The Payments Association, (previously the Emerging Payments Association, or EPA), which celebrates innovation and collaboration across the payments industry, has today announced the finalists for its 15^th annual PAY360 Awards (previously the Emerging Payments Awards). 

This year the PAY360 awards received a large volume of submissions, from over 30 countries. All 106 finalists demonstrated examples of the highest quality across some of the most important areas of payments, including financial inclusion, open banking and mobile payments.

As the fintech sector continues to grow year on year, with UK fintech investment hitting a substantial $37.3 billion in 2021, the PAY360 Awards recognise companies that have made significant advances in how we transact today. They are the most coveted awards in payments, drawing hundreds of the leading experts from across the industry.

Tony Craddock, director general of The Payments Association, said: “Each year, I am astounded by how far our community is pushing the boundaries, with unprecedented levels of passion. The finalists for the PAY360 Awards are fully deserving of recognition, market leaders in their own right and I am extremely excited for this year’s annual awards ceremony, as it promises to be the biggest showcase of innovation in payments.”

The full shortlist of finalists for 2022, includes:

• Best International Payments, Remittance or use of FX: Vitesse, Banking Circle, Currencycloud, Verto, HSBC, Assure Hedge (UK) Limited
• Best Financial Inclusion Payments Programme: Paycode, Cash Perks, Crown Agents Bank, Safal Fasal by BPC, AGAM International, IDEMIA
• Best Consumer Payments Programme: BPC, PPS / Sprive, Ecospend, Payit by NatWest
• Best B2B Payments Programme: Cora, Banking Circle, Nium, Pleo and Enfuce, Blackhowk Network, BCB Group
• Best Open Banking Initiative: Yapily and Comma, Payit by NatWest, Token.io, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, PrinSIX Technologies Ltd
• Best B2B/B2C Banking Initiative: Toqio & Crealsa, BTG Pactual BCB Group, Klarna, Monneo, Tink & Kivra
• Best Partnership Initiative: Tink & Kivra, Asperato & GoCardless, Guestline, ApTap & TSB Bank, MuchBetter, Netcetera – Software matters
• Best Use of Payments Data or AI in Financial Services: TSYS and Featurespace, Kani Payments, FIS, Banking Circle, Transact365, Optherium Labs
• Most Innovative Mobile or Financial Services Payments Solution: Form3, Curve, Transact Campus Inc., SimplyPayMe Ltd, TreviPay, Pay.UK
• Most Innovative Merchant Services Solution: YouLend, DigitalFlyer, ACI Worldwide, Trust Payments, WIZZIT
• Best Financial Crime Prevention Solution (New): SEON, Featurespace, Salv, Ekata, Vesta Corporation, Nationwide Building Society
• Business Reg Tech Project (New): China Banking Corporation, B3, W2 Global Data, Rivero, Know Your Customer and ConnectPay
• Best Customer Facing Experience: YouLend Revenue, Vyne, Pannovate, ECOMMPAY, Cardstream Limited
• Leading Financial Services or Payments Start-Up: FinScore, StarLix, Arf, Tell Money
• Best Use of Crypto and/or Blockchain in Financial Services: Nexxo, Arf, Wirex, Worldpay from FIS
• Best Direct Account to Account Solution: Payit by NatWest, Vyne, Nuapay, Tietoevry, Contis, Ecospend & MrQ
• Best Lending Initiative: SteadyPay, DivideBuy, Cashplus Bank, Chetwook Financial, Liberis
• Best ESG Initiative in Payments (New): Trust Payments, Klarna, IDEMIA, Starling Bank, PPS / ekko
• Leading Emerging Payments Organisation: Weavr, Marqeta, Trust Payments, PHI COMMERCE PVT LTD, Global Processing Services, 3S Money – A Leading Emerging Payments Organisation
• Best Demonstration of UK Companies Exporting Financial Services (New): Capital on Tap, Codat, Raidiam, PXP Financial, REPX
• Industry Contributor of the Year: The winner will be announced at the Awards Ceremony

The PAY360 Awards celebrate innovation, collaboration and excellence by recognising companies that have made significant advances in how we pay today.

GoHenry, the prepaid debit card and financial education app for kids aged 6-18 has acquired French FinTech Pixpay in a deal that will see the financial education pioneer expand into Europe for the first time.

Ten years after it launched in the UK creating a new category in financial services, this new deal will enable GoHenry to rapidly expand its two million-plus UK and US member base and accelerate growth across Europe as the company seeks to deliver on its mission to make every kid smart with money.

Having more than doubled its revenue during the pandemic to $42M in 2021, the acquisition follows a successful $40 million fundraising in 2020 to accelerate its leadership position in the UK and expansion into the US. Investors include French entrepreneurial growth equity investment fund Revaia, US growth-equity fund Edison Partners, Citi Ventures, and Muse Capital.

In just two years, Pixpay has established itself as the leader in teen banking in France and Spain, with nearly 200,000 members. It's opening in Spain in November 2021, less than two years after its commercial launch in France, embodies its ambition to become a key player in Europe. Pixpay has plans to expand into Italy and Germany later this year. To support its launch, Pixpay has raised more than €11M since April 2019 from the investment fund Global Founders Capital and BPIFrance via its Digital Venture division. 

Alex Zivoder, CEO at GoHenry, comments: “Ten years ago we saw an opportunity to give young people access to the digital economy. Since then we’ve looked to transform financial education for kids, teens and their parents through our groundbreaking financial education app and debit card to help children across the world gain confidence with money and finances. 

“Pixpay is the most developed player in Europe and we’re excited to combine our expertise in financial education to accelerate not only GoHenry’s growth but accelerate the financial fitness of even more kids and teens globally. This deal marks a significant chapter for the future of financial education.” 

Benoit Grassin, CEO at Pixpay, says: “We are delighted to be joining the GoHenry Group as we prepare to accelerate Pixpay’s expansion across Europe. GoHenry’s experience and heritage will only serve to strengthen the already strong proposition offered by Pixpay. We look forward to building a strong, long-term relationship with GoHenry and we are excited about what the future holds.”

GoHenry and Pixpay will continue to operate under their own brands with no change in leadership, headquarters or headcount. The acquisition will instead allow both companies to accelerate their growth by executing synergies in knowledge and resource that will free up funds to reinvest in the financial education of kids and teens.

As part of its commitment to financial education, GoHenry recently launched its first Junior ISA, introduced in-app gamified money lessons, ‘Money Missions’, and continued to champion the importance of financial literacy through its membership of The Centre for Financial Capability. Alongside accountancy firm Wilson Wright, the company also commissioned CBI Economics analysis in March this year calling on the UK Government to work with industry to prioritise financial education from a young age.

Kadmos, the end-to-end salary payments platform for cross-border employers, has raised €29 million in a Series A funding round led by Blossom Capital. The investment round, which follows an €8.3m Seed round in December, also included existing investors' Addition and Atlantic Labs.

The funding follows significant levels of demand for the product. Kadmos is already working with several high-profile shipping companies and has built a robust waitlist ahead of full-scale customer onboarding this summer. This new financing will be used for technology and product development. Kadmos is uniquely positioned to capitalize on the growing global cross-border B2C payment volume projected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2022, involving 169 million migrant workers across the world, according to the UN. 

Revolutionizing the cross-border salary payment process

Kadmos was founded to tackle the severe restrictions placed on the financial freedom of cross-border employees and to use modern financial technology to allow migrant workers to have a streamlined salary experience, just as they would expect working in their home country. Migrant workers have so far received little attention from the recent fintech boom and Kadmos’ mission is to bring the latest financial technology to these underserved communities of workers to help them protect and secure their salaries so they are able to remit their pay home to their families. 

The traditional financial system presents employers with unnecessary complexity when paying salaries across the globe, and often requires employers to pay large fees to simply transfer salary payments. For example, the shipping industry is still dominated by expensive, slow, and untransparent payment processes. Many shipping companies resort to bringing significant amounts of cash on board to pay their employees, which is both costly and insecure. Additionally, seafarers face unfavourable exchange rates and high fees to send money home to their families and often wait days or even weeks to get access to their salaries. 

In the form of seamless and easy-to-use web and mobile apps, Kadmos has developed a secure salary payments platform for shipping companies that enables them to efficiently pay their crews. Kadmos provides seamless integration with the Kadmos web application, where companies can automatically add their employees through an API connection to various crewing software. 

Restoring financial freedoms to migrant workers 

Kadmos provides each employee with access to the mobile app, where salary payments are instantly paid and which allows employees to transfer money home or use a debit card to spend or withdraw cash seamlessly. Digitalizing the payment process means the funds can be kept in secure currencies within the Kadmos app, ensuring low transaction fees and market-leading foreign exchange rates. This ensures workers keep more of their salary when they send money home. These benefits have a knock-on effect for employers as they can better attract and retain employees by using an efficient payment process like Kadmos.

Kadmos was founded in February 2021 by MIT graduates Justus Schmueser and Sasha Makarovych. Schmueser had previously managed corporate finance at McKinsey, while Makarovych built and led data science teams in the video games industry. The pair created Kadmos after a relative of Makarovych’s, who worked as a seafarer, told him of the complexity and hardship involved in getting paid. Following further research, they realized the immense need for fintech solutions designed for the shipping industry. The team quickly grew with key hires including experts in product and engineering with Sergio Lopez from fintech startup Moss and Philipp Decurtins from global tech consultancy Capgemini. By joining together expertise in both financial services and technology, Kadmos is perfectly placed to develop the category-defining fintech product for migrant workers. 

Having now proved the success of its initial product in the shipping industry, Kadmos is looking to use the new round of investment to significantly grow its 30-person team and further invest in its technology and product. This includes the prospect of offering additional financial services to its users. Kadmos will also expand into other industries with similar salary payment complexities such as construction, healthcare, and hospitality. Through this, Kadmos is on a mission to transform the way millions of people across the globe, who are underbanked and underserved, access financial services.

Justus Schmueser, Kadmos co-founder said: “The financial restrictions placed on migrant workers are truly shocking. Employees need to wait days or weeks for their hard-earned salaries to reach their families and are then forced into paying exorbitant transaction fees or have to carry large sums of cash at their own risk. At Kadmos, we are working to change the status quo through cutting-edge financial technology and ensuring the hard-working people who power the global economy can keep more of their well-deserved salaries. The speed and size of our latest funding round underline the potential for our platform and we’re honored to partner with such a reputable and prestigious venture fund in Blossom.”

Sasha Makarovych, Kadmos co-founder said: “At Kadmos, our mission is simple, to make being paid internationally as easy as being paid domestically. In an ever-globalized world, it's criminal that it is so difficult for cross-border employers and their employees to pay and be paid. We’ve been taken aback by the level of demand for our product, particularly as geopolitical crises continue to cause issues around cross-border payments. To have Blossom’s support will mean that we can continue to rapidly expand our team and the product.”

Alex Lim, Managing Partner of Blossom Capital said: “From the moment we met Justus and Sasha we couldn’t help but be drawn to their scale of ambition and drive. With outdated banking practices and multiple intermediaries that charge excessive fees, it’s clear that the process for cross-border payments is broken and Kadmos’ fintech platform is exactly the technology to fix it. 2022 looks set to be an exciting year for the team as they look to grow the product into new verticals and we’re delighted to be joining them on this journey.”

Bybit, one of the world's fastest-growing crypto exchanges, will list SLG, the governance token of Land of Conquest, on Bybit Launchpad 2.0.

Land of Conquest is an upcoming play-to-earn Massive Multiplayer Online Simulated Life Game (MMOSLG) developed by a team with over ten years of game development experience. Thousands of players will interact and play the game together in a variety of semi-realistic ways as an MMO simulated life game. The game takes place in an apocalyptic wasteland where players can build their own bases, produce goods, train heroes, and battle other players' characters as well as hostile NPCs. SLG, the game's native token, can be obtained through in-game and on-chain transactions.

Bybit will host the initial exchange offering for SLG, which will be available on the Bybit Launchpad 2.0, a freshly revamped platform for groundbreaking blockchain projects, with the full spot listing scheduled for July 19.

SLG joins a list of web3 initiatives debuting on Bybit's intuitive platform for promising crypto projects. Bybit Launchpad 2.0 gives users early access to some of the most sought-after tokens in the space. Bybit users can commit BIT to subscribe to token allocations or participate in Launchpad 2.0's new lottery model where users stake a nominal amount of Tether (USDT) for the chance to win allocations of new tokens. Users can also buy the best-performing tokens from previous listings via Launchpad.

Lead investors in Land of Conquest include Mirana Ventures, PopFun, CCV, C2, and New Start Ventures. The game is expected to launch in the fourth quarter of 2022 while the native token, SLG, will debut exclusively on Bybit.

The Bybit NFT Marketplace will also collaborate with Land of Conquest to launch its first NFT mystery box on July 15. NFTs play an important part in Land of Conquest, being used to represent multiple important in-game assets including land, heroes, and mechs, which provide bonuses used to strengthen the players' fortresses.

Minna Technologies, the embedded subscription management solution, announced today at Fintech Week London that it is expanding to support the fintech ecosystem as the industry seeks to tackle the cost of living crisis in the UK. Empowered by open banking, Minna seeks to give consumers the ability to manage subscription spending wherever they are managing their money, expanding to Neobanks, PFMs and Wealthtech alongside Retail Banks. 

May 2022 saw the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) 9.1% higher than the year prior. Food inflation is at a 13-year high with UK domestic gas prices increasing by 95% and domestic electricity prices by 54%. According to new research from the consumer group Which? more than 2 million households have missed a bill payment every month this year as people struggle to keep their heads above the water in the relentless cost of living crisis and consumers are going back to the whiteboard to investigate their spending. Six in 10 consumers said they had to make an adjustment – such as cutting back on essentials or dipping into savings – to cover essential spending.

Minna provides a frictionless subscription management solution within banking and fintech apps to help customers cancel unwanted subscriptions, as well as accept discount offers, pause, or change payment details, helping them to personalize how they pay for services, optimize subscription usage, and drive more conscientious consumption habits. Today, the average consumer has 11 subscriptions with over 20 per household. 

James Bryce Lind, Head of Strategic Development at Minna Technologies notes: “Currently powering nine retail banks across Europe, including Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland in the UK, Minna seeks to widen our support for consumers by empowering them to manage their subscriptions within their Fintech solutions as well. Today, 79% of UK consumers use fintech apps for banking and to pay for goods and services, with 99% of Gen-Z and 98% of millennials using a mobile banking app for everyday banking. Consumers want transparency in their spending in a consolidated and holistic view but moreover, they want the ability to take action within their banking app without having to pick up the phone. We are encouraged by the speed with which the fintech ecosystem is moving to support UK households with choice and control to combat subscription fatigue, driving centralized and personalized offerings.”

Eloise Taysom, Product Officer at Bud notes: “Open Banking’s made information more accessible for organizations looking to help people navigate their financial lives and take informed action towards financial wellbeing. What many of these organizations find when they start on this journey is that, in reality, building more efficient, personalized services depends not just on having the data, but on being able to actually find useful information and insights about a person’s financial life from a tangled web of data points. This transactional intelligence is what’s driving a revolution that takes consumers from insight to action.”

Jan Van Vonnen - Head of Industry Strategy at Tink notes: ‘‘With the cost of living crisis, regulators including the FCA have called upon the financial industry to protect vulnerable consumers through this period. The promise of open banking has always been that of increased innovation, more choice, and transparency on costs.  By offering better financial understanding, control and advice the industry is helping to eradicate financial anxiety, drive improved financial health and help consumers make informed financial decisions. 

OneID® announced it has been named a DocuSign partner. The partnership means OneID® can provide government-certified identity verification to DocuSign eSignature, the company’s leading esignature solution, with a simple customer journey.

OneID® can authenticate the identity of all online banking users which equates to over 40 million UK citizens, a figure which is steadily increasing. OneID®’s technology provides an enhanced layer of protection to electronic signing to help corroborate the identity of signatories of important documentation to protect companies and their clients. As the number of companies working remotely increases, it is more important than ever to ensure that all e-signing processes are secure.

DocuSign cares passionately that its service is secure, and customers can use eSignature for customers to use with confidence. The company follows a compliance process to keep documents and electronic signatures safe. It also employs the latest technology and industry knowledge to keep customers safe from fraud and attackers. By integrating OneID® into the process there is a further layer of robust protection for DocuSign eSignature users.

Secure Signing

With DocuSign eSignature, users can securely send and sign documents from almost anywhere in the world, with current customers including LinkedIn, AstraZeneca, and Unilever. Their most recent integration with OneID® into their customer journey will boost already strong safety measures for their UK users.

OneID® enables individuals to verify their identity quickly and effectively in a way that is secure and provides bank-verified data. It requires no registration process, does not store any personal data, and removes the need for scanning passports or taking selfies to authenticate your identity online.

Trust is at our core in OneID® and we have initiated programmes addressing the issues of purchasing restricted goods by underage buyers, reducing fraud, and preventing social media abuse. Now, alongside DocuSign, we are proud to be enhancing safety measures for eSignatures on important documentation to protect consumers and businesses from impersonation fraud and scams. 

Who is OneID®?

OneID® is a government-certified, UK-based identity tech company that makes it easier for people to prove who they are online by accessing bank verified and secured data. This ground-breaking technology can authenticate the identity of all users of online baking, which is over 40 million people in the, UK in a way that is secure, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and certified to DCMS Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework. OneID®’s products have already appealed to a wide range of businesses in the UK. 

OneID® was launched in 2019 and was founded with a strong social purpose to create trust online. It aims to be the first privately funded public utility and is dedicated to having a positive social impact which is visible through its commitment as a certified B-Corporation. The technology they have developed does not store or exploit personal data but enables businesses and consumers to access bank verified and secured data to operate safely when online.

So why Secure e-Signing?

Fraud is rapidly increasing around the globe and the fraudsters are continuously looking for alternative ways of defrauding companies and individuals. When physically signing a document, organizations can perform identity checks in-person to ensure the signer is who they say they are. But when you move into the online world this is not possible. We sign documents for some of our most important company and individual reasons from a new contract award with a company, to a new job or buying a house. All these use cases could be vulnerable to fraud. How do we know the person on the end of the email address we have just sent that important contract to, is who they say they are?

This is where DocuSign Identify and OneID® come in. This integration ensures that when an individual signs a document you know they are who they say they are even before they can access any information contained in the document, without building in additional checks and friction of digitized identity documentation which can of course be forged. The check is simple and takes seconds, ensuring you know with certainty that the signer is who they say they are. 

Conclusions

Electronic signing is now commonplace but is still vulnerable to fraud. Digital identities allow companies to know with certainty who is signing a document online and prevent the potential of fraudulent identities. The OneID® process is simple, available to all users of online banking which is over 40 million people in the UK and can be done in seconds, giving organisations the peace of mind that their important documents are signed by the person they expected. 

Kerv, the next-generation, customer-first cloud & digital transformation services provider, has today announced the acquisition of the Communications Compliance Practice business of TDS Global Holdings, to significantly enhance its capabilities in FCA regulated compliance services. The acquisition will take the total Kerv business to over £60m turnover and more than 500 staff and create the leading compliance technology practice serving the UK’s Tier 1 banking and financial services sector.

The rebranded Kerv Communications Compliance Practice provides mission-critical communications compliance services to major global financial services organisations including 50% of the Tier 1 UK banks with 140,000 channels of compliance recording and more than 3 billion captured calls under management globally.

The business employs 40 staff based in Europe, Asia and North America with headquarters in London and a 24-hour global service operations centre in Cardiff. With annual turnover exceeding £10 million, the Practice is continuing to win new customers at pace, achieving a growth rate of 20% in the last financial year and forecasting to exceed that growth in the current period.

The acquisition will strengthen Kerv's existing proposition and capabilities around all aspects of compliance. The existing leadership of the Communications Compliance Practice, including CEO Brad Gorton, and Head of Strategy Paul Wilson, will join Kerv in senior roles, working closely alongside the management team at Kerv Collaborate, which already has a strong presence in the banking and financial services market. In addition, Kerv plans to retain all staff in the Practice and will continue to invest in the business to build on its growth trajectory and global presence.

The Communications Compliance Practice brings key core technology capabilities to Kerv and is a top-tier partner for the leading global compliance vendors including Verint (winning both European Compliance Partner of the Year and Deal of the Year awards) and NICE.   The Practice enables its clients to ensure and assure compliance across all channels, including mobile, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Symphony together with social media and messaging platforms, all delivered as a cloud manged service.

“Across all Kerv's practices we have a strong focus on helping our customers transform their business by migrating to and then transforming in the cloud. As we approach our second anniversary, this acquisition is another significant milestone in the development of the group,” commented Kerv Executive Chair, Alastair Mills. “With the compliance world relatively slow to migrate to the cloud compared to other sectors, this is a transformation that is now happening at pace and Kerv is well placed to capitalise on this significant market trend.”

Managing Director of the new Kerv Communications Compliance Practice, Brad Gorton, added: “We’re so excited to be joining the team at Kerv for the next stage of our journey. The opportunity to build on our global cloud capabilities, to extend our digital services and to accelerate investment in our automation, monitoring and proprietary technology by leveraging Kerv’s capabilities is fantastic for us and our customers. Bringing the rest of the Kerv group’s portfolio to our customers and providing our compliance expertise to the Kerv client base will help us accelerate our own growth even further.”

Amid a reported downturn in the fintech sector, Plug-and-Play Finance provider, Weavr, is finding no drop in demand for its solutions and is continuing to forecast rapid growth.

Less than six months on from its $40m Series A announcement, Weavr continues to go from strength to strength. The company’s enduring success further underlines the substantial demand for easy-to-deploy embedded finance across a myriad of sectors. Despite economic uncertainty plaguing other areas of fintech, embedded finance remains a field that businesses and venture capitalists want to invest in.

The performance of Weavr in the past few months serves to highlight this trend. Since the beginning of 2022, the company has doubled its total employee headcount, while achieving similar levels of growth among its customer base. Because of this expansion, the Plug-and-Play Finance provider’s platform is now processing more than four times the volume of transactions than it did at the start of the year.

The rapid growth of Weavr highlights the immense value that digital businesses are attributing to its innovative product offering. The company’s technology is disrupting the banking-as-a-service sector by creating new and more efficient ways for digital businesses to provide financial services within their applications.

With improved access to embedded finance, digital businesses have an opportunity to offer more joined-up solutions to their customers, increasing customer stickiness and catalysing future growth. In light of a recent, but the pronounced downturn in the global economy, all these factors are now more important than ever before.

As a result, Weavr continues to make great inroads with innovative solution builders across industries such as health and wellness, education, and real estate. Now, the company is setting its sights on further uses for embedded finance, including B2B payments, the creator economy, and employee benefits and expense management. 

With the help of its momentous Series A investment, which was led by Tiger Global, alongside other leading venture capital partners, including Mubadala, LocalGlobe, Headline, QED, Anthemis and Seedcamp, Weavr is also continuing to expand its team. Since the beginning of the year, the company has doubled its total employee headcount, now employing more than 80 people with the hiring process underway across a further ten new positions.

Notably, Weavr is scaling its operations team to support the increased number of digital businesses that now deploy its solutions. In the past few months, the business has demonstrated its immense ability to improve performance levels within some of the aforementioned industries. One such example is the company’s success in improving worker finance, perhaps best highlighted through its partnership with MONET, a business and finance app built for creators to help them smoothen cash flow.

Alongside notable customer announcements and impressive company growth, Weavr continues to grow its operations across the globe. In recent weeks, the company has officially launched its operations in Portugal, as part of its efforts to further establish the Weavr brand within mainland Europe. This exciting development was kicked off with a successful industry event held on 23 June in Lisbon.

Speaking on the company’s continued momentum in 2022, Daniel Greiller, Chief Commercial Officer at Weavr commented: “We set ourselves incredibly ambitious growth plans at the start of the year, and despite a challenging business environment our performance remains strong. The past few months have underlined the immense demand for our Plug-and-Play Finance solution. Our solution provides entrepreneurs with new freedoms to create innovative products and products that businesses and consumers want. That’s why in the coming months we plan to continue pushing forward at speed. We currently have several exciting projects, announcements, and product updates in the pipeline that our customers will love.”

Weavr’s success has not gone unnoticed by the broader fintech and tech community, with the company recently nominated for ‘Fintech Startup of the Year’ at the Fintech Awards London.