Mintus, the fractional art investment platform, today announced its first major partnership in the discretionary fund management and wealth management sector as it seeks to expand its global reach.

Mintus is the first FCA-authorised company to launch and scale art fractionalisation in the UK and the partnership with Amergeris Wealth Management (Switzerland) AG, part of Amicorp Group, will significantly expand Mintus' exposure to investors across Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Amergeris Wealth Management (Switzerland) AG, a licensed investment manager, structured the investment products for Mintus.

Launched in Q2 2022, Mintus has created an intuitive and accessible investment platform, backed with industry-leading art and financial expertise, that offers investors an innovative way to buy shares and invest in high-quality, difficult-to-access, multi-million-pound contemporary artworks. Fractional ownership of art, enabled through investing in the shares issued by an investment vehicle which in turn owns the art, provides enhanced portfolio diversification and risk-adjusted returns for investors together with the unique opportunity to invest in some of the world’s greatest paintings at a fraction of their overall value.

Mintus has a pipeline of $150m of investment quality paintings from artists including Andy Warhol, George Condo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Hockney, Pablo Picasso, and René Magritte. Qualified Investors can buy shares in a fund that owns the individual paintings directly at Mintus.com.  Exposure to a diversified portfolio, made up of all the artwork on the Mintus platform, can also be accessed by investment into the Mintus Art Strategy, an Actively Managed Certificate (AMC) available to wealth managers and financial institutions through its ISIN code. 

Amergeris Wealth Management Group AG was established in 2011 and offers specialist investment banking and wealth management to its clients either directly or through Amicorp Group via its global network of offices that include Singapore, Dubai, Zurich, London, Barbados, Curacao and Miami.

This is the first of several planned major partnerships with private banks and other wealth managers to provide their clients with access to shared ownership of exceptional investment-grade art and tap into the ever-increasing drive for portfolio diversification through alternative assets.

Brett Gorvy, Chief Curator at Mintus, commented: “Mintus removes the structural limitations around market access, risk management and the origination process for investors who are new to the art market or art enthusiasts who are priced out from rare, iconic paintings.  The platform offers these rare, iconic paintings and the artists on the platform are among the most desirable and sought-after contemporary artists to collect today. Their markets are international and artists on the platform, such as Warhol, are currently experiencing new popular heights as a result of major museum retrospectives and record prices achieved at auction.”

Tamer Ozmen, Founder and CEO of Mintus, said: “These new partnerships are an exciting development in our business. We are implementing our plans to enter new markets globally by partnering with financial institutions, private banks and wealth managers. These partnerships allow qualified and accredited investors to invest alongside experienced financial institutions.”

Remko Van Ekelen, CEO of Amergeris, commented: “We are delighted to partner with Mintus. In this challenging inflationary environment, art investments provide strong portfolio diversification, inflation hedging attributes and strong capital preservation capabilities due to its uncorrelated nature to equities. Mintus’ offering strips out the extra costs and frictions generally associated with investing in art and makes it a very viable alternative asset class for our clients.”  

India’s leading credit-led, AI-driven financial wellness platform, CASHe, today announced that it has partnered with Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), India’s largest e-commerce player, to provide a Travel Now Pay Later (TNPL) payment option on its travel app, IRCTC Rail Connect. This will enable travellers of Indian Railways to book their rail tickets instantly and pay for them later in pocket-friendly EMIs, ranging from three to six months.  With CASHe’s TNPL payment option, booking and paying for rail tickets on the IRCTC travel app will now be easier and hassle-free for millions of Indian Railway passengers. The EMI payment option will be available on IRCTC travel app’s checkout page for passengers booking their reserved and tatkal tickets. CASHe’s TNPL EMI payment option offers a seamless user experience by automatically qualifying all users to avail of the TNPL facility without any documentation

IRCTC is a subsidiary of the Indian Railways that handles catering, tourism, and online ticketing operations. The IRCTC travel app has over 90 million downloads and powers over 1.5 million railway ticket bookings per day. 

Commenting on the tie-up, Mr. V. Raman Kumar, Founder Chairman, CASHe, said, “This is India’s biggest travel now pay later embedded EMI payment journey with IRCTC of its kind. I am delighted to say that our association with IRCTC is another step to reach out and accelerate digitised EMI payments in the country. This partnership will also tremendously aid CASHe to reach out to the millions of IRCTC’s customers and provide them with a never-before and convenient option to travel now and pay for their rail tickets later in easy EMIs. The travel now and pay later segment has seen remarkable growth and the message from the travellers is clear – they want the choice to pay for their trips in instalments. With CASHe’s travel now pay later, we will significantly enhance the payment convenience and flexibility for IRCTC’s customers at checkout, thereby improving customer experience.”

CASHe’s unique proposition lies in its proprietary AI-based algorithm platform - Social Loan Quotient (SLQ). SLQ assesses the risk of a borrower based on the user's social and mobile data footprints thereby providing credit to those that don’t qualify for credit from conventional lending. Besides offering faster credit decisions, SLQ has enabled CASHe to seamlessly capture untapped markets among the financially excluded sections of society. Its affordable interest rates, instant processing and flexible repayment options make it India’s most preferred digital credit platform.

Payhawk, the fast-growing spend management platform, which combines company cards, reimbursable expenses, and accounts payable in one solution, today announces the launch of the Payhawk Solution Partner Program. This completes a big month of releases for Payhawk, which released new credit card products in the US and UK at the end of September and recently recorded year-to-date revenue growth of 520%.

The Solution Partner Program provides Payhawk’s customers with access to a network of trusted professional services partners specialising in integration and customisation services for ERP, HCM systems, accounting systems and other business tools. Partners will receive exclusive access to Payhawk’s Partner API, sales and technical enablement resources, and incentives for lead sharing.

According to Payhawk, the launch of the Solution Partner Program is in response to growing demand from its enterprise-size customers wanting to maximise automation between Payhawk’s spend management solution and other adjacent business tools.

Hristo Borisov, Payhawk CEO and Co-founder says “The launch of the Solution Partner Program was a natural continuation of the strong set of enterprise features that we delivered for our customers over the last 12 months. We can now expand the complexity of use cases and automation requirements on top of existing ERP systems. Building partnerships with professional services providers, such as ERP integrators, is crucial to scale the automation needs of our enterprise customers to achieve maximum efficiency and the best spending experience for their employees."

The official launch of the Solution Partner Program follows a successful trial of these services early in the year, during which Payhawk helped several enterprise customers achieve efficiency gains via its partner services.

Cvetomir Uzunov, CFO of Discordia, a customer using Payhawk’s partner services, says “Discordia, one of the fastest growing transport and logistic companies in Europe, continuously invests in innovations and technologies to optimise its processes and increase productivity and employee experience. We aim to streamline and largely automate expense management for our 1,700 drivers and 300+ admin team integrating Payhawk with our ERP.”

Payhawk has also announced one of its first strategic partnerships with Next Consult, a boutique consultancy with offices in the USA, the UK, Switzerland, Romania, and Bulgaria and clients in over 15 countries.

Orlin Dochev, Managing Partner at Next Consult, a Payhawk Partner, says, “at Next Consult we’re always looking for new ways to add value to our clients. As a member of Payhawk’s Solution Partner Program we can now deliver and integrate a market-leading expense management tool enabling our clients to automate tasks and advance their digital transformation”.  

Funding Circle, the leading online platform for small business loans, announced today that it is now operational in Nevada, allowing it to provide the state’s more than 280,000 small businesses with much-needed access to capital. With operations live in Nevada, Funding Circle now offers loans to businesses in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

In Nevada, securing capital funding has historically been very difficult for small businesses. According to the Nevada Small Business Development Center’s (SBDC) 2022 Small Business Challenges Survey, securing financing is one of the largest obstacles facing small businesses in Nevada. Nearly 60% of survey respondents reported that securing debt and capital to finance their business was a challenge.

“Securing funding has been especially challenging for small business owners throughout Nevada, who continue to navigate post-Covid challenges and economic uncertainty,” said Ryan Metcalf, Head of Public Policy and Social Impact at Funding Circle US. “With Funding Circle now offering small business financing in Nevada, business owners in the state have newfound access to quicker, lower cost capital from a responsible, state licensed and regulated lender that will allow them to grow and scale their businesses and create jobs in the state.”

"This is a win-win for both residents and small business owners. Businesses will have greater access to capital than ever before, and residents will get to have a say about what happens in their neighborhoods,” said Nevada State Sen. Pat Spearman (D-1), a sponsor of NV SB161, the legislation that has made it possible for online lenders to offer funding to businesses in the state.

The announcement follows the release of research conducted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia that analyzed proprietary loan-level data from two fintech small business lending platforms, one of which was Funding Circle. The study found that Funding Circle is increasing access to capital at a lower cost for borrowers who are less likely to receive credit from traditional banks and predicting future loan performance more accurately than the conventional method to credit scoring, leading to better loan performance.

Outseer, the leader in payment authentication and monitoring solutions, has today released a new study that finds £95 is reported lost to fraudsters every second in the UK. Outseer studied data of all the reported incidents of fraud to Action Fraud – the UK's national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime – between 1st July 2021 to 30th June 2022. Fraud is now a national crisis; one case was reported to Action Fraud every 85 seconds and reported losses totalled over £3 billion during this single 12-month period. In fact, if fraud in the UK was a person, they made enough in the last 12 months to place them comfortably within the top 60 places of The Sunday Times’ annual Rich List.

“These numbers make for grim reading – showing that fraud is now a part of everyday life for the British public,” commented Mark Crichton, Head of Product at Outseer. “Of even more concern is that the figures only scratch the surface of the true scale of the problem. The UK’s National Crime Agency believes fewer than 20 percent of incidents of fraud are actually reported. Whether it’s fraudulent payments, brand impersonation or a dating scam, the reality is there’s a huge number of victims and the consequences can be devastating – with the average reported loss per victim at £8,100. This should be a wake-up call for businesses and consumers alike. Businesses must do more to detect and prevent fraudulent activity, or risk falling foul to the multi-billion-pound fraud economy.”

The data also sheds light on the most popular ways that fraudsters are targeting victims. The most used attack vector in the last 12 months was online shopping and auctions, which was reported more than 72,000 times and resulted in £62.7 million in losses. The uptick in the number of people shopping online and using digital channels to interact with businesses means that digital payments are a top target for scammers. Other key findings are:

Fraud from online shopping and auctions is over 1.5x more common than the second most popular attack vector, advanced fee fraud, which had almost 29,000 reported cases.
Dating and romance scams remain widespread, with almost £100 million of reported financial losses over the past 12 months in this category.
Financial investment fraud caused the most monetary damage, with reported losses totalling more than £409 million.

While it’s often assumed that it’s the less tech-savvy older generations that fall victim to fraud, the data finds that the highest number of reports came from the 20-39 age group, followed by those aged 40-59. While the number of cases is higher in the younger age categories, the 60-79 and 80+ age groups on average lost more than twice the amount of money as 20-39-year-olds. As expected, the highest number of fraud reports and losses came from London due to its large population and being the location of the UK’s major financial institutions. However, overall, what the data shows is that location isn’t significant – wherever you live or wherever a business is located, the risk of fraud in the UK is substantial.

“It’s time to dispel the myth that most fraud cases are older people falling prey to simple phishing scams. Anyone can be a victim of fraud – age and location do not matter,” continued Crichton. “Scammers use AI and machine learning to create highly convincing and sophisticated scams that even the best-trained eye could be duped by. Businesses must fight fire with fire, adopting AI-driven solutions to monitor, detect, and prevent fraud before it harms both their customers and reputation. Consumers also need to get into good habits to protect themselves from fraud – this includes researching any unfamiliar websites or apps, keeping track of bank accounts to spot suspicious activity, and never giving away personal passwords or PINs.”

Paris Blockchain Week, the leading international conference dedicated to professionals in the blockchain and Web3 space, will be hosted at the Carrousel du LOUVRE in the heart of Paris’ historic palace and largest museum in the world from 20th to 24th March 2023. This 4th edition of the Paris Blockchain Week is Europe’s biggest blockchain event, covering: decentralized finance, NFTs, Web3, and metaverse, with 10,000+ attendees from around the globe, passionate to share, learn, and do business in one of the world’s most iconic places in the French Capital: the LOUVRE.

Key blockchain industry personalities have already committed to speaking at this celebration of all things blockchain. A first glance at our Speaker line-up includes Tim Draper (Founder and Managing Partner of Draper Associates, DFJ and the Draper Venture Network), Denelle Dixon (Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director, Stellar Development Foundation), Nicolas Cary (Co-Founder & Vice Chairman of Blockchain.com), Eva Kaili (Vice President of the European Parliament), Yat Siu (Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, Animoca Brands Founder and CEO, Outblaze), Sébastien Borget (Co-Founder & COO, The Sandbox), Alexandre Dreyfus (CEO, Chiliz & Socios.com), Ira Auerbach (Senior Vice President, Head of Digital Assets, Nasdaq)...

Blockchain Week Summit and NFTverse (formerly Paris NFT Day) are the two main events during this industrious week. The two-day Summit explores the latest developments in blockchain technology and its potential applications across a range of industries.

The main topics on the agenda will be: 

• Tech Builders
• Public Policy
• Enterprise Blockchain
• Open Finance

As CZ (Changpeng Zhao), Founder and CEO of Binance explained, “Paris Blockchain Week Summit really just cemented that they are the European crypto hub given the number of activities here, the number of people attending, and talking with both local and international players”.

The NFTverse is a one-day journey into NFTs (non-fungible tokens) for business and total immersion into the Web3 universe – the place par excellence where community leaders, investors, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, developers meet. Here they can explore future possibilities, from gaming and collectibles to art and fashion.

The main areas covered at the NFTverse are: 

• Web3 Perspectives
• Economy of the Metaverse
• Technologies & Investments
• Virtual/Digital Identity 

During this prestigious week, Paris Blockchain Week will also play host to several fringe events held by the most prominent blockchain brands. The Talent Fair provides a full day of employment opportunities spanning the largest players and latest innovators. By popular request, the Paris Blockchain Week Hackathon is back with brand new challenges and prizes to be won.

Emmanuel Fenet, CEO of Paris Blockchain Week, is anticipating this global crypto and blockchain flagship event with great enthusiasm. “We look forward to bringing an exciting and engaging event to the thousands of attendees who will be joining us again this year. Speakers from the best blockchain, Web3, NFT and metaverse platforms, digital asset companies, and leading VC funds will join the stage and share their insights. With over 400 speakers, we can hardly wait to reveal our full programme and line-up soon, so block your calendar for 20-24 March. See you at the Louvre!”

Sébastien Borget, co-Founder and COO of The Sandbox, commented about the 2023 edition “I can’t think of a more emblematic place than the LOUVRE, an historic landmark of Paris where art collections, paintings, sculptures and others forms of art are assembled, to be home of Paris Blockchain Week 2023 to exhibit how Web3 contributes to innovation in technology, Art, NFTs, Gaming and Metaverse.”

The Paris Blockchain Week March 2023 edition is set to welcome 10,000+ attendees, 400+ speakers, 300+ sponsors, 60% C-level+ executives, 400+ media and journalists. Paris Blockchain Week 2022 sold out in advance, so we encourage you to buy your ticket early. Discounted tickets are on sale now and available for a limited time only; the discount will end soon.

Time Finance celebrates its new office launch in Reading in a strategic move to bolster the firm’s presence in the South East of England.

The new premises are based in the Apex Building on Forbury Road and will host a team of 18 employees. Selected for its regional connectivity, Time Finance’s nationwide team and its growing intermediary base can benefit from its new business hub in addition to its other UK office locations in Manchester, Bath, Warrington, and Cardiff.

The alternative finance provider to UK SMEs offers a range of financial solutions designed to inspire confidence and growth in both local and national business communities. Their funding solutions span across Asset Finance, Invoice Finance, Loans and Vehicle Finance. The premises will act primarily as a base for its Invoice Finance operations.

Speaking of the new office launch Ed Rimmer, Chief Executive Officer at Time Finance, said: “The launch of our new Reading office marks the start of an exciting journey for Time Finance as we expand our presence further into the South of England and increase our support for businesses within that region.

“We have a strong ambition to continue evolving as a business and we believe that our new Reading base will act as a solid foundation for future growth for Time Finance and provide excellent connectivity with our intermediaries and clients.”

Time Finance supports some 10,000 UK businesses every year with flexible and supportive funding solutions. In addition to their multi-product offering, the firm was recently accredited under the latest iteration of the Recovery Loan Scheme in partnership with the British Business Bank.

The West African financial sector has been witnessing a wave of digital innovation that has fuelled services and applications that had the potential to really shake up the banking sector. Banks, Fintechs, and financial institutions have been harnessing digital solutions designed to serve touchless and remote banking, which has unlocked opportunities for the millions of digitally connected diaspora that remains formally unbanked but economically active.

Central Banks in the region have been implementing policies to meet next-gen requirements of the evolved banking customer, this by analysing the challenges and successes of regions that have championed financial inclusion. The sector has also been adopting automated banking systems, advanced mobile money platforms, tailored credit and digitized lending facilities, and crypto-currencies for this promising market.

With this as a driver The International Center for Strategic Alliances (ICSA), organizers of the Leading Banking summit Connected Banking 2022- (Formerly Africa’s Digital Banking Summit). is all set to go live with the 6th Edition Connected Banking West Africa, which is themed as “Accelerating Financial Inclusion Through Digital Adoption”.

The Two-day Summit will witness inputs by leaders and experts from the Banking Industry. The Summit goes live, on the 15th and 16th of November 2022 in Accra, Ghana with a concurrent virtual stream with almost 350+ delegates in attendance.

The Summit will witness insights and inputs from leaders like Dr. Maxwell Opoku-Afari from Bank of Ghana; Abena Osei-Poku from Absa Bank; Victor Yaw Asante from FBN Bank Ghana; Ndungu Thairu from Consolidated Bank of Ghana; Adesola Adeduntan from First Bank of Nigeria and many more who will touch upon key areas like Crafting a Cashless/Cash-lite Economy; Digital Wallets and Digital Lending; Security – An all pervasive model; The Digital Only Model – Trend and Challenges; Synergies Between traditional FIs and Telecoms.

The Connected Banking 2022 historically has been bringing together the best minds from leading institutions to engage in an open, constructive dialogue with peers, industry subject matter experts and policy czars, and this year promises to be even better and bigger. Connected Banking will offer latest and actionable insights, networking opportunities, a chance to learn from the best in the business, and get ahead of the competition.
 

Wio Bank PJSC, the region’s first platform bank, has announced a partnership with Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, which will enable SMEs in the UAE to access the power of e-commerce faster and more easily and conveniently.

Through this partnership, Wio Business, the first digital banking application from Wio, will empower SMEs and freelancers, who previously struggled to get access to payment products, to go into e-commerce faster with an easy-to-create Stripe account. This will allow them to activate their e-commerce business with a payment gateway and receive payments instantly. Wio Business and Stripe ensure easy onboarding and a simple payas-you-go pricing model.

Users can soon sign up on the Wio Business app, and be set up with a payment gateway to optimise payments within minutes.

Jayesh Patel, CEO, Wio Bank commented on the partnership: “We have a vision of facilitating more digital commerce while removing as much friction as possible for our customers. Partnering with Stripe is a natural path to accelerate that goal as more businesses turn to online commerce as an opportunity, necessity, and competitive advantage in today’s global economy.”

To date, accepting online payments from the UAE has required onerous onboarding processes that take significant time and investment for businesses to complete, with most providers requiring physical in-person onboarding. Stripe’s fast and secure online setup via Wio will open up the internet economy for UAE companies.

Girard Moussa, head of UAE at Stripe said: “The UAE is a global tech talent hub. However, too many companies still face challenges when trying to accept payments, make payouts, and manage the finances of their internet businesses. We’re thrilled to work with Wio to help remove these complexities so businesses can focus on what makes them special.”

Getting customers set up for payments in minutes, not days

Wio Business is creating a more accessible and transparent pathway for SMEs to get paid faster. Soon, Wio users will be able to send payment links to their clients with just a couple of taps. Stripe onboarding will be embedded within the app, meaning users can create a Stripe account and start sending payment links to clients—making it easier for SMEs to manage finances and get paid faster.

Optimise invoicing for fast payment

The Wio Business app will allow freelancers and micro companies to directly link their invoices to a payment. Users will be able to send an invoice to their customers and trigger the payment directly via a payment lin, ensuring a seamless invoice payment user experience translating into higher conversion rates obtained with just a few lines of code from Wio.

Full-featured dashboard to manage payments

Wio Business customers will also be able to easily track and control payments through their Stripe dashboard. Further, they can download pre-built reconciliation reports making it simpler and more efficient to close the books. Digital Banking apps - Easy, empowering and enabling Almost one in five individual customers has an account with a digital bank in the UAE and this is expected to double in the next few years. However, SME digital banking is still in its nascency with customers largely relying on brick-and-mortar branches to open accounts and carry out business transactions.

Wio Business launched in September 2022 in the UAE. Partnering with Stripe is a significant stride forward in the new bank’s commitment to streamline the process for SMEs and freelancers alike to manage their finances and get paid faster.

As the region’s first platform bank, Wio is ushering in a new era in digital banking in the UAE and the region and aims to transform banking operating models towards a more digital future. It will continue to launch new propositions that simplify the use and access to money, leveraging new technologies and capabilities to offer more intelligent, personalised, and contextual experiences.

Crypto exchange Coinbase has raided German digital assets firm Solaris to appoint its chief operating officer Daniel Seifert as regional managing director for Europe.

The new appointee will be expected to lead Coinbase's expansion in the European crypto market. 

In a statement reported by Bloomberg, Coinbase said it would fill a number of core positions within its European team.

The crypto exchange has already secured licences to operate in Italy and the Netherlands. 

The European plans come in the midst of difficult conditions for crypto service providers. Cryptocurrency values have fallen during 2022 while regulatory requirements have risen. 

This has led some crypto exchanges and platforms to either introduce job cuts or hiring freezes. in June, Coinbase announced that its hiring freeze would remain in place for "the foreseeable future".

Meanwhile, Coinbase has struck an agreement with Google that will see Google Cloud's Compute platform used to process blockchain data at scale.