OpenFin, the operating system (OS) of enterprise productivity, today announced record growth for the first half of 2022 on the strength of its new Workspace offering.  In addition to significant wins within the finance space and a $10M investment from ING Ventures, OpenFin expanded its footprint to the government sector through a strategic partnership and investment from In-Q-Tel (IQT), the not-for-profit strategic investor serving the U.S. intelligence and national security community and its allies.  This marks the first expansion of OpenFin OS outside of the finance sector.

Launched in May 2021, OpenFin Workspace (Workspace) is the new visual interface of OpenFin OS which includes components for complex windowing, advanced search, actionable notifications, and application discovery.  The multi-tenant environment enables multiple platforms to run concurrently on the same desktop and for each platform to brand and theme the components.  This eliminates the need for customers to build these components themselves, reducing development costs, speeding time-to-market and significantly enhancing end-user productivity.

“With Workspace, our customers can now quickly stand up their platforms and unify the app experience in a fraction of the time,” said Gavin Lauchlan, Chief Product Officer at OpenFin.

OpenFin’s web-based OS has become the de facto standard in financial services for powering next-generation applications and digital experiences for employees and clients. The software is now used at more than 3,800 banks, wealth and asset management firms in 60+ countries.

The introduction of Workspace has significantly accelerated OpenFin’s growth in finance and enabled the expansion of OpenFin into the government sector via a strategic partnership with IQT. IQT helps the U.S. and its allies stay at the forefront of innovation through its strategic investments, exploration and research, and acceleration of capabilities.

“OpenFin’s platform provides a unique capability for unifying workflows across disparate web and Windows applications, allowing agencies to improve user experience for government workers and enhance their effectiveness,“ said Brinda Jadeja, Senior Partner at IQT.

“Traditional web browsers are a rudimentary tool for running apps in large enterprises,” said Mazy Dar, CEO at OpenFin.  “The rapid adoption by financial firms and our expansion into the government sector provide strong validation that OpenFin OS does what browsers and even the native OS can’t do when it comes to enterprise productivity.”

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 work by pulling together a group of people who each agree to pay a set amount of money each month for a set amount of time. Each month, one member gets that period's amount. So, if 10 people agree to pay $100 for 10 months, each month one member receives $1000.

By digitising money circles, Money Fellows says it is helping users to broaden their potential pool of partners beyond the traditional group of close friends and family.

The company claims hundreds of thousands of monthly active users and 8x year-on-year growth. The new funding will be used to diversify its portfolio of services and geographical expansion across Africa and Asia.

The Series B round was led by CommerzVentures, Middle East Venture Partners and Arzan Venture Capital, with participation from Invenfin, National Investment Company, Partech, Sawari Ventures, 4DX and P1Ventures.

Hangwi Muambadzi, venture partner, CommerzVentures, says: "Rotating Savings and Credit Associations have been deeply embedded in emerging markets across the world for centuries.

"It is brilliant to see this new digital RoSCA-driven model emerge from Africa, creating a trusted model of delivering financial solutions and setting a new standard on using localised solutions to solve for global opportunities."

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. With simplicity at the core, it utilises Wirex’s innovative user interface to allow users of all abilities to access high-yield earning tools.

DUO allows Wirex’s 5 million customers to earn the difference in market price from a trading pair over a certain duration, where they’ll be paid out in one of the two currencies plus the yield. Providing complete flexibility, customers can choose the pair of tokens, period of time and amount locked, and open multiple DUOs at once. It offers higher returns to customers choosing to lock more for less time and has no usage fees.

The launch of DUO adds to Wirex’s suite of products allowing users to grow their assets and proving more popular during the current crypto winter. Last year, they developed X-Accounts, where users can earn up to 20% AER on their funds, with no minimum amount, and no maintenance or lock-up fees. In July, they also introduced Wirex Credit, offering highly competitive interest rates with no origination fee for crypto-backed loans of up to $100,000.

Pavel Matveev, CEO and Co-Founder, commented: “It’s great to add another easy-to-use product that brings the benefits of DeFi-style earning into everyday users' hands. DeFi protocols offer similar ways for users to earn, but are typically extremely lengthy, complex, and expensive for the average person to successfully use. Particularly in this bear market, our customers are looking for straightforward ways to grow their funds and DUO will allow investors of all experience levels to earn high levels of interest.”

Temenos today announced that Baiduri Bank, one of the largest providers of financial products and services in Brunei, has signed with Temenos for core banking on the Temenos Banking Cloud. With this move, Baiduri Bank will be the first bank in Brunei to operate its core banking platform in the cloud under the SaaS model.

Baiduri Bank serves diverse customer segments ranging from retail, MSMEs to corporate and institutional clients. It is a front-runner in delivering digital-first experiences, offering a comprehensive suite of digital solutions including an award-winning mobile banking app and dedicated business digital banking service.

Replacing legacy systems with Temenos modern SaaS on Microsoft Azure will enable Baiduri Bank to offer superior customer propositions with personalized offerings at a fraction of the time and cost. The bank will adopt Temenos banking services for core banking, data analytics and financial crime mitigation (FCM) to support its retail and corporate banking, finance and wealth management operations.

The move to Temenos Banking Cloud will commence in 2023 and will be led by Temenos implementation partner Tech Mahindra, a leading provider of digital transformation, consulting, and business re-engineering services and solutions.

Temenos Banking Cloud allows Baiduri Bank to progressively renovate its IT landscape using a composable banking approach to deploy new services faster, more cost-effectively, and at scale. In future, Baiduri Bank has ambitions to extend its offering beyond banking and will leverage Temenos open and composable architecture to include other value-added services that complement the lifestyle needs of modern consumers.

Ti Eng Hui, Chief Executive Officer, Baiduri Bank, commented: “Since 2020, we have embarked on a digital transformation journey with the aim of leveraging technology to elevate operational efficiency, analytical capabilities and ultimately, customer experience. Our core banking project, a strategic investment will be the next and a most significant milestone in this journey.

“To succeed in the fast-evolving digital landscape, we need flexible, scalable solutions that are both responsive and efficient. Temenos Banking Cloud opens up new opportunities for Baiduri Bank by providing instant access to world-class banking capabilities and the flexibility to consume what we need as we need it. Moving to SaaS for core banking is a first for a Brunei bank and a major step forward for Baiduri Bank. We engaged IDC to undertake a thorough market evaluation and Temenos was selected for its composable architecture and breadth of banking services to meet our current and future needs.”

Craig Bennett, Managing Director – APAC, Temenos, said: “We are proud to welcome Baiduri Bank as our latest regional partner to the Temenos Banking Cloud. Given our depth of expertise in composable banking, we see strong take up from banks big and small across the region as they look to modernize their technology stack and benefit from the flexibility and agility of a SaaS platform.”

Vivek Agarwal, President – BFSI, HLS & Corporate Development, Tech Mahindra, said, “We are happy to be selected as Baiduri Bank’s System Integration & Implementation Partner for Temenos Banking Cloud. This win is a testament to the continuous investments in our global Temenos partnership and digital transformation capabilities. We are fully committed to the platform modernization roadmap and look forward to working with Baiduri Bank on its core transformation journey.”

iProov, the world leader in face biometric authentication technology, announced today that it has been named an Innovation Leader for its best-of-breed biometric verification solutions in the KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for Providers of Verified Identity 2022.

iProov was rated five out of five in the categories of Security and Usability and four out of five for Functionality, Deployment, and Interoperability. The report highlights a number of iProov’s strengths, including:

• Strong usability features
• Active bias monitoring
• Support for risk-adaptive authentication
  ISO 27001 and PAD certifications
• Multi-cloud environment

“We’ve achieved industry leadership by delivering the market’s highest performance in online security and user experience,” said Andrew Bud, founder and CEO of iProov. “This leadership has already been recognized by the governments, banks, and other organizations that are using iProov, so to have it also recognized by one of the identity industry’s leading analysts is very rewarding.

“In such a respected list of identity industry leaders, it’s great to be the only biometrics-focused vendor included. This is a testament to the success of our unique best-of-breed technology. That critical step of bridging a live human being with an online identity is difficult, complex, and subject to ever-evolving criminal attacks. It can only be delivered with specialist technology and threat management.”

As iProov continues to grow its global market share and expand the regions in which it serves clients and partners, the organization was also rated as a top challenger in the Overall Leadership category that incorporates Product Leadership, Innovation Leadership, and Market Leadership rankings.

The KuppingerCole Leadership Compass for Providers of Verified Identity 2022 compares verified identity providers or vendors that conduct digital identity verification. This encompasses vetting/proofing, registration, and authentication delivered through services such as document verification, biometric verification, video verification, fraud reduction, electronic signing, attribute verification, and orchestration.

iProov is one of 15 global identity vendors recognized in the report, alongside Microsoft, Experian, IDEMIA, and PingID. The report is one of the first to provide a deep dive into the fast-growing digital identity verification market and an overview of the leading identity vendors.

iProov’s patented face biometric verification and authentication technology is used by organizations globally to confirm that an online user is a right person, a real person and that they are authenticating right now. Its Genuine Presence Assurance® and Liveness Assurance™ technologies deliver an effortless user experience with the highest levels of security to help prevent fraud, identity theft, and other cybercrime during online onboarding, authentication, and identity recovery.

Finaro, the global cross-border payment provider and fully licensed bank, has today announced a new strategic partnership with EveryPay, the Greek payment gateway provider, to boost in-store payment acceptance for Greek merchants. This latest partnership is another example of how Finaro’s pioneering services and flexible technologies are making it the go-to payments partner for PSPs and merchants across Europe, and it also highlights the latest step in the successful execution of Finaro’s ambitious growth plans.

In a timely move that comes as Greece’s tourism industry bounces back, Finaro and EveryPay’s partnership will transform the acceptance capabilities of Greek merchants, who previously have been limited by fragmented and complicated POS terminal relationships and have been restricted in their ability to accept transactions from international customers.

Currently servicing 90% of Greek marketplaces, EveryPay will leverage Finaro’s smart acquiring capabilities, dynamic technology payment solutions and hyper-focused customer service to empower Greek merchants and sub-merchants with secure and seamless in-store POS payments through a single, integrated API payment solution.

With tourism comprising around 20% of the Greek economy, merchants within the tourism sector in Greece are looking to entice more customers back in-store. EveryPay’s newly enhanced payment acceptance, combined with Finaro’s smart routing network, will benefit Greek merchants by ensuring significantly improved transaction approval and conversion rates, and give customers a wider choice in payment methods.

The two firms will provide a single, unified card-present, in-store SoftPOS payment solution, designed to allow merchants to accept payments directly on their phone or terminal without the need for additional hardware. By opening up SoftPOS acceptance, Finaro and EveryPay will empower Greek merchants to accept card-present and contactless payments, including transactions made with mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or wearable items.

This will also vastly reduce the number of third-party POS terminal relationships that merchants need to manage - a notable characteristic of Greece’s payment landscape is that merchants often operate several POS terminals from different suppliers, which requires multiple contracts and hardware installations.

Retail trade is a long-standing important productive tertiary sector of the Greek economy with a notable contribution to the Gross Domestic Product. The number of POS transactions in Greece increased drastically between 2012 and 2020 at a rate of 1570%. In 2020 the number of POS transactions reached 952.6 million. Thus, Greece has a promising base for the implementation of the new technologies powered by the two companies.

Commenting on the mutual benefits and opportunities created by the new partnership, Achiya Fried, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer at Finaro, says: “We had already been involved in large-scale business with EveryPay to support their marketplace payments needs and based on the extremely positive ongoing relationship, it was clear that we could take it to the next level for both companies. It gives me great pleasure to see this partnership grow, creating an unbeatable combination of EveryPay and Finaro capabilities.”

According to Grigorios Siourounis, Chairman of EveryPay, its collaboration with Finaro offers unique advantages that no other provider can compete with, saying: “With the much-needed increase in tourism and market activity following the lifting of Covid-19 regulations, EveryPay’s commitment to providing a simple, unique and unrivalled payments solution for Greek merchants both in-store and online is the future for merchants in our country. As such, we knew we had to partner with Finaro so that Greek merchants could access the latest payment technologies to help consumers switch to faster and more convenient payment methods.”

VP of Sales and Business Development, Sveta Bulshtein commented on the natural fit and strong bond between the two businesses: “As soon as I met Grigorios and his team, I knew immediately that we had a promising future, working together. Their exceptional capabilities and impressive aspirations are totally aligned with Finaro’s strong product offering and global ambitions, and together we are able to take payments to a higher level for Greek merchants. I am thrilled to be working with the EveryPay team on this project and ones to come.”

Finaro’s dynamic technology solutions and hyper-focused customer service made it the stand-out acquiring partner for EveryPay, with the two companies now offering merchants unrivalled payment capabilities, underpinned by Finaro’s industry-defining suite of payment optimization solutions.

Another game-changing disruption comes with Finaro’s super-quick onboarding process, a unique capability not offered by any other provider in the market. Finaro’s digital onboarding process enables documents and paperwork to be scanned and uploaded, signed electronically and sent digitally through Finaro’s digital dashboard, in stark contrast to the lengthy paper-based, fax or postal onboarding processes relied upon by other providers. Provided all documentation is correct, this drastically cuts the time taken for merchants and their sub-merchants to start accepting card payments to between 24 and 48 hours, compared to the standard timeframe of 10-15 weeks, and will be leveraged by EveryPay to ensure sub-merchants can begin accepting payments as soon as possible. 

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. Banks can now offer seamless connectivity to their corporate customers, to any enterprise resource planning (ERP), payroll/human capital management (HCM) system, treasury management system (TMS) and another back-office system, automating what are typically arduous and manual processes for finance teams at corporates. The embedded business banking functionality is available via Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud platform and the AccessPay app which connects to Finastra’s Fusion Global PAYplus and Fusion Payments To Go payment solutions for quicker deployment and easier implementation.

Graham Morgan, Director of Strategic Alliances, AccessPay said: “Currently only the largest corporate customers benefit from direct connections for payments with their banks, it takes time and is challenging for the corporate to implement. This partnership with Finastra opens corporate-to-bank connectivity to all, shielding the corporate from the complexity of data transformation and speeding up the time to operation. Essentially, it’s a payments game changer in embedded corporate banking.”

Sigal Druker, Director, Payments Sales Enablement & Business Development, Finastra said: “Financial institutions must embrace the new world of payments to drive innovation, meet customer expectations and focus on service excellence. Through our joint solution with AccessPay, we enable corporates/business customers to benefit from a digitalized end-to-end payment transaction. With our trusted open payment solutions and thriving ecosystem of collaborative fintechs, Finastra is helping financial institutions modernize their payments services, drive innovation, and create true business value for customers.”

Anish Kapoor, CEO and Co-founder, AccessPay said: "Our vision is simple. We want to simplify the integration between corporate finance systems and the banks, removing the complexity of these processes that is currently so prevalent today. This partnership is a huge step forward in our vision to bring more streamlined corporate-to-bank connectivity and showcases how easy it can be to deliver a customer experience more akin to personal banking when integrating with the AccessPay solution. It’s game-changing for the industry.”

The Dubai Financial Services Authority’s (DFSA) Crypto Token regime comes into force today. This regime forms the second phase of the DFSA’s work in this area following the introduction of a regime in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) for the Regulation of Investment Tokens in October 2021.

The intention of the Crypto Token regime is to foster innovation in a measured, responsible and transparent manner while still meeting the DFSA’s regulatory objectives. The DFSA has taken a balanced approach in the development of this regime and will consider, as the sector develops, further changes and amendments to the regime in alignment with best practices and standards adopted by International Standard-setters.

The regime is comprehensive, covering not only AML/CFT risks in respect of trading, clearing, holding or transferring Crypto Tokens but also addressing risks relating to consumer protection, market integrity, custody and financial resources for service providers. The DFSA has extended the scope of many current financial services activities, for example, advising, dealing, arranging, trading and custody, to allow firms in the DIFC to be able to provide products and services in relation to Crypto Tokens.

Ian Johnston, Chief Executive of the DFSA said: “As a progressive regulator, the DFSA recognises the growing interest in innovative financial products. Our work to develop a comprehensive Crypto Token regime has taken into account feedback from a broad range of stakeholders. It aims to strike a balance between encouraging innovation in the DIFC and protecting the consumers of these financial products.”

All firms, whether currently authorised by the DFSA or not, who wish to carry out business relating to Crypto Tokens in or from the DIFC can apply via the DFSA website www.dfsa.ae/innovation where they must complete a General Enquiries Contact Form.

SoftOne Romania, a subsidiary of the leading business software vendor, SoftOne Technologies, has partnered with open banking data provider Nordigen, to utilize open banking connections within their Fintech suite. 

SoftOne Romania is a member of SOFTONE Group, one of the largest technology ecosystems in South-Eastern Europe, which holds more than 75,000 customers in several international markets. The group’s focus is to support the digital transformation process of companies through cutting-edge technologies that yield businesses high added value at low cost, making digital transformation affordable and feasible for any enterprise.

SoftOne develops Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), enterprise mobility applications and electronic invoicing solutions. These powerful integrated tools provide simple ways to deal with vital aspects of business operations, understand client behaviour and streamline day-to-day operations.  

“Our collaboration with Nordigen empowered us to develop Soft1 Fintech as an integrated solution for managing and reconciling bank transactions, powered by state-of-the-art financial technologies. Through our partnership with Nordigen we were able to truly facilitate the digital transformation process for our customers’ banking operations, while also bringing added value to their day-to-day business operations,'' stated Teo Granis, Head of Product Development at SoftOne Romania. 

Through the integration with Nordigen's platform, Soft1 Cloud ERP users are able to securely connect with any online banking platform directly from the Soft1 software, thus fully automating all of their day-to-day banking transactions while enjoying error-free bank transaction reconciliation with their business software.

"We are excited to be collaborating with SoftOne Romania in their continued journey to enhance client operation and management tools for their large and growing customer base. We are thrilled to have contributed to the development of their new integrated solution and look forward to seeing what future innovations they will create," says Rolands Mesters, co-founder and CEO of Nordigen.