintech, acquires 100% of London-based Exerica’s assets to expand its AI capabilities. Exerica’s entire team will be integrated into impak’s production processes along with its proprietary AI data extraction and contextualization software. This will increase manufacturing capacity for impak's high-quality impact assessments, including SDG Alignment and SFDR Freemium products.

Job Moves

United Fintech Expands to Singapore and Appoints Cameron Booth as Head of APAC

United Fintech, the go-to platform for capital markets digitisation, broadens its global reach and expansion of its leadership team with a move into the Asia Pacific market, appointing Cameron Booth as head of APAC to drive its growth. Based in Singapore, Cameron will work closely with United Fintech’s London-based sales team, reporting to Tom Robinson, partner and head of sales, to help scale and distribute United Fintech’s range of products and services to clients.

Agnieszka Noworól Joins Muinmos as Customer Success Director

Agnieszka Noworól, former Head of KYC and Onboarding Solutions at IG, is joining Danish RegTech firm, Muinmos as Customer Success Director and a member of the Management Team. Agnieszka has great leadership abilities and a passion for innovation and digital transformation. She worked six years with IG in Poland as Account Opening Manager for EMEA and Head of Account Opening for EMEA, APAC, and RSA.

Spendesk Appoints Rosenberg as Chief Technology Officer

Spendesk, the 7-in-1 spend management solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), has announced the appointment of Richard Rosenberg as its Group Chief Technology Officer. Richard will lead Spendesk's engineering staff. As the company expands across Europe, he will guide the security of Spendesk's systems and increase the quality and pace of software product development.

TIBCO Recognised as a Leader in GigaOm Radar for Data Virtualisation

TIBCO has announced it was named a Leader in the 2022 GigaOm® Radar for Data Virtualisation: Enterprise Vendors. GigaOm evaluated the TIBCO® Data Virtualisation application, which received a Leader ranking. The TIBCO Data Virtualisation capabilities, as part of the broader TIBCO platform, support the data fabric journey that customers require to combine, provision, and use their enterprise data.

Nuvei Appoints Vicky Bindra as CPO/COO

Nuvei Corporation, the Canadian fintech company, announces the appointment of Vicky Bindra as Chief Product and Operations Officer, effective November 14, 2022. In this newly created role reporting to Nuvei Chair and CEO Phil Fayer, Bindra will oversee product development and operations, supporting growth across geographies and verticals. His focus will be on tailored solutions and processes to boost Nuvei's customers' revenue. He'll be in SF.

iBroker Joins Spectrum Markets as Newest European Member

Spectrum Markets, the pan-European trading venue for securitised derivatives, announced today it is welcoming iBroker, the Spanish online multi-product broker specialising in derivatives, as its newest member. The broker will extend its current offering to include securitised derivatives, with retail investor clients in Spain and Italy able to trade these via Spectrum.

EBANX Announces Commercial Executive Greg Cornwell as New VP of Business Development, as the Brazilian Payments Fintech Giant Scales its Business Globally 

EBANX, a fintech company that specializes in international payments in rising markets, announced the appointment of Greg Cornwell as the Brazilian unicorn’s new Vice President of Business Development. He will report directly to EBANX President of Global Payments, Paula Bellizia, and play a key role in co-leading the fintech’s global sales team, located across the Americas, Asia and Europe. 

PXP Financial Announces New Senior Leadership Team

PXP Financial Group, the expert in global acquiring, payment, fraud and data analysis services, announcedthree appointments to its senior leadership team: Katharina Richter-Weiss joins the company as Chief Operating Officer, Salvatore Cicero has been promoted to Chief Technology Officer and Dwaine Thomas has been promoted to Deputy Chief Operating Officer.  

Cinchy, the pioneer of dataware technology and leader of data liberation, today announced a $14.5 million USD Series B financing round led by Forgepoint Capital. Forgepoint Managing Director Leo Casusol will join Cinchy’s Board of Directors, while Reynaldo Kirton comes on board as an advisor. This investment allows Cinchy to further capitalize on the surge in global demand for data fabric and data mesh solutions that help free the enterprise from unruly application ecosystems and regain greater control of their data. Cinchy, which enables instant visibility into organizational data, offers an out-of-the-box solution that provides immediate time to value by turning abstract data concepts into actual live dataware deployments.

“Our mission is to liberate and harness the power of data, giving it back to teams and organizations to accelerate digital transformation and growth,” said Dan DeMers, CEO and co-founder of Cinchy. “We’re thrilled to partner with the team at Forgepoint Capital, which uniquely appreciates the importance of data layer controls and the enablement of data autonomy. This latest round of funding helps us expand our team and release new offerings that include pre-built dataware solutions designed to help organizations instantly liberate both trapped data and siloed SaaS applications.”

With Cinchy–a young company with customers ranging from TD Bank to Colliers International–businesses in every demographic can begin to eliminate their dependence on costly, time-consuming integrations and can establish fully autonomous data networks. Free from encumbrances and centrally accessible, Dataware delivers enhanced business intelligence and fosters faster time to market for business solutions.

“With every investment, we promote and support technologies that are designed to disrupt long-held business practices, and there’s no question that data-enabled collaboration needs exactly those foundational advances,” said Leo Casusol, Managing Director at Forgepoint Capital. “We’re already seeing the power and impact of Cinchy’s Dataware Platform in transforming and enhancing business practices for customers across industries, and the company is just getting started. We couldn’t be more excited to partner through their next phase of growth and all that’s ahead.”

"Cinchy is an incredible platform charting a new paradigm in the realization of value from data and changing the game for architecting and delivering data-centric solutions," said Michael Dieckmann, CIO, Florida Polytechnic University.

NEAR Foundation, the Swiss non-profit supporting the governance and development of the NEAR protocol, today announced a tenfold increase in the number of NEAR Wallet users since the start of this year, rising from 2 million to over 20 million.

The meteoric increase has been attributed to a combination of factors, including growing support among developers and creators for NEAR’s easy-to-use, highly scalable, climate neutral, blockchain, as well as its successful partnership with companies such as SWEAT Economy, the world’s most popular fitness app.

Currently, NEAR has over 800 projects being built on its protocol, which uses Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus to secure and validate transactions on the blockchain. NEAR  has also lowered barriers for creators with important developments such as the launch of Javascript SDK – which will give over 20 million developers the opportunity to build Web3 apps using JavaScript, the most popular coding language in the world.

NEAR’s collaboration with SWEAT Economy has also been a vital catalyst for the uptake of NEAR Wallet users. In September,  Sweat Economy - the ‘economy of movement’ -  successfully launched on NEAR with the largest ever airdrop to active, opted-in, wallets. The Move-to-Earn platform, active in Web2 since 2016 with over 130 million global users of its Sweatcoin app, distributed its new Web3 SWEAT token to 13.5M token holders. The Sweat Wallet app quickly became the number 1 most downloaded finance app in 51 countries. This follows SWEAT’s success as the fastest IDO ever to sell out on the DAO Maker platform. 

Sweat Economy distributed over 4.7 Billion of its newly launched SWEAT token to the 13.5M of its Sweatcoin users who opted to enter into Web3. For many of these users, it is their first experience with Web3, making this airdrop the largest ever on-ramping of self-custody users from Web2 to Web3.

Marieke Flament, CEO of NEAR Foundation commented: “It’s been an extraordinary year for NEAR as we ramp up efforts to attract the world’s best and socially minded developers on our protocol. We have put our emphasis on championing talent diversity, regional hub development and sustainable practices. Equally important to our success are the strategic partnerships we have forged with prominent companies that have done a brilliant job at transitioning from a Web2 business model to Web3. Sweat Economy is one of these companies that have made it easy for people to access Web3 applications with the help of NEAR - which has led to millions of users for its product - and for our protocol. These partnerships are key to helping us to realise our ambition to achieve mass adoption for crypto and to show the world that Web3 is capable of  solving real-world problems and making society a better place for all.”

Yabx, a FinTech venture headquartered in the Netherlands, today announced its foray into Nigerian markets with a mission to democratize credit across the country with its digital lending offerings.

According to a World Bank Report, the private credit bureau coverage in Nigeria was 13.9% in 2019. The numbers must have improved post-pandemic but there is still a long way to go. Yabx aims to bridge the gap between the new-to-credit segments and the banks in Nigeria at scale and introduce new-age fintech products and solutions in the high-demand markets of the country.

The company will further amplify its local operations in Nigeria to capitalise on the investments being made in the digital lending space of the country.

Yabx has partnered with several African banks to create large, scalable and profitable digital lending portfolios by leveraging its fintech platform. Nigeria, where banks generally have faced challenges in underwriting their own captive base optimally, Yabx will not only help banks to widen the horizon of services they offer to their captive base but also allow them to launch new and innovative products like Buy Now Pay Later, Personal Loans, Payday loans, MSME loans etc.

Commenting on the expansion, Rajat Dayal, CEO & Founder of Yabx said, “While digital financial services have catalysed financial inclusion, access to financial services and credit remains an obstacle in countries like Nigeria. Without available credit services, small farmers, SME owners, and the new to-credit segments face difficulty in obtaining loans to make profitable investments or pay off debts”.

“Today, banks and financial institutions in Nigeria are more than keen to partner with us and launch new and innovative products for a new-to-credit segment. Our platform doesn’t only increase the reach of such banks but also helps them play a major role in creating a global credit score which will eventually help the new credit segments in the country build a life without any external aid”, further added Rajat.

Yabx uses Big Data Analytics and AI/ML algorithms on large volumes of alternate data to create a detailed financial identity of customers and help banks underwrite them over Yabx Loan origination and Lifecycle Management System. This customer origination and servicing can be done on various channels like the bank’s own digital banking app, USSD channel, website or even as embedded options in third-party apps.

Yabx’s growth and innovation have also been validated at the most reputed global platforms ranging from the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) to being recognised as the “LendTech of the Year” at the Asia Fintech Awards 2022. The Fintech start-up also won the “Best BNPL Solutions Award” at the recently concluded Global Fintech Fest 2022. With such global recognition and presence already in place, Yabx is set to accelerate its mission in the Nigerian market to open up corners of opportunities that didn’t exist earlier.

iLex, a Platform-as-a-Service fintech that designs, builds and operates digital market infrastructures for the US$6 trillion syndicated loans and private credit market, announced today that it has US$10 billion of assets listed on its platform.