BoardClic, a Swedish SaaS B2B platform for digital board and management team evaluations, has today announced a capital injection of €1.2 million. The funding will be used to consolidate the company’s sales team, expand into additional markets across Europe, and build out the company’s UK operations.

The second seed funding round, which was oversubscribed, was led by Subvenio, Curitas Ventures and Brofund Equity. This latest investment means BoardClic has raised €3.6 million to date.

Monica Lagercrantz, Co-founder and CEO of Boarclic, said: “Businesses must now follow an ever-increasing amount of corporate codes and regulations. This, in turn, means that global organisations must maintain exceptional stakeholder engagement and corporate governance structure, in order to maintain high governance standards. The modern boardroom is increasingly dynamic and tasked with a growing and complex responsibility. The market lacks sophisticated, data-driven, cost-efficient tools to track compliance, effectiveness, and alignment in boards and the C-suite. BoardClic, promoting the G in ESG, fills that void.”

BoardClic’s tech-led solution provides a library of best practice formats and benchmarking that lets customers conduct advanced digital evaluations that are time and cost-efficient and meet local regulations. By continuously measuring and analysing data, customers can compare and evaluate their results both internally over time as well as against relevant external companies and sectors.

Since the platform first launched in 2019, BoardClic has built an impressive customer portfolio consisting of around 250 customers, including Channel 4, Tele2, HGCapital Trust, and Husqvarna, and the company has experienced an average year-on-year growth of 200%. The product is sold via a subscription-based model, giving the customer and its users unlimited access to the product.

Mikael Ahlström, Chairman of Curitas Ventures, said of their investment in BoardClic: “The progress that BoardClic has made to date, in helping a wide array of companies across Europe to improve and streamline their processes at board and management team levels, has been impressive.

“Given BoardClic’s vision of leveraging digitalisation and relevant data to create real tangible value for boardrooms, and its commitment to ESG, our decision to join forces with them was a natural one. We  look forward to supporting the team throughout the next stage of its growth, expanding into new markets and reaching new heights.”

Finastra and Visa today announced a Banking as a Service (BaaS) collaboration to co-develop new functionality on its Payments Hub solutions and implement Visa Direct – which provides access to more than two billion accounts through push-to-account offerings. The new capability will give Finastra’s bank customers around the world access to cross-border payout capabilities for small- and medium-sized businesses, and individuals, in multiple currencies and countries.

“This BaaS partnership will allow banks to offer their customers greater choice in how to route cross-border payments, with banks essentially embedding Visa products,” said Barry Rodrigues, EVP Payments Business Unit at Finastra. “We are excited to partner on this proposition with Visa as it provides a very attractive solution for banks seeking to help increase overall customer satisfaction and loyalty through a transparent and cost-effective digital payments option.”

Deploying a custom-built cross-border payment solution in the current environment could be both expensive and time-consuming. The out-of-the-box processing capability offered by Finastra’s Payments Hub solutions, enabled by Visa Direct and available on-premises or in the cloud as SaaS, will enable banks to bypass these complexities with an integration to the Visa network through Finastra’s FusionFabric.cloud open development platform. They will be able to offer quick, low-cost payments for their customers, with great transparency.

“Innovation in cross-border money movement is accelerating at an incredible pace and banks are under pressure to quickly implement and launch programs for their customers that stay ahead of their expectations,” said Ruben Salazar Genovez, SVP, Global Head of Visa Direct. “We are excited to partner with Finastra to support the enablement of their bank customers worldwide with simple access to Visa Direct. Together, we are bringing benefits of our global network to thousands of banks globally, providing a wide range of new and existing case studies to clients.”

PayRetailers group, experts in cross-border payments with more than 250 payment methods operating from 9 offices throughout Latin America, partner with XBO.com, the cryptocurrency exchange making the benefits of crypto more accessible to everyone, to boost the platform’s expansion in the continent. 

XBO.com recently launched its platform that merges gaming-inspired UI and top security solutions to offer traders a user-friendly and reliable alternative to existing exchange platforms. The platform offers a loyalty program that guarantees benefits to users with each accumulation of points and transition between the stages, as well as one of the most appealing referral programs on the market today with luxurious trading fee rewards.

The partnership opens the door for Latin American users to seamlessly trade and invest cryptocurrencies on the XBO platform as well as exchange fiat for crypto. PayRetailers’ various APM methods will be integrated into XBO, allowing the exchange’s LATAM users to swap crypto for fiat, withdrawing it directly to their bank account. 

PayRetailers’ payment platform leverages API technology to connect Latin American users with international merchants, offering a seamless payment experience. From the merchant’s perspective, the solution has the distinct advantage of eliminating the hurdles associated with integrating multiple acquirers and payment methods, setting up several local entities, and managing pay-in and payout processors individually.

“Using PayRetailers’ array of payment methods will allow us to tap LATAM markets and offer a fast and frictionless experience to our clients when it comes to fiat on-ramping and off-ramping,” says Gilad Shalem, Chief Payment Officer at XBO.com.

XBO.com meets the need for a user-friendly and accessible crypto trading platform. Leveraging an intimate familiarity of crypto users’ pain points and a deep understanding of social gaming UX, XBO.com makes buying and selling digital assets simple and enjoyable for both amateur and experienced crypto users who find traditional crypto trading platforms intimidating. 

MineralTree, a Global Payments company and Accounts Payable (AP) and payment automation solution provider, today released its seventh annual State of AP report. For the first time ever, MineralTree expanded its research to include suppliers, reflecting the growing importance of vendor relationships to businesses in the current environment. With this additional perspective, the 2022 report provides a 360-degree view of the AP and B2B payments landscape, identifying the most pressing issues for both buyers and suppliers, and their impact across a range of industries.

In 2022, companies accelerated their digitization efforts in an attempt to overcome persistent, pandemic-related operational challenges including disrupted supply chains, hybrid work, and a challenging employee hiring and retention environment. At the same time, business executives continue to put pressure on financial leaders to pay vendors on time to keep goods and services flowing. As a result, many finance teams are embracing digital tools to optimize their AP operations, streamline payments, and solidify vendor relationships.

In addition to AP’s growing focus on automation and its impact on B2B relationships, this year’s State of AP Report also looks at the growth of ePayments, and the disconnect between buyers and suppliers regarding adoption. Some of the specific themes include:

Macro trends put mounting pressure on AP

While the pandemic caused significant challenges across all business operations, its impact was especially acute in AP because of its strategic role in paying vendors on time and ensuring access to business-critical supplies and resources.

• Nearly 71% of finance leaders stated that their relationships with vendors grew in importance over the past year, compared to 59% in 2021. 
• Invoice processing issues and delays (44%), followed by payment delays and/or reconciliation issues (39%), were cited as top challenges stemming from supply chain disruptions.
• A shortage of qualified candidates due to the Great Resignation has increased the pressure on AP teams. More than half (54%) of the finance leaders surveyed expect challenges or delays in hiring quality AP staff this year.

Companies are digitizing AP to increase efficiency, but there’s room for much more

Businesses are accelerating their AP automation efforts to shorten the invoice-to-payment cycle and address vendors' desire to get paid quickly. At the same time, they are also benefiting from increased staff productivity, reduced processing costs, stronger security, and improved cash flow. 

• For the second straight year, AP remains the #1 digitization priority in the back office ahead of AR, expense management, close management, and forecasting.
• 52% of respondents have automated their AP process, up from 32% last year. However, only 16% say they’re fully automated, missing out on critical value in the form of end-to-end efficiency, visibility, and insights. 

• Automation is enabling AP teams to do more with less. Of those who have automated AP, nearly two-thirds are processing more invoices and payments with the same-sized team (61%), alleviating some of the hiring challenges previously discussed.

ePayment adoption continues to grow as more finance leaders realize its value

Every form of ePayment saw increased usage in 2022 while checks decreased 10 per cent from the previous year.

• The number of AP teams that plan to shift more of their spending to ePayments increased from 65% in 2021 to 71% in 2022.
• Virtual cards showed the most significant gains over the past year, from 9% of companies increasing usage in 2021, to 38% this year. ACH saw the next largest gains – from 50% in 2021 to 67% in 2022. International/FX was third (19%), likely due to the need to source new overseas vendors to compensate for supply chain disruptions.
• Vendors are wholeheartedly on board with digital payments – 82% want to receive more electronic payments from their customers

The ‘blame game’ is impeding even broader ePayment adoption

While both buyers and vendors favour ePayments, they continue to name each other as the biggest obstacle to furthering adoption.

• 57% of finance leaders cited vendor unwillingness to accept ePayments types as the top reason impeding its growth.
• Conversely, 63% of vendors identified the primary obstacle to ePayment as being customers not ready to move away from checks. 
• Other buyer concerns centre around their perception of the time and effort it takes to set up ePayments, including team capacity to contact/enrol vendors (40%). The irony is that finance leaders can easily eliminate this anticipated work by partnering with an AP automation provider that offers managed services, such as vendor enrollment.

“In 2022, AP teams face a number of significant challenges – supply chain disruptions, work-from-home and hiring challenges, and an increasing volume of invoices and vendor inquiries,” said Elizabeth (Elle) Kowal, Chief Operating Officer at MineralTree. “AP automation, combined with managed services, is a no-brainer for AP teams trying to do more with less, and stay afloat amid supply chain volatility. Automation handles common AP headaches for understaffed AP teams while elevating productivity, visibility, control, savings – and even earnings. The 2022 State of AP Report uncovers several ways AP teams can address these challenges and quickly increase the operational efficiency of their AP operations.”

Following the success of the first two editions of Future Bank Summit (FBS), Verve Management is delighted to host the 3rd Edition of Future Bank Summit on 27-28 September 2022 at Riyadh Airport Marriott Hotel, KSA. 

The banking industry is changing dramatically on a global scale, providing institutions with the chance to evaluate their current business models and make a significant step forward. Regional banks have the chance to grab the moment and quicken the transition to digital by embracing the next-generation technologies, transforming customer service into customer interaction, utilizing a mobile workforce, and "right-sizing" the branch network.

The third edition of Future Banks Summit - KSA will feature cutting-edge technologies, real-world case studies, and interactive panel discussions in an effort to help the banking industry in KSA choose the best course of action for breaking through obstacles and becoming future-ready.

The 2022 All-Star Line-up will include: Mohammed Al-Dossary (  SVP, Head of Customer Experience at Riyad Bank),Naif Al-Harbi (Chief Information Officer for Arab National Bank) Dr. Ahmed Darwish Elsayed (Head of Digital Delivery for Bank AlBilad), Grant Niven (Group Head Digital for Banque Saudi Fransi), and many more!

The Future Bank Summit - KSA will place a strong emphasis on how digitization is transforming the future of banking. Banks are not only attempting to adapt but are also being compelled to reinvent the business due to the pandemic's massively accelerated adoption of digital technology. The conference's itinerary is packed with keynote addresses, panel discussions, and presentations by speakers, panellists, and moderators that are both nationally and regionally known.

This is a must-attend event if you are ready to innovate and want to join the ranks of the industry’s brightest minds.

Seraphim Space Manager LLP (‘Seraphim Space’), the investment manager of Seraphim Space Investment Trust (‘SSIT’ or the ‘Company’), the world's first listed SpaceTech investment company, has launched a new proprietary tool to enhance the analysis of climate, sustainability, and social impact risks for the space technology sector and provide improved sustainable-led practices.

Seraphim Space has developed a new advanced process in partnership with the Environmental, Social and Governance (‘ESG’) experts Sancroft to review prospective SSIT portfolio companies’ exposure to climate, sustainability and social impact risk as part of its investment criteria and further work with each company to reach net zero and achieve the UN's Sustainable Development Goals at a quicker speed. It is also launching training for SSIT portfolio companies on key ESG themes in the coming month.

SpaceTech can play a key role in the urgent global endeavour to help combat and mitigate climate change and enable a sustainable future.  Recognising these seismic changes, a flourishing ecosystem of privately funded SpaceTech companies is emerging. These companies are addressing some of the biggest challenges faced by both humanity and business, such as climate change, sustainability, connectivity and security. Whether it is providing a more accurate weather forecast to mitigate and address the negative human effects of climate change, using satellite technology that can see through clouds to detect illegal deforestation in the Amazon or helping provide accessible internet connection to developing nations by facilitating a sustainable and resilient satellite infrastructure above the Earth’s atmosphere, SSIT’s portfolio companies already play a vital role in promoting sustainability and addressing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Since launching its first SpaceTech Fund in 2016, Seraphim Space has been at the forefront of promoting and implementing sustainable solutions across the SpaceTech sector, being one of the first movers in the industry that ensured all of the fund’s investments supported the UN's SDGs and other relevant criteria.

The new ESG framework will enhance SSIT’s already stringent ESG considerations to ensure that all investments not only limit any negative impacts from their operations but also support next generation ESG-related processes and practices that can be realised, championed and implemented to help new and existing portfolio companies, as well as the overall space sector, reach net-zero before Government targets.

Under the new innovative Responsible Investment Policy, each prospective portfolio company is taken through a rigorous due diligence process and reviewed against a series of mitigation strategies to understand any potential ESG risks and advise on how these can be monitored effectively and reduced immediately or over time. The tool now also helps to identify gaps where Seraphim Space can assist portfolio companies in developing new enhanced processes to reach their ESG objectives in their own operations and throughout their value and supply chains.

The innovative tool will also help Seraphim Space to identify companies with the greatest potential business sustainability by incorporating the following three criteria:

1. Climate action: Working to minimise each portfolio companies’ environmental impact and implement advanced net-zero solutions through strategic analysis of how the company can reduce emissions.
2. Promoting diversity and inclusion: Generate a policy framework that helps increase inclusion and diversity in each company's workplace through the policy of continued investment in the best talent, regardless of background, and commitment to continuous professional development.
3. Good governance: Implementing and maintaining suitable internal processes, procedures and standards supported by training to ensure the maintenance of suitably high standards of conduct and sufficient expertise in the deployment of companies’ policies.

The policy framework will ensure all SSIT’s investments are aligned and mapped against the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) and fundamentally support their delivery and commitment to the targets of each of the 17 goals.

Mark Boggett, Chief Executive Officer, Seraphim Space Manager LLP, said: “This announcement marks another significant milestone for Seraphim Space. Our industry-leading Responsible Investment Policy is fully embedded into our investment process and will act as a rigorous due diligence process before the completion of every investment and set a new global framework for the SpaceTech industry to follow. Ensuring that all SpaceTech companies are addressing and advancing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals to reach targets at a quicker speed provides both transparency and confidence for our current and future investors as well as for our clients and other stakeholders. Furthermore, it reinforces how Seraphim Space Investment Trust’s portfolio is playing a fundamental role in providing solutions to a lot of the planets most pressing Environmental, Social and Governance problems."

Trisha Taneja, Global Head of ESG Advisory at Deutsche Bank, said: “Space technology has a vital role to play in enabling a sustainable future, and SSIT’s portfolio companies address a range of sustainability challenges. As the manager of the world’s first listed SpaceTech investment company, Seraphim Space has a powerful opportunity to lead on ESG in the SpaceTech community, both in the investments it makes and the best practices it encourages in its portfolio companies. This new Responsible Investment Policy demonstrates the focus that Seraphim Space places on this important topic.”

Over 300 million people around the world have crypto assets in their investment portfolio, a number that is set to double by 2025. Helping them stay on top of their regulatory responsibilities, crypto tax reporting app Binocs is today announcing a $4M fundraising. With this new funding round, they plan to cater to institutional crypto investors and enter geographies like the US, UK, Australia etc. The seed funding round was led by BEENEXT and Arkam with participation from Accel, Saison Capital, Premji Invest, Blume and Better Capital.

Founded in May 2022 by Tonmoy Shingal and Pankaj Garg, Binocs help retail crypto investors there to adapt and evolve to the ever-changing dynamics of the crypto market by simplifying their accounting,  taxation, compliances and helping them stay on top of their portfolios. The app is able to compute crypto taxes in less than 30 minutes and already has over 1,000 active users. Binocs also offers portfolio tracking features wherein users can get an overview of their entire distributed crypto portfolio which offers a consolidated report on ROI, P&L, and capital gains across all exchanges. This includes a wide range of cryptocurrencies, tokens, protocols, and smart contracts.

Co-Founder and CEO Tonmoy Shingal commented: “Compliance related to crypto trades and investments can be tricky, error-prone and time-consuming. Binocs is mitigating these pain points for retail users and institutions to have a seamless crypto experience. Moreover, the lack of information around crypto tax regulations is a hurdle to investing in the asset class. Using state-of-the-art technology, we ease the crypto taxation journey of our users. In essence, Crypto is a web3 currency but has to comply with a web2 world of accounting principles and compliance. We are bridging this gap. Our software is compliant with the latest regulations, ensuring our users can calculate their taxes efficiently.”

The total market cap of the crypto industry has risen sharply from ~325B US$ in Sep 2020 to ~1T US$ in Sep 2022. Assuming an equal split between short-term and long-term capital gains in the numbers above and a blended tax rate of ~20% the overall tax liability it imposes on the investors is of the tune of ~70B US$. By 2026 this tax outlay corpus can become of the order of 300B US$ ( assuming 20% user growth and 15% asset price growth annually). The portfolio aggregation and understanding technology can be expanded to include new use cases in future like building a financial identity for retail users forensics and risk management for institutional investors etc. The market is huge and is rapidly growing.

The primary purpose of Binocs is to ensure accurate tax computation is executed while maintaining compliance with the latest local laws and regulations for all its users. Binocs caters to an array of transactions right from Buy / Sell trades, Staking, P2P transactions, Airdrops and even transactions across wallets. They have recently launched features to track complex trades like Derivatives, Lending & Borrowing across CeFi and DeFi (like AAVE-v2 and more) platforms which sets them apart from the rest. With complete transparency, the algorithm breaks down the transaction fee and TDS already paid on the transactions and then calculates tax on the net amount.

Users can link their crypto portfolios via multiple sources centralised exchanges, decentralised exchanges, wallets, and on-chains directly. They can track daily portfolio movements and portfolio value (enabled by intelligent analytics), as well as download quarterly and annual tax computation and account statements. Binocs also reconciles transactions, since inception, from multiple accounts with zero errors. Binocs is tax compliant in the US, UK, Australia, South Africa, India. Other major markets will be added in the coming month.

This funding round will help Binocs to launch in countries where tax regulations are defined and expand the team. Anirudh Garg, Investor at BEENEXT, commented: “As the Web3 world grows, crypto native organisations will need solutions like Binocs to help them with their compliances, accounting and bookkeeping. 20 countries currently have tax regulations and compliances in place for cryptocurrency and there are another 50 that will implement such policies in the near future. This is a great market opportunity to build an easy-to-use, yet powerful, system early on.” 

Early Payments Fintech, Saltare, has joined the Good Business Charter (GBC) and Prompt Payment Code (PPC) as signatories as part of its commitment to best business practices across the UK.

Joining enables Saltare to ensure it not only supports its employees through the Good Business Charter but also encourages its own customers to follow similar practices including paying invoices on time in accordance with the Prompt Payment Code.

Chairman of the GBC board, Simon Fox said: “The Good Business Charter brings together 10 standards, most of which already exist, but in separate places. We have brought them together to give a coherent overall position for all businesses to aspire to. We believe that the GBC has enormous potential to change business practices for good. We hope that because of its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, it will quickly gain support.”

Ant Persse, CEO of Saltare, says the charter and the code help encourage prompt payments and strengthen supply chain relationships: “The Prompt Payment Code and Good Business Charter set out clear pathways to ensure businesses across the UK respect and support each other and help create a natural incubator for success. Joining them was an important step for us both to demonstrate our own support for businesses and as a way to encourage those who work within our supply chain to do the same.”

The Good Business Charter offers a straightforward accreditation which recognises organisations that prioritise and care for their employees, the environment, customers and suppliers, whilst also paying their taxes in accordance with the law.

The Prompt Payment Code (PPC) is a voluntary code of practice for businesses, administered by the Office of the Small Business Commissioner (SBC). Established in December 2008, the PPC outlines standards for payment practices between organisations of any size and their suppliers.

Signatories of the code agree to pay suppliers on time, within agreed terms; give clear guidance to suppliers on terms; dispute resolution and prompt notification of late payment; and support good practice throughout their supply chain by encouraging adoption of the stated code.

Fraud fighters SEON has released its latest report, which highlights the staggering growth of account takeover fraud online. The report compiles several pieces of recent research around the worrying subject, while also providing advice on how businesses and individuals can best stand up to the challenge. 

Account takeover fraud is an alarmingly common type of online crime, which can affect businesses and individuals alike. This form of attack tends to occur when a fraudster poses as an established, genuine client of a business, or as an employee, and gains control of an account under a false pretence. Once this has occurred, the fraudster is often able to leverage this access to carry out unauthorised transactions, or to steal sensitive information. In the US alone, around 24 million households have fallen victim to this form of fraud.

There are myriad reasons why account takeover fraud is so prevalent right now. As SEON’s report finds, social media is one of the driving forces behind the issue. Currently, more than half of all account takeovers relate to a social media account. Sadly, once a fraudster has gained access to an account like this, they can often use the access to further exploit other accounts. To this end, a study has found that 60% of account takeover victims use the same password for multiple online accounts.

In publishing its report, SEON wants to bring attention to this crucial issue, which may currently be being overlooked by businesses and individuals. That’s why the company has included several important steps that both businesses, and everyday internet users, can take to mitigate the risks of the issue. Alongside encouraging complex, unique, and varied passwords across online accounts, the report explains the importance of things like multi-factor authentication systems in stopping the problem.

Speaking on the new report, PJ Rohall, Head of Fraud Strategy & Education at SEON commented: “Whether you’re a business, or a consumer, the risks of falling victim to an account takeover attack has never been higher. It’s now incredibly easy for fraudsters to get their hands on sensitive information, which can either be personally harvested or purchased on the dark web following a data leak. Sadly, this is often all fraudsters need to launch account takeover attacks on businesses or individuals.

“When a customer experiences account takeover fraud, they often blame the merchant for the breach, even if it was the customer who unknowingly let the fraudster in. This impacts consumer trust and brand image – and can wreak havoc on customer loyalty. At SEON, we want to raise further awareness around this important issue and will continue to educate audiences about the risks through our educational guides. In doing so, we hope to give businesses and customers more confidence against account takeover attacks.”

Liminal, a wallet operations infrastructure platform has successfully launched the first-of-its-kind 'Hot Wallet as a Service'. Being the first company to provide this value-add offering, Liminal users will now be able to process user withdrawals from hot wallets in a more secure, time-efficient and automated manner.

Liminal will provide leading Indian Crypto Exchange ZebPay to use ‘Hot Wallet as a Service’ on top of the existing wallet infrastructure managed by Liminal. Under this agreement, Liminal will manage the refill process and ensure that the hot withdrawal wallets have the optimum balance at all times to ensure seamless withdrawals for ZebPay's users. Previously, under its existing service agreement with ZebPay, Liminal has been providing smart refill wallets that allow ZebPay to refill the hot withdrawal wallets in a semi-automated manner. Now with the new development, Liminal will further strengthen its existing partnership with ZebPay and take over the complete responsibility of managing the refill process.

Mahin Gupta, Founder & CEO of Liminal, said, “Hot Wallet is considered to be the most critical, inefficient and insecure wallet architecture. Every exchange has to deal with various problems related to the management of hot wallets due to their risky and inefficient nature. A single mistake can lead to blocked funds or loss of funds, so managing hot wallets is a time-consuming activity involving a lot of manual effort. Because of these reasons, it becomes important to automate this process as to how much funds need to be kept in one wallet and how much to be transferred to hot wallets.”

He further adds, “With this announcement, Liminal will work closely with the ZebPay team to manage their wallet refill processes. The new value-add feature will ensure that all user withdrawals are processed timely and exchanges like ZebPay can utilise their resources in a more efficient manner. This coveted service will give us an edge over our competitors and help us in our journey towards becoming a monopoly in custody services.”

Raj Karkara, COO, ZebPay said, “At ZebPay, security is our highest priority and  Liminal’s MPC-CMP technology-based service offerings have increased the level of security for our transactions, allowing for safe transfer and storage of digital assets.”

Founded in 2021, Liminal has processed over $4 Bn+ digital assets transactions through its network while providing services to leading exchanges across APAC and MENA regions. Liminal through its deep understanding of the market aims to create unique solutions that add real value to businesses and valuable customers.