ACA Group (ACA), the leading governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) advisor in financial services, today announced that it has acquired Ethos ESG (Ethos), a provider of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings data and software for financial advisors, asset managers, institutions, and investors.

This acquisition marks ACA’s first analytics offering, which will be paired with ACA’s ESG experts to form an integrated tech and advisory offering under the ESG practice. ACA’s existing ESG practice specialises in advising on policies, procedures, and alignment with regulations and voluntary frameworks. With Ethos, ACA clients will have a tool to implement the procedures suggested by advisory, analyse investments, and automate several elements of ESG reporting. 

Founded in 2019, Ethos offers an interactive platform that allows for the evaluation of over 350,000 impact ratings including companies, stocks, and funds through a prism of 45 ESG causes such as climate change, racial justice, mental health and more. Providing full transparency into how each impact score is calculated and the ability to upload portfolios and create models, Ethos allows for GRC professionals to understand the ESG characteristics of their investments and make responsible decisions that align with their firm's values and ESG commitments.

Ethos uses a proprietary set of approximately 100 underlying databases to generate its ratings. These databases provide a unique impact view of ratings, as well as provide insight into key metrics where available. The databases are fully transparent, so clients can see which underlying database each data point comes from. Ethos also has capabilities developed to quickly scrape the public domain for material publicly available information to include in the ratings. These state-of-the-art capabilities allow Ethos to quickly add company coverage to help clients achieve full coverage of their investment portfolio.

Ethos has invested in innovation through the recent launch of its Impact Calculator, an embeddable widget that takes a dollar amount and immediately calculates the real-world equivalent impact of investing that amount in a specific fund or other product, compared to a benchmark. 

Additionally, Ethos recently introduced its Carbon Neutral Certification program for mutual funds and ETFs, developed in conjunction with Change Finance. Through the certification, Ethos performs an independent analysis of a funds carbon footprint (covering Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions) and carbon credits (offsets) to verify whether the fund is carbon neutral during a specified period.

“This is an exciting step in helping to grow our presence in the ESG space and is ACA Group’s first foray into analytics as a service,” said Shvetank Shah, CEO of ACA Group. “We are invigorated to be building out and launching our data capabilities, starting with Ethos ESG. Combining data with our scalable solutions will continue to empower our clients to reimagine GRC and protect and grow their business.” 

“We are thrilled to partner with ACA Group, as their brand and reach in the GRC space is well-known,” said Luke Wilcox, Founder and CEO of Ethos ESG. “Not only is taking into consideration the ESG impact of your decisions right on its merits but greater transparency into ESG issues helps firms mitigate risk and make informed choices while growing sustainably.”

“This pairing will help us to leverage data in a new way to help firms of all sizes develop and monitor their ESG programs to mitigate risk, make informed choices, combat greenwashing, and grow profitably and sustainably in the process. Access to high-quality, transparent ESG data is an essential part of any ESG endeavour, and our partnership with Ethos will allow us to build and protect our clients’ ESG strategies in ways few others can,” said Dan Mistler, Head of ESG Advisory at ACA Group.

Napier, a global end-to-end intelligent compliance platform and provider of advanced financial crime risk management solutions has announced that its current Chief Operations Officer Greg Watson, is to take the helm as Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect, as former CEO Julian Dixon moves into a full-time role as Founder and Board Member.

Greg’s tenure at Napier as well as his wealth of experience in operational management and business strategy, gained at the likes of Fenergo, HSBC and UBS, makes him the ideal choice to lead Napier into its next phase of growth, building on the past several successful years of rapid expansion for the flourishing company.

“Greg’s an outstanding candidate for the position. His experience and understanding of our products and clients are exemplary, as is his commitment to making Napier the pre-eminent provider of AI-enhanced financial crime risk management software. I’m looking forward to seeing him take the company from strength to strength,” said Julian Dixon.

Since joining the award-winning company in 2020, Greg has worked closely with Julian and the executive team at Napier to put in place a robust operating model to support Napier’s rapid growth.

Greg Watson said: “I am proud to be taking the mantle from Julian. Since founding Napier in 2015, Julian has built a world-class tech company from the ground up, steering it through a period of exceptional and rapid growth into the leading financial crime risk management business that it is. Filling Julian’s boots will be no easy task, but this change is very much about evolution, rather than revolution. My job now is to take Napier to even greater heights, as we continue to innovate and to deliver increasingly higher levels of customer satisfaction.”

Following a period of aggressive expansion, Napier has a presence in key financial hubs across the globe including North America, UK, Europe and APAC. As a provider of choice to over 200 enterprise clients including banks, payment providers, asset managers, FX, gaming, crypto exchanges and other financial institutions, Napier doubled its annual revenues in 2021 by providing its award-winning AI-enhanced platform for intelligent AML and financial crime compliance.

Napier’s Board of Directors also includes Andy Maguire, Chair of Global Banking and Managing Director and Senior Partner in the London office of The Boston Consulting Group. Other Board Directors include senior partners from Big Ideas Group, Rosa Howard and its founder Sebastian Gray, while Wall Street veteran John Neary and ex-PwC partner John Barnsley sit in global advisory roles.

Billtrust, a B2B accounts receivable automation and integrated B2B payments leader, announced the appointment of Marco Eeman as Managing Director to lead its European operations, focusing on profitable revenue growth and customer satisfaction. Eeman was a principal of Netherlands-based Order2Cash, a leading order-to-cash platform provider, which was acquired by Billtrust in February 2022.

Eeman takes responsibility for Billtrust’s European operations at a time when the company is executing on its growth plan of expanding globally with companies that offer complementary expertise and shared values. Currently, Billtrust is serving more than 750 customers via its European operations, and its Business Payments Network offers interoperability capabilities and connections to over 70 B2B and B2G networks, enabling fully compliant and secure e-invoicing across multiple markets. Eeman will oversee a European-based Billtrust team with offices in Ghent, Belgium, Amsterdam and Joure, Netherlands and Krakow, Poland.

“Marco shares our vision of making the digital transformation of accounts receivable fast and simple in order to drive efficiency across the entire AR process spectrum,” said Steve Pinado, Billtrust President. “I am confident his leadership of our growing team in Europe, strong SaaS technology background, deep understanding of invoicing complexity and compliance and product development expertise can immediately impact our operations and growth strategy."

“I am thrilled for the opportunity to lead Billtrust’s European business,” said Eeman. “Our incredible team is ready to collaborate with businesses across the region to help them weather a changing and unpredictable environment by getting paid faster and facilitating growth through automation and digitization.”

FairMoney, a credit-led mobile banking platform for emerging markets in Africa and Asia, has partnered with Oradian, a cloud-based core banking system, to power its next stage of growth and product innovation.

Oradian services over 10 million banking customers, working with more than 50 tech lenders, banks and financing companies in 13 countries across Africa and Asia. Their solution enables customers to manage their bank accounts, transact 24/7, make investments and access appropriate finance and is tailored to the needs of rapidly developing markets.

These markets present a unique set of challenges - including the need for compliant financial products tailored to local regulations, the ability to operate within low-bandwidth environments and fast scaling needs as well as uninterrupted availability.

FairMoney has chosen Oradian for three reasons. Firstly, their ability to incorporate solutions to these market challenges into their architecture. Secondly, their ability to support FairMoney’s growing business, unique credit assessment abilities and product innovation. Thirdly, the ‘plug and play’ nature of Oradian’s solution, requires little core backend investment.

The growth in VC investments in African start-ups reached US$2b (£1.74b) in 2021, of which US$1b (£0.87b) was channelled to fintech companies, reaffirming the demand for flexible financial infrastructure across the African continent.

Traditional banks have shied away from offering micro-loans to businesses and consumers without collateral, yet it’s widely recognised that this group has the highest need and the biggest potential for growth.

At the same time, the African and Asian emerging markets are hungry for financial services that provide both consumer loans and working capital. This has created a big opportunity for companies that are able to move quickly and leverage recent technological advances in emerging markets, such as the move to cloud banking.

The winners will be those who can quickly fulfil the needs of both the individual consumer and the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSMEs) segments at scale.

FairMoney has been successful in executing that mission: the company became the leading credit-led digital financial institution in Nigeria two years after its incorporation.

“To be able to innovate quickly, with products that the market requires, while being compliant with changing regulations in very different markets, takes a different breed of the core system,” commented Antonio Separovic, CEO of Oradian.

“All of these are real, daily challenges in the back-office, not seen by the customers and often taken for granted. However, we know through working with a broad range of financial customers, those challenges are very real, and in some cases, insurmountable without the right technology and an expert partner.”

Also commenting on the development, Laurin Hainy, CEO of FairMoney said:

"Our ultimate goal remains bridging the financial inclusion gap in emerging economies, and we understand the power of collaboration and partnerships in bringing this to reality.

“Since the inception of FairMoney, we have continued to serve our current markets with excellent financial products, providing the much-needed access to credit and making essential banking services available to everyday people.

“We decided to partner with Oradian to leverage the already existing infrastructure and trusted system performance to scale our solutions to new markets where they are needed and perfect existing offerings in our current markets.”

Provenir, a global leader in AI-powered risk decisioning software, today announced today that Adrian Pillay has joined as Vice President of Sales for Middle East and Africa as part of the company’s expanding investment in the region to meet the growing demand for its AI-driven risk decisioning platform.

Adrian brings more than 20 years of experience implementing successful go-to-market strategies and building key partnerships in numerous financial markets. He has served in a variety of leadership roles at FICO, TransUnion, Experian, Dun & Bradstreet and Accenture. Adrian joins existing sales associates Elias Gitau and Tatenda Nigel Chinodakufa, and is quickly building out a broader sales and go-to-market team to service the region.

“The number of fintechs in Africa is exploding with thousands being set up every year,” said Geoff Miller, Chief Commercial Officer for Provenir. “These fintechs are raising record investments as they seize the opportunity to provide a more responsive customer experience. According to McKinsey, nearly two-thirds of Africa’s 1.3 billion people do not have a bank account or full access to financial services, and 90% of all transactions on the continent are still cash-based. The opportunity to provide digital finance to this underserved population is enormous, and Provenir’s AI-powered decisioning platform can quickly help fintechs extend financial services to previously unbanked individuals.”

Nigerian consumer fintech company Carbon is leveraging Provenir’s technology to bring transformative change to the payments industry in Africa. “Delivering on customer expectations and providing a superior experience that is safe and reliable is a key priority. Partnering with Provenir allows us to give customers greater access to credit and quality financial services and we look forward to helping reshape the overall payment experience,” said Ngozi Dozie, Co-founder of Carbon.

Commenting on his appointment, Adrian said: “This is a time of unprecedented growth and disruption across the Middle East and Africa and Provenir has a very compelling solution that fits perfectly in this landscape. I am excited to join the company and help the team meet the growing demand for AI-driven risk decisioning solutions.”

Provenir’s industry-leading AI-Powered Decisioning Platform uniquely combines universal access to data, simplified AI, and sophisticated decisioning technology. This provides a cohesive risk ecosystem to enable smarter decisions across the entire customer lifecycle – with diverse data for deeper insights, optimized decisions, and a continuous feedback loop for constant improvement.

Hampshire Trust Bank (HTB) has secured an ENABLE Build guarantee via the British Business Bank and The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DHLUC).

It follows HTB’s previous ENABLE Guarantee, agreed in 2017, which has so far provided £342m in SME housebuilder funding and supported the building of 1547 new housing units.

The new guarantee means HTB can continue to grow its support to small business housebuilders across the UK.

The British Business Bank’s ENABLE Build is a variant of its ENABLE Guarantee programme and targets SME housebuilders by reducing the amount of capital required to be held against such lending by the participating bank. Under both the ENABLE Guarantee and ENABLE Build programmes, the UK government takes on a portion of the lender’s risk on a portfolio of loans to smaller businesses, in return for a fee.

ENABLE Build was launched as a separate variant of the ENABLE Guarantee to provide £1bn of guaranteed support to smaller housebuilders. In the 12 months to March 2022, the ENABLE Build programme supported over £330m of lending to more than 130 small housebuilders.

Reinald de Monchy, Managing Director, Guarantee and Wholesale Solutions, British Business Bank, said: “Increasing the current housebuilding supply in the UK is a priority for decision-makers across local and national governments. This ENABLE Build transaction will allow HTB to increase funding to SME housebuilders, helping them deliver more housing and allowing more people to get onto the property ladder.”

Alex Upton, Managing Director - Development Finance at Hampshire Trust Bank, added:

“We all know that building houses in the UK is dominated by a handful of gigantic players but SME housebuilders are vital, not only for our market but also for our communities and our country as a whole. They are often the beating heart of regional and local property markets and they provide a harbour for the training and development of design, craftsmanship and skill in the battle against homogeneity.

“But SME housebuilders have faced some stiff headwinds. The ENABLE Build guarantee shows great commitment from the British Business Bank to support SME housebuilders. We are confident that HTB will be able to support an increased number of SME housebuilders to improve housing supply, create employment and stimulate local economies across the country.”

Northern Trust today announced the appointment of Michael Buzza as global head of Network Management & Market Strategy. Buzza, previously EMEA head of Market Advocacy and Innovation Research, will oversee the teams dedicated to providing market access and insights across the traditional securities services markets within the Digital Assets and Financial Markets group.

Justin Chapman, global head of Digital Assets and Financial Markets, commented, “Michael’s role will be key to the ongoing management of our market-facing relationships across both traditional and digital markets. His wealth of experience across risk management, commercial partnerships and financial markets will also accelerate the development of our traditional and digital asset capability roadmaps.”

Over the course of 16 years at Northern Trust, Buzza has previously led strategic agent bank provider selection and was instrumental in a strategic investment in Zodia Custody, an institutional-grade crypto asset custody solution created in conjunction with Standard Chartered.

Northern Trust announced the formation of its Digital Assets and Financial Markets Group in June 2022, unifying its digital and traditional market functions across its Asset Servicing business, which provides Whole Office™ solutions to institutional asset managers and asset owners around the globe.

Digital bank Zopa and credit marketplace ClearScore have unveiled a new cross-industry initiative to drive 10 million actions that strengthen consumer finances amidst the rising cost of living.

With inflation forecast to reach up to 13% and over 25% of the UK’s population facing low levels of financial resilience*, the 2025 Fintech Pledge (pledge2025.org) provides UK consumers with actionable steps to build up their financial resilience.

These actions will come from four focus areas:

• Savings - Moving deposits from low to high interest-yielding accounts and setting up saving pots to make savings work harder
• Credit building - Signing up for a credit-building tool to access more and better value financial products
• Debt consolidation - Using a debt consolidation tool to understand how much could be saved each month by consolidating, and reducing financial obligations
• Utility marketplaces - Searching for lower-priced utility deals on digital marketplaces to save money on one or more monthly payments 

Zopa will announce the Fintech Pledge later today in a theatre session with ClearScore at Dreamforce 2022, Salesforce annual event, to discuss how technology is supporting a pathway to financial resilience. 

Jaidev Janardana, CEO at Zopa said: “With the UK facing an unprecedented cost of living crisis, households need to use every tool at their disposal to build long-term financial resilience. This industry pledge – the first of its kind – will unite a wide variety of companies with one goal of driving positive financial actions for millions living in the UK. We’re delighted to be working with ClearScore as we begin this journey. As the scheme progresses, a variety of programmes and partnerships will help to drive 10 million actions by 2025.”

Justin Basini, CEO and Co-founder of The ClearScore Group, said: “This initiative can make a real difference in people’s lives. We can help people rethink their finances and take action to make themselves better off. The fintech industry has a key role to play in building financial resilience and we look forward to working with Zopa and future partners to make this a reality across the UK.”  

Organisations looking to join the 2025 Fintech Pledge and consumers wanting to find out more can visit pledge2025.org for more details on the initiative.

Digital payments specialist, Adflex, today announced a new partnership with Barclaycard to help simplify the acceptance of card payments across its B2B client base. By adding Barclaycard to its network of acquirers, Adflex is able to offer its enterprise merchants faster settlement, transparent reporting and more competitive merchant service fees.

“Building relationships is a key part of what enables Adflex to deliver great value to its merchant customer base through digital payments,” said Adflex CEO, Pat Bermingham. “Together with our existing agreements with Barclaycard, this partnership brings significant value-added features that promote higher uptake of commercial card payments and improves the merchant payment journey.”

The partnership expands the operational benefits available to Adflex’s B2B merchants, including faster settlement to reduce late payments and cash flow issues, as well as more transparent reporting, which allows for more informed decision-making and resource allocation. It also helps to deliver joined-up issuance and acceptance of cards, with a number of Barclaycard services such as Precision Pay Direct (straight-through processing).

“Adflex’s expanding global acquiring network continues to deliver tangible benefits to B2B merchants large and small,” added Bermingham. “Barclaycard is available now to new and existing Adflex clients via our acquiring network and it’s through partnerships such as these that we continually add value to our clients. Our suite of bespoke payments services speeds up accounts payable processes and alleviates late payment worries so that enterprise merchants can focus on what they do best: growing their business.”

OpenPayd, a leading global payments and Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform has today announced the appointment of Richard Given as Group General Counsel, to oversee the group’s legal and regulatory work.

Richard brings to the role over 20 years of in-house experience across technology and financial services. His latest role, as General Counsel and Company Secretary at 10x Banking, saw him start as the company’s first lawyer and play a central part in scaling the fintech company from a small start-up to its industry-leading position today. Prior to 10x, Richard held the roles of Global Head of Legal for Worldwide Operations at HSBC and Legal Director of Emerging Markets at Cisco.

Given brings an in-depth understanding of legal, regulatory and transactional aspects of multiple sectors including, acquisitions, finance, media and technology. At OpenPayd, Richard will head up the legal team and join the executive team.

On the appointment of Given, Iana Dimitrova, CEO of OpenPayd said, “We are delighted that Richard has joined OpenPayd as Group General Counsel, and know that he will continue to promote OpenPayd’s collaborative culture and values as we strive to become the best BaaS provider for embedded financial services.”

Richard Given, Group General Counsel, OpenPayd added, “I thrive on the challenge of rethinking the way companies can deliver legal services and I’m eager to continue to find new solutions and better ways to implement compliant technology processes at OpenPayd.”