Revolut has introduced a dedicated income, payment and expense management account for freelancers, sole traders, contractors, and the self-employed.

Housed within the Revolut retail app, Revolut Pro is initially launching in the UK and seven other European countries, providing a free account with no monthly fees, and no deposit or balance requirements.

The account can be created in under two minutes within Revolut’s app and offers a one per cent cashback debit card. It also enables users to send transfers or instant payments to external banks as well as other Revolut accounts.

In addition, the account offers multi-currency payments with a physical or virtual card, Google Pay, and Apple Pay, as well as money transfers. And users can instantly accept payments either in-person with Revolut Reader or online with QR codes, payment links, and by generating invoices and tracking their payments.

Maria Marti Garcia, product owner, Revolut Pro, says: “The explosive increase in gig workers, artists, bloggers, and the like alongside more traditional individual professions including private teachers, home service providers and fair vendors has driven demand for better ways for those working on their own projects, be it full time or part-time, to manage income and expenses."

Sardine, a behaviour-based fraud and compliance platform for fintechs developed by Coinbase, Revolut and PayPal veterans, has raised $51.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz's growth fund.

The round was joined by a host of big names, including XYZ, Nyca Partners, Sound Ventures, Activant Capital, Visa, Google Ventures, Eric Schmidt, Vikram Pandit, The General Partnership, NAventures, ING Ventures, ConsenSys, Cross River Digital Ventures, Alloy Labs, and Uniswap Labs Ventures.

Sardine's core technology uses AI to provide a real-time fraud score based on the user’s identity, device, and behaviour patterns at the time of account origination and account funding. It also continuously monitors for fraud during account login, deposits, and withdrawals.

The startup offers an instant ACH and card on-ramp to crypto, enabling its fintech and crypto customers to instantly purchase over 30 different crypto assets or NFTs. Sardine recently launched a direct fiat to NFT checkout product.

Soups Ranjan, CEO, Sardine, says: “Faster payments means faster fraud. As Zelle, RTP and FedNow become increasingly popular, consumers are increasingly vulnerable to social engineering attacks where they are convinced to buy something that never arrives or invest in a scam.

“Secondly, Financial Institutions only know that their customers bought ETH or USDC, not what they do with it afterwards. What is needed is a new way of looking at fraud prevention, one which deeply inspects user behaviour at the time of purchase, and combines it with what happens to the funds downstream. That’s exactly what we built at Sardine.”

Higlobe, Inc., the U.S.-based solution for international payment transfers, raised $14 million in funding to expand its technology and launch into new markets. The funding round was led by global technology investment firm Battery Ventures, an investor in a number of U.S.-based fintech companies. Battery Senior Partner Scott Tobin will join Higlobe’s board. Higlobe uses asset-backed stablecoins to provide an efficient and cost-effective means of making cross-border payments between bank accounts.

“Our mission is to move the world’s money instantly and at no cost to help the increasingly global workforce get more money back to their home bank account,” said CEO and Co-founder Teymour H. Farman-Farmaian, who leveraged his experience at Spotify to build Higlobe as a subscription-based payments platform. “Our clients only pay a fixed, low-cost subscription for a U.S. receiving bank account regardless of the number of transfers they make. We want to make working and getting paid easier and faster, particularly as the pandemic has fueled even more interest in remote work.”

Higlobe facilitates fast and easy payments for freelancers

Demand for online freelance work is growing at an annual rate of 10%, according to the Online Labour Index, creating an advantageous situation for a highly-skilled, global remote workforce. This increase in hiring benefits both employees, who are looking for flexibility and higher wages, and employers, who are looking for skilled workers and to reduce costs. There are many skilled developers, designers, and engineers throughout Latin America who find it beneficial to get paid in U.S. dollars.

“I’ve hired dozens of contractors in the last decade who love working for a U.S. company, but they always complain about how much money they’d lose each month and how complicated it is to get paid,” said Higlobe Co-Founder and CTO Jeff Bolton.

There are more than 14 million self-employed (freelance) workers in Mexico alone, according to the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography. Higlobe serves freelance workers and small businesses in Mexico working for U.S.-based companies and plans to launch in Brazil later this year. By doing so, Higlobe plans to take a bite out of the estimated $21 trillion cross-border payments market.

One Higlobe customer based in Mexico, small business owner and freelance marketer Bernardo Loce, noted that in some cases with his work, “getting the payment was more difficult than the actual job! And the payment that I received, in the end, was so much less after all the commissions and foreign exchange fees. If I had understood the complexity involved in getting paid beforehand, I would’ve thought twice about taking the job. When I use Higlobe I don’t have to worry about commissions and I get my money quickly.”

Higlobe is the first zero transaction-fee payment service launching in Mexico

Higlobe’s service offers customers the ability to make multiple transfers per month for one flat rate, making it less expensive than other cross-border payment providers. Current competitors charge between one and six percent per cross-border payment, often in a combination of hidden exchange rates and fees. Higlobe simplifies the process by charging a monthly subscription fee as low as $4.99 for a U.S. receiving bank account, regardless of the number of transfers made.

Higlobe is currently available in Mexico, free for a limited time, to Mexican citizens or legal permanent residents that work with business clients in the U.S. Users can sign up for Higlobe’s service online where they must provide proof of identity and residence.

Higlobe exclusively uses stablecoins issued by companies that are regulated and supervised by U.S. federal or state agencies and that are 1:1 backed by U.S. dollars or U.S. government treasury securities.

“Higlobe’s unique application of stablecoin is poised to disrupt the global payments industry,” said Battery’s Scott Tobin. “The blockchain provides a safe and speedy solution to an archaic system that disadvantages so many workers, and by leveraging this new technology, Higlobe can change the lives of millions of members of the global remote workforce. We are excited to partner with Teymour and his team to scale the company and its services.”

Bitgreen, the company building blockchain’s epicentre for sustainability, prepares to launch the first phase of its layer-1 network built to empower climate-action initiatives. The company’s operations follow a fully subscribed $5 million Reg CF crowdfunding raise on the Republic platform, reaching its goal in under four hours. After a year of development, the company has prepared the infrastructure for its pioneering, sustainability-focused platform in the Polkadot ecosystem.

The climate crisis has become one of the most pressing and complicated geopolitical issues of the modern era. While governments and corporations work to enact meaningful change to address this emergency, a long road ahead remains to achieve the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The estimated funding gap for green projects is $50-trillion over the next decade. As the window of opportunity closes, the imperative of finding an effective solution to mobilize the necessary resources becomes more paramount every day.

Bitgreen recognizes the need for action, creating a new parachain and suite of decentralized applications to foster a blockchain-based hub for impact investment. Bitgreen enables backers to finance critical sustainability projects, including conservation, clean infrastructure, and empowerment initiatives for vulnerable communities. Bitgreen will deliver community leaders, NGOs, asset managers, ESG offices, and sustainability groups the tools necessary to scale impact projects and access new communities. Through its Proof-of-Stake consensus model, Bitgreen’s layer-1 network consumes 99.9 per cent less energy than traditional blockchain networks and protocols.  This will allow the platform core to minimize its environmental impact while embodying the values of ecological and philanthropic responsibility.

Bitgreen’s vision is to empower green projects to attain vital funding to combat climate change, build green infrastructure, and create a space for innovators and disruptors focused on improving the world. The Polkadot parachain deployment is set to occur within the coming months.

Through the $5 million raised by individual investors on Republic, Bitgreen is set to launch its parachain on Polkadot as the singular impact investing blockchain within the network. In addition, the launch will accompany Bitgreen’s rollout of dedicated Carbon Market and Compliant Impact Investing platforms. These platforms allow investors and key groups to discover projects and foster beneficial relationships with worthwhile organizations conducting meaningful work through climate, conservation, and philanthropy initiatives.

“Climate change is the most urgent issue of our time and dovetails extraordinarily well with blockchain, one of the most revolutionary technologies of our time. The effects of climate change will be pervasive, so we are not surprised to have garnered such early support and oversubscribed our crowdfund raise,” says Adam Carver, CEO at Bitgreen. “Our goal to raise $1 trillion for impact initiatives and climate projects resonates with people. It is a daunting and wild objective, but we are convinced the time is now to swing for the fences and be confident in the power of blockchain and web3 to coordinate resources as never before.”

Nilos provides the one-stop shop for businesses to connect crypto wallets, bank accounts and PSPs and manage all their treasury operations such as tracking incomes, reconciling money flows and making payments across crypto and fiat seamlessly.

The round was led by Viola Ventures, Fabric Ventures and Mensch Capital Partners. Over 20 angels also participated in the round, including: Yuval Tal (Founder at Payoneer), Sebastien Borget (Co-founder at The Sandbox), Emmanuel Schalit (Founder at Dashlane), Benjamin Seror (CPO at SimilarWeb), Didier Valet (Ex-Deputy CEO at Société Générale), Guillaume Houzé (Galeries Lafayette)...

There's a growing number of businesses that handle dual crypto/fiat treasuries simultaneously or that would not onboard to crypto because of its complexity.

The idea of dealing with two different financial systems; multiple accounts to track, volatility, compliance issues, and reconciliation problems.

Nilos was founded in 2021 by Raphael Fettaya and Eytan Messika and provides a platform that allows businesses to:

• Connect all their accounts through one single interface
• Track all their crypto and fiat transactions in one unified ledger
• Reconcile their payments
• Schedule and route effective crypto to fiat payouts (off ramp)
• Extract detailed financial/accounting reports

Nilos also takes care of the AML/compliance that lies behind it: 

• Monitor incoming crypto transactions to spot suspicious sources of funds
• Provide custody services to store crypto accounts
• Performs KYB onboarding

In 3 months, the team has grown to 10 people based across Israel and France and has worked with a number of NFT platforms, brands and agencies.

"I'm excited about our close collaboration with Nilos. I believe they play a key role in companies' adaptation of web3. Their product is a perfect fit for our mission of helping owners of music rights take their first steps into the world of web3." Sebastian Ljunberg, CTO at Anotherblock

"We are big believers in web3 infrastructure plays. The Nilos team is solving a huge gap, bridging financial and treasury services for both web2 and web3 companies who are looking to embed on-chain revenues with their fiat operations in a seamless, compliant and secure way." Omry Ben David, General Partner at Viola Ventures

"As a business, freelancer or creator, once you have a wallet setup, it's the easiest thing to accept payments using the blockchain payment rails, but it's everything that comes afterwards that's difficult. Anything to do with managing income (treasuries), storing currencies safely, exchanging these to stable currencies, using the right chain from acceptance to withdrawal, using the right exchange to offramp and doing this in a legally compliant manner with the right documentation is extremely difficult and a fragmented manual process right now.  I'm really happy to be partnering with the guys at Nilos, to solve this key missing piece of financial infrastructure which will make crypto more widely accessible." Anil Hanjsee, General Partner at Fabric.vc

Investment technology firm Jacobi Inc. has announced it has raised $10m USD in Series A funding, led by Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC)

Jacobi Inc. (Jacobi) will use the funding to further accelerate the development of the Jacobi platform and expand its team and clientele globally.

QIC joinsJacobi’s existing investors; Silicon Valley venture capital firms, Illuminate Venture Partners, 8VC and Western Technology Investment (WTI).

Joining the board of Jacobi Inc will be Crystal Russell (QIC) and Bill Miller (Makena Capital)

Founded in 2014, Jacobi provides its technology to some of the world’s largest asset management firms including T.Rowe Price, MFS, LGIM and WTW. Its global client base now represents assets under management over US$7 trillion.

Jacobi CEO and Co- Founder, Tony Mackenzie said: "We are proud to be backed by the highly respected global investor QIC as we continue to grow our global business. Our valued client base spans some of the world’s leading asset managers, owners, investment consultants, RIA’s and family offices. Each of these firms has looked to Jacobi for flexible technology that is purpose-built for the multi-asset investor”.

Mackenzie added: “Our open-architecture means we can configure our solution to each firm’s own investment strategy including their capital market assumptions, data, risk engines and optimization techniques - and combine that with dynamic visualization tools for better end-client engagement.”

QIC Principal, Crystal Russell said: “We are delighted to be investing in Jacobi on behalf of the Queensland Business Investment Fund. Jacobi is a home-grown success with an exceptional team, world-class product and a global blue chip client base. The asset management industry is undergoing widespread digitalization with software-driven tools enabling more in-depth portfolio analysis and increased client engagement. Jacobi’s product is proving to be a critical tool for some of the world’s most sophisticated asset managers.”

Jacobi’s technology transforms front office-to-end-client investment processes enabling portfolio design, analytics, and client engagement. The cloud-based platform provides a powerful and highly customizable suite of tools for designing, managing and visualizing multi-asset portfolios

Capita plc (‘Capita’) today announces that it has agreed to sell Pay360 Limited (‘Pay360’) to Access PaySuite, a division of The Access Group (‘Access’) in a deal that values Pay360 at £150m on a cash-free, debt-free basis, representing a 14.3x multiple on 2021 EBITDA of £10.5m.

Taking into account cash-like and debt-like items, Capita expects to receive gross proceeds of c.£156m upon completion. The sale will help reduce indebtedness and provide additional liquidity, which together shall further strengthen Capita’s balance sheet, whilst also allowing Capita to enhance its digital offerings for clients.

The sale of Pay360 is a Class 1 transaction and the transaction is conditional on the approval of Capita’s shareholders with a circular to be posted in due course including a timetable for a General Meeting of Capita shareholders; notification and confirmation from the Secretary of State that no further action will be taken under the UK’s National Security and Investment Act; and change in control clearance from the Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”). These conditions are currently expected to be satisfied in late Q4 2022.

Pay360 is a UK-based, FCA-regulated payments business with c.2,500 customers across the public and private sectors. Pay360 offers its customers gateway and acquiring services, as well as payment solutions across the payments value chain. Pay360 has recently expanded its capabilities into payment facilitation with the launch of its Evolve platform. In 2021, the business processed £8.6bn in transaction value across 142 million transactions.

The gross assets of Pay360 on 30 June 2022 were £63.6m, and for the year to 31 December 2021, it generated revenue of £45.8m, EBITDA of £10.5m and profit before tax of £7.1m. For H1 2022, Pay360 generated revenue of £27.3m, EBITDA of £5.7m and profit before tax of £3.1m. The Pay360 senior management team will be transferring with the business.

The sale of Pay360 follows a strategic review of the business by Capita and represents further progress in our strategy to build a more focused, sustainable business for the long term.

Jon Lewis, Capita’s Chief Executive Officer, said:
“We are pleased to have agreed to the sale of Pay360 to Access. We announced our intention to sell Pay360 during our half-year results, as part of our strategy to simplify and strengthen Capita. The sale is a great opportunity for the new owners to help Pay360 realise its full potential, and our colleagues at Pay360 will also benefit from the focus that this change of ownership will bring. Capita will utilise the cash proceeds of the sale to benefit our digital offerings for clients and further reduce net debt. The Pay360 senior management team and employees will remain with the business as they transfer to new ownership”

Barclays Bank PLC, acting through its Investment Bank (‘Barclays’) is acting as the sole financial advisor and sole sponsor to Capita on the transaction.

PCI Pal®, the global SaaS provider of secure payment solutions for business communications, has announced the launch of its Pay By Bank open banking solution for contact centres. It is the first in a series of new agent-assisted, digital payment products that enable merchants to minimise the cost of transactions, and provide instant refunds – all while reducing fraud risk and chargeback costs. The first iteration of the service gives consumers the option to pay from any bank in the UK, with further global regions to be launched shortly.

With analysts IDC predicting that almost three-quarters of digital consumer payments globally will be conducted via platforms owned by non-financial institutions by 2030*, PCI Pal’s new Pay by Bank makes highly secure omnichannel, bank-to-bank payments possible across all contact centre channels, including voice (phone), chat, and social. It eliminates card and interchange fees, while fraud risk and chargebacks will be reduced as consumers directly authenticate with their bank, creating further cost savings for merchants while improving the payment experience for consumers.

Pay by Bank from PCI Pal uses bank-grade security from its technology partner TrueLayer and is seamlessly integrated to PCI Pal’s existing agent-assisted contact centre solutions. Agents benefit from being able to follow the customer payment journey in real-time, without being exposed to sensitive data yet aiding where needed, to maintain a great customer and agent experience. As a result, PCI Pal’s integrated partners will have immediate and straightforward access to these new capabilities, allowing them to benefit from an improved value proposition to their own customers.

A key differentiator compared to other solutions available today is its technology integration with Truelayer, enabling payments from any bank rather than a minimal amount of named institutions via a third-party application. Pay by Bank from PCI Pal allows merchants to achieve the true benefits of open banking technology within their contact centre.

Mufti Monim, Chief Technology Officer for PCI Pal said: “This Pay by Bank capability, powered by open banking technology, is the first of a new series of product innovations from PCI Pal which will provide enhanced digital payment journeys for merchants. This innovation makes payments – and instant refunds – quicker, easier, and highly secure. The omnichannel experience means customers simply choose how they wish to pay by clicking a link shared by the merchant via live chat, push notification, SMS, or email. They don't have to key in their card details or trust a website to store them; they instead select their bank from the list and securely approve the purchase with a fingerprint or face ID or other authentication method provided by their bank.

“For merchants, this Pay by Bank capability can increase revenue by improving conversion rates and provide cost savings, as payment service provider fees are replaced by less costly transaction fees.  Additionally, payments are typically credited instantly via Faster Payments.

“PCI Pal has solved the PCI DSS compliance problem: now we’re investing in and further developing our products to create new revenue generation and cost-benefitting solutions for contact centres as businesses strive to commercialise further customer interactions and enhance their payment experience. ”

FV Bank, the U.S. licensed global digital bank that offers a vertically-integrated suite of traditional and digital asset banking and custody services to fintech and blockchain firms, has today announced the launch of a new service for FV Bank account holders: the ability to instantly and automatically convert Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) into USD at the moment of deposit. 

Circle Internet Financial Ltd. is a global financial technology firm and issuer of USD Coin (USDC) and Euro Coin (EUROC). USDC is one of the fastest-growing stablecoins in the market, is regulated and fully reserved, and has supported more than USD $5 trillion in on-chain transactions to date. It represents one of the market’s most robust and secure stablecoins. 

FV Bank customers will now be able to receive USDC directly into their bank account and have the funds instantly converted into USD at the moment of receipt. This service will greatly reduce the friction of domestic, and especially, international settlements as the money transfer process becomes dramatically faster than the traditional banking sector. Not only will money transfers be much quicker than traditional methods such as bank wires and drafts, but this service will also be a cost-effective alternative and reduce the number of touch points per transaction, making receiving and sending funds significantly more straightforward.  This allows FV Bank Account holders to raise invoices to their international clients in USDC and receive them without worrying about wallets, conversions, fees etc.   

“We couldn’t be more pleased to work with Circle and bring almost instantaneous deposits and conversion of USDC to our account holders,” said FV Bank CEO, Miles Paschini. “It was imperative for us to work with a stablecoin issuer who has an excellent track record and whose values align with our own. We look forward to growing our working relationship with Circle, as we collaboratively help bridge the traditional financial system with the world’s leading blockchains to unlock further growth in the digital asset sector.” 

Circle's transaction and treasury services are giving rise to a new generation of financial services and commercial applications that hold the promise of raising global economic prosperity through the frictionless exchange of value.