PXP Financial Group, the expert in global acquiring, payment, fraud and data analysis services, has today announced three 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.  
 
New Chief Operating Officer Katharina Richter-Weiss has previously held senior operations, marketing and management roles at Kalixa Payments Group (which merged with PXP Solutions in 2019 to form PXP Financial), bwin, GVC Group, and most recently, at DIMOCO Payment Services as Director of Operations and Merchant Risk Management. She will be based in Vienna. Katharina said: “I am excited to join PXP Financial at a time of rapid growth. I look forward to bringing my focus on building relationships and background in delivering technological solutions for an array of stakeholders to my role and working to achieve our ambitions as a company.”

Salvatore Cicero has been promoted from Global Head of Development to Chief Technology Officer.  Prior to working at PXP Financial, Salvatore worked at PXP Solutions for more than 20 years, including nearly 10 years as Chief Technology Officer. He will be based in London. Salvatore said: “I am delighted and honoured to lead PXP Financial’s technology strategy, supporting our standards, quality, and excellence programmes, and driving our exciting next-generation product offerings.” 
 
Dwaine Thomas has been promoted from Group Head of Infrastructure & Technical Operations, a role he has held for four years, to Deputy Chief Operating Officer. An operations specialist with 15 years’ experience, he previously spent eight years at PXP Solutions. Dwaine said: “I’m over the moon to join this team and support Katharina in providing our customers with the highest standards of service, applying best practices at every level of the business.”

Katharina, Salvatore and Dwaine will join existing members of the senior leadership team, Jonathan Bell, Chief Financial Officer since 2019, and Anda Grodsky, Managing Director for Vienna, who has also worked with PXP Financial since 2019. 

Commenting on the announcement, Kamran Hedjri, CEO at PXP Financial said: “I would like to congratulate Katharina, Salvatore, Dwaine, Jonathan and Anda, who together represent the cream of the crop. These key appointments have been selected for their wealth of expertise in the payments sector and proven track records in championing innovation. I am looking forward to collaborating on our US and European expansion, our latest next-generation platform, the rise of automation and the other technological developments we have in store as part of our exciting scaleup journey. Watch this space.” 

Form3, the leading cloud-native payment technology provider, today announces 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.

The venture debt funding provided by Atempo Growth, – which counts among its LPs the European Investment Bank, Santander, and the British Business Bank – will enable Form3 to explore acquisitions, launch into new markets and support new product growth. 

Michael Mueller, Form3’s CEO, commented: “The current environment is presenting us with new opportunities, both in terms of new markets and potential acquisitions. The Atempo facility will enable us to accelerate our growth and continue to offer market-leading cloud payments solutions to the world’s largest banks.”

Form3’s API-based cloud technology solutions are used by financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, Lloyds Bank and Nationwide Building Society to deliver mission-critical payments.

Luca Colciago, Atempo Growth’s Co-founder and Investor, said: “We're delighted to be supporting such a fast-growing and successful company such as Form3. This investment will further support Form3’s journey to provide best-in-class solutions for the world’s biggest financial institutions.”

Spice Money (a subsidiary of DiGiSPICE Technologies), India’s leading rural fintech that is revolutionising the way Bharat banks, has today announced the launch of voice alert functionality inbuilt in the Spice Money application as well as web portal across its merchant outlets. This move is aimed at ensuring better transparency for both merchants as well as customers. As soon as a rural citizen makes a transaction at a Spice Money Adhikari (merchant / nanopreneur) outlet, the voice feature announces the amount of transactions done. This makes the user aware of the successful transaction done thereby enabling a secure and transparent digital transaction.

According to the data shared by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), a total of 2.3 billion transactions worth ₹3,00,38 crore took place through AePS between April 2021 and March 2022. In March 2022 alone, 225 million transactions worth ₹28,522 crore took place through AePS. Being the market leader in AePS and assisted bill payments through BBPS, Spice Money remains deeply committed to the rural market and customers. The launch of the inbuilt voice alert functionality is a step towards building trust in digital financial solutions in rural India. It enables rural citizens to safely conduct transactions while getting a system-generated on-spot voice alert that spells out the amount of money transacted, thereby ensuring transparency and peace of mind, while also instilling a sense of trust. The automated voice alert will also help in instilling more confidence for digital transactions thereby increasing footfalls at a merchant’s store.

Speaking on the launch, Sanjeev Kumar, Co-founder & CEO, Spice Money, said, “Spice Money has been leading the digital banking revolution in 18,500 pin codes across the length and breadth of the country, with the help of our 1 million strong Adhikari network. We have always been committed towards creating an environment of trust and transparency to induct the underserved rural population into the digital ecosystem. In this regard, the voice alert functionality that we have introduced will create greater clarity for both merchants and customers, with on-spot voice notification for all transactions. I am confident this will further enhance the environment of trust, and encourage more people to transact digitally.”

In order to build awareness for the voice functionality feature, Spice Money has also launched a brand film which showcases multiple rural consumers receiving voice alerts for the digital transactions being done at a local kirana store. It highlights how the inbuilt voice functionality in the Spice Money app and web portal will build trust and awareness among people and will now help in driving growth for the economy with an ending note Transactions Ab Bolenge.  

Spice Money is the first ever fintech to introduce the voice functionality feature for assisted payments and cash withdrawal at zero cost for its merchants (Adhikari). With a strong foothold in rural India, Spice Money covers more than 2,50,000 villages, 700 districts and 5,000 blocks, bringing basic banking facilities to the doorsteps of the communities residing in these regions. 

PayMate India Limited (“PayMate” or “Company”), a leading B2B payments and services provider that digitizes, automates, and streamlines business-to-business (B2B) payments in supply chains has announced that it has incorporated and registered its entities in Singapore and Sri Lanka to offer its B2B payment platform that is aimed to help customers with their working capital needs.

Local large enterprises and SMBs in Singapore and Sri Lanka who adopt the PayMate platform can use bank-issued commercial credit cards to make early payments towards supplier invoices, thereby extending their days payable. All payments made and received using the platform will be promptly reconciled, allowing analysis of the business’s cash flow. This will help CFOs and finance managers to improve their working capital. Other important features such as custom approval workflows, APIs, detailed reports and integrations with ERPs will further help users streamline their payables and receivables.

To head the APAC region, PayMate has appointed Amirreza Sawal as its Regional Head for APAC based out of Singapore. Amirreza has experience in B2B corporate payments and financial services spanning across the Asia Pacific, & Middle East markets; and has most recently worked at Visa Middle East FZ-LLC.

PayMate’s entrance into Singapore and Sri Lanka is a part of a broader geographical expansion plan into other parts of Central Europe, the Middle East, Africa (“CEMEA”), South Asia and the Asia Pacific (APAC). PayMate has an established relationship with Visa in India and the UAE.

According to RedSeer, global commercial payments volume was estimated at approximately USD 130-135 trillion in 2021; India has approximately USD 8 trillion of the global commercial payments volume, CEMEA, approximately USD 10 trillion and Asia-Pacific estimated at approximately USD 58 trillion.

Speaking on this, Rakesh Khanna, Chief Commercial Officer, PayMate says, “We have more than 166,811 customers and users in India and UAE as of December 2021.  In line with our plans to grow our global footprint, we are now set up in the Singapore market- a Hub to further expand into the rest of APAC, and Sri Lanka for further expanding into South Asia. With Amirreza heading APAC and Nilesh Dadpe taking charge of South Asia markets in addition to heading Indian markets; we are set to go full-steam ahead to offer our B2B payment solutions.

Speaking on the geography launch, Ajay Adiseshan, Chairman and Managing Director, PayMate further adds, "We are expanding into Singapore and Sri Lanka to offer B2B payments and working capital solutions for businesses. The PayMate platform provides an interface to simplify the payments and collection process for our customers and their suppliers, dealers/distributors, and commercial credit cards enablement to make timely payments, manage cash flows and end-to-end reconciliation." 

nCino, Inc. (NASDAQ: NCNO), a pioneer in cloud banking and digital transformation solutions for the global financial services industry, today announced that Absa Bank Limited (Absa), a leading African bank, has selected the nCino Bank Operating System^®, to deliver a single platform solution to automate its debt case management and portfolio reporting processes in its Relationship Banking Business.

As the bank accelerates its digitization programme, nCino will deliver this cloud-based platform and help Absa reduce complexity and eliminate high-touch processes, ultimately enhancing its employee and customer experience and improving efficiency.

“The introduction of nCino will provide Absa with a single centralized workflow solution, which will streamline its internal processes,” said Kate Jane Johnsen, Regional Vice President at nCino. “I am eager to see the results of this partnership in action.”

“We are confident that the nCino platform will support our ambitions to be a digitally powered business,” said Sugandree Mudely from Absa Relationship Banking. “The delivery of this solution is a meaningful milestone in our digital transformation.”

Resistant AI, the AI and machine learning financial crime prevention specialists, has announced that X1, a cryptocurrency trading platform, has selected Resistant AI’s Document Forensics solution to increase the efficiency and accuracy of its Source of Funds (SOF) and Proof of Address (POA) checks, a statutory obligation under EU Anti-Money Laundering regulations. As a result of the implementation, the time required to carry out document authentication processes will be reduced from days to just seconds.

X1 is an innovative cryptocurrency exchange platform designed to service both novice and experienced traders alike. With their previous manual SOF and POA checks creating bottlenecks in crucial customer onboarding processes, X1 is implementing the Document Forensics solution to increase efficiency, help them scale more effectively as they grow, and widen their ability to detect unknown fraud that can evade checks carried out by the naked eye.

Resistant AI’s Document Forensics technology is a proven solution that verifies the authenticity of digital documents with machine learning. Each document goes through a layered analysis to provide clear, substantiated verdicts in just a few seconds, giving X1 the ability to find modifications in digital documents, images and scans, and print-and-rescan modifications.

“X1 is a highly successful and rapidly expanding leader in the cryptocurrency industry and, as such, needs to meet its AML requirements while also providing customers with a quick and efficient process,” explained Martin Rehak, CEO and Founder of Resistant AI. “By implementing our Document Forensics solution, they can deliver on both those objectives while also putting them in an ideal position to scale their offering for the high levels of growth they expect to see in the years to come.”

“Document Forensics enables us to deliver on our mission-critical compliance and customer service objectives,” said Radislav Stanev, the Director of X1. “In addition, the time to value is extremely rapid, not only because of the significant efficiency gains it offers, but it also enables our in-house team to apply their experience and expertise to more complex and demanding processes.”

JCB International Co., Ltd., the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd., today announced its partnership with Nuvei. Nuvei now offers JCB acceptance to its global merchant ecosystem, enabling JCB’s more than 140 million-strong cardmember community to pay at Nuvei’s network of 50,000 merchants across global markets. These merchant sectors include social media, luxury retail, travel and entertainment. This will allow JCB to provide a compelling offering for the global spenders amongst its cardmember community.

Nuvei’s unique platform provides merchants with choice and flexibility to capture every payment opportunity, increase acceptance rates and reduce operating costs. The partnership with JCB will open greater opportunities for Nuvei’s merchant community to provide comprehensive payment acceptance and greater sales opportunities on a global scale.

Nuvei will also be offering J/Secure™ 2.0, JCB’s cardmember authentication programme conforming to the EMV® 3-D Secure Protocol and Core Functions Specification to prevent fraud. J/Secure™ 2.0 is expanding globally and is supported by major global suppliers of 3DS Server and ACS. It provides more opportunities to JCB acquirers and issuers for secure e-commerce transactions and enhances the customer experience to reduce cart abandonment by introducing Frictionless Flow (the customer will not be prompted for additional information such as a password) through risk-based authentication that supports richer data exchanges and additional data sharing during online transactions.

This partnership is the latest stage in JCB’s growing global acceptance, bringing secure payments to the fast-growing sector of online sales e-commerce. With the global e-commerce market forecast to total $6.169 trillion by 2023 and set to take more than 22 % of total retail sales¹, JCB’s partnership with Nuvei provides an exciting platform for further growth.

Ray Shinzawa, Managing Director for JCB International (Europe) Ltd., said: “This is an exciting moment for JCB in expanding global acceptance for our cardmembers. We are delighted to be partnering with such an innovative brand in the payments space and look forward to bringing the mutual benefits of seamless and secure online payments to both Nuvei’s merchant ecosystem and our loyal cardmembers.”

Yuval Ziv, President at Nuvei, commented: “We’re excited to extend our partnership with JCB and continue to support them along their global acceptance journey. Our business is focused on accelerating merchant’s businesses through innovative payment solutions which promise a frictionless, secure payment experience for their customers. The evolution of our partnership with JCB is a testament to this and we’re optimistic about the future of this partnership.”

Swift today announces the appointment of Max Mamondez as Chief Financial Officer. A seasoned finance executive with over 25 years of international experience, Mamondez will serve on Swift’s Executive Committee and report directly to CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso.

Mamondez has cultivated innovation and enabled business transformation in fast-paced international environments throughout his career. Most recently prior to joining Swift he led strategic initiatives at the London Stock Exchange Group as Group Head, Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis and before that served as CFO for International Markets at Mastercard. Earlier in his career, Mamondez held senior leadership roles at several publicly traded technology companies and international consultancies including Rockwell Automation, Diebold Inc, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Commenting on the appointment, Javier Pérez Tasso, CEO, Swift, said: “Max has a proven record of driving strong financial performance and a wealth of relevant global experience that will be a real asset to the leadership team at Swift. His perspective will be hugely beneficial as we deliver the next phases of our strategy to enable instant, frictionless and interoperable transactions worldwide, and I am personally very much looking forward to working with him.”

Max Mamondez, CFO, Swift, added: “Swift is widely recognised as the bedrock of the global financial services industry and is doing truly innovative work to power an inclusive digital future. It’s a pivotal time in the industry, and I am proud to have this opportunity to join the company at such an exciting juncture.”

Freedom Finance, one of the UK’s leading digital marketplaces for consumer credit, is delighted to announce that it has integrated its platform with Experian’s Marketplace lender panel.

The partnership gives customers immediate access to seven new brands, complementing its existing direct connections to lenders and paves the way for even further expansion for loans and credit cards.

Adding to the existing 50+ lenders on the Freedom Finance panel, millions of people using Freedom Finance’s platform will now have access to loans from The AA, Admiral, Bank of Ireland, Cahoot, The Post Office, RateSetter and Santander.

This means Freedom Finance now allows customers to choose from the widest panel of unsecured loan providers on the market. Its proprietary technology is dedicated to helping consumers find the best deal, in the easiest possible way, without damaging their credit scores.

On top of its direct-to-consumer services, Freedom Finance’s embedded finance platform integrations with brands such as Argos, ASDA Money, Co-op Bank, Creation and The Very Group help millions of customers find the best financial products available to them.

Andrew Fisher, Chief Commercial Officer at Freedom Finance, said: “As one of the country’s most used digital finance marketplaces, we are delighted to be partnering with Experian to offer the widest range of unsecured loans available in the market.

“Our technology allows borrowers to quickly and easily compare options between the most reputable and trusted lenders in the UK to find the loan or credit card that is right for them.

“By completing this work with Experian and building on our own direct integrations, we have integrated over 20 unsecured lenders in the last 6 months alone, allowing us to find more offers, for more people, more of the time. I’m incredibly proud of this achievement, especially at this time of significant need for many of our customers.”

Paul Speirs, Managing Director of Digital Consumer Information at Experian UK&I, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with Freedom Finance to bring our panel of providers to one of the leading lending marketplaces in the UK.

“By using Experian’s technology, lenders can access a much richer and deeper level of insight into someone’s financial situation enabling them to provide a better and more informed lending decision. This is absolutely vital given the backdrop of rising inflation and the strain on living costs.”

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. The cards would be enabled for international as well as domestic transactions, making business travel convenient and easy. Besides, users would be able to use this credit card for contactless transactions as well. 

Zaggle would focus keenly on enhancing the user journey through digital onboarding and instant issuance along with intuitive In-App customer experience, spend insights, credit score, etc. This would be supplemented by product innovations like gamification, customised partner offers, and other ancillary services. The customers would also be rewarded with cashback points, accelerated reward points, air miles, and various other exciting offers and discounts. 

Zaggle intends to combine credit cards as payment solutions to their Spend Management software providing the businesses with a holistic value proposition. The cards and software would be available as tightly integrated solutions for customers to address their unique requirements.  

Speaking about the partnership with NPCI, Raj N, Founder and Chairman, Zaggle said, “RBI’s announcement to link credit cards with UPI will provide a huge boost to this segment. Recently India witnessed nearly 9.4 billion transactions of INR 10.25 trillion led by Unified Payment Interface (UPI), and this suggests the huge opportunity that India offers. We are excited about our partnership with the NPCI and the launch of multiple credit cards will enable us to fulfil customer requirements providing them with several benefits and rewards. The Indian spend management market provides an addressable opportunity of nearly $1 trillion and through our innovation led-partnerships, we will continue to revolutionise credit offerings for our customers.”  

Avinash Godkhindi, MD & CEO, Zaggle said, “We are excited to launch credit cards in partnership with NPCI and this would complement our SaaS Software, providing a holistic value proposition to our customers. Through our credit cards, we intend to provide access to credit to largely underserved Indian consumers. The Indian market remains fairly under-penetrated and while there are challenges to growth due to the on-going geo-political crisis, we are seeing steady demand across corporates, SMEs and Consumers. We will continue with innovation-led partnerships and the multiple credit cards will be another step in our vision to revolutionize digital payments and lending ecosystem in the country.” 

Saurabh Puri, Chief Business Officer-Credit Cards, Zaggle said, “The adoption of credit products is increasing at a fast pace in the country and we see huge headroom for credit growth. The launch of credit cards in collaboration with NPCI is in line with rapidly evolving consumer preferences and lifestyles. The focus of the credit cards will be to enhance the user journey via digital on-boarding, instant issuance and In-App customer experience and the customers will be rewarded with benefits like cashback points, accelerated reward points, air miles and many more. Business travel will become much easier as the cards will enable international and domestic contactless transactions. We are in sync with the RBI’s vision of ‘less cash’ economy and our offering of multiple credit cards on RuPay network will help build a digital India.” 

Gaurish Korgaonkar, Head – Fintech and Corporate Business, NPCI said, “We are delighted to partner with Zaggle for facilitating business transactions seamlessly via our new contactless credit cards on the RuPay network. These cards will be enabled for domestic as well as international transactions and hence, will play a pivotal role in aiding the requirements of business travellers. At NPCI, we constantly aim to innovate and augment an already extensive line of products and services targeted towards boosting digital spends and expediting the creation of a cashless economy.” 

Zaggle has had a phenomenal growth journey in the $1 trillion addressable Indian spend management market. The company provides its customers with a unique expense management system along with employee rewards and recognition program services. Zaggle has been consistently expanding its product line with an aim to tap into the spend management space in the country.