Kiya.ai, one of the most innovative digital solutions providers in India, announced that Union Bank of India was among the first banks to launch NPCI’s UPI linked to Rupay Credit Card and UPI Lite on the unified payments interface (UPI) platform with Kiya.ai as their technology partner in this achievement.

The announcement comes after the RBI Governor Shri Shaktikanta Das and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) launched RuPay credit card on UPI, UPI Lite and Cross Border payments for BBPS at Global Fintech Fest 2022.

Until now, UPI allowed the linking of bank accounts by mapping an account linked with a mobile number and a savings / current account. Earlier in June 2022, the RBI allowed the linking of credit cards with UPI, stating that RuPay credit cards would be initially linked with UPI “to provide additional convenience to users and enhance the scope of digital payments”.

Rajesh Mirjankar, Managing Director & CEO, Kiya.ai, “We are extremely delighted to partner with Union Bank of India in this pilot project of linking RuPay Credit card on UPI. Kiya.ai has partnered with Union Bank of India for various digital payment initiatives including UPI, UPI Lite, UPI linkage to credit cards, and sandbox for API banking.  The linking of credit cards to UPI will significantly enhance high-volume transactions while also increasing the average amount per transaction given the ease of using the credit facility on UPI. This is a game-changing initiative as it will ensure safe and contactless transactions, reducing the risk of credit card fraud too.”

Mr. Nitesh Ranjan, ED Union Bank of India said, “We are pleased to embrace the decision taken by the Reserve Bank of India and NPCI to enable Rupay credit cards through UPI. Union Bank of India is proud to be a part of this launch. This is a game changer as one would be able to use a credit card for doing payments using UPI. We are excited to partner with Kiya.ai on this journey, and together, we can provide a smooth user experience to customers and make India even more digitally advanced.”

As part of the pilot project, NPCI will integrate the UPI AutoPay feature with credit card transactions to reduce the risk of defaults on credit card payments.

PPRO, the leading provider of digital payments infrastructure, has strengthened its market coverage of Malaysia with the integration of major e-wallets GrabPay and Touch ‘n Go on its payments infrastructure.

PPRO now offers all of Malaysia’s most popular, independent e-wallets - Boost, Touch ‘n Go and GrabPay - to its partners which include enterprises with payment platforms, payment service providers, fintechs and banks. Through PPRO’s seamless integration, these partners can supercharge their revenue by gaining direct access to Malaysian consumers who spend an estimated USD3.8 Billion a year when shopping cross-border.

According to research by Statista, e-wallets GrabPay and Touch ‘n Go are both expected to see their user number double from 2020 to 2025. For enterprises with payment platforms looking to tap into or grow their presence in the Malaysian market, enabling consumers to conveniently transact using their e-wallets via their mobile devices is a smart move, which will grant them access to the 83% of Malaysia’s population that has access to a smartphone.

On PPRO’s bolstered presence in the Malaysian market, An Lu, Head of Market Development, APAC, at PPRO said: “Digital payments are second nature to Malaysia’s highly, mobile-enabled population and for enterprises with payments platforms looking to break into new market segments and grow new cross-border revenue, the Malaysian market must not be overlooked. In order to increase customer conversion from Malaysia, enterprises need to understand their customers’ preferences at checkout. PPRO has built extensive Malaysian payments offering on its infrastructure and is well-primed to enable payment service providers, fintechs and banks to drive cross-border transactions in this fast-growing market.”

Super app Grab’s e-wallet, GrabPay, has an ecosystem of over 25 million transacting users, which means that enterprises which are able to offer GrabPay at the checkout can access a large pool of Malaysia's population. Consumers use the GrabPay app for a variety of purchases both in-store and online, from fund transfers to food delivery and ride-hailing services. Alongside GrabPay, Touch ‘n Go has been prevalent in leading Malaysia’s digital transformation, as it has shifted from being a road toll payment method to now having a user base of 16 million consumers who use it daily for a variety of online purchases.

The rapid acceleration of the use of e-wallets in Malaysia comes at a time when the government has placed significant focus on digitising the country’s economy through the launch of the e-Pemula initiative to drive the cultivation of cashless transactions, of which both GrabPay and Touch ‘n Go are involved, and MyDIGITAL under the Malaysian Digital Economy Blueprint.

Last year, PPRO announced that it had achieved unicorn status after raising US$180 million from Eurazeo Growth, Sprints Capital and Wellington Management. Earlier this year, PPRO announced the acquisition of Alpha Fintech, a next-gen payments technology company, in a deal that will expand PPRO’s offering, and strengthen its presence and networks in the Asia Pacific region.

Ledgy, the equity management platform for high-growth international startups, today announced a $22 million (€22m / £19m) Series B funding round led by global venture capital firm, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from Sequoia Capital, Speedinvest, btov, Visionaries Club and VI Partners, as well as existing angel investors. This comes one year after its $10 million Series A, led by Sequoia, which saw Luciana Lixandru (Partner, Sequoia) join Ledgy’s board. As part of the Series B funding, Jonathan Golden, Partner at NEA, will also now join the Ledgy board. Ledgy will use the funds to hire top-class talent, increase the pace of product and feature development, and solidify its market presence in Europe.

Born out of Europe’s complex jurisdictional landscape, Ledgy empowers startup founders to build global companies by providing a key part of the infrastructure needed to attract, engage, incentivise and retain top international talent. Ledgy moves equity management off of high-maintenance, error-prone spreadsheets and onto a platform that gives all company stakeholders (i.e. founders, investors and employees) visibility and insight into what the equity ownership component of their remuneration packages means to them.

With its ability to run different country-specific equity plans side-by-side, leadership teams can trust that the platform will treat all stakeholders fairly, and provide a single source of truth. All while relieving the financial team of complex administrative processes and enabling HR and People Teams to confidently hire cross-border talent. Besides ensuring compliance and risk reduction, Ledgy increases transparency, tangibility and visibility into equity management, while also automating the labour-intensive tasks of creating, sharing, signing and storing of contracts for each new grant to employees.

Ledgy integrates with secondary platform Semper, compensation benchmarking platforms Pave and Figures as well as over 40 HRIS platforms, such as Hibob, Personio and Workday. Ledgy is also the equity management partner of choice for the portfolios of over 50 leading venture capitalist firms and accelerators, such as Techstars, Entrepreneur First and APX. Ledgy’s customers include some of the most exciting companies in Europe, like: Getir, Kry, Monese, Selina Finance, Gorillas, Choco, Alan, Pennylane, Scalapay, wefox and Yokoy to name just a few.

“In the past 12 months, we have enjoyed double-digit monthly growth. We have gone from 15 to 65 employees, expanded our customer base to over 45 countries and 2,500 companies, opened a London office and grown our presence in Berlin, and we’re just getting started,” said Ledgy Co-founder and CEO, Yoko Spirig. “The participation of top tier VCs in our Series B is significant for two reasons. First, it’s a powerful validation of Ledgy and our strong growth in the 12 months since our Series A. Second, it reflects a significant trend in which leading US investors are increasing their exposure to the European continent by partnering with the best companies in what is a fast-growing and vibrant startup ecosystem.”

Jonathan Golden, Partner at NEA added: “Through my lens as an investor at NEA, combined with my past experience at category-defining companies like Airbnb, Dropbox and Hubspot, I’ve seen the central role ownership plays in building enduring companies. The equity management challenge is especially acute in Europe, with different legal structures governing equity in every country. Ledgy has created a smart and powerful equity software platform and built an incredible, best-in-class team to support it. Yoko, Ben and Timo understand the challenges faced by companies as they scale, and we are thrilled to partner with the Ledgy team as they continue to reinvent how companies think about equity and ownership.”

Artificial intelligence company Peak, which employs over 350 people internationally, raised $75 million in Series C funding in 2021, at which point they started working with Ledgy. John Fraser, Peak’s Finance Director, said: “Company culture, team engagement and employee wellbeing have always been incredibly important to us at Peak. Part of that is always looking to build a more productive and meaningful culture of ownership within the team. Working with Ledgy, we have created a new share option award across the business. It's been well received and knocked days – not hours, days – off the process for my team. Compared to what we had before, it's night and day.”

Verto, the leading B2B cross-border payments and foreign exchange (FX) enabler, today announced that it has been selected as part of the DIFC FinTech Hive 2022 Accelerator Programme Cohort. The programme offers the most innovative start-ups access to the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA)’s largest financial industry banks and insurance companies for partnership opportunities, exposure to investors and mentorship.

The selection to be part of the Accelerator Programme marks Verto’s continued commitment to building cross-border technology of the future that solves the fragmented landscape of cross-border payments in emerging market economies, consistently ensuring companies, irrespective of size and turnover, have access to the global financial system, regardless of where they are based.

Bringing together an unrivalled community of the region’s leading financial services companies, such as Visa, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), HSBC and Emirates Post Group, the Accelerator Programme pairs selected startups with industry partners, unlocking new growth opportunities through access to funding, regional business intelligence and market access, and bringing Verto’s innovative ideas to the forefront to continue to positively impact the financial services landscape.

Ola Oyeatyo, CEO and Co-Founder of Verto, said: “DIFC FinTech Hive’s Accelerator Programme selects the most promising and innovative businesses in the financial services industry, and as an award-winning startup powering cross-border payments for some of the fastest growing companies conquering the industry, we’re proud to have been chosen after a rigorous and competitive process.”

He concluded: “Beginning with an extensive five-day bootcamp, consisting of workshops delivered by industry experts and thought leaders on a range of important topics, including local regulations, market and technology trends and funding, we look forward to connecting with equally innovative businesses and leading the future of the region’s financial sector.”

A soft September brought Robo.cash a new milestone of €63M attracted investments. The platform is also approaching half a billion euros of purchased loans.

To date, more than 27 thousand investors have joined the platform. Over the summer, there was an average 6% monthly increase in registrations. Germany still leads the number of investors. Spain and France are in second and third place respectively. 

Since its launch, the platform has already attracted more than €60M, and investors have earned almost €10M. In general, September shows the expected decline in investor activity. According to the current trend, the amount of funds added by investors this month is 20% less than during the same period in August.

September is also marked by a slight decrease in transactions in the secondary market, thus showing that investors tend to keep their loans to themselves rather than sell them for the early exit.

“Weak seasonality gives us the opportunity to focus on internal development, mainly on optimizing the site interface and developing investment strategies that will make the work with the platform even easier and more convenient”. - comments Nadezhda Vlasenko, Product owner of Robo.cash. 

The latest Bank of England figures1 reveals that quoted household interest rates on consumer credit products continued to rise in August amid an economic environment of rising interest rates, mortgage rates and inflation. 

The analysis from Freedom Finance, one of the UK’s leading digital lending marketplaces, demonstrates the impact of the rising cost of borrowing on households and they urged consumers to shop around for credit using best practise. The warning comes as:

• Average credit card rates jumped a further 0.13 percentage points since July to hit 21.79% in August – the highest average monthly rate since December 1998 (22.19%).

• The average quoted rate for a £10k personal loan grew by 0.20 percentage points to 4.38% and is now at its highest level since December 2015 (4.45%). 

• The average rate for a £5k personal loan also ticked up by 0.12 percentage points to 8.41% in August and is at its highest level since March 2017 (9.54%). 

• Average overdraft rates spiked in April 2020 when new regulations were introduced but they have been consistently rising to new highs even since then. They stalled in August at 35.29%, the same rate as July, although this remains an all-time peak. 

The analysis comes after data from the ONS2 last week found that one in five adults (19%) reported they had to borrow more money or take out more credit in the past month compared to a year ago.

David Hendry, Chief Marketing Officer at Freedom Finance, commented: “The cost of borrowing across major consumer credit products continued to rise in August, as interest rates and inflation also increased.

“Credit card rates are now at their highest level in nearly 25 years, while personal loans are also at five- and seven-year peaks depending on the amount borrowed.

“As the cost of borrowing increases, it is vital that households ensure they are following best practise when shopping for loans.

“As a very first step, customers should be shopping around to explore the best rates and products that are available to them, not just accepting the first offer or one from their existing provider.

“Using the latest technologies such as soft searches and open banking can help with this because it will mean that they only see the products that they are eligible for without the fear of a declined application or damaging their credit score.

“Getting financial advice or guidance can further support consumer’s decision making and if people are struggling to make repayments they should contact their lender immediately as they are obliged to help.

“While the price cap announcement may have calmed immediate fears for the coming winter, it’s still likely to be a challenging period for our finances. The lending industry can play a positive role in helping people manage their money, but consumers must also do their bit to make the credit market work for them.”

The Freedom Finance five-point plan provides a helpful starting point for people thinking about how they should best manage their consumer credit commitments:

The Freedom Finance Five-Point Plan for Consumer Credit

1. Carry out an audit of existing debt to see what rates you are currently on and whether there are cheaper deals available. Check that you aren’t being stung by any hidden fees or charges and that you understand what your total payments will be instead of just taking the lowest monthly payment

2. Check your eligibility for benefits like Universal Credit, Jobseekers Allowance and Housing Benefit which may reduce your need for consumer credit

3. Use digital marketplaces and online services to shop around for the cheapest deals, using soft searches that don’t harm your credit score

4. Consolidate debt where possible to help you keep track of repayments more easily while moving debt to products with a cheaper rate 

5. Prioritise paying off your most expensive debt to try and move credit commitments onto cheaper rates or products

Finaro, the global cross-border payment provider and fully licensed bank making complex payments brilliantly simple, has announced that it is on track to surpass over $1 billion of transaction volume processed in 2022, with its gateway platform incentivising new commercial partnerships and rapid merchant uptake of alternative payment methods (APMs). This transaction volume going through its gateway which increased by 35% in just four years, illustrates how Finaro’s increasing roster of merchants has been able to tap into new customer bases and open up access to APMs.

Launched in 2018 as the world’s most advanced, all-in-one globally connected payments platform, Finaro’s Source Gateway, with its unmatched 99.999% service level availability (equating to just 5 minutes of unplanned availability per year), sets the benchmark for uptime, all the time. Thanks to the gateway’s smart routing and connections to more than 100 banks globally, Finaro ensures fast automatic rerouting of payments to different processors and optimizes conversions. Combining this acquiring and processing power, with its fast-growing array of 150 cards and APMs from all over the world, Finaro continues to expand on its capabilities that enable merchants to process payments from anywhere and everywhere.

At the same time, the success of Finaro’s solutions has led to the company increasing its headcount by 15% since the beginning of 2022, growing the company across the board and making sure existing and new merchants are fully supported with quick onboarding, approval rate optimisation and tailored advice aligned to individual business needs.

According to Moshe Selfin, Chief Operations Officer and Chief Technology Officer: “Downtime is never a good time. The last thing any merchant needs, especially during peak periods like seasonal holidays or flash sales events, is for their payment gateway to suffer an outage, losing out on potentially millions of transactions and revenue. That’s why with our proven track record, we commit to a 99.999% SLA, a hugely important metric which reassures e-commerce merchants that their platform performance will remain uninterrupted and merchants will never miss a transaction.

“In today’s world, merchants must think towards multi-dimensional commerce: creating a business model that’s not solely digital or physical, but that weaves them both seamlessly together, and simultaneously gives customers what they want, when they want it, and wherever they are. And for that to be a reality, the payments experience – especially robust technology and the right mix of payment methods – is a critical element.”

With cross-border e-commerce set to account for 38% of all e-commerce transactions globally by 2023, the complexity of such payments increases as global consumers still require a localized payment experience. Finaro’s platform is strong and stable enough to cope with fast-rising APM usage and powering transaction volumes coming from all corners of the globe, making it ideal for merchants looking to build their business internationally.

Achiya Fried, Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer, adds: “Payments are no longer simply just about transactions. They represent trust - the consumer trusting the merchant with their money, and the merchant trusting their payment service provider to deliver a fast, frictionless experience to the consumer. In today’s digital world, global e-commerce relies on payments that are secure and flexible enough to match the fast-changing demands of cross-border e-commerce.”

“Whether it’s a brick-and-mortar store, or an online merchant, having a broad range of payment methods to accept revenue is a no-brainer. That’s why we place so much importance on ensuring that offering is broad, and we can consistently deliver an ever-increasing range of local payment methods, ensuring our merchants and their customers around the globe are covered.”

Where Finaro’s gateway has an additional advantage over other payment platforms is its ability to monitor not just technical performance 24/7 but the characteristics of customer transactions as they pass through the platform. With an integrated suite of advanced analytics functions that drill transaction data into down essential details, Finaro’s gateway is helping to generate valuable customer spending insights for merchants and identify opportunities to improve transaction acceptance and conversion rates by as much as 40%.

Since the announcement of Finaro’s acquisition by Shift4 in March 2022 in a monumental $575 million deal, the future looks bright for both companies who are on track to deliver even more outstanding payment capabilities. Finaro brings Shift4 their global cutting-edge e-commerce infrastructure and technology that will drive Shift4’s global ambitions, including an expansion of US acquiring options, backed by over 425 technology integrations, and enabling access to global APMS for over 200,000 merchants worldwide.

In a strategic move to further strengthen its cross-border payment solutions, TerraPay, a leading global payments infrastructure group today announced its partnership with NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the International arm of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). This association with NIPL will allow Indian customers and merchants in India with an active Unified Payments Interface Id (UPI Id) to make and accept cross-border payments seamlessly by leveraging TerraPay’s agile infrastructure and the UPI network.

In this intended collaboration, both companies will work together to further empower Indian customers with active UPI Ids (350 million bank accounts) to be able to transact at QR locations enabled by TerraPay, globally.

Together, both companies intend to fortify UPI payments & QR solutions to extract their maximum potential. The partnership will further increase the use of UPI and QR for cross-border merchant payments. This initiative will speed up the usage of UPI apps across different geographies thereby further enhancing the digital drive for cashless transactions. Furthermore, since UPI payments & QR transactions are customer-initiated with a two-factor authentication it adds an element of non-repudiation and hence drastically reduces disputes and grievance redressal issues. With this collaboration, TerraPay is keen to build interoperability among the various financial instruments that it powers and get marginalized or underserved communities into the mainstream of digital payments.

Unified Payments Interface is an instant real-time payments (RTP) system developed by National Payments Corporation of India. It is amongst the most successful RTP systems globally, providing – simplicity, safety, and security in person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions in India. In 2021, UPI enabled commerce worth 940Bn (~39Bn transactions). In August 2022 alone, the volume of transactions crossed 6.56Bn.

Globally, TerraPay processes pay-outs into 4.5Bn+ bank accounts and 1.5Bn+ mobile wallets. With the vision to foster financial inclusion, residents, POIs, and the Indian diaspora will be able to send money to India by using TerraPay’s agile, transparent and real-time payment highway.

Sharing why this partnership is critical to the vision of a cashless world, Ritesh Pai, President-Product & Solutions, TerraPay said, “Our ambition and aim is to collaborate and develop faster, more innovative, and transparent cross-border payment solutions. This effort is with an intent to establish the foundation of a new reality. We will act as a catalyst whether it's enabling interoperability between schemes or countries by bringing in ubiquity, convenience, scale, transparency, and affordability. Our partnership with NIPL is one such strong step to make cross-border payments, immediate, cost-effective, accessible for all, and settled in a secure medium thus adding value to the global payments ecosystem.”

Mr. Anubhav Sharma, Head International Business - Partnership, Business Development & Marketing commented, “At NIPL, we are aiming to take the solutions that NPCI has built and established in India to international markets and build a truly interoperable global payments system with other participating nations. We are actively engaging with partners across the world to build partnerships in areas of cross-border acceptance and remittances. With this strategic partnership with TerraPay, we are looking to enhance the overall customer value proposition and provide user-friendly, convenient transaction alternatives to consumers, globally.”

“Tidypay is excited to partner with GS systems and increase our presence in the UK market and capture different industries. Our teams combined will present new simplified payment opportunities and increase values for both of our companies.” Morgan Sellen, CEO, Tidypay 

Acuiti today launches its Systematic Hedge Fund Expert Network, the latest in its series of derivatives-focused networks of senior market executives.
 
Acuiti Expert Networks provide a virtual forum through which senior executives in a given market can gauge sentiment and benchmark approaches to common challenges.

Members of the network have access to a portal through which they can pose questions to other members of the network in a quarterly survey. Each quarter, members of the network receive a report analysing the responses to the survey.

The first quarterly report for the Systematic Hedge Fund Expert Network, produced in association with HKEX, looked at the challenges caused by the volatility experienced during the first half of 2022.

The report found that funds had experienced major issues with increased margin and financing costs and many struggled to optimize trading due to liquidity constraints.

Despite the challenges, however, members of the Expert Network were bullish about the next 12 months.

Acuiti asked where firms saw opportunities for growth in profitability over the next 12 months and found that deployment of new strategies, trading new asset classes and increasing capital to trade existing strategies were the main expected drivers of growth.

In addition, members of the Expert Network were expecting headcount growth with 61% of respondents aiming to grow staff numbers over the next 12 months, with 15% expecting a significant increase.

“The results of this inaugural report show that while current market conditions pose some operational challenges, systematic hedge funds are bullish and focused on growth,” says Ross Lancaster, Head of Research at Acuiti.

“A focus on new strategies and the hiring of developers to help build the necessary infrastructure raise the prospect of robust growth in the industry.”

The inaugural report also took a deep dive into how systematic hedge funds are gaining exposure to Chinese markets and the various factors that firms considered when trading new markets.

The survey found, of the firms that traded exposure to China, 86% said that doing so was more profitable than their typical strategies. However, the majority of firms in the Network did not currently trade Chinese exposure, suggesting a significant opportunity for growth.