Axyon AI Completes €1.6 Million Fundraising Round Supported by CDP Venture Capital, ING and UniCredit

Axyon AI, a leading AI provider for the asset management industry, has announced the completion of a €1.6 million funding round. Fondo Rilancio Startup led the round, with ING, UniCredit, Geminea, and Metes as co-investors. Axyon AI will use this capital to assist its international growth and evolve Axyon IRIS®, its flagship product that provides asset managers with AI-powered market insights and investment strategies.

Digital Bank Zopa in Talks to Raise Another $100M from Investors

UK digital challenger Zopa is in talks to raise $100 million in what could be its final funding round before going public, according to Sky News. The bank is in talks with new and existing shareholders about the raise, which would value it slightly higher than its £750 million valuation at a £220 million round last October. Zopa, a P2P lending pioneer, became a traditional bank two years ago, reaching profitability in April and £2 billion in deposits in August.

Railsr Achieves Series C Milestone

Railsr, the world leading embedded finance platform, has announced that it has closed its Series C round, raising $46m. The Series C fundraise constituted $26m of equity and $20m of debt. The equity portion was led by Anthos Capital, who led the Railsr Series B in July 2021, and includes other existing investors spanning Europe, North America and Asia: Ventura, Outrun Ventures, CreditEase and Moneta. The debt portion of the round was with Mars Capital, a new investor in the company.

Neobanking Platform Juno Raises $18 Million in Series A

Crypto digital banking firm Juno has raised $18 million in a Series A funding round to expand products and operations, and launch its first tokenised loyalty programme. The round was led by Mac Private Equity, the offshore private equity firm owned by Mac McClafferty, and included other well-known crypto industry figures that are part of McClafferty’s consortium of Caribbean investors.

Tally Raises $80 Million in Series D Funding Led by Sway Ventures

Tally, a leading financial automation company, announced it has received $80 million in Series D funding led by Sway Ventures with participation from Menora Mivtachim. The company also announced that Ken Denman, a veteran customer-centric technology leader, has joined Tally’s Board of Directors. Previous investors Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, Shasta Ventures and Cowboy Ventures also took part in this round.

Web3 Security Platform Blowfish Closes $11.8 Million Round

Blowfish announced that they’ve raised $11.8M in funding led by Paradigm, with participation from Dragonfly, Uniswap Labs Ventures, Hypersphere and 0x Labs. They are also supported by angel investors including crypto founders & operators - Naval Ravikant, Nathan McCauley, Will Warren, Amir Bandeali, Francesco Agosti, Patryk Adas, Jeremy Welch, Steve Klebnoff, Raymond Tonsing, Jim Posen, John Johnson and many more.

Currensea Secures Major Investment from Two VCs Bringing Total Raised This Year to £4.55M

Open banking-powered fintech Currensea has secured £2.4m from leading Venture Capitalists Blackfinch Ventures and 1818 Venture Capital which will be used to accelerate the fintech’s ambitious growth plans.Currensea – the money-saving travel card, which removes the bank fees associated with the foreign exchange by linking directly to users’ existing current accounts – has grown rapidly this year. 

Partnerships 

Validis Partners with Aryza to Power Open Finance for UK Business Lenders

Aryza, expert developers of software solutions for the sectors of insolvency, credit and debt recovery, has announced a partnership with Validis, a market-leading open accounting platform, to develop an open finance solution that will help business lenders obtain better quality financial data from their customers. The partnership was driven by a growing need across the SME lending world for better visibility over SMEs’ cash flow and finances, through real-time data sets.

Uber Partners with Marqeta, Mastercard, and Branch to Launch New Uber Pro Card

Uber announced a new partnership with Marqeta, Mastercard and Branch to power the Uber Pro Card, an enhanced loyalty and payments experience that will help drivers and couriers save on gas, fees, and other expenses. Built for drivers and couriers, the Uber Pro Card offers customized perks including up to 10% cashback on gas and up to 12% on EV charging. The card also comes with a business checking account powered by Branch and designed to enable drivers and couriers to keep more of what they earn.

Lufthansa Group Selects Worldline as Global Payments Provider

Worldline, a global leader in the payments and transactional services industry, has been selected as a partner and payments provider to Lufthansa Group, a global player in the aviation industry. Worldline builds on its strong heritage in the Airlines & Travel industry with comprehensive solutions tailored to fit the needs of some of the largest and most complex airlines in the industry.

SunTec Business Solutions and Whatfix Join Hands to Drive Quick Adoption of its SaaS Products Among Customers

SunTec Business Solutions, the world’s No. 1 pricing and billing company, announced the strategic partnership and integration of its products and solutions with Whatfix, the global leader in the digital adoption platforms (DAP) space, to drive quick adoption of its SaaS products among customers and create a seamless and user-friendly onboarding experience for them.

Liminal is Now the Preferred Custodial Partner for Web3 Aggregator Platform ‘UniFarm’

Wallet operations infrastructure platform ‘Liminal’ announced a partnership with Web 3 aggregator ‘UniFarm’. As a part of this association, UniFarm and its partner projects will get access to Liminal’s Digital Asset custody services to manage their assets and day-to-day transactions.  In addition, Liminal will also be offering benefits up to USD 60,000 to these projects and cohorts associated with Unifarm.

Knab Extends Back-Office Processing Partnership with Worldline

Knab, a Dutch online bank founded in 2012, has extended its existing partnership with Worldline. In addition to the existing Instant Payments back-office service, Worldline will now also facilitate back-office processing for handling SEPA Batch payments and multi-currency payments. The partnership has been extended for a seven-year contract. Knab will continue to have access to Worldline's Instant Payments back-office service as part of this collaboration.

MoneyGram Announces Strategic Partnership and Minority Investment in UAE-Based Fintech Startup Jingle Pay

MoneyGram International, Inc., a global leader in the evolution of digital P2P payments, and Jingle Pay, a financial super-app based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), announced a partnership to enable convenient and fast global money transfers through the Jingle Pay app. Consumers in the UAE can use the Jingle Pay app – powered by MoneyGram's global payment rails and near real-time capabilities – to send money to over 200 countries and territories around the world.

Know Your Customer and HAWK AI Partner to Harmonise Financial Crime Compliance in the Fintech Sector

Know Your Customer, the premier provider of real-time registry links, and Hawk AI, Germany's leading anti-money laundering software provider for banks, payment firms, and fintechs, announced a new strategic relationship. By combining Know Your Customer's digital onboarding and business KYC solutions with Hawk AI's transaction monitoring, companies will have a comprehensive, integrated offering to centralise and harmonise their AML programme.

Mastercard and Ravelin Partner to Reduce Fraud and Create Frictionless Checkout in Digital Quick Commerce

Mastercard and Ravelin, a leading machine learning fraud platform, have joined forces to deliver an enhanced fraud solution. Incorporating digital identity verification capabilities from Ekata and real-time fraud insights from Ethoca, Ravelin will help merchants validate a consumer’s identity without adding friction to the process.During a user’s first transaction, Ravelin will draw on Ekata’s transaction risk API to verify the user’s identity.

CWallet Partners with M2P to Launch Pre-paid and Multicurrency Cards in Qatar

CWallet, an award-winning Qatar-based payment processing fintech startup, has partnered with M2P Fintech, Asia's largest API infrastructure company, to enable prepaid and multi-currency cards in Qatar. This partnership is aimed at promoting financial technology intelligence, financial inclusion, and services not only to the unbanked majority but also to Qatar residents, citizens, and businesses.

Ondato Enters a New Partnership with Radix Malta

Ondato, a company that streamlines KYC and AML-related operations utilizing cutting-edge AI technologies announced that it has partnered with Radix Compliance Ltd, a Maltese company that is a part of the Radix Malta Group and focuses on providing AML and KYC outsourcing, drafts AML-related policies and processes, and conducts Business Risk Assessments and independent AML or Compliance audits.

NORD/LB Partners with Trade Ledger to Bring Fast Finance to Corporates

NORD/LB, one of Germany’s largest commercial banks, is accelerating access to finance for its large corporate customers, in a partnership with Trade Ledger, the global data-driven lending technology provider.NORD/LB will use the Trade Ledger platform to originate and manage receivables finance facilities for large corporate customers. Large receivables secured loans are admin-heavy and required a lot of human labour, limiting their distribution.

Fnality and Finteum Executed the First Cross-Chain FX Settlement Transaction to T+0

The collaboration between Fnality and Finteum has taken a step forward with the announcement of the completion of a successful proof of concept (POC) involving the first test of FX settlement transactions on a Payment-versus-Payment (PvP) basis, across the Finteum Platform, and two Fnality Payment Systems (FnPS), representing two currencies, in under 10 seconds.

Gigable Partners with Weavr For Instant Gig Worker Payments

Gigable, the equitable gig economy platform that connects businesses with flexible workers, is partnering with embedded finance specialist Weavr, to enhance its payments and business banking infrastructure to transform how gig workers access earnings and control finances. The announcement marks a significant advancement in the use of embedded financial technology to boost the gig economy in the UK and Ireland. 

Mumsnet Teams Up with Chetwood Financial to Launch New Family-focused Financial Services

UK digital bank Chetwood Financial has announced a new partnership with parenting forum Mumsnet, with plans to launch a new family-focused financial services proposition next year. Since acquiring a full banking licence back in 2018, Chetwood has focused on creating disruptive financial products for underserved segments of the market. The recent acquisition of Yobota gives the company further opportunity to enable innovative financial solutions through its best-in-class BaaS model.

Ecospend Partners with QR-code-Based Payment Service App Peng

Ecospend, the UK’s leading Open Banking payment provider, announces its partnership with the QR-code-based payment services app, PENG. The partnership will enable PENG’s small business customers to benefit from Open Banking services in the form of free transactions and enhanced security. Ecospend's 'Pay-by-Bank' solution leverages Open Banking for businesses. Ecospend has handled $5bn this year.

CellPay and Klarna Have Partnered to Offer Consumers More Flexible Payment Options

CellPay and Klarna have partnered to offer consumers more flexible payment options. To ensure that CellPay consumers benefit from this changing trend, CellPay has partnered with Klarna, a leading global retail bank, payments, and shopping service, to offer Klarna's interest-free, Pay in 4 services at the checkout. The payment option enables CellPay customers to split their payments into four, interest-free payments spread out over six weeks.

Launches 

Afterpay Launches 12-Month BNPL Payment Option

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Afterpay is launching a new monthly payment option that aims to give consumers greater payment flexibility and responsible spending options ahead of the holiday shopping season. Shoppers choosing Afterpay’s monthly payment option can budget purchases over repayment periods of six or 12 months for purchases between $400 and $4,000, according to a press release Wednesday (Oct. 5).

Kyriba Expands Risk Portfolio, Launches Commodities Risk

Kyriba, a global leader in cloud-based finance and IT solutions, has announced the launch of Commodities Risk, which is an expansion of the Company’s portfolio of risk applications. The new solution helps Treasury and Risk Managers mitigate commodities risk and better manage market fluctuations with integrated data, analytics and connectivity into Kyriba Treasury and Risk Management. 

Moneyhub Launches ‘Pension Finder’ that Connects with LinkedIn Profiles to Find Retirement Savings Gaps Ahead of Pensions Dashboard 

Moneyhub, the award-winning Open Data platform and alpha partner to the Pensions Dashboards Programme (PDP), has launched a new Pension Finder feature that can automatically identify gaps in retirement savings by analysing savers’ career histories on LinkedIn. The UK government has calculated that people will have an average of 11 jobs in their career - each of which now results in them being auto-enrolled into a pension scheme.

EMVCo Launches Contactless Kernel Specification to Advance Payments Acceptance

Global technical body EMVCo has published a new specification to support the evolution of contactless and mobile payments and simplify global acceptance for merchants, solution providers and payment systems. Version 1 of the EMV® Contactless Kernel Specification* has been developed in collaboration with EMVCo Associates and approved for release by the EMVCo Board of Advisors. 

Leading Payments Provider Bluechain Launches in the UK with First Customer, Aggregate Industries

Bluechain, the fast-growing fintech startup that transforms the traditional payments and receivables process, has officially launched in the UK with their first customer, leading construction materials supplier, Aggregate Industries. The objective is to allow Aggregate Industries to digitise the billing, collections and reconciliation process with their SME customers.

Plum Launches New Crowdfunding Campaign with £5M Funding from Silicon Valley Bank UK

Smart money app Plum is to embark on its third crowdfunding round, following a standout year of delivery.Since its last crowdfund 12 months ago, the company has launched commission-free investing, expanded into new European markets, enabled crypto trading and launched a debit card. Following these developments, Plum has grown its customer base to 1.4 million, an almost 50% increase in the last year, and helped people set aside £1.4 billion.

Curve and Fidesmo Join Forces to Meet Growing Demand for Wearable Payments

Curve, the financial super app which empowers customers to understand and master their finances by combining all debit, credit and loyalty cards into one, has announced a partnership agreement with wearable payments​​ enablement leader Fidesmo. Curve is on a mission to give customers financial freedom by simplifying and unifying how they spend, send, see and save money and this partnership furthers that ambition.

THORChain Integrates with Avalanche to Advance Multichain Interoperability

THORChain, a non-custodial decentralized liquidity protocol that enables decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and users to seamlessly transfer their digital assets across blockchains, has integrated support for Avalanche, the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry, as measured by time-to-finality. Avalanche is a pioneer in the decentralized finance (DeFi) industry, with over ~$1.6 billion in total value locked on the network.

Payhawk Launches Business Credit Cards to Offer UK Enterprises a Smart Alternative

Payhawk, the fast-growing spend management platform combining company cards, reimbursable expenses, and accounts payable in one solution, announces the launch of a business credit card in the UK. This new release quickly follows its launch of credit cards for US businesses in September this year, as well as year-to-date revenue growth of 520% and an employee headcount growth of over 250%.

Studio Bank Launches Innovative Credit Card Program with Corserv

Corserv, a company that empowers banks and fintechs with payment programs, has implemented a comprehensive credit card program with Studio Bank to provide innovative payment solutions. Pioneered in Nashville, Studio Bank built a digital bank with a local presence – their model is membership-based, tech-savvy and hospitality-inspired. This includes features such as no ATM fees, member networking events, and an omni-channel mobile app with a beautiful user experience.

nCino Launches Enhanced Small Business Banking Solution at American Banker Conference

nCino, Inc., a pioneer in cloud banking and digital transformation solutions for the global financial services industry, announced that PeoplesBank, an independent community bank based in York, Pennsylvania, is live on nCino’s Small Business Banking Solution. PeoplesBank implemented nCino's Commercial Banking Solution to provide a single, cloud-based platform for the institution and its clients.

InsurTech Lemonade Launches in UK

Lemonade, the insurance company powered by AI and social impact, launched in the United Kingdom. Residents across the UK can now get Lemonade Contents insurance instantly, from anywhere, on any device, as well as file claims and get paid in seconds. The launch follows Lemonade’s previous launches in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Lemonade, founded in 2015, debuted its flagship renters insurance in the U.S. in 2016.

Merger & Acquisition

Cryptyde Completes Acquisition of Forever 8

Cryptyde, Inc. announced that it has successfully closed the acquisition of Forever 8 Fund, LLC, an e-commerce fintech company (“Forever 8”). The acquisition lays the foundation for Cryptyde’s fintech portfolio and positions Cryptyde to generate revenue from the F8 acquisition, beginning in Q4 of 2022. They believe they have a unique offering within the fintech universe, with Forever 8 providing an opportunity to combine machine learning technology with the blockchain to better improve and streamline multiple industries.

Rapid Finance Acquires Digital Lending Technology Provider, Thrive

Rapid Finance, a market leader in helping small businesses find sustainable and customized financing solutions through a fast and simple application process, announced its acquisition of digital lending platform provider, Thrive, at American Banker’s Small Business Banking conference. As part of Rapid Finance’s recent corporate rebrand and restructuring, the Thrive acquisition represents a significant addition to the company’s new Rapid Finance Technology business unit.

Job Moves

BlueSnap Appoints Anthony Carey to EU Board of Directors to Support Growth in European Market

BlueSnap, the Payment Orchestration Platform that helps businesses accept and optimise payments around the world, has appointed Anthony Carey to their EU Board of Directors to further growth across Europe. This appointment comes as part of BlueSnap’s commitment to expand its European presence and establish a highly specialised EU-based team, with a vast amount of industry expertise.

Helen Cook Joins Finastra as Chief People Officer

Finastra announced the appointment of Helen Cook as Chief People Officer. In her role she takes global responsibility for the people organization and advancing the company’s aspiration to be the most inclusive and diverse employer in the Fintech industry. She is particularly passionate about building a curious and well-tooled workforce, supporting employees to develop skills that keep them relevant, engaged and growing.

Jesse Silverman Joins Highline as General Counsel

Continuing its rapid growth, Highline Technologies, the payments fintech that unlocks payroll-linked lending and billpay, announced that Jesse Silverman has joined the company as General Counsel. Silverman brings almost 20 years of legal expertise and industry experience to the team, including leading legal and compliance efforts for several fintechs, including LendUp, Nuula, and Steady.

Napier AI Appoints Industry Leader as Global Head of Corporate Development

Napier, a global end-to-end intelligent compliance platform and provider of advanced financial crime risk management solutions has announced the appointment of Julian Clarke as its new Global Head of Corporate Development. In his new role, Clarke is set to work closely with Napier’s CEO, Greg Watson, to develop a robust strategy for the firm’s global third-party distribution, including partnerships and alliances.

CoreCard Corporation Announces New Board Member

CoreCard Corporation announced the addition of a new board member, Kathryn Petralia, to serve as an independent Director of the Company. Ms. Petralia is the Co-Founder of Keep Financial, a fintech compensation platform that helps employers and employees stay together longer and happier. Kathryn co-founded Kabbage, a financial services, technology, and data platform for small businesses, in 2010.

Mollie Strengthens Supervisory Board with the Appointment of Christoph Röttele

Mollie, one of the fastest growing financial services providers in Europe, announced the appointment of its new supervisory board member, Christoph Röttele, who will help to support and shape the future development of Mollie. Christoph was previously the CEO of price comparison portal, CHECK24, for over six years. In this role, he both founded and supervised C24 Bank, a fully owned CHECK24 subsidiary and BaFin-regulated consumer bank.

EMVCo Announces New Director of Technology

Global technical body EMVCo has announced the appointment of Arman Aygen to the role of Director of Technology. Arman brings proven expertise from across the payments industry, having held senior technology leadership positions in the U.S., Europe and Asia. This includes roles at FIME and UL, where he was responsible for leading payments innovation and strategic relationship management with global payment brands.

ICICI Bank today announced the launch of an online solution to help its customers carry out SWIFT-based inward remittances in a faster and hassle-free manner. Named, ‘Smart Wire’, the facility allows both NRIs and resident customers to undertake inward remittance transactions in an online and paperless way. ICICI Bank is the first bank in the country to introduce this faster online solution to receive inward wire remittances.

The industry-first facility enables the beneficiary to initiate the wire transfer request, submit online declaration/documents, block the exchange rates in advance and track the status of the transaction. Through this facility, accurate information related to the beneficiary, the purpose of the inward remittance and declaration, where required, are captured in advance and shared with the remitter instantly. This facilitates seamless processing of the remittance and saves time of the beneficiary who can use this facility for various purposes of remittances including family maintenance and savings, personal gift / financial support, NRE/ NRO repatriation, salary, business and management consultancy.

Speaking on the initiative, Mr. Sriram H. Iyer, Head - International Banking Group, ICICI Bank said, “We, at ICICI Bank, are committed to offering enhanced convenience to our customers through innovative products and services at the fastest possible speed, with the highest level of security. With the launch of ‘Smart Wire’ facility, which is an industry-first initiative, we are offering our NRI and resident customers a unique combination of speed and an enriched experience of executing a cross-border transaction. We believe this new facility will help our customers to conveniently carry out quick and hassle-free money transfers.”

The key features of the ‘Smart Wire’ facility are:

• Online submission of details: The beneficiary can generate pre-filled wire transfer request form online
• Digital declarations: For seamless processing of the transaction, the facility enables beneficiary to submit required details/declarations online while initiating wire transaction
• Block exchange rates: The beneficiary can block exchange rate for the expected inward wire transfer. The deal booking facility is available for USD, EUR, GBP, AED, CAD, SGD and AUD
• Online tracking: The beneficiary can also track the transactions online by logging in internet banking portal anytime and anywhere
• Email request to remitter: Once the beneficiary initiates the remittance request, the remitter gets complete details of the wire transfer immediately via system-generated email

Customers can avail the ‘Smart Wire’ facility by logging into internet banking platform.

HSBC has launched HSBC Trade Solutions (HTS) to customers in its two largest markets - the UK and Hong Kong. Whilst making trade simpler, faster, and safer for customers through integrated digital journeys, HTS will power commerce that is rapidly evolving across different platforms and ecosystems.

Developed in partnership with CGI, the new platform allows clients to originate and manage all their trade finance products online. HTS leverages an API-native, modular design and flexible tech-stack that will form the backbone of HSBC's market-leading trade offering – supporting USD800bn of global trade per year.

Against a landscape of ongoing transformation through new technologies, improving supply chain resiliency and ESG imperatives, HTS will enable the bank to embrace future change faster and more efficiently. 

HTS has redefined client experience through intuitive, self-service digital interfaces developed using ethnography. Clients will also benefit through a higher degree of automation and straight-through processing. Using the new platform also strengthens risk management and monitoring through fully integrated Anti-Money Laundering (AML), sanctions, fraud, and credit risk controls.

"HSBC Trade Solutions has been co-created working closely with our clients and delivers a major step forward in terms of client experience", said Vinay Mendonca, Global Head of Trade Finance Products and Propositions at HSBC.  "Its flexibility will power solutions to fit into our clients' rapidly evolving ecosystems. Using such digital solutions, 88% of our trade transactions are now initiated digitally across a range of channels."

"This important solution launch is an exciting time for the marketplace and continues the strong working relationship between CGI and HSBC," said David York, Vice President for Banking and Financial Markets for CGI in the UK. "We look forward to working closely to drive positive change across a number of hugely important areas."

The converged data architecture of HTS will power quicker digital decisioning and deeper customer insights. The platform's automated distribution engine will help scale distribution as trade finance assets increasingly become an investable asset class.

With the core platform built and deployed in the UK and Hong Kong, HTS is now being introduced to additional markets across the HSBC network.

ZenLedger, the global leader in cryptocurrency tax software and blockchain analytics, today announced the company is accepting cryptocurrency as payment for goods and services using BitPay, the world's largest provider of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services.  The ability to accept cryptocurrency enables ZenLedger to offer end-to-end functionality for crypto traders globally.  More consumers are turning to crypto with 56% reporting they want to purchase crypto, nearly half viewing crypto as an investment and more than 40% wanting to use it to make payments, according to the latest "Paying With Cryptocurrency" report from PYMNTS.

"As a brand designed to support traders and those on the cutting edge of Web3 Innovation, the decision to accept crypto payments using BitPay was easy," said Pat Larsen, CEO and Co-Founder of ZenLedger. "Our ultimate goal is to always facilitate the crypto experience for our users in order to save time and money. That means everything from tracking their transactions, to offering them the chance to use those funds for our services. We believe in the long-term growth and innovation in the industry and so this is the next step in making things easier for our customers."

By adding cryptocurrency to its payment options ZenLedger reduces transaction fees while increasing payment transparency and efficiency. BitPay pioneered blockchain payment processing to enable payments using cryptocurrencies including ApeCoin (APE), Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) XRP, 5 USD-pegged stablecoins (BUSD, DAI, GUSD, USDC, and USDP) and one Euro-backed stable coin (EUROC). BitPay's business solutions eliminate transaction fraud, reduce the cost of payment processing, and enable borderless payments in cryptocurrency. With quick settlements in US Dollars, ZenLedger avoids any cryptocurrency price volatility or risk to the company.

"As the leading Crypto Tax Software, ZenLedger is filling a need for consumers who want to buy, invest and spend crypto alongside other investment vehicles and still keep track for accounting and tax purposes," said Merrick Theobald, Vice President of Marketing at BitPay. "Our goal at BitPay is to make accepting crypto for ZenLedger a seamless process and to help promote crypto adoption as we believe crypto is the future of payments."

Channel Capital Advisors LLP (Channel) is pleased to announce the launch of its specialist Fintech Lending Strategy,  with commitments from global institutional investors. The first $100m tranche of the $300m strategy will be deployed immediately to leading fintech lenders.

Channel’s fund will be deployed to digital lending fintech platforms that require capital to finance their loans to SMEs. A substantial pipeline has been built and capital will start being deployed straight away.

Channel is a UK-based asset manager that is authorised and regulated by the FCA. Over the past 15 years, it has deployed over $20 billion of credit assets including loans, working capital facilities, and securities.

More recently, Channel has invested heavily in developing proprietary systems using APIs, Open Banking and cloud-based, artificial intelligence-driven technologies to prospect, assess and monitor SME credit risk. As well as offering SMEs funding through fintech lenders, Channel’s technology infrastructure will subsequently be available to partners to roll out their own SME lending propositions.

Channel’s Fintech Lending Fund will initially be deployed through lending platforms in developed markets in Europe and North America.

The fund seeks to invest in diverse portfolios of corporate credit risk on a senior or mezzanine basis, with junior participation from the fintech principal. The capital is flexible and can scale rapidly with growth.

In recent years, fintech lenders have originated hundreds of billions of USD in loans, growing exponentially. Debt investments (like business loans) are popular with many SMEs whose founders and owners do not want to dilute their equity.

Paul Wilson, Channel’s Chief Investment Officer, said: “The investment into our Fintech Lending Fund is a significant step forward for Channel – it will see us work closely with other digital platforms to facilitate loans for SMEs that are faster, simpler, and don’t dilute their business. Indeed, the deployment of dedicated funds like this is crucial in supporting and fuelling the ongoing growth of the global SME sector.

“The backing our fund has received underlines investors’ growing appetite within the fintech lending space. Moreover, it’s a clear demonstration of the trust investors have in Channel’s track record of managing their investments.”

Walter Gontarek, CEO of Channel, added: “Providing much-needed capital to the often-overlooked SME sector has always been a goal at Channel. Fintech lending platforms are a critical part of that – making it faster and easier for deserving SMEs to access loans.

“We have been tirelessly enhancing our own digital lending capabilities and have exciting developments coming in that space. Meanwhile, the sizeable investment into our Fintech Lending Fund will see us work with a greater number of tech-powered lending platforms, firstly in Europe and North America, to see capital deployed at pace to the global SME community.”

Vantage, the international multi-asset broker, today announces its partnership with the Financial Commission (FinaCom), an independent self-regulatory organisation and an external dispute resolution body for businesses operating in the forex and contracts for difference (CFD) markets.

With this new partnership, Vantage and its clients are able to access a wide range of services and membership benefits, such as the unbiased resolution process facilitated by FinaCom, and the protection of up to €20,000 per client, covered by FinaCom’s compensation fund.

Vantage’s partnership with FinaCom brings together two organisations that are committed to holding the forex industry to the highest standards in business practices, for a more credible and transparent trading environment.

Marc Despallieres, Chief Strategy & Trading Officer at Vantage, says, “We’re extremely delighted to have partnered with the Financial Commission. We value our clients’ feedback and their trading experience with us, and we are pleased to have support from a highly regarded external dispute resolution organisation like Finacom.”

“At Vantage, we take pride in building a business that is committed to doing what’s right, and being a trusted, regulated organisation that our clients and staff can be proud to be a part of.”

Finastra has today announced that it has partnered with Kotak Mahindra Bank to support its new integrated corporate banking portal, Kotak FYN, using Finastra’s Unified Corporate Portal solution. Kotak Bank and Finastra have been working together since October 2021 to expand the Kotak FYN portal for business and corporate customers. The bank’s customers can use the new enterprise portal to carry out all trade services. By the last quarter of 2022, the Kotak FYN portal will include many other services, including account services, payments and collections, thus eliminating the need for multiple logins and disparate user interfaces.

“Working together with Finastra, the Unified Corporate Portal will allow us to make the Kotak FYN portal even more revolutionary,” said Shekhar Bhandari, President, Global Transaction Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank. “We can provide intuitive, easy-to-use access to many products and user journeys through a single platform, reducing complexity and friction for our customers and providing a truly differentiated user experience.”

Unified Corporate Portal harnesses the power of Finastra’s Corporate Channels framework, enabling banks to build a seamless experience for their corporate clients spanning account services, payments, trade, supply chain finance and lending. Banks can unify data across multiple, product-specific portals and back-office systems to create a single view of transactions, positions and balances, enabling self-service and driving operational efficiency. The data is presented via persona-based dashboards, with insightful widgets and the ability for users to tailor their experience.

“The user journey for corporate banking customers can be inefficient and complex, with customers often having to access different portals for different banking products, even within the same bank,” said Manish Joshi, Managing Director, MAAP, Finastra. “Through collaboration and co-innovation with Kotak, we have built a unique offering that will help it gain a competitive edge in the corporate banking segment and we look forward to helping the bank to grow further in the future.”

“Finastra has a long history of providing sophisticated and scalable corporate digital banking solutions to banks,” said Patricia Hines, Head of Corporate Banking, Celent. “Finastra was one of the few providers in Celent’s Corporate Digital Platforms evaluation that supports the breadth and depth of critical transaction banking capabilities demanded by commercial customers. We look forward to hearing more about how Finastra is enabling banks to provide differentiated user experiences.”

Meet us at Sibos in Amsterdam this year: Finastra booth #E57.

Global enterprise technology and services firm R3 today announced the general availability of Conclave Cloud, a serverless confidential computing platform designed to address the privacy risks that prevent many businesses from deploying cloud-based solutions.

With Conclave Cloud, businesses no longer need to manage infrastructure to develop privacy-preserving applications and services. Instead, they can take advantage of serverless cloud technology – scaling when they need it with a pay-as-you-go pricing model and no upfront infrastructure provisioning.

Data breaches are a problematic fact of life in an increasingly data-driven world. The consequences are a complex mix of infrastructure threats, application threats, compliance risks and data misuse risks. The average cost of a data incident in financial services rose to $4.35 million in 2022– an increase of 2.6% from 2021. As a result, two-thirds of executives increased their organizations’ budgets in 2022 and plan to spend more on cybersecurity in 2023.

The problem with data breaches is rooted in the fact that conventional encryption techniques today protect data when it is at rest and in transit, but not while it is being processed. Conclave Cloud leverages Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX) to tackle this problem. By running data in ‘enclaves’ – trusted execution environments – Conclave Cloud ensures that access to data is granted only to authorized parties.

Crucially with Conclave Cloud, a user’s workload can now remain private from everyone. It allows businesses to configure a pre-existing set of services hosted within to solve a variety of different use cases for data sharing and analytics solutions.

Conclave Cloud builds on the benefits of Conclave, which solves critical business challenges where data needs to be shared, but without any one person or firm seeing another’s information. For example, banks that want to collaborate across teams without revealing sensitive data to another business department; or an insurer that needs to share information about fraudulent claims without breaching confidentiality rules.

The first component of Conclave Cloud to be released is Conclave Functions, which enables stateless functions to be hosted, executed, and scaled on demand while ensuring that data is always encrypted, even during processing. The functions run in the context of a Conclave enclave, meaning end users can verify exactly what code will be running and know that their data is fully encrypted for the lifetime of the function call.

Ivar Wiersma, Head of Conclave at R3, comments: “For the first time, Conclave Cloud allows any organization to access the benefits of confidential computing with serverless infrastructure. Critically, this helps improve velocity and decreases the time to production. Because we handle servers, deployment, and ensuring confidentiality, businesses can focus on improving the quality of their application logic. The launch of Conclave Cloud is another exciting milestone in our mission to drive widespread adoption of cutting-edge confidential computing technology across complex and highly regulated industries such as financial services, insurance, and the public sector.”

BNY Mellon, in collaboration with Aite-Novarica Group, today released a study examining commercial payment trends, finding that businesses are embracing a range of emerging digital tools such as real-time payments (RTP) and digital wallets.

The report also found significant regional differences in channel usage. The adoption of instant payments is expected to increase, both in the U.S. via the RTP® network and the soon-to-be-launched FedNow service, and in Europe and the U.K. with the SEPA Credit Transfer Instant and Faster Payments services.

Cryptocurrencies – tipped as a game changer for payments – show growth mainly forecasted among existing users. Meanwhile, the usage of cash and checks is declining on a net basis, although they are embedded in many businesses’ workflows, notably in the U.S.

Key findings of the survey include:
• In North America, and Europe and the U.K., digital wallets are expected to see the most growth in the next 12 months.
• Among non-users of cryptocurrencies, only 7% of European businesses and 10% of North American businesses intend to utilize them in the near term.
• 67% of European corporations surveyed are using instant payments, compared to 46% of corporates in North America.
• 86% of European and U.K. non-users of instant payments note that they have some level of interest in using the transaction method in the next 12-24 months, with 68% of non-users in North American in the same camp.
• 76% of North American businesses have used checks in the last 12 months, compared to 61% in Europe.

“These study findings show that companies currently embracing emerging payment technologies are already reaping the benefits, while those slower to adopt them need more support to make the switch,” says Carl Slabicki, Co-Head of Global Payments within Treasury Services at BNY Mellon. “That is why we are positioning ourselves as the gateway for businesses to access all possible payment solutions as quickly and easily as possible.”

“The report paints a picture of a payments landscape that is complex and incredibly varied from region to region,” said Gilles Ubaghs, author of the study at Aite-Novarica Group. “No single payment method is emerging as the preferred solution and that fragmentation is likely to continue for some time before we see any consolidation in payment types.”

The findings of the report are based on feedback from 790 employees of mid-size and large organizations in seven North American and European countries.