Today at the Money20/20 conference, Kapitus, a leading provider of financing to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), announced it has selected Mambu’s cloud banking platform as its technology foundation. Kapitus will leverage Mambu’s low-code, composable lending engine to achieve a faster time-to-market as it evolves the commercial lending space.

Since it launched in 2006, Kapitus has empowered over 50,000 small businesses with more than $4 billion in funding. With Mambu as its core banking system, Kapitus can service and manage a growing number of client contracts, while releasing new financing solutions for SMBs.

“Our aim is to save small businesses time and money while eliminating stress from the financing experience. As technology evolves, so do the opportunities to better serve this group. With Mambu as our cloud banking platform, we are poised to react in real time to our customer's evolving needs,” said Andrew Reiser, CEO, Kapitus. “We chose Mambu because its user interface makes it easy for someone with little to no coding experience to create financial products. Together, we look forward to building a convenient, differentiated financing experience for our customers.”

“Small businesses are a diverse group, and Kapitus has a well-earned reputation for delivering financial services that cater to their unique needs,” said Robin Smith, VP of North America, Mambu. “With Mambu, Kapitus can expand on its mission to support even more business owners as they launch or grow their businesses. Our platform is composable and operates from a low- to the no-code environment, which means that almost anyone, even those with a strict finance background can design and deliver financial products. The future is bright as we strengthen our partnership and help Kapitus as it expands its product offering.”

TS Imagine, a global leader in trading, portfolio and risk management solutions for capital markets, today announced the appointment of Frederic Villain as Head of Sales for Asia Pacific.

In his new role, Frederic will lead TS Imagine’s APAC sales team across its offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and will be responsible for growing the business in the region. As firms digitize and modernize legacy trading operations to boost productivity in an increasingly competitive market, Frederic will be integral to bolstering the sales team and expanding TS Imagine in APAC.

Frederic brings over 25 years of sales experience in management roles, covering marketing, sales and account management for global financial software vendors. Previously, Frederic was Head of Sales, Asia Pacific, for Itiviti, and prior to this he led regional sales in APAC for Bloomberg, Ullink (now part of Itiviti) and SUNGARD (now part of FIS).

Andrew Morgan, President and Chief Revenue Officer of TS Imagine, said: “APAC is an exciting growth area for TS Imagine, as we see strong demand from sophisticated global financial services firms seeking best-in-class SaaS products to digitize their operations in order to mitigate risk and seize trading opportunities. We are thrilled to have Frederic on board, as someone who knows the APAC financial services industry inside out, he is a fantastic asset to the business and will be vital to accelerating our growth in the region.”

Frederic’s appointment follows a string of senior hires, including Chief Markets Officer, Spencer Lee, Chief Financial Officer, Kate Peachway, and Chief Marketing Officer, Renee Calabro, as well as high profile clients wins and strong revenue growth.

AQRU plc, an incubator specialising in opportunities in decentralised finance  (“DeFi”), is pleased to announce that it is launching a start-up offering cryptocurrency-collateralised lending services under the brand “BlockLender”. 

BlockLender will offer digital asset-holders the opportunity to use their cryptocurrency as collateral to access instant loans, with a minimum starting value of USD$100. 

Unlike other companies in the sector that fund crypto-collateralised loans by raising deposits,  BlockLender places the collateralised digital assets into smart contracts with well-established DeFi protocols, such as Aave, Compound and Maker. This in turn acts as collateral for funding for the underlying loan, enabling BlockLender to offer an interest rate to customers that are amongst the most attractive in the market for a comparable loan. This funding mechanism also means that BlockLender does not take excessive risks with customers’ collateral in order to keep returns high, thus mitigating one of the main risk factors in the crypto lending market. 

BlockLender is a standalone business and will be seeking to raise funds externally in the private market.  BlockLender has an impressive senior leadership team made up of cryptocurrency and fintech experts. Philip Blows, Chief Executive Officer of AQRU, will serve as Managing Director of BlockLender. 

BlockLender has been created as part of AQRU’s efforts to offer investors access to a wider range of services in the digital assets sectors. Through the launch of BlockLender, the Company aims to meet the demand for a sustainable and transparent alternative to many existing crypto loan providers that use customers’ deposits to fund other loans, invest their collateral in DeFi protocols with high levels of risk,  and do not provide clear information on how customers’ assets are being managed. 

BlockLender is being launched to a global audience, with certain regulatory exclusions. No services will be offered in any territory where it would be unlawful to do so. 

Philip Blows, Chief Executive of AQRU and Managing Director of BlockLender, commented: “While crypto-backed loans enable customers to use their digital assets to make real-life purchases,  many providers have taken on excessive levels of risk with people’s assets, without their customers knowing. With the launch of BlockLender, AQRU is bringing much-needed transparency to the evolving digital asset lending market. BlockLender’s crypto-collateralised loans not only provide customers with attractive interest rates but also offer transparent information on how investors’ assets are being managed. With an accomplished team of industry professionals, BlockLender is very well positioned to capitalise from the vast opportunities in cryptocurrency lending.”

The Directors of AQRU plc take responsibility for this announcement. 

Global Processing Services (“GPS”), a leading global payments technology platform, today announced the appointment of Kim Ohlrogge as Chief Product Officer.

With immediate effect, Kim leads the company’s global product team and will focus on accelerating GPS’ product roadmap, driving ‘next-generation’ issuer processing payments innovation for financial institutions and fintechs worldwide, and supporting the company’s expansion into new international markets. Ohlrogge joins GPS’ executive management team and will split her time between London (United Kingdom) and Berlin (Germany).

She most recently held the position of Senior Vice President – Product at Nexi/Nets Group in Germany where she led payment strategy and innovation, focusing on simplifying the payments process for European businesses and consumers.

Ohlrogge brings over two decades of experience in payments, e-commerce and financial services on both the issuer and acquirer side to GPS, having held senior roles at high-growth companies in the United States and Europe including TSYS and Digital River as well as consulting with various players in the industry.

“Kim is a truly outstanding individual who has a unique perspective in the global payments industry having spent time on both the acquiring and issuing side,” said Kevin Schultz, Chief Executive Officer, GPS. “Her deep payments knowledge and extensive international experience will be extremely valuable to our team as we accelerate the evolution of our product offering to meet the rapidly growing needs of our diverse global customers and expand into new countries.”

Kim Ohlrogge, Chief Product Officer, GPS, said: “I have spent most of my career in the payments industry and I am passionate about unlocking the potential of new cutting-edge technology to improve the speed, ease, and safety of the payments process for businesses and consumers.”

“I’m excited to join the team with the broad remit of advancing GPS’s customer-centric product roadmap, prioritising our technology investments, and increasing our experimentation to see how we can further revolutionise the future of payments.”

Kim’s appointment follows hot on the heels of GPS’ most recent partnership announcement with Featurespace, the world’s leading provider of adaptive behavioural analytics for fraud detection and risk management, to create a market leading issuer processing fraud mitigation solution.

Embedded finance integrator AAZZUR and alternative asset manager Channel Capital (Channel) have formed an embedded lending partnership.

The multi-faceted partnership will see AAZZUR supporting Channel’s digital SME lending strategy. Channel has invested significantly in developing proprietary systems using APIs, Open Banking and cloud-based technologies to provide much-needed finance to small businesses. AAZZUR will use its front-end expertise to build interfaces that can turn these systems into genuine lending products for the end user. 

In turn, Channel will provide capital for AAZZUR’s embedded lending products for SMEs via its digital lending offering. This will allow AAZZUR to increase its own offering for B2B clients with SME customers, providing them with a fast, efficient and frictionless funding experience. 

Philipp Buschmann, CEO, AAZZUR, said: “I’ve been closely following Channel’s investments into the embedded lending space for a while now and I’m delighted we’ve been able to partner with them. Like us, Channel is committed to easy API integration and the provision of seamless B2B finance. I’m certain this partnership is going to be immensely mutually beneficial to both businesses, as we work together to improve the financial lives of both of our clients and their customers.”

Walter Gontarek, CEO of Channel, added: “We’re delighted to be partnering with AAZZUR to provide vital funding to SMEs. Our combined expertise and shared desire to break down existing barriers to business means we’re well placed to make a real difference to small business, while providing compelling investment opportunities for our clients.”

Berlin-based AAZZUR enables companies to create an entirely new mobile banking app from scratch or enhance their existing offering within just weeks thanks to its modular smart banking platform. Its embeddable Smart Finance Blocks means clients can make their customers’ financial lives better via embedded wealth management services, budgeting tools, insurance, carbon offset programmes and more.

The announcement is one of a raft of recent partnerships sealed by AAZZUR, with other new partners including Railsbank and additiv. 

JCB International Co., Ltd., the international operations subsidiary of JCB Co., Ltd., today announced a new partnership with Trust Payments, a leader in fintech powering truly innovative customer commerce solutions. JCB’s growing community of over 140 million cardmembers will now be able to seamlessly make payments across Trust Payments’ vast network of online and physical merchants, spanning 48 regions in Europe.

Relied upon by over 20,000 businesses - in retail, financial services, travel, hospitality, and other emerging verticals - Trust Payments empowers e-commerce and POS capabilities for their global merchants. This JCB and Trust Payments partnership will give Trust Payments’ merchants more opportunities to generate higher profits and welcome new customers - by tapping into JCB’s loyal cardmember community. JCB cardmembers are globally appreciated for their significant spending when travelling and transacting on digital platforms and in-store, both in Europe and beyond.

As part of this partnership, J/Secure™ 2.0, JCB’s cardmember authentication programme conforming to the EMV® 3-D Secure Protocol and Core Functions Specification, will be deployed to prevent fraud. It is expanding globally and is supported by major global suppliers of 3DS Server and ACS. J/Secure™ 2.0 provides more opportunities to JCB acquirers and issuers for secure e-commerce transactions and enhances 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.

In just over a decade, the global contactless payments market has risen to $10.3 billion and is expected to be more than $18 billion by 2025. This partnership aims to address this growing customer demand - from countertop to mobile, JCB cardmembers will now have access to Trust Payments’ broad range of POS devices, allowing them to make transactions swiftly and securely.

Ray Shinzawa, Managing Director, JCB International (Europe) Ltd., said: “We are pleased to announce our collaboration with Trust Payments, as it represents a key milestone for JCB as we continue to expand POS and e-commerce spend gateways for our valued cardmembers. Further, working alongside Trust Payments to unlock new opportunities for their broad merchant community means JCB can continue to play its part in growing and supporting the international payment ecosystem.”

Daniel Holden, Group Chief Executive Officer, Trust Payments, added: “We are delighted to be working with JCB and expanding the payment methods our merchants can accept on both POS terminals and across e-commerce payments too. This addition will help to expand the many ways in which businesses can accept payments and work with potential customers based all over the world.”

BMLL, the leading, independent provider of harmonised, historical Level 3 data and analytics across global equity and futures markets, today announced it has secured a USD 26 million Series B investment in its latest funding round. The round was led by Nasdaq Ventures, FactSet and IQ Capital’s Growth Fund, supported by ACF Investors and other new and existing investors.

BMLL provides historical Level 3 data and analytics to the world’s most sophisticated capital market participants. BMLL clients, including banks, brokers, asset managers, hedge funds and global exchanges, can access BMLL’s order book data and analytics enabling them to derive predictive insights, backtest strategies to generate alpha and gain an understanding of how markets behave.

The investment will help BMLL deliver on its razor-sharp focus on customer needs for more data coverage across an increasing number of global markets. The funding will support investment in acquiring new data sets globally; growing the BMLL engineering capabilities to integrate these new data and analytics capabilities into existing products for an ever-expanding universe of customers; and building on the existing presence in North America with the opening of an office in New York. 

The funding news comes at a time of rapid growth for the company. BMLL has significantly grown its revenues over the last 12 months; added Tier 1 clients, including Investment Banks, Exchanges, Buy-Side firms, Academics and Regulators; expanded into the futures market; and launched its flagship product BMLL Vantage for EU and US equities and ETFs.

Paul Humphrey, CEO, BMLL, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have secured USD 26 million in our Series B funding round. The investment is testament to the increasing need for more sophisticated tools to understand how markets truly behave and drive performance. Our granular Level 3 data and analytics capabilities help market participants unlock the full potential of the predictive power of historic pricing data and make more informed decisions.” 

Gary Offner, Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Ventures, said: “Nasdaq Ventures is committed to investing in financial technology companies that align with our vision to reimagine the markets of tomorrow. By democratising access to the most granular data and analytics, all market participants can benefit from BMLL’s solutions, and we are delighted to support their continued growth.”

Jonathan Reeve, Executive Vice President, Head of Content and Technology Solutions at FactSet, said: “Data-driven decisions are the lifeblood of our industry and the driving force behind our product development and the collaborations we build. FactSet is pleased to support the growth and success of BMLL, which shares our commitment to empowering the financial community to make more informed investment decisions through accessing high-quality data and analytics. We are excited to invest in BMLL and its order book data and analytics platform, which gives market participants a granular understanding of market moves.” 

Kerry Baldwin, Co-Founder, Managing Partner of IQ Capital: “IQ Capital led BMLL’s seed round and has continued to support the company through their very earliest stages. We have supported and worked closely with BMLL’s exceptional leadership team to develop their breakthrough Deep Tech product, which democratises access to Level 3 data for the wider industry. Our latest investment from our Growth Fund, which supports outperforming companies in our portfolio, will drive the company’s continued growth and international expansion.”

Paul Humphrey, CEO of BMLL, concluded: “It has been our mission to democratise access to Level 3 data and analytics capabilities and the latest funding will support our aim to make these insights available to a wider audience. We are immensely proud of the outstanding industry recognition we have gained over time, and I’d like to thank my team for their unwavering dedication to customer services, our esteemed clients for their support, and our investors for backing our vision.”

Over the last 12 months alone, BMLL has been on an accelerated growth path securing a number of significant customers and collaborations. BMLL counts the Financial Conduct Authority  (FCA) as a customer, who is using the BMLL Data Lab and BMLL Data Feed to examine order behaviour. NYU’s Quant Team uses the BMLL Data Lab to carry out research on the futures market at the university’s Mathematics in Finance Program. Kepler Cheuvreux’s teams conduct order book analytics to optimise algo performance using BMLL’s Level 3 data. What's more, BMLL helps Aquis Exchange provide its members with insights into market structure dynamics, while SIX Group uses BMLL data for customised order book analytics for the Swiss EBBO. And Jefferies carries out detailed order book analysis for passive/aggressive trading strategies using BMLL data.

Jefferies acted as exclusive financial advisor and Taylor Wessing LLP acted as legal advisor to BMLL in connection with the transaction.  Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP acted as legal advisor to Nasdaq Ventures and Mills & Reeve LLP acted as legal advisor to FactSet and IQ Capital.  

Qantev, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) insurtech for health insurers, raises 10 million euros in its Series A funding round. The fund will be used to fuel the company’s continued global market expansion and grow its AI & Engineering team to enhance its health claims platform for insurers. Omnes and RAISE Ventures led the round, with continued support from Elaia with the PSL (Paris Sciences & Lettres) Innovation Fund - a fund intended to support the most promising tech-focused startups.

Co-founded by Tarik Dadi (CEO) and Hadrien De March (CTO) in 2019, Qantev has built a unique, AI-based data analytics solution designed to improve health insurers’ operations, including health data management, automation triage and resolution of simple claims, as well as overall enablement of better and more informed decision making. In the last 12 months, Qantev has deployed its solution across a number of markets in Europe, Asia and North America, enabling fast and impactful data transformation within insurers.

Health is the fastest-growing business line for insurers globally, it faces incredibly complex challenges due to an increase in utilisation driven by the ageing population, sedentary lifestyle, and medical inflation. This is also giving rise to claims leakage issues, caused by improper management and a lack of standardisation of data. According to IBM, last year claims leakage was the number one concern for non-life insurers, with inefficient claims processes costing insurers more than $30B per year. By reducing claims leakage, insurers can save 5% to 10% of their claims’ costs, saving millions of dollars. 

Qantev provides a platform to clean, enrich and standardise data, allowing intelligence modules to provide high levels of insight and optimisation. Through its disruptive health claims and network management solutions, Qantev’s AI solution helps doctors, nurses, and operators working in insurance companies and third-party administrators to make better and faster decisions as customer demands evolve in a post-pandemic world. 

Commenting on the news, Tarik Dadi said: ‍“Qantev’s momentum is growing and I am pleased to see our business going from strength to strength. This latest financing round will enable us to accelerate deployment to satisfy our customers' data transformation needs, delivering results in a matter of weeks, and to fuel our desire to develop the most advanced software and AI algorithms to turbocharge health insurance - we’re aiming to achieve this by building a team with the most talented engineers and researchers. We also have plans to expand our business in Asia and North America with the hiring of dedicated regional managers and local office openings, which will help us to closely support our clients and partners.”

“Qantev is entering a new and exciting milestone, especially with its international expansion. The company’s proposition is perfectly aligned with the needs of health insurers’ who want to provide the best service to their policyholders, while optimising their costs and productivity. At a time where digitalisation of the health insurance sector is a key driver, we believe in Qantev’s ambition to enable these transformations through innovative and efficient solutions.” added Stéphane Pesqué, Partner at RAISE Ventures. 

Enterprise resource planning solution myCorazon ERP has joined forces with Nordigen, the only freemium open banking provider, to enable financial data import for streamlined accounting processes. 

myCorazon ERP was developed by Hanover-based software development firm Concepts System to facilitate a wide range of business and operations processes for enterprises. The platform includes a plethora of features that allow company owners and directors to fully take control of their company’s day-to-day activities. These include tools for the coordination of sales and buying procedures, warehouse and stock management, accounting, time-tracking, task monitoring, production, CRM, and DMS.

myCorazon ERP is perfectly suited for small and medium-sized enterprises in the DACH region and aims to digitise and simplify processes with a modern and intuitive solution and interface.

“We have been very impressed by the easy-to-use banking solution from Nordigen. It has been both fast to set up and simple to maintain. But most of all, Nordigen’s support has left a lasting impression on us, as it has been absolutely outstanding!” says Robin Hammargren, founder and CEO of myCorazon ERP. 

The integration with Nordigen allows the ERP platform to import financial data directly from clients’ business bank accounts, for enhanced accounting procedures and assigning payments for incoming and outgoing invoices. 

"We are excited to gain myCorazon ERP as a valued partner. Open banking is an incredible tool for automation and for the simplification of common day-to-day business processes, helping enterprises grow, develop and accomplish goals. As the technology of open banking continues to grow in adoption, it is safe to say that it will become a necessity for all businesses, across various industries, to reach new heights," says Rolands Mesters, co-founder and CEO of Nordigen.

CoreChain Technologies, the first digital B2B payments network built on blockchain, and BillGO, one of the industry’s largest bill payment platforms and fintech trailblazer, today announced they have partnered to enhance the delivery of payments through CoreChain’s virtual card payments program and the management of supplier onboarding.

CoreChain’s virtual card payments program, integrated by BillGO, will allow any company to offer an encrypted, secure payments solution to enterprise clients. With no paper processing, a reduction in fraud risk and internal operational costs, and instant reconciliation of payments, CoreChain’s virtual card option, built on enterprise blockchain, creates new payment efficiencies for suppliers, while delivering a better customer experience. By transitioning companies away from inefficient legacy “paper check” based solutions to a modern digital payments tech stack, CoreChain is simplifying business procedures and helping companies boost profits through automation and blockchain-based security.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has awakened many industries to the efficiency and convenience of a virtual card program and ushered in greater demand for heightened security,” said Chris Aguas, Co-Founder and CEO of CoreChain Technologies. “BillGO operates at the forefront of virtual card adoption, delivering value-added services that make virtual cards a touchless, easier option for suppliers. A virtual card solution built on distributed ledger technology and the security of blockchain, like CoreChain, also brings next-generation transparency and fraud protection to the virtual card programs being integrated by BillGO. CoreChain is the value-add that the virtual card market is demanding most.”

Available as a white label platform, CoreChain allows any ERP or Business Process Automation software company, or even banks and other payment networks, to offer an embedded B2B payments solution to its enterprise clients. CoreChain’s distributed ledger technology provides a tamper-proof record for every buyer-supplier transaction, and an immutable source of truth for transactions with perfect visibility to both parties.

CoreChain’s payments solution also unlocks opportunities to finance accounts receivable held in unpaid invoices that age toward settlement due dates, frequently 30 to 120 days in arrears. This enables small businesses to gain access to the cash they need without relying on a traditional bank loan, but by aligning with their customers.

“CoreChain is on the cutting edge of B2B payments technology, checking all of the boxes that suppliers want in a modern virtual card program - and then some,” said Cindy O’Neill, President, and General Manager of BillGO’s Biller Solutions. “Together with CoreChain we can better support and enable suppliers to automate their manual payment processes, unlock valuable time, working capital and choice. It’s a technology that will certainly help drive the adoption of virtual card payments in industries that may have previously resisted these types of programs.”