Ecommpay, a leading international payment service provider and UK and European direct bank card acquirer, has been shortlisted at the prestigious Merchant Payment Ecosystem (MPE) Awards in the Best Use of Open Banking for Payments category.

Ecommpay has been nominated for Open Banking Advanced, a proprietary product that exceeds standard account-to-account payment limitations. The solution notably increases checkout conversion rates to 92%+ for existing e-commerce clients and lowers reconciliation and refund times by 60%.

Open Banking offers a faster, simpler and safer way for customers to pay, with the Ecommpay’s solution offering 85%+ coverage of local banks in the EU and UK via a single integration.

Open Banking Advanced by Ecommpay combines pay-ins and payouts, a dedicated sub-account, funds aggregation, payment confirmation and automatic reconciliation. The solution enables easy management of funds from multiple sources, disbursement of payments and transaction tracking, thus meeting complex banking requirements. 

The company has seen growing demand for Open Banking or pay-by-bank payments, which goes hand-in-hand with the goals of online businesses to expand, decrease payment fees and improve efficiency. Ecommpay's turnover has benefited from Open Banking Advanced, with figures showing a notable increase in 2022 and 2023. The average year-on-year growth rate is around 120%.

Head of Financial Partnerships, Arthur Ribakovs, commented: "Ecommpay is thrilled to be nominated for an award by the Merchant Payment Ecosystem, proving that our Open Banking solutions are setting new standards and staying ahead of industry trends. By developing and perfecting innovative in-house built payment solutions such as our Open Banking Advanced, Ecommpay not only addresses the evolving needs of merchants but has also significantly transformed end-user payment experiences."

In a market inundated with financial solutions, Open Banking by Ecommpay stands out as a catalyst for operational efficiency and client satisfaction, and represents a significant shift in payment preferences. 

The company’s unrivalled Open Banking ecosystem contains a full suite of user-centric, secure solutions, each with purpose-built capabilities to address specific business needs:

• Account2Account for small businesses looking to move away from traditional manual bank transfers to modern A2A payments and benefit from Open Banking functionality and features — including time savings via descriptor automation and broadened coverage due to a consistently growing number of bank integrations.

• Open Banking Advanced for medium and large companies requiring extended capabilities, such as diversifying revenue streams and entering new markets.

• Open Banking Select for medium and large companies, featuring integrations with top-tier Open Banking providers, with Token leading the way, as well as Neopay. Merchants with pre-existing partnerships can unify their payment flows by adding their current and preferred Open Banking providers to their existing payment ecosystem, subject to Ecommpay’s rigorous criteria.

Ecommpay’s payment experts will be speaking and exhibiting at the Merchant Payment Ecosystem 2024, Berlin, March 12-14, helping businesses maximise their potential and grow in new markets.

Book a personal consultation at MPE 2024 to reduce time to revenue, banish payment fraud and ensure a best-in-class checkout experience for customers worldwide.

Sapiens International Corporation, a leading global provider of software solutions for the insurance industry, announced today its strategic expansion in the Canadian market, marking a significant milestone in Sapiens’ growth trajectory. With an increased focus on delivering advanced solutions and superior customer service in Canada, Sapiens will strengthen support for existing Canadian customers and expand its reach to new prospects seeking industry-leading SaaS solutions and services across life, property and casualty, and workers’ compensation markets.

Sapiens has been successfully serving leading Canadian insurers for more than 15 years. Sapiens’ strategic decision to expand its Canadian presence even further comes amidst a surge in regional customers, including Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB). Other longtime Sapiens’ customers include Canada’s largest insurance mutual, Beneva; and ivari, a leading individual life insurer.

To ensure seamless expansion and meet the evolving needs of customers, Sapiens intends to increase its workforce in its Ontario offices by onboarding seasoned industry professionals with global domain expertise and technical proficiency. This enhances Sapiens’ capability to deliver innovative, customer-centric solutions and unparalleled support to even more Canadian clients to drive growth in a competitive market and build a strong regional ecosystem.

The expansion in Canada builds upon Sapiens’ proven track record of delivering industry-leading solutions, as evidenced by its partnership with WCB. Sapiens CoreSuite for Workers Compensation, Sapiens DigitalSuite, and Sapiens Intelligence will transform WCB’s core systems, streamline service delivery and enhance operational efficiency. A number of life carriers in Canada are utilizing Sapiens’ digital life solutions, including ApplicationPro, IllustrationPro, UnderwritingPro, and CoreSuite for Life & Annuities to enhance their operational efficiency and improve the overall customer and agent experience.

“With Sapiens’ strong and growing presence in Canada, their expertise and innovative solutions will enable us to meet the evolving needs of our customers, now and in the future,” said Phillip Germain, WCB’s CEO. “Sapiens provides an optimized, integrated platform, coupled with the right people and a proven track record in successful implementations and ongoing support.”

“Sapiens is proud of its strong local foothold and rapidly growing presence in Canada. We are excited to embark on this new chapter of increased expansion and opportunity. With our expanded footprint and augmented capabilities, Sapiens is poised for continued growth and success in the Canadian market,” said Roni Al-Dor, Sapiens President & CEO. “We are steadfast in our commitment to deliver the broadest platform of global best practices and enable outcomes that improve the long-term financial health of our Canadian clients. Sapiens is well-positioned to drive positive change and empower even more insurers across Canada to thrive in an increasingly dynamic and competitive landscape.”

Unlimit, the global fintech company, announced today a global partnership with VTEX, the composable and complete commerce platform for premier brands and retailers to further succeed with integrated global and agile payment service solutions.

Unlimit will provide VTEX’s merchants with more domestic and international payment services to support growing cross-border commerce. This will include processing payments in local currencies, via alternative payment methods (APMs) Pix and Boleto, and a further 15 APMs in the coming months. Now, VTEX brands will have another way to provide their customers with a seamless payment experience without the added operational complexity to succeed in the fast-moving e-commerce industry.

Unlimit and VTEX’s strategic partnership is a further investment in technological innovations that provide more frictionless payment solutions to better shape the future of commerce.  By simply plugging into Unlimit’s platform via the simple API, merchants can accept both domestic and cross-border payments on VTEX's platform. Merchants in the UK, U.S. Africa, LATAM, and APAC now have another way to unlock unrestricted access to the global e-commerce market instantly, optimising Unlimit's local and international acquiring capabilities to increase conversion rates.                                   

“Our partnership allows VTEX merchants to take advantage of the world’s largest in-house proprietary payments platform,” said Irene Skrynova, Chief Customer Officer at Unlimit. “Gone are the days when businesses have to go through middlemen and sign multiple contracts to accept payments globally. And through in-built anti-fraud and risk management capabilities, merchants can settle payments with a settled mind.”

"The checkout process can significantly influence the success of an online purchase. That's why VTEX continually seeks to empower enterprise businesses with tools and integrations that deliver exceptional customer experiences,” said Santiago Naranjo, Chief Revenue Officer at VTEX. "Through our partnership with Unlimit, we're offering brands and retailers more than just the largest proprietary in-house payment solution. We're also delivering the seamless shopping experience their consumers expect, regardless of location or device preference."

Synctera, a leader in embedded banking and finance, announced today that it has raised an $18.6 million extension to its 2021 Series A round, with Lightspeed and Fin Capital co-leading alongside participation from other previous investors NAventures and Diagram. New investors include Banco Popular and Mana Ventures.

“We’ve been very fortunate to be able to meticulously, and opportunistically, raise money on the back of super strong growth to double down on what’s working and accelerate our momentum with enterprise customers,” said Peter Hazlehurst, co-founder and CEO of Synctera.

In March of 2023, Synctera announced a $15 million strategic investment led by NAventures, the corporate venture arm of National Bank of Canada, to expand its offerings into Canada, which was followed by its first Canadian customer launch in December 2023.

After a successful kickoff of its partnership with National Bank of Canada in 2023, NAventures has joined Synctera’s Series A extension.

Joshuah Lebacq of NAventures, who previously led Synctera’s strategic raise to accelerate expansion into Canada, shared today: “We are pleased by the progress we’ve made with Synctera in a relatively short time. We effectively unlocked new core banking and payment capabilities in months rather than years, which now serve as building blocks for long-term success. We knew that it was important to do things the right way, no matter how long it took, but the speed to market we’ve experienced exceeded expectations.” he said.

Synctera’s end-to-end BaaS platform enables companies of all sizes to build and launch FinTech apps and embedded banking products much faster, with the highest level of compliance, and at a significantly lower cost compared to building in-house or with multiple vendors and partners.

Last year, Synctera experienced sizable growth, including scaling ARR 4.5x, growing live customers more than 2x, and a 20x increase of spend on the platform. The company continued its trend of serving larger and more established programs, and serving an ever wider range of unique use cases.

To support Synctera’s 2024 surge, the company has added Leigh Gross as its Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). With over a decade of experience in Fintech, Gross most recently led all sales and go to market at financial innovation platform Array. Prior to that, Gross held leadership posts at end-to-end student loan solution Summer, student lending company CommonBond, and CAN Capital, capital provider to small and medium-sized businesses, in addition to over a decade of experience as a commercial attorney and in media.

One emerging use case for Synctera in 2024 has been international wealth management, a specialty that attracted BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in Latin America. Synctera has partnered with BTG to offer accounts in the US for its LatAm clients. Such an undertaking would have required multiple partnerships or acquisitions and would have involved immense internal build-out were it not for the partnership.

Another new customer that’s fueling growth for Synctera in 2024 is Africa’s leading payments technology company, Flutterwave.

On the partnership, CEO GB Olugbenga shared, “We’re really thrilled to be partnering with Synctera to broaden our offerings in the US. We did a lot of homework and felt that their focused and deep approach to compliance in partnership with their sponsor banks, combined with a flexible platform was the best fit for our needs.”

Synctera continues to support companies based in the US, adding and launching customers such as EXO Freight, Waltz and Firstcard in 2023.

Co-lead on the investment, Fin Capital’s Managing Partner & Founder, Logan Allin shared this on Synctera’s steady, and impressive growth:“Since first investing in June 2021, we’ve been impressed with Synctera’s ability to execute and scale by supporting a broad set of use cases that have pushed the envelope on what embedded banking and finance could become, while remaining grounded in the first principles of compliant banking. Synctera’s early focus on technology, team building, regulatory alignment, and long-term bank relationships has set a solid foundation for continued growth. Fin Capital looks forward to continuing on this journey with Synctera.”

In 2024, Synctera plans to launch payment product SyncteraPay, an offering that allows companies with existing third-party payment provider relationships to leverage the Synctera Platform accounts offering and ledger to process and settle payments, as well as support for FedNow, and expansion into new geographies and client segments.

PayPal Complete Payments launches today for online small businesses in the UK, Canada and across more than 20 European markets. The solution enables small businesses in the UK to accept a range of payments including PayPal, buy now pay later solutions, Apple Pay®, Google Pay™️, credit and debit cards, and alternative payment methods from around the world.

Small businesses face a myriad of challenges from finding new customers and managing cashflow to driving sales. Giving shoppers more choice in how they can pay can help turn prospects into customers and grow sales. A recent Retail Gazette report  found 43 per cent of consumers in the UK are more likely to complete checkout, rather than abandon their cart—if the retailer offers their preferred payment method.

“As a meal delivery service, it’s critical that we focus on more choice and convenience for our customers with the payment options we offer,” said Iain Blackburn, Operations Director at Gold Standard Nutrition, a meal delivery service. “With PayPal Complete Payments, we’ve experienced greater checkout conversions and hardly any chargebacks, which is hugely beneficial to our business.

“We’re bringing our latest innovation to the UK market,” said Vincent Belloc, Managing Director, PayPal UK. “With advanced features, our new solution enables simplicity and helps drive growth for online small businesses. PayPal Complete Payments has so far resulted in an average 4.2 per cent lift in credit and debit card acceptance for merchants in the UK[6], which is meaningful for our customers. Early data demonstrates that it helps boost customer conversions and drive revenue.”

PayPal has integrations with several ecommerce platforms – including Adobe Commerce, Big Commerce and WooCommerce – which make it easier for their customers to quickly take advantage of this new solution.

Securely storing payment methods and simplifying the checkout experience

This new solution enables eligible small businesses to allow their customers to securely store their payment methods in the PayPal vault for future purchases. This provides a seamless shopping experience for consumers, and helps small businesses drive conversions and repeat buyers.

As always – protection is at the foundation

Businesses can sync order and tracking information with a new feature–Package Tracking. For businesses, sharing tracking data with PayPal can mean fewer customer disputes, and a streamlined resolution process that eliminates manual responses, which can reduce costs.

To help keep small businesses secure in an environment where fraud is on the rise, PayPal Complete Payments will continue to offer Fraud Protection, Chargeback Protection, Dispute Management and Seller Protection on eligible transactions.

This solution is available at competitive rates for accepting credit cards and other payment methods online. Small businesses can now choose between flat-rate pricing and flexible pricing, which helps them get paid the full amount up-front and gives them a transparent view into processing costs.

Mastercard with Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) collaborates to develop a payment ecosystem digitization blueprint for the country. The collaboration supports the Central Bank of Jordan’s broader efforts to unlock economic growth through promoting acceptance of digital payments, increasing financial inclusion, and combatting high cash usage.

The Central Bank of Jordan will benefit from Mastercard’s global expertise to accelerate economic and payments digitization and improve acceptance. Mastercard will use its proven approach, which includes a deep analysis of payment flows between businesses, consumers, and the government with a focus on addressing pain points, such as policy and regulation.

This collaboration represents a strategic roadmap guiding businesses and consumers towards a more efficient, secure, and accessible financial future. It paves the way for a more connected economy that fosters innovation, drives inclusion, and fuels economic growth.

“With its extensive expertise in assisting governments in driving digital transformation, MasterCard is one of our partners to develop a national payment digitization blueprint in line with the Economic Modernization Vision as one of the royal initiatives, and in line with the National Strategy for e-Payments in Jordan 2023-2025 that seek to :

• Reach a comprehensive and well-developed digital transformation that supports the provision of services electronically.
• Promote financial inclusion and facilitate and Support the Transformation to a Digital Cashless Economy in the Kingdom.

We plan to have several high-impact initiatives ready for implementation later this year. We expect this to be the start of a long-term collaboration to advance Jordan’s digitization journey,” said His Excellency Dr. Adel Al Sharkas, Governor, Central Bank of Jordan.

“At the heart of every thriving, inclusive economy are interactions between its people, government, and businesses. In this context, Mastercard serves as a trusted partner, technology provider and advisor to governments in the region and beyond. We offer innovative technology solutions, digital platforms and insights that deliver a seamless and secure payment experience to citizens with the aim of building a connected world that works for everyone,” said Adam Jones, Country General Manager, MENA Central, Mastercard.

Currently, most of payments in Jordan are in cash. Economies that are cash-reliant bear significant costs in many forms, such as underreported income, with informal economies accounting for up to 40% of the GDP. Moreover, cash is less secure and can be costly for businesses to handle. Merchants and consumers can both benefit from enhanced financial education on the various benefits they can both reap from the use of digital payments.

IDEX Biometrics and Accomplish Financial, an international payment solution provider, are bringing to market a biometric payment program to help the visually- and memory impaired. The program will first launch in the UK, where a global fintech will bring to market an accessible payment solution for the visually impaired and other customer groups with special needs.

The biometric payment program will accelerate IDEX Pay biometric card launches. This program is a direct response to the European Accessibility Act 2025, the call to action for businesses to be more inclusive, with an imperative to introduce accessible payment solutions. In the UK alone, there are 2 million visually impaired and a growing group of 11 million elderly (65+), as well as more than 1 million suffering from dementia today.

Catharina Eklof, Chief Commercial Officer of IDEX Biometrics says “IDEX Biometrics is committed to bringing trusted biometric authentication solutions to everyone. Our collaboration with Accomplish brings to market a solution that makes it easier and more secure to pay for the visually- and memory impaired, removing the obstacles of remembering PINs and avoiding the issue of “tap code to glass terminals”. Digital inclusion is critical for economic growth and a key priority for all: EU governments, interest organisations and corporations”.

’We are delighted to leverage the advanced technology from IDEX Biometrics for payment cards to help solve real issues faced by a significant portion of the population. Ensuring everyone is included should be a core responsibility of all financial service providers and, in the ever-evolving digital economy, it is sometimes overlooked that certain groups are underserved. Our intention is to continue making it easier yet safer to use a payment card and wish to increase confidence for all users. This project is especially satisfying as it simultaneously encompasses two of our core values: making the world a better place by doing good and offering the payment industry the most innovative products possible’, says Guy Raymond El Khoury, Founder of Accomplish Financial.

Norwegian software vendor Commercial Banking Applications AS (CBA), today announced that Landsbankinn in Iceland is benefitting from the seamless integration of Swift’s Transaction Screening Service (TSS) with CBA’s IBAS GBF - Global Banking Factory – which the bank uses to run its banking operations in payments and trade finance.

The integration with Swift TSS ensures that all incoming and outgoing messages, independent of banking product, are screened in real-time against the most up-to-date sanctions lists during IBAS business processing. Bank users are instantly alerted if anything suspicious is detected.

“We’re using Swift’s TSS functionality as part of our transaction processing within IBAS, to improve alert quality and accuracy in sanction screening and also to reduce the number of false positives being handled by our operations staff,” explained Audur Bjarnadottir, Head of International Payment in Landsbankinn.  “The CBA team has made the integration with Swift TSS very smooth, allowing us to benefit from automatic transaction screening in real-time. This all happens as a workflow during the real-time processing of business events in IBAS GBF. The integration helps us to focus on the quality of all transactions, while delivering efficiency savings and reducing the time spent on manual tasks.”

IBAS GBF enables all message types, including payments, trade finance and other banking transactions, to be scanned in real-time via Swift TSS whether these originate as MT messages, or in ISO-compliant MX or SEPA format. The integration uses REST APIs and the IBAS CLL (call) framework, enabling sanction screening to be automatically executed. IBAS GBF also automates all follow up actions, enabling transactions that pass the screening process to pass straight through, while those identified as potential hits are held and automatically flagged for further investigation.

“By connecting our customers to Swift’s Transaction Screening Service, we’re giving them direct access to a fully-managed and securely-hosted service that is continually updated with the latest sanctions data,” said Rolf Hauge, CEO and founder, CBA. “The ability to halt any suspicious transactions in real time is vital in an age of instant banking. The alternative, for those banks unable to scan transactions in real time as part of their ordinary business processing, can be a lot of manual work in recalling transactions if issues are subsequently found. We’re delighted that Landsbankinn is already benefitting from the efficiencies and quality of using the service and look forward to rolling it out to other IBAS customers in due course.”

The use of ISO 20022 CBPR+ is also expected to deliver significant benefits in reducing false positives.  According to a recent eBook from Swift: Supercharge-your-payments-business-with-iso-20022, in practice, some 5-10% of payments generate an alert and industry figures suggest that of those alerts, 99% are false positives. ISO 20022 CBPR+ addresses the challenge by providing distinct, well-defined data elements in clear structures, as well as including more elements and more space than existing standards.  With a more targeted approach to screening, it’s estimated that financial institutions could reduce false positives by 25-30%.

Viva.com, Europe’s first technology bank for payments powering card acceptance on any device in 24 markets, has announced the launch of Merchant Advance. A new credit solution that will solve critical cashflow issues for thousands of businesses across Europe, helping them invest in growth.

Viva.com’s Merchant Advance offers transparent capital to businesses, based on merchant acquiring data. Loan disbursement is instant, meaning businesses of any size or type can immediately access capital for growth.

Merchant Advance by Viva.com is currently available in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain, with more European countries of operation following soon.

Unlike other capital providers which can force businesses into lengthy application processes, Viva.com’s Merchant Advance leverages merchant’s payment history with Viva.com allowing access to near-instant capital with no fuss. Benefits include:

• Smart Prescoring, based on advanced payments data analysis for each business.
• Near-instant loan disbursement: Fast and easy access to capital.
• Charged with a single, explained fixed fee: No hidden costs, no interest charges.
• Seamless and easy repayment: Flexible automated repayment process via a percentage of daily card sales.
• Adjustable repayment time: Νo late payment fees.
• Fully digital process with no collateral or other commitments.

Merchant Advance is the latest inclusion in Viva.com’s market-leading digital payments bundle, a collection of integrated services that combine to power all businesses across Europe. From acquiring and issuing to business accounts and tailored financing, Viva.com’s solutions help businesses grow without limits.

“Having access to reliable and flexible capital is critically important for growing businesses, but for millions of European merchants it’s a real struggle to find the right solution. Traditional capital providers, and even newer market entrants, have to vet businesses properly, which results in time-consuming processes before any decision is made.

“Viva.com’s Merchant Advance changes the game, allowing our customers instant access to working capital based on smart prescoring. This allows us to offer instant, flexible and transparent capital that they can use to grow without restrictions. Merchant Advance is the latest addition to our product suite, built to solve payment issues for businesses of all shapes and sizes,” said Yannis Larios, Senior VP Strategy & Business Development at Viva.com.

Viva.com’s Merchant Advance is provided through leading financial partners.

Viva.com is Europe’s first technology bank for payments, powering card acceptance across 24 countries and 985+ devices. With an ECB-approved banking license and physical presence in 24 European markets, Viva.com’s Tap on Any Device for in-store payments, Smart Checkout for online payments, and marketplace payment solution, help European businesses of any size to accept and manage payments how they want. All of Viva.com’s technology is built in-house over MS Azure, and is fully scalable, supporting any payment checkout journey.