• 20.10.2022 -- 11:00 am

Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) has today announced the launch of its Innovation Sandbox. The Innovation Sandbox will accelerate Lloyds Banking Groups’ collaboration with Fintechs and improve the digital products and services it offers to customers.

Several experiments have already been conducted on the Sandbox, allowing various parts of the Group to collaborate with potential partners at pace and to shape product development together. The Innovation Sandbox will increase the velocity of technology-led innovation in supporting LBG’s growth strategy.

“We are extremely proud to be working with Lloyds Banking Group on their Innovation Sandbox. It is clear this will enable the bank’s growth strategy through technology-led innovation, strengthen the UK financial ecosystem and deliver on the Fintech Delivery Pledge.” Karan Jain, CEO NayaOne

Using the NayaOne platform financial institutions are able to run multiple proof-of-concepts with fintechs in weeks, 75% quicker than the industry norm of many months.

Founded in 2018, NayaOne is a leading global provider of innovation infrastructure and is a trusted transformation partner to leading financial institutions across the ecosystem. The NayaOne platform provides firms with an end-to-end innovation infrastructure, enabling them to evaluate rapidly and develop new digital offerings using emerging technologies and fintechs.

NayaOne revolutionises innovation in financial services. We provide banks with a single point of access to hundreds of fintechs and datasets, through our Digital Sandbox and Fintech-as-a Service offering. Regulated firms are able to discover, build, evaluate and scale with fintechs in a matter of weeks instead of months.

Tuum, the API-first and modular core banking platform, announces a new partnership with Salv, the regtech company founded by Wise and Skype employees to combat financial crime. The partnership enables Tuum to add anti-money laundering (AML) capabilities to its core banking platform. Additionally, the partnership addresses the discrepancies often found between time-to-market strategy and the quality of AML compliance. By working with Salv, Tuum’s customers now gain access to a fast, flexible and transparent AML platform with advanced monitoring, screening and risk-scoring solutions.

As the economic outlook worsens and the funding landscape becomes more challenging, financial companies look for new ways to innovate without burning their cash runway. Today, financial institutions have access to a selection of plug-and-play banking solutions, which help to get their new products to market as quickly as possible. However, growth and streamlining product launches shouldn’t come at the cost of compliance.

With financial crime on the rise, companies don’t only need to keep their businesses compliant but also safeguard their operations from illicit activities. This partnership between the best-of-breed providers enables financial institutions to launch and scale at speed, whilst equipping them to detect and prevent a comprehensive range of AML and fraud activities.

Following months of close cooperation, this partnership is a natural progression between the two Estonian-founded companies. Tuum and Salv currently work with LHV UK as their joint customer, with LHV UK operating on Tuum’s core banking platform and using Salv for their AML requirements.

Julien Douve, Head of Alliances & Partnerships at Tuum, comments: “Two of the biggest concerns amongst our customers are compliance with AML requirements and time to market. By partnering with Salv, we address both of these issues and provide our customers with a seamless experience, as Salv’s industry-leading AML solutions have proven to be a game-changer for financial institutions.”

Taavi Tamkivi, CEO & Founder at Salv, comments: “Unfortunately, innovation in financial technology goes hand-in-hand with innovation in fincrime. Through this partnership, Salv can help financial companies using Tuum’s core banking solutions to keep their businesses and customers safe from financial crime, allowing them to focus on growth.”

Tuum and Salv will host a joint event in London on the 9 November to discuss the opportunities of Plug and Play banking and the pitfalls to avoid.

European digital bank N26 announced Thursday it is launching a crypto trading service, starting with Austria as the first market for the product.

The service, called N26 Crypto, is set to become available to N26′s Austrian clients in the coming weeks and will initially include 100 tokens including bitcoin

and ether. N26 plans to roll out the feature to users in other markets over the next six months and eventually expand its token offering to include a total of 194 coins.

Gilles BianRosa, N26′s chief product officer, told CNBC the bank’s crypto brokerage feature allows users to “dip their toes into the water in a way that’s not frothy.”

To make a trade, users select a coin and specify how much they want to buy or sell. Once they complete their order, cash is deducted from their main account balance and appears alongside the token of their choice. Customers can also “drag and drop” funds from their main account into their crypto portfolio, or vice versa, N26 said.

Berlin-based N26 is a bit of a latecomer to the crypto rush. Fintech rivals PayPal and Revolut have long offered their users the ability to buy and sell digital assets, and payment leviathans Visa and Mastercard

also sell their clients crypto and so-called “Web3” services. On Wednesday, Brazilian digital bank Nubank launched its own token, called Nucoin.

“Our users are extremely interested in crypto,” BianRosa said in an interview. “That interest remains super high, even in a bear market.”

N26′s crypto foray could have been better timed. Bitcoin and other tokens are deep in the red this year after investors fled the market due to fears over higher interest rates and liquidity constraints. While main street banks have steered clear of crypto due to concerns over its sharp volatility and involvement in fraud, N26 — which holds an EU banking license — is dipping its toes into the space out of the belief that it’s more than “just a fad.”

Dragonfly Financial Technologies Corp., a digital banking and treasury management FinTech, today announced its FinTech Integration Center, which provides banks with secure, seamless connections to leading FinTech applications. With the FinTech Integration Center, bank customers can interact in real-time with their banks directly from within their business accounting and ERP systems. By embedding the bank's solutions directly in these FinTech applications, Dragonfly customers simplify their customers' daily banking activities and enable them to spend more time running their businesses. Dragonfly's FinTech Integration Center easily integrates with banking platforms to provide connections to FinTech applications including QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Oracle NetSuite, Xero and Quicken.

According to research from Aite-Novarica, global, mid-sized, large and super-regional banks all cited building out API capabilities to provide more services to small business clientele as top priority in 2023.

Jim Gillespie, chief product officer at Dragonfly Financial Technologies, said, "Our FinTech Integration Center provides frictionless integration to popular FinTech applications – giving small businesses embedded, real-time access to their bank without having to leave their accounting system and log in separately to their bank."

Fully integrated with Dragonfly's Universal Online Banker (UOB) solution, the FinTech Integration Center uses standardized connections to help banks connect in real time to popular applications – enabling day-one service to small business banking customers. The FinTech Integration Center offers the following benefits:

• Account balance and transaction activity are automatically updated in real-time, 24x7
• Businesses can reconcile bank transactions instantly with one click, improving accuracy and saving time and money
• Immediate access to the top business accounting systems, with continuous addition of additional business applications, to simplify more and more aspects of daily business banking
• Easy access via Universal Online Banker using the same login and authentication credentials

Hogan Lovells has today launched its annual FinTech Mentor Program, now in its sixth year, and is now open to a new 2023 intake.

The program, previously known as the Global FinTech Mentor and Momentum Program, has to date invested more than a million pounds in supporting over 30 FinTechs - providing each with up to £25,000 in free legal and regulatory consulting services. The 2023 program is open to FinTechs at any stage of development, from start-ups to more established growth players. 

Emily Reid, Head of FinTech and Innovation at Hogan Lovells commented: “As the FinTech community comes together again, we’re delighted to be launching a revamped program with additional opportunities for networking. Collaboration breeds innovation and we know our new applicants will benefit greatly from the insights of our previous cohorts. As we enter a difficult economic period, we’re particularly keen to support FinTechs who are using technology to solve the issues of today and, through our legal and regulatory advice, help them on their growth journey.” 

During the program, FinTechs will receive advice and insights from Hogan Lovells lawyers and regulatory consultants, as well as access to a network of industry participants and bodies to leverage the experiences of others in the sector. Hogan Lovells has also launched a brand new FinTech Mentor Program Hub, with exclusive access to members and alumni. The Hub will be filled with resources on the latest topics and industry trends, along with other such as a suite of template documents, and free or subsidised access to a host of LawTech tools.

Alumni of the program include: 

Your Juno – provides women and non-binary people with the financial knowledge and confidence to build their wealth.  

·        Pillar – a credit platform which enables customers to use their international credit history to apply for a Pillar credit card and build their credit score across the globe.  

·        Just Lend – a platform making lending and borrowing money between friends and family faster and smoother.  

·        Updraft – an overdraft replacement app that provides low-interest loan facilities and debt-reducing nudges to customers.

Aseem Munshi, CEO of Updraft, said: “The Hogan Lovells team are friendly, available and very knowledgeable regulatory lawyers. They made it easy for us to get high-quality advice at a crucial stage of our development.”

Frederika Johnstone, Chief of Staff at Banked, said: “Hogan Lovells is an excellent all-round firm. The team is very commercially oriented and attuned to our needs. They’re extremely capable and are able to work through really complex FinTech projects with ease.”

Ines Chaib, COO of Gaia, said: "They understood our complex model extremely quickly. The team is solution driven and helped us to shape our next few years along the regulatory roadmap.”

Applications for the first cohort of the 2023 program open in November. The firm will be accepting 10 applicants to the program next year: five in January and five in June.

Global technology company, Turnkey Group Ltd. (“Turnkey”), has announced it has secured a £2.5m GBP cash injection from leading private equity firm, Maven Capital Partners (“Maven”), one of the UK’s most active investors in growing businesses.

Facilitated by a corporate finance company, Ragnar Capital, the funding will accelerate a five-year growth plan, with the first round released in September 2022 and the second round set to be released in early 2023.

Established in 2015, Turnkey is a purpose-led environmental, social and governance (ESG) technology software and analytics platform. Turnkey’s technology platform supports company strategies beyond compliance; it provides detailed insights into company ESG performance in real-time. This unique approach allows business leaders to use ESG data to make a real impact on the environment and advancements within the organization.

Based in London and Singapore, the company works with a multitude of organisations across the financial, investment and corporate sectors to help them aggregate, strategize, and report on their ESG data.

Utilising their innovative SaaS platform, Sustainion, Turnkey works with businesses to map performance against ESG frameworks and regulatory requirements, while highlighting opportunities to mitigate risk, boost operational efficiency and save costs.

The investment from Maven is a significant milestone for the company. The funds will be invested across three key areas: people, product and performance, and will enable future expansion plans. While a significant portion of Turnkey’s growth to date has been in Asia, the funding will fuel the company’s expansion across other regions, including Europe.

As well as growing their workforce and locations, the company has ambitions to scale their technology platform to ensure their solution stays at the forefront of innovation in a rapidly evolving market.

Tony Wines, Turnkey CEO and Founder of Turnkey, said: “Since our inception, we have had backing from a number of small-medium sized investors, but this is the largest external investment we have ever had. Fundraising to this scale will have a significant impact on what we do next, enabling us to expand into new territories, support more organisations to make a real difference and invest heavily in our technology platform to ensure we’re always at the forefront of what we do.”

Gareth Price, Investment Director at Maven, said: “We are thrilled to be part of Turnkey’s journey as they look to geographically expand their offer and develop their technology. As a business, we are excited about investing in a forward-thinking, market-leading ESG brand that has ambitious goals for a sustainable future.”

Dr Mustapha Omar, Director of Ragnar Capital, added: “We are proud to have played our part in helping Turnkey take the next step and look forward to continuing working with them on their growth plans.”

Stephen Kirk, Board Chair for Turnkey, said: “The Group CFO is based in the UK and there will be significant ongoing investment in developing the European side of the business. We’ll be focusing on our people, with ambitions to go from a twenty-strong team to over one hundred people working in the business, with a focus on innovation across all departments.”

Aurélie Zeller-Nahappan, COO of Turnkey, said: “Our technology platform is central to everything we do and enables us to work with our clients to make a positive difference for people and the planet. We’re going to be focusing on expanding the capabilities of the platform over the next few years, using this investment to dig deeper into benchmarking and predictive analytics.

Our robust platform can already manage complex organisational structures, reporting on multiple locations and centralising and analysing critical data. The platform eliminates the need for complicated spreadsheets, ensuring the integrity and accuracy of data throughout the entire supply chain, which is vital when it comes to avoiding greenwashing. By developing the product capabilities even further to predict future trends and meet strategic targets, we can work with our clients to make a bigger impact on a global scale, both now and in the future.”

One of Europe’s most rapidly growing fintech companies, Sun Finance, is expanding its product range with BNPL (buy-now-pay-later).

The first market in which this new product is being launched in Latvia, where the company’s headquarters are located.
Sun Finance operates in seven countries and has more than 9 million registered clients that use the company’s offered services as instalment loans, lines of credit and microloans. Now Sun Finance is expanding its product range with BNPL.

“Our growth strategy has always been focused on entering new markets and on expanding our product range,” says Sun Finance founder and CEO Toms Jurjevs. “We are delighted not only to launch the BNPL product but to introduce in this market an unprecedented improvement - we are the first company in Latvia that allows clients to pay later not just for goods and services online, but also on site at shops too.”

BNPL allows people to buy products they want immediately and to pay for them later. The best-known companies globally to offer BNPL are fintech giants such as Affirm and Afterpay. Now Sun Finance has joined their ranks.

“People enjoy BNPL because it is very convenient and quick to use,” says Jurjevs. “You go to the store, choose the shoes that you want to buy, for instance, open the mobile app, enter the name of the store and the amount, choose your repayment deadline, and that’s that – the shoes are yours! Global practice is that goods can only be purchased from partner shops, but we are levelling up the service allowing our clients to use the BNPL product at any store. That is our business approach – we take the best from the world’s best practices, add our own experience and views about the specific market, and create new financial services which are truly adapted to consumer needs.”

The ticket size of the Sun Finance BNPL product is between EUR 20 and EUR 2,000. The product can be used at any online and on-site store in Latvia, choosing to pay for the product in instalments for as long as 36 months.

Visa is partnering with Thunes to help individuals and small businesses move money internationally to 78 digital wallet providers, reaching 1.5 billion digital wallets across 44 countries and territories. This partnership will now expand Visa Direct’s reach to nearly 7 billion endpoints, including more than 3 billion cards, over 2 billion accounts and 1.5 billion digital wallets.

For unbanked individuals in emerging markets, digital wallets are gaining traction as an empowering first entry point to the financial system. Consumers are not required to have a card or account to load or receive funds directly to their digital wallet, opening the potential for greater financial inclusion and enabling underserved populations opportunities to access financial products that meaningfully impact how they live and work.

“From an agricultural worker in Bangladesh to a young professional in London who is looking to send money to family overseas, Visa strives to create more ways for individuals and SMBs to participate in the global economy,” said Ruben Salazar Genovez, Global Head of Visa Direct. “We are thrilled to collaborate with Thunes and help enable quick and simple access to the financial system to more customers around the world who may use digital wallets as their primary financial instrument.”

Through this collaboration, Thunes’ B2B payments platform will connect to Visa Direct, adding a cross-border send-to-wallet capability to 78 digital wallet providers that are already integrated with Thunes. Through a simple integration of Visa Direct, financial institutions, governments, neobanks and money transfer operators will be able to utilize the new functionality to enable consumers and small businesses to send funds to markets across Africa, Asia, and Latin America where wallets may be the go-to payment method.

“We are thrilled that of all the payment companies, Visa, the global leader in payments, is working with Thunes on this launch,” said Peter De Caluwe, CEO of Thunes. “Through the combined power of Visa’s scale and Thunes’ payment infrastructure, this collaboration has the potential to help develop a new global era for inclusive and accessible global payments.”

With the addition of 1.5 billion digital wallets to its reach, Visa Direct now helps provide access to nearly 7 billion cards, accounts and digital wallets combined, across more than 190 geographies, supporting 160 currencies, connecting to 16 card-based networks, 66 domestic Automated Clearing House (ACH) schemes, 11 Real-Time Payment (RTP) networks and five payment gateways.

Zero Hash, the leading global B2B2C crypto-as-a-service infrastructure provider, today announced it has partnered with Current, a leading U.S. financial technology platform, to provide access to no-fee crypto trading for its over four million members.

The integration with Zero Hash allows Current members access to buy and sell dozens of crypto assets without trading fees, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, in the Current app. Current members receive instant liquidity from their trades in their spending accounts, allowing them to buy, sell and access their funds instantly without the need to move money between accounts, wait for funds to settle or pay trading fees.

Zero Hash, the leading global B2B2C crypto-as-a-service infrastructure provider, removes the technological and regulatory complexities of fiat–to-crypto conversion. Zero Hash provides the complete building blocks for supporting crypto trading, including liquidity, custody, and regulatory and compliance infrastructure. Zero Hash brings the deep domain expertise of powering crypto products for some of the major consumer fintech platforms worldwide.

“The latest data shows that 75% of retail investors between the ages of 21 and 42 look to the crypto sector for the greatest investment opportunities, and nearly half already own cryptocurrency holdings. Against this backdrop, we are pleased to partner with Current on their first crypto product,” said Edward Woodford, CEO of Zero Hash. “We see the most agile fintechs now offering crypto to meet consumer demand and ensure their users remain sticky. Our turnkey solution for digital assets allows Current to focus on building innovative products and experiences for their customers, launching quickly and securely and with little regulatory burden.”

“At Current we have always been focused on onboarding people onto the financial system,” said Trevor Marshall, Chief Technology Officer, Current. “Now, through partnering with Zero Hash, we’re able to immediately onboard our over four million members to cryptocurrency through a trusted entity in Current. This allows Current members to be participants in these alternative networks and benefit from the value they create to improve their financial outcomes.”