Zvilo, the credit-led challenger bank for the Balkans and emerging markets, has been accepted to the Fintech 5.0 growth program facilitated by Tech Nation.

Tech Nation is the UK’s leading network for ambitious tech entrepreneurs, and the program itself is delivered as part of HM Treasury's Fintech Sector Strategy to maintain the UK’s place as a world leader in the sector.

Now in its fifth year, the six-month program aims to help some of the most exciting and promising UK fintech companies accelerate their growth and scale at speed both in the UK and abroad.

Mohamad Dabbas, Chief of Staff and Head of Investor Relations, stated: “We are incredibly excited to have been accepted as part of this program as it will support our ambition to scale and our passionate goal to make affordable financial products accessible to all.”

“The bespoke program is specifically designed to connect and create opportunities for the founders through a series of in-depth insight sessions, networking events with key stakeholders and more. This central element of the Fintech 5.0 Program will give Zvilo access to a wider network of 30 fintech companies spanning across more than 10 subsectors and, as a result, we are looking forward to expanding our connections.”

The new cohort features several scale-ups within the sector that have demonstrated their credibility as future fintech leaders. As part of the rigorous judging process, companies must be at a stage of development equivalent to seed or Series A, have a product in the market used actively and be headquartered in the UK. You can read more about the cohort in Tech Nation’s press release: https://technation.io/news/.

Admir Imani, Chairman of Zvilo, stated “I am proud of the fact that the management team at Zvilo has a strong track record of scalable lending, banking, tech development, equity & debt fundraising amongst many other talents. We are thrilled to be joining several other fintech companies as part of the Fintech 5.0 cohort giving us access to like-minded entrepreneurs and peers within the start-up space as well as international technology partners and a network of potential funders.”

Skilling, the international multi-asset fintech company with a Scandinavian heritage has announced the appointment of Jon Squires, as Executive Chairman. Mr. Squires will actively advise the company as it continues to scale up its expanding operations.

Based in Cyprus and working closely with Skilling Group CEO Michael Kamerman, Mr. Squires brings nearly 20 years of company leadership experience, within the media and corporate sectors, to Skilling. Previous to his new role as Executive Chairman of the Skilling Group, Mr. Squires held the role of Group CEO at Capital.com and Currency.com, and was Chief Digital Officer at Exness. Jon’s executive leadership experience will be invaluable in orchestrating global growth as Skilling pushes ahead with its ambitious expansion strategy. 

Under Mr. Squire’s guidance and direction, Capital.com grew extensively from a niche provider to one of the industry’s leading brokerages. Having successfully overseen the growth strategies of reputable organisations throughout changeable economic conditions, Mr. Squire’s expertise will be invaluable in ensuring that Skilling continues to offer its expanding customer base the best products in the market. 

Mr. Squires’ appointment comes at a quintessential time for Skilling, after a suite of industry heavyweight executive appointments, a €10 million fundraise, and the achievement of a record account growth, while simultaneously launching both a proprietary partnership portal and a copy trading platform. Now, Skilling offers clients nearly 1,000 CFD tradable instruments, including over 55 of the most desirable cryptocurrencies, such as Polkadot and Dogecoin. 

Michael Kamerman, Group CEO of Skilling, comments: “Jon’s appointment as Executive Chairman is incredibly exciting for Skilling. His impact in previous firms where he worked has helped to swiftly propel the companies from relative newcomers to industry titans. We are confident that with an exceptional product and talented people, Skilling will be the next industry leader to benefit from Jon’s expertise. We welcome him and look forward to his involvement in our company.”

Jon Squires, Executive Chairman, comments: "It is the perfect time to be joining Skilling at this stage of its expansion. The company has been built and led by a highly experienced team, and their foresight into new trends and product scalability gives Skilling an unparalleled advantage. I'm very much looking forward to working with Michael and the team as they accelerate their growth globally.”

Konsentus, a leading global SaaS company enabling safe and secure data exchange, has issued an urgent warning about the serious risks facing European financial institutions operating in the open banking ecosystem resulting from the increased levels of open banking fraud.

On 23 June 2022, the European Banking Authority published an Opinion and Report in response to the European Commission’s Call for Advice (CfA) on the review of the Payment Services Directive (PSD2).

The report identifies significant issues and dangers around proving the identity and current regulatory permissions of Third-Party Providers (TPPs) that deliver open banking services.

Among the EBA’s 200 proposals are nine proposals for legislative change which will reduce risk and enhance consumer protection by determining the identity and current regulatory permissions of TPPs in real-time.

It may be several years until any recommendations come into effect, meaning that banks will be exposed to the risks identified by the EBA for some time.

​​PSD2 enables open banking by requiring financial institutions to share their customers’ accounts with authorised third parties and fintechs. Open banking is now a major phenomenon, with billions of transactions in Europe each month and an expected 63.8 million users by 2024.

When data is shared, banks must ensure that they are giving information to the correct entities and are liable for any data given to unauthorised third parties.

However, the regulatory permissions which allow TPPs to deliver open banking services across the EEA can change at any time. If banks continue to share data with TPPs which do not have the correct regulatory status, they could face regulatory fines and be in breach of GDPR.

Brendan Jones, CCO, Konsentus, said: “Banks face genuinely frightening possibilities if they fail to check the identity and regulatory status of TPPs adequately. They are liable for both unauthorised access to data and fraudulent transactions, which could result in reputational damage and significant financial losses.

“The damage caused by high-profile regulatory action could dent confidence in the wider open banking ecosystem, potentially hurting all players and slowing down the pace of adoption across Europe.

“We welcome the EBA’s recommendations, but also warn banks that they must take action immediately to mitigate the risks. The legislation will take some time to come into force, so financial institutions must resolve the risk around identity and regulation themselves.”

Konsentus has produced a short briefing which identifies key takeaways from the EBA’s report, which you can find here. Below is a summary of the EBA’s nine key proposals:

1. A Central Machine-Readable Database for all Payment Service Providers (PSPs) currently authorised to deliver Payment Initiation Services (PIS) and Account Information Services (AIS). 
2. Ongoing Checking to understand if a TPP is authorised to carry out services being requested at the time of a request. 
3. Going beyond eIDAS certificates to address “uncertainties” and understand the identity of a TPP and its authorisation status, the services it can provide and its passporting permissions. 
4. Harmonised data to avoid “discrepancies between the information contained on individual national registers and the EBA central register” to avoid error and misuse of personal data. 
5. Consistent data updates and a common deadline for updates to EBA and national registers so that data is made available immediately to avoid incorrect account access decisions. 
6. Reliable passporting information and a requirement for banks to check a TPP’s ‘home’ central authority.
7. A duty of care which ensures banks bear liability for protecting customers’ data and funds to minimise financial and reputational damage. 
8. A complete picture provided by a single database which offers full visibility of all regulated fintech TPPs and credit institutions authorised to act as TPPs.
9. Clarity on refusing access to address “uncertainties on the use and reliance of EiDAS certificates for the purpose of identification” to understand the identity of a TPP, its passporting status and the services it can provide. 

Konsentus helps financial institutions make informed, real-time decisions on data sharing and API transaction requests by providing them with consolidated data sourced directly from registers operated by the EBA and National Competent Authorities (NCAs) in European nations. This ensures that data is never handed out to unauthorised third parties, thus avoiding any PSD2 or GDPR non-compliance fines.

Cashflows, the platform that makes it easy for merchants to accept payments, today announces that seasoned payments expert Marion King has joined its Board of Directors.

Marion King boasts extensive experience in the payments and financial services industries. She joined NatWest in 2015 as Director of Payments, where she spent seven years setting and executing the bank’s payment strategy including payment architecture, operations, and innovation. Prior to this, Marion was President of, UK & Ireland for MasterCard, leading on business growth and emerging technologies. In 2021 she was appointed Chair of the Payments Association (previously Emerging Payments Association) and holds several non-executive director roles, including for Bibby Financial Services and the Multiple Sclerosis Society. Her appointment is subject to FCA approval.

Marion King, Board member, Cashflows, adds: “My vision for the British payments industry has always been a transparent sector focused on delivering customer benefits through innovation, and Cashflows is leading that charge. As such, I'm honoured to have been appointed to Cashflows’ Board of Directors, and excited to continue shaping the payments industry.”

Simon Haslam, Chairman, Cashflows, comments: “We are delighted to be welcoming Marion to the Cashflows Board of Directors. Her unparalleled payments experience will be invaluable as we continue on our growth trajectory, and her reputation speaks to Cashflows’ credibility. The whole board and C-suite are looking forward to working closely with her as Cashflows continues to go from strength to strength.”

Marion joins industry heavyweight Steven Cooper CBE, CEO of Aldermore Group and former CEO of Barclaycard business, on the Cashflows Board, further strengthening its already impressive payments expertise.

The full Cashflows Board consists of:

• Hannah Fitzsimons, CEO, Cashflows
• Julian Leigh, CFO, Cashflows
• Steven Cooper CBE, CEO, Aldermore Group
• Marion King, Non-Executive Director, Various
• Simon Haslam, Chairman, Cashflows
• Ian Gascoigne, Partner, Pollen Capital
• Lindsey McMurray, Managing Partner, Pollen Capital

With ambitious growth plans, Cashflows will continue to invest in new talent across various teams in the coming months. 

Easy Payment & Finance (Easy EP), a leading financial payment and technology enabler in Spain, today announced it has selected proven global digital payments pioneer, Carta Worldwide, a subsidiary of Mogo Inc., to underpin its new card offering. 

Easy EP is among Spain's leading banking and payments infrastructure providers. It enables a broad array of financial services for its corporate and private customers including real-time SEPA money transfers, global cross-border payments and IBAN banking account management. 

Under the new partnership, Carta Worldwide will provide the issuer processing services that connect Easy EP to Visa’s payment network. The partnership will enable Easy EP to offer white-labelled prepaid card products to customers across Europe. The product will give clients more choice in integrating virtual and physical card products into their embedded finance ecosystems.

According to Atomico’s State of European Tech report, the continent enjoyed a record-breaking year in 2021 ($100B capital invested, 98 new unicorns and over $1 trillion in value created). Yet stark geographical differences remain, with Southern Europe lagging far behind Northern Europe. According to the report, “The five largest hubs by total capital invested (London, Berlin, Stockholm, Munich and Paris) are home to companies that between them captured 54% of total investment into the region in 2021, up from 49% in 2017.” Cities such as Barcelona, Madrid and Milan rank 7th, 10th and 19th respectively. The role of new, non-traditional financial providers is critical in closing this gap. 

Easy EP, one of the first non-banking institutions to offer banking services in Spain, is no stranger to challenging the status quo and driving positive change. Easy EP’s new card products follow its recent authorisation as a principal member of Visa - among the first few Spanish non-banking institutions to have been granted direct membership. Now, leveraging Carta Worldwide’s industry-leading API and expertise, Easy EP is pulling away from the competition, providing customers with better access to global financial services.

“At Easy, we don’t shy away from solving the biggest financial technology challenges, punching far above our weight to pioneer ground-breaking financial services. We’re proud to be leading the embedded banking revolution in Spain by becoming one of the first Spanish non-bank financial institutions licensed to provide banking services to customers,” said Jazmin Achi, CEO/Co-founder, Easy EP. “We remain hyper-focused on building simplified solutions to help European businesses achieve their full potential. Our partnership with Carta Worldwide is the next major step in our mission to offer world-class card services for our customers.”

“European fintech has a hard-earned and well-deserved reputation for driving innovation across the region’s economies, but this success is not evenly distributed,” comments Richard Wray, Chief Operations Officer, Carta Worldwide. “For the rising tide to lift all boats, we need to unlock access for Europe’s sleeping southern giants. That’s why we’re particularly excited to be helping Easy EP and its customers access the full breadth of card services to help drive innovation and growth in a key Southern European country.”

Eleven UK fintech companies have arrived in Australia on a special government trade mission to build connections with businesses and governments down under. The chosen delegates will be representing Great Britain’s fintech industry at Australia’s prestigious Intersekt Festival where they will be greeted by the Sydney Consul-General.

The weeklong tour will see key players such as QV Systems, the cloud-based asset and automotive finance provider, as well as CurrencyCloud and Clear Bank, deliver keynote speeches and presentations to conference delegates and senior officials from the Australian and New Zealand markets.

They will hear speeches from senior figures about the Australian fintech landscape, and recent policy developments and discuss how they can work more closely to build partnerships. Delegates will also get to hear about the lessons learned for companies seeking to establish in Australia. Additionally, they will hear first-hand experiences from business leaders about the rewards and challenges of launching in the local market.

The delegation will then head to the EY Centre in Sydney to hear from a panel of Australian financial institutions who will share their thoughts on the best pitching methods and what they are currently looking for in terms of partnerships. QV Systems and six other delegate companies then have the opportunity to pitch their offering to a room of EY consultants, partners and guests from the financial services community.

Daniel Layne, Founder & CEO of QV Systems comments:

“Australia and New Zealand are home to some of the most innovative and disruptive financial services firms in the world, and we’re very excited to participate in this visit, to learn about market trends and discuss ways to partner on key projects. Being here on the ground gives us a real insight into the needs of the local market and helps us better understand how we can collaborate with fast-growing firms.”

OKX, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, today announced the launch of its 'What Is OKX?' global brand campaign.

With less than 15% of traders outside of Asia familiar with OKX¹, the company is introducing itself to the greater global market as one of the most powerful crypto trading apps in a series of videos featuring Manchester City F.C. manager Pep Guardiola, McLaren Formula 1 driver Daniel Ricciardo, and Olympic medalist Scotty James. The campaign is underpinned by OKX’s plan to expand its customer base beyond Asia, a market where over 65% of traders recognize the brand as a crypto app¹.

BBDO New York was enlisted to devise the ‘What is OKX?’ campaign, while the creative was directed by visual comedy director Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks. The campaign is digital-first and will be distributed through omnichannel media with a heavy focus on the business and trader communities. Media distribution will include CNN, with OOH and an audio strategy also being activated.

Haider Rafique, Global Chief Marketing Officer, OKX, said: "OKX was created to serve crypto traders of all levels across the globe. To date, we've concentrated heavily on just a few core markets, which has granted us an intimate understanding of what crypto traders want and enabled us to build what is now the second largest crypto exchange by volume. It is now time to introduce OKX to the rest of the world. In the current climate, investors need an exchange that delivers a safe and responsible trading platform, while also offering them a very broad range of ways to pursue their own brand of financial liberty. Open access to a paradigm-shifting world that brings the cutting edges of technology and finance together to allow people to create their own futures—that is OKX. Consider this campaign our invitation to come and explore that world with us.”

Daniel Ricciardo, Formula 1 driver, McLaren Racing, said: “Crypto trading has often been perceived to be a guarded secret, benefiting only early adopters or those financially connected. But sensible crypto investing does not require membership to a private magic circle. The key to any involvement in crypto rests with education and responsible trading. It’s been a great ride with the OKX team so far. I have learnt a lot and am looking forward to continuing my own crypto journey with them and excited about our future plans.”

To complement the ‘What is OKX?’ ad campaign, OKX is also launching a Global Content Competition, giving YouTube and Twitter creators the chance to share in a $100,000 USD prize pool as they find creative ways to share the OKX brand with their audiences.

Offering a broad and powerful array of trading options, OKX is on a mission to educate a generation of responsible traders as it empowers investors everywhere to establish financial freedom in their own way. Despite having engaged in limited marketing up to now, the company has established itself as the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by volume. ‘What is OKX?’ is the company’s first concerted marketing investment as it looks to compete with other global exchanges in the broader crypto market.

The debut of its cTrader White Label solution has been highly awaited by B2Broker, an industry leader in the supply of technology and financial services for the FX and cryptocurrency industries. And we, B2Broker, are excited to announce that it is finally here!

The new solution is intended to provide brokers access to one of the market's most well-liked multi-asset trading platforms. The powerful trading tools and unique features of the cTrader platform have made it a favourite among seasoned traders. The new White label package gives brokers the chance to provide their clients with the full cTrader platform trading experience.

About cTrader White Label 

Through its slick user interface, which can be branded in any design conceivable, this fully-featured brokerage infrastructure gives both institutional enterprises and retail organizations the flexibility to build personalized experiences representing each company's taste or preference.

With the new trading solution White Label cTrader, you can easily start your own company as a Forex, cryptocurrency, or multi-asset broker with almost zero effort.

It is effective and comfortable to use a trading platform with all the features you want, with none that are needless. The White Label cTrader offers all the assets and tools needed for achievements without the requirement for extra expenditures, such as buying a cTrader server license, altering settings and configurations as necessary, or locating and integrating a trustworthy liquidity provider. You also won't have to worry about connecting with CRM or back-office systems, putting crypto processing into place, or creating a comprehensive infrastructure. Additionally, a support desk is open 24/7 to solve problems and answer inquiries. With the White Label cTrader, you have access to a tried-and-true brokerage solution for your business.

cBroker - Your Helper for White Label cTrader

cBroker is a back office program that manages customer accounts and deals with trading questions. Every piece of data that moves through the system is combined and tracked by cBroker, making it a crucial administrative tool and settings panel. You have total control over the trading environment with cBroker because of how user-friendly it is. You will always have complete access to all activities and information, giving you full control over every aspect of your business integrations.

cTrader Copy

With the help of cTrader Copy, traders can effortlessly copy the trading tactics of other traders or provide their own trading techniques for copying by other traders on a fully configurable investment platform. A fantastic approach to broaden your audience, draw in new clients, and generate extra income is by using the cTrader Copy service.

The user-friendly cTrader Copy platform offers traders a variety of alternatives. The Copy Stop Loss tool and the ability to choose the assets, investment amount, and risk level are all available to traders.

cTrader Open API

With cTrader open API, you may create your own platform on top of it. A substantial portion of the systems on the market do not allow you to design and modify your own trading interface or construct your personal mobile trading applications. But with White Label cTrader, you may modify the platform's user interface to suit the branding of your business and the needs of your traders and also create custom trading apps for your business. And you can easily achieve all of this with cTrader White Label's flexibility.

Your trader's room may be easily linked with the solution, enabling you to continue utilizing all of your essential trading features as well as any other apps you may choose to employ. You may design the ideal user interface from scratch or choose from among the numerous well-liked ones currently on the market, such as TradingView or others. With cTrader White Label, it is possible to create custom platform labels, banners, symbols, user interface settings that are precisely suitable, technical analysis indicators, and software applications.

Prime of Prime Liquidity Pool

cTrader White Label includes a Prime of Prime liquidity pool as part of its offering. You will therefore have access to the best prices from the foremost prime brokerage banks, prime of primes, and financial institutions worldwide. With more than a thousand trading instruments, Tier 1 Liquidity covers seven different categories of assets, including FX, Metals, Commodities, Indices, Cryptocurrencies, Equities, and ETFs. In more detail, we offer access to 110 FX symbols and 150 cryptocurrency CFDs, the best trading products on the market.

B2Broker & cTrader

“All of the leading brokers on the market utilize cTrader, a reputable platform with a successful track record. All the big businesses that utilize this platform are easily found by conducting a fast search for cTrader on the Appstore.

We think that every broker needs to provide a wide range of trading platforms to its customers in today's fiercely competitive marketplaces. The broker would otherwise lose customers who want to trade on the cTrader platform. cTrader will very likely draw a new class of traders and investors in addition to the conventional trading capabilities offered by the MT platform.

One of the best options available is cTrader regarding managing your crypto brokerage and its algo capabilities too.

Since 2021, cryptocurrency brokers have shown an increasing interest in cTrader. Since a large number of cTrader brokers utilize our liquidity service, we choose to create a completely new world for brokers that want to become more sophisticated and meet the demands of traders rather than forcing them to use a single platform,” B2Broker CEO Arthur Azizov.

The cTrader White Label platform from B2Broker may be customized to your unique demands and branding requirements, whether you are a start-up or an established business.

With the cTrader White Label platform from B2Broker, you can anticipate even more features and advantages. Continue to check up for changes, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

SteelEye, the compliance technology and data analytics firm, has announced the completion of a $21M Series B fundraise to accelerate its global expansion – with an emphasis on North America. The funding round – led by Ten Coves Capital alongside existing investors Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, Illuminate Financial, Beacon Equity Partners, and a large family office – takes SteelEye’s total capital raised to $43M.

Today, SteelEye counts some of the largest financial services firms in the world as clients including Fidelity International and Schroders. The funding round comes on the back of record growth in 2021 when SteelEye’s revenues grew by 88 per cent and will support the firm as it targets further rapid yet scalable international expansion.

A changing operational environment post-COVID and growing data volumes have increased the complexity and cost of compliance for financial firms – making it harder for them to accurately comply with rules designed to protect the integrity of the financial markets. At the same time, regulatory scrutiny is growing, with regulators imposing combined fines of over $1BN on global tier one banks in the last nine months.

SteelEye – headquartered in London with offices in New York, Bengaluru (India), and Braga (Portugal) – provides a SaaS-based RegTech platform that allows banks, brokers, asset managers, and other regulated financial firms to simplify their compliance processes across various EU, UK, and US market regulations. The firm’s mission is to make it easy for financial firms to accurately comply with regulatory rules, while also allowing firms to glean insights from their data.

Commenting on the funding, Matt Smith, CEO of SteelEye, said: “Facing regulatory clampdowns, huge data volumes, and inflation impacts on budgets, financial firms need ways to reduce costs through efficiencies and automation. This is what we deliver through our distinctive, data-centric compliance platform. We are delighted to partner with the team at Ten Coves Capital, which has a long history of enabling technology businesses to scale and deliver real value to the financial services industry.”

Launched in 2017, SteelEye is unique in being the only solution that can natively bring together communications with trade and order data under a single lens. This unified holistic approach provides data-driven and automation-led solutions for regulatory reporting, communications and trade surveillance, best execution monitoring, and data analytics.

Steve Piaker, a Managing Partner at Ten Coves Capital, said: “SteelEye has a highly differentiated approach and has demonstrated strong momentum and growth in Europe. Financial services firms are drowning in data and SteelEye delivers a modern unified data capture and analytics solution at scale tuned to more accurately and efficiently separate out the noise from actionable investigations. We are excited to partner with the company as it accelerates its expansion in the North American market and beyond.”

Fintech unicorn Pleo, which offers a smart business spending solution, has formed a strategic partnership with open banking platform Yapily to enable a simplified payments experience for its UK users.

Research shows that 82% of businesses that fail do so due to poor cash flow management. Together, Pleo and Yapily are helping to address this problem through the power of open banking.

Via Yapily Payments, Pleo users can now top up their Pleo account directly from their bank account. This allows customers to receive funds instantly, side-stepping lengthy settlement times at an average of 48 hours. As a result, businesses and employees across Europe can access faster cash injections where needed, and better calculate and manage their cash flow so they’re free to pay bills promptly and be agile in seizing opportunities. 

Last month, Pleo saw 54% of its customers' first wallet load done via the open banking platform. In almost six months, Yapily has enabled Pleo to process over £10 million in open banking payments, helping thousands of businesses to solve their spending management challenges and take back control over cash flow. Through the partnership, Pleo is able to deliver operational efficiency, enhanced simplicity, and a more seamless experience to its customers. 

Pleo customers will also benefit from added security. With the user’s consent, a direct connection between the Pleo platform and the user’s bank account is made by Yapily to initiate the transfer of funds, reducing the risk of both potential card fraud and human error for the customer.

Olov Eriksson, Chief Product Officer at Pleo, says:

‘This partnership with Yapily is all about maximising the benefits of open banking technology to enable frictionless user journeys. Manual processes, settlement periods, and bottlenecks in cash flow are all avoidable obstacles. We want to enable our users to focus on what really matters: growing their business and empowering their people.’

Stefano Vaccino, Founder and CEO at Yapily, adds:

‘Partnering with Pleo is an exciting moment in our mission to improve the financial lives of millions of businesses and consumers through open banking. Current market conditions mean that businesses in the UK and across Europe are looking for ways to better manage costs and increase cash flow now more than ever. We’re proud to be lifting some of the burdens for them in the way we know how. I’m very much looking forward to continuing to work with the team at Pleo and helping them meet the evolving needs of their customers as they continue to expand across Europe.’

This is the start of an exciting roadmap for the duo with geographic and product expansion on the horizon. Open banking top-ups for Pleo customers will be rolled out across Europe over the coming months, starting with the Netherlands and France. Pleo will also be looking to leverage a broader range of Yapily’s innovative payments solutions following the launch of its Variable Recurring Payments product in August.