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.

SaaS Fintech Griffin Secures Additional $15.5 Million in Funding in Quest to Become the Bank Fintechs can Build on

Griffin – a Banking as a Service (BaaS) fintech firm – announces it has raised $15.5 million (£12.5 million) in funding to launch the OS for embedded finance. The round was led by Notion Capital, with participation from existing investor EQT Ventures as well as fintech angels including William Hockey, co-founder of Plaid and founder and co-CEO of Column, Nilan Peiris, VP of Growth at Wise, Rob Straathof, CEO at Liberis and Shane Happach, CEO of Mollie and ex CCO Worldpay.

Lucinity Raises $17 Million in a Series B Funding Round to Provide Banks with Productivity Tools to Fight Financial Crime

Lucinity announced the closing of a $17 million Series B investment round, led by Keen Venture Partners and joined by Experian and its major existing investors, Crowberry Capital, Karma Ventures, and byFounders.Lucinity's mission is to Make Money Good™ through Human AI. By delivering user-centric compliance systems augmented by artificial intelligence (AI), Lucinity has helped various banks and FinTechs increase their compliance productivity by over 50%.

Insurance Startup YuLife Raises $120m

After raising $120 million in a Series C fundraising round led by Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, the UK-based insurance company YuLife is poised for global expansion. YuLife's life insurance product allows policyholders to do ordinary wellness activities to earn YuCoin, which they can use to purchase gifts for themselves, friends, and family, or to better the world by planting trees and donating to charity.

Sonovate Announces £165 Million Securitisation with BNP Paribas and M&G

Sonovate, the leading provider of embedded finance and payment solutions for the contingent workforce, announced that it has completed a new securitisation deal with BNP Paribas and M&G Investments, adding £165 million to its funding structure. The deal is an endorsement of Sonovate's position as a fintech industry leader and reinforces its high-growth trajectory, enabling it to lend over £1.3 billion in invoices this year alone.

SleekFlow Launches in the UK Following $8M Series A Funding Led by Tiger Global

SleekFlow, a leading SaaS omnichannel social commerce platform, has launched its new UK operation following an $8m Series A funding round. The company, which has over 5,000 clients globally, has appointed e-commerce industry specialist Craig Johnson as its UK sales director and opened its doors in Waterloo, London. Craig previously led business development at a shipping e-commerce provider. 

Insurtech Startup Konsileo Raises £4.7M in Series A Funding with Support from Committed Capital and ACF Investors

Konsileo, the commercial insurance broker and risk management adviser, announced the completion of a £4.7 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Growth Tech VC Committed Capital, which first invested in Konsileo in 2018, and which provided £3.23m of the current funding round. New investors include a £900,000 investment from ACF Investors, a UK venture capital fund and angel investors.

TS Imagine, a global leader in trading, portfolio, and risk management solutions for capital markets, today announced strong growth during the first half of 2022, a year after Trading Screen and Imagine Software merged to become TS Imagine.  

The expansion has been accomplished through cross-selling products to existing customers and new client acquisitions. A key aspect of the growth is the market dynamic that prefers multi-asset class trading and investment administration, simplifying front office operations while meeting enterprise-wide best execution and financial control objectives.

Andrew Morgan, President and Chief Revenue Officer of TS Imagine, said: "We are seeing increased demand from sophisticated investors – from multi-strategy hedge funds to global asset managers – for modern, SaaS-based trading and risk software with multi-asset capabilities. Synergies from our merger have accelerated our growth – generating cross-selling opportunities and expanding strategic alliances."

TS Imagine has hired 100 new staff globally in H1 2022, with the majority in development and data science roles.  The hires include several senior hires with decades of experience in capital markets and technology:

• Paul Sweeney, Head of Fixed Income Development: Paul has over 20 years of experience designing and developing financial solutions. He previously worked for IG, UBS, and Credit Suisse. Paul is based in London
• Puiter Kogan, Global Head of Infrastructure: Based in New York. Piuter has over 20 years of experience successfully executing global, mission-critical programs and delivering transformative and innovative technology solutions for companies like Deutsche Bank, CGI and Hewlett-Packard 
• Marina Melnick, Chief Business Development Officer-Eastern Europe: Based in Bulgaria, Marina has a 16-year background in technology and development both as a Founder and in leadership roles at Exigen and Luxoft 
• Thomas Benevento, Product Management Risk / Margin: Thomas is an experienced FinTech professional with a background in capital markets. Thomas previously worked in product and business development roles at Deutsche Bank, PrimeOne and S&P Global, he is based in New York.
• Per Loven, Global Head of Marketing and Alliances: Based in London, Per joined TS Imagine to lead marketing, develop alliances, and support the firm's global growth. He previously held senior roles at Itiviti, Liquidnet, and SimCorp. 

Partnerships 

Marble and Gemini to Offer Cryptocurrency Rewards for Insurance

Marble, the free platform that makes it easy and rewarding to manage all your insurance in one place, announced that they launched an integration with Gemini, a leading cryptocurrency platform, to offer the ability to redeem Marble points (Marbles) for cryptocurrency. Marble members will now be able to cash out their Marbles for Bitcoin and Ethereum via a Gemini account.

Seedrs Selects Form3 and LHV UK For Instant and Faster Payments

Seedrs, the leading private investment platform with over £1.9BN investments to date, has chosen Form3, the leading cloud-native payment technology provider, and LHV UK, a banking services provider to over 200 fintech companies, to enable it to access UK Faster Payments and SEPA Instant Payments in Europe, to augment its customer offering.

Worldline Partners with Fintech manager.one to Offer to Corporate Cardholders a Seamless Experience for Managing their Business Expenses

Worldline, a global leader in payment services, and Fintech manager.one, winner of this year's Worldline’s E-Payments Challenge, signed a  partnership to smartly manage expense policies on corporate cards. The partnership will combine Worldline’s pan-European Card Issuing Processing platform and manager.one expertise in business expense management.

Mambu Enters Strategic Partnership with Visa

Mambu, a leading cloud banking platform, announced a global partnership with Visa in order to utilise Visa DPS – one of the largest processors of Visa debit transactions globally. The partnership will give Mambu customers a seamless connection to Visa DPS for end-to-end card issuing and processing. Both companies recognised the importance of interconnectivity to meet the growing demand of fintechs along with incumbent financial institutions. 

Archax Selects METACO to Expand Institutional Digital Asset Custody Offering

Archax, a global, regulated, digital asset exchange, brokerage and custodian based in London, has selectedMETACO, the market-leading provider of digital asset custody and orchestration technology to global financial institutions, to underpin and expand its institutional custody solutions for digital assets. Archax is deploying its technology on IBM Cloud in order to leverage the confidential computing capabilities of IBM’s digital asset infrastructure.

RSwitch Signs Partnership with EFT to Empower Financial Access in Rwanda

RSwitch, the national e-payment switch of Rwanda, has announced a new partnership with African fintech giant EFT Corporation to enable Rwandans to access their money across all technological platforms. The deal will see RSwitch benefit from EFT’s extensive suite of end-to-end payment solutions, enabling faster transactions between banks, mobile operators and ATMs. 

Chip Enhances the Savings Experience with TrueLayer Payments

TrueLayer, Europe’s leading open banking platform, and innovative wealth-building app Chip, announced their collaboration, delivering an improved customer experience through dramatically faster account payments. Chip offers a variety of options to make saving effortless through an approach that’s tailored to each individual user. 

Klarpay Becomes New Visa Principal Member

Klarpay AG has become a Principal Member of the Visa Network, a world leader in digital payments, to further its mission of democratising global payment, banking, and digital disbursement services for online businesses.Swiss fintech Klarpay AG has signed a global partnership with Visa on becoming a Principal Member of the Visa network – the membership grants Klarpay the ability to access Visa's bank-to-bank cross-border business transactions network, as well as to support direct card issuance.

Riskified Partners with Axerve to Help KIKO Milano Boosting Cart Conversions

Riskified, Ltd., a fraud management platform enabling frictionless E-commerce, and Axerve, a leading Italy-based payments hub that has developed a platform for orchestrating payments worldwide, has launched an extended strategic partnership to offer Riskified’s machine learning solutions, including PSD2 Optimize, to Axerve’s portfolio of customers. 

EasyPark Broadens Customer Offer in New Partnership with UnionPay International

EasyPark introduces a global partnership with UnionPay International card network, the world’s largest cardholder base. UnionPay cardholders can now manage their parking and electric car charging by binding their UnionPay card directly in the EasyPark app. EasyPark now announces UnionPay International as the most recent payment partner to be added to the EasyPark app.

Fintech Radicant and AI Firm Squirro Partner to Bring Deep Insight on Sustainable Investments

Radicant, the first sustainable, digital and collaborative internet-based financial services company which is aligned with the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, is working closely with Squirro. The integration of technology enables radicant to automate decision-making processes and improve customer understanding and service quality.

Financial Platform Tide Partners with Transcorp to Roll-out RuPay Powered Expense Card

Tide, the UK’s leading SME-focused business financial platform that began setting up operations in India in 2020, announced that it has partnered with Transcorp International Limited, a 27-year-old Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulated Authorised Dealer Category II and perpetual Prepaid Payment Instrument (PPI) license holder, to launch co-branded prepaid cards (Tide Expense Card) as an entry product.

Paytrail and Mastercard Empower Millions of Open Banking Payments in the eCommerce Landscape

The largest online payment company in Finland, Paytrail, and Mastercard announced that their collaboration has reached new heights as they’re now enabling more than one million open banking payments every month, led by European open banking leader Aiia, a Mastercard company. Since 2019, Paytrail and Aiia have been collaborating to accelerate open banking-powered payments in the eCommerce checkout flow.

IQ ZoodPay Integration on Switch Payment Gateway

ZoodPay entered into another strategic partnership agreement with Iraq Electronic Gate for Financial Services Company SWITCH®, a leading payment gateway licensed by Mastercard International and Visa International, which facilitates e-payment services across the country. This partnership sees ZoodPay's BNPL enabled for Switch's network of more than 100 online merchants with a web/app presence.

ING, NXP and Samsung join forces for new method of mobile payment

ING and NXP Semiconductors have developed a payment method that involves pointing your mobile phone in the direction of the person you’re paying. The method is called NEAR and was developed by ING Factory, ING’s workshop for technological customer and payment innovations. ING and NXP are collaborating with Samsung to ensure that the payment method is compatible with their devices. 

Launches 

AQRU Trend Launches to Help Retail Investors Beat the Crypto Market while Managing Risk

AQRU plc, an incubator specialising in decentralised finance (DeFi),  announces that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Accru Finance Ltd., has launched AQRU  Trend, a high-return cryptocurrency investment strategy designed to enable retail investors to diversify, capture market upside, limit market downside, and access the competitive returns available in the cryptocurrency market.

Infibeam Avenues Launches CCAvenue Mobile App, World’s Most Advanced Omni-Channel Payment Platform with TapPay

India’s first listed fintech company, Infibeam Avenues Ltd has formally unveiled the CCAvenue Mobile App - The world's most advanced omni-channel payment platform with the revolutionary TapPay solution. CCAvenue TapPay seeks to tap into the Rs 27 billion PoS market in India. The senior officials of the National Payments Council of India (NPCI -the parent entity of RuPay), Visa and MasterCard, as well as financial analysts, banks and industry experts, witnessed the launch of CCAvenue TapPay, on Thursday.

FullCircl Launches HMRC Import & Export Data Extension to Further Boost FSI Due Diligence and Improve Support for Customers Trading Internationally

FullCircl, the Customer Lifecycle Intelligence (CLI) platform that helps B2B companies in financially regulated industries do better business faster, has launched its latest Premium Data Extension (PDE).  The new HMRC Import and Export Data Pack allows users to understand which of their customers are trading internationally – critical for KYC, AML, and continuous due diligence monitoring.

Starling Bank Launches Bills Manager for Small Businesses

Starling Bank is introducing a Bills Manager for small businesses to help business and sole trader account customers streamline their finances. The new feature gives small businesses the ability to have a Direct Debit or standing order taken from money set aside in any of their ‘Savings Spaces’ rather than their main account balance.

PayPoint Launches Next Business Day Settlement

PayPoint announced the launch of a next business day settlement service for PayPoint One customers signing up to integrated card payments with a PayPoint-preferred acquirer. Initially available to new card payment customers for no additional fee, the service will enable retailers to receive funds from any card transactions directly into their nominated bank account the following business day.

Revolut Business Launches Revolut Reader, its First Hardware Device, Moving into In-person Payment Solutions

Revolut, the super-app with over 18 million retail customers globally and more than 500,000 corporate clients, is launching Revolut Reader in the UK and Ireland. A fast and powerful lightweight card reader, the new product is designed to allow merchants of all kinds to accept payments anywhere, whether their business is in-person or on the go.

Merger & Acquisition

WiseTech Global Extends Digital Documentation Offering with Acquisition of Bolero.net Limited

WiseTech Global, a developer of leading cloud-based logistics execution software CargoWise, announced the acquisition of Bolero.net Limited (Bolero) and its subsidiaries, a leading provider of electronic Bills of Lading (eBL) and digital documentation capabilities to facilitate global trade.

Infinigate to Acquire the Nuvias Group, Creating a Pan-European Cyber Security Powerhouse 

Infinigate Group, the pan-European value-added distributor (VAD) of Cyber Security solutions announced the intended acquisition of Nuvias Group’s Cyber Security and Secure Networking business to create a pan-European Cyber Security powerhouse. The merging of the two highly successful businesses establishes Infinigate’s place as a leading VAD focused on Cyber Security in Europe.

Experian Aims to Drive Increased Use of Digital Payslips with Acquisition of PayDashboard

Global information services company, Experian, has announced it is expanding its employer services suite in a move that aims to encourage more organisations to share employee payslips digitally. Through the interactive payslip platform PayDashboard, recently acquired by Experian, employees can better engage with and understand their payslip information, offering HR teams and outsourced payroll service providers greater access to payroll insights through interactive dashboards.

Job Moves

Fintech Unicorn Neon Appoints André Madeira, Coinbase and Google Veteran, to Role of Chief Technology Officer

Neon, a fintech company and digital bank focused on improving the lives of working Brazilians, announced the appointment of André Madeira as the company’s new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Madeira brings extensive knowledge in engineering to the role, along with expertise in building scalable products for the masses from his stints at Google, Snap, and Coinbase.

ICOA Announces Appointment of Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer

ICOA Inc., a publicly-traded Nevada-based company that acquires and operates blockchain-driven ventures, announced its appointment of Jeffrey Coats as Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer. As part of his role, Jeffrey will oversee ICOA’s investor relations and banking relationships, as well as the required financial and corporate activities to position the company for a future NASDAQ up-listing.

Neo-bank Major Niyo Appoints Jagadish B as its Head of Human Resources

Niyo, India’s leading consumer neo-banking platform, has appointed Jagadish B as its Head of Human Resources. Jagadish brings with him 25+ years of leadership experience in people processes. Prior to joining Niyo, he was associated with Thinksynq Solutions Pvt. Ltd as a partner. In the past, he has held HR leadership positions for India’s two leading telecom companies - Vodafone and Bharti Airtel.

Supervisory Board appoints Sabine Mlnarsky as Chief Human Resources Officer of Commerzbank

At its meeting today, the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank appointed Sabine Mlnarsky to the Board of Managing Directors of the Bank with effect from 1 January 2023. She will assume responsibility for the Group Human Resources division. As Chief Human Resources Officer and Labour Relations Director, she is succeeding Sabine Schmittroth, who, in line with her personal life planning, is leaving Commerzbank when her contract expires at the end of 2022.

American Express appoints Hannah Lewis to UK Country Manager

American Express has announced the appointment of Hannah Lewis as UK Country Manager and Senior Vice President, Head of UK for International Card Services which includes the UK consumer and commercial card businesses. She previously held the role of Vice President, Head of UK Consumer Products, Marketing and Brand. 

Pismo Appoints Ross Larter as its New Engineering Director

Pismo, one of the world’s fastest-growing banking and payments Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firms, announces Ross Larter as its new Engineering Director. Based in Bristol, UK, Larter will be responsible for structuring the technical team, expanding the company’s solutions, and supporting processes related to Pismo’s globalisation strategy.

Identity Specialists IDnow Appoint New Vice-President Engineering

IDnow Group, a European leader in identity verification and digital identity, appoints Jean-Marc Guyot as Vice-President of Research and Development (R&D). His main responsibility will be the further unification and development of one joint platform for the European market. Jean-Marc Guyot’s appointment will engage a new dynamic in the R&D department, with the aim of driving best-in-class engineering teams and meeting the group’s ambitions of leading the way in identity verification.

Sentinels Drives UK Expansion with the Appointment of London-Based Chief Commercial Officer

Sentinels, a Fenergo company and Europe’s leading intelligent transaction monitoring platform, has appointedAdrian Jenkins as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), aiding the company’s expansion in the UK – a dominant global financial hub and a hotbed for fintech innovation. London-based Adrian brings more than two decades of B2B enterprise sales and revenue experience to the role.

ID-Pal, the global identity verification provider, today announced a €7 million (£6 million) Series A funding round to further fuel expansion into international markets.

The round was led by Inspire Investments with confidence shared by Act Venture Capital who has now participated in ID-Pal’s last two rounds. Inspire Investments is led by Derek Delaney, CEO of Waystone, and is the private holding company for the management of Waystone.

This new wave of funding will allow the Dublin-based identity verification company to further scale its global sales and marketing efforts to meet the growing demand for the solution following its official UK launch earlier this year.

ID-Pal’s Series A comes off the back of a significant period of growth with both employee and customer count doubling over the past 12 months. The company has achieved significant success internationally in both the SME and enterprise space. Customers include One4all, Zurich, Elavon, Trident Trust, BDO, American National University, and the recent J.P. Morgan-acquired Global Shares. Along with a host of strategic partnerships with market leaders like HID Global, RiskScreen, Sherpa Technologies, Temenos and Vesta, ID-Pal’s funding further seals its reputation as one of the leading identity verification providers operating in the market.

As the need for identity verification expands across jurisdictions and industries, ID-Pal is uniquely positioned to help any business simplify anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance, solving a critical challenge that has long been a costly, inefficient, and manual process.

ID-Pal gives businesses a simple, secure, and convenient way to verify the identity and address of customers. The ISO 27001 certified solution performs document verification, facial matching, liveness testing and address e-verification in real-time. It offers industry-leading accuracy with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance built-in, all while delivering a seamless experience for the end-user.

Colum Lyons, CEO and Founder of ID-Pal, comments:

“Raising €7 million in Series A funding is a milestone achievement for our company and a testament to the product the team has built. ID-Pal identified a clear gap in the market in 2016 that traditional providers were not serving. We designed a solution that brings agility, convenience, and compliance to businesses of any size. Whether you are an SME or enterprise client, our global coverage and seamless user experience stand out from what other providers offer.

The faith in our product shown by Inspire Investments and long-time champions of ID-Pal, Act Venture Capital, signals their confidence in the trajectory that we are on.”

On investing, Derek Delaney of Inspire Investments said:

"I first saw the opportunity in early 2019 and what struck me then was the strength of the CEO and the calibre of the initial team.

We believe a good product is secondary to leadership, but across the first seeding round we saw the product go from strength to strength and by the time the third round came the strength of the product, management and clients were all on a par.

As such, the five Waystone management who have been invested in ID-Pal across multiple rounds felt we could confidently present the full Series A to our colleagues. Something we have never done and would not without this level of certainty. 35 colleagues subscribed and these are all people who understand the AML/KYC world. We look forward to seeing Colum lead this incredible journey".

With exponential adoption of the ID-Pal solution both in the UK and internationally and the global risk of identity fraud, closing the Series A funding round allows the company to continue to expand into new markets and empower more businesses with simple, secure, and convenient identity verification.

ING and NXP Semiconductors have developed a payment method that involves pointing your mobile phone in the direction of the person you’re paying. The method is called NEAR and was developed by ING Factory, ING’s workshop for technological customer and payment innovations. ING and NXP are collaborating with Samsung to ensure that the payment method is compatible with their devices. This first peer-to-peer payment application involves making a payment by holding a phone close to another phone. It means that users no longer need to search for each other’s username, email address or telephone number if, for example, they want to buy something at a jumble sale, put some money in a collection box or split a restaurant bill.

Freedom Finance, one of the UK’s leading digital lending marketplaces, is delighted to announce that Emma Steeley will be joining the company as CEO, starting from today.

Emma will lead the next stage of the company’s exciting growth ambitions following fresh investment and the completion of recent product upgrades to the award-winning digital marketplace. Emma joins from Equifax, where she spent nearly four years as CEO of AccountScore and has spent over 16 years working in senior roles in the consumer finance and fintech sector, consistently delivering growth.

Brian Brodie will move into a newly-created Chairman role to support the transition of leadership and provide ongoing strategic support to Emma and the business.

Pollen Street Capital recently completed a significant new investment in Freedom Finance to continue to develop the business’ embedded marketplace offering.

Freedom Finance partners with over 100 of the UK’s leading lenders and leading service providers to help customers access a range of consumer credit, mortgage and other financial products through its proprietary matching platform.

Over the last few years, the number of customers searching for a loan through Freedom’s marketplace has almost doubled, with revenue and profitability at an all-time high. Registered users increased fourfold through the past year driving the returning customers’ share of the revenue.

Revenue streams are increasingly diversifying as the business’ embedded marketplace is being used by brands such as Argos, Asda, The Co-Op Bank, RAC, Very Group and many more.

Emma Steeley, Chief Executive Officer of Freedom Finance, commented: “I am delighted to be joining Freedom Finance at an exciting, new period of its growth journey and look forward to further strengthening the business’ market position.

“Brian has led the business superbly over the past six years, navigating it through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic and developing it from a traditional broker to a fully-digitised lending platform that is perfectly placed to seize the opportunities ahead.

“The embedded finance revolution only increases the relevance of our services in today’s market. I am eager to build on Brian’s hard work and unlock Freedom Finance’s huge potential with his continued support.”

Brian Brodie, Chairman of Freedom Finance, said: “It has been a privilege to drive forward Freedom Finance’s growth and long-term strategy over the past six years. Following the completion of significant product upgrades and the arrival of further investment, now is the perfect time for new leadership to take the business forward.

“Emma embodies our values of innovation and entrepreneurship and I have no doubt that she will be a great appointment bringing energy and fresh focus. The opportunities that lie ahead of Freedom Finance are hugely exciting and I greatly look forward to supporting Emma as Chairman as we continue to drive innovation in the lending sector.”

After raising $120 million in a Series C fundraising round led by Dai-ichi Life Insurance Company, the UK-based insurance company YuLife is poised for global expansion.

YuLife's life insurance product allows policyholders to do ordinary wellness activities to earn YuCoin, which they can use to purchase gifts for themselves, friends, and family, or to better the world by planting trees and donating to charity.

Over a third of YuLife clients interact with the company on a daily basis, compared to once a year for the average insurer, and 87 per cent of YuLife customers perceive an improvement in their health as a result of having YuLife as their insurer.

The organization now insures over $50 billion for more than 500,000 customers, ranging from small to major businesses.

It will use the funds to expand into new worldwide markets and expand its product line.

Sammy Rubin, CEO of YuLife, explains,

"Unusually for financial services, our offering generates a profound alignment of interests among the insurer, the business, and the individual.

We think that well-being must be holistic, and we are committed to establishing a worldwide financial services brand that can improve the lives of millions of people around the globe.

Fintech Week London (FTWL), a community that highlights and celebrates London's innovative fintech scene, has launched an investigation into fintech valuations and funding.

Despite record levels of investment into fintech companies in 2021, analysis has revealed a sharp decline in 2022 with firms struggling to raise fresh funds, and growing reports of falling valuations, fire sales, staff layoffs and recruitment freezes across the industry.

The FTWL Review into Fintech Funding – the first of its kind – launches in tandem with the start of Fintech Week London’s flagship two-day conference on Monday 11 July in the City of London. The Review will bring together key industry partners, regulators, investors and fintech companies to ensure the fintech industry continues to thrive.

Raf De Kimpe, CEO of Fintech Week London, said: “Of the many topical issues affecting the international fintech space, the recent predicted downturn in VC funding is one that affects the entire ecosystem. Fintechs at all stages of growth and development will feel the impact of changing valuations, slower funding rounds and hesitancy from investors. This will have a knock-on effect on tech development, talent acquisition and retention, and ultimately the flow of innovative financial solutions to the end-user.

“FTWL is not just an important event in the fintech calendar but a community of key and influential industry players working together to drive positive change. We’re uniquely placed to launch an independent review into how the fintech industry has found itself in this position.

“We’re calling on our community to share their thoughts on what we can do to protect the fintech industry. We want to know how the industry can move away from hyper-valuations and unsustainable business models to refocus on financial products and services that improve the world in real-time. How did we get here and how do we move on from this to ensure fintech remains one of the UK’s great success stories.”

Founding partners already signed up to support FTWL Review into Fintech Funding include London Stock Exchange, The Fintech Times, specialist Fintech PR firm SkyParlour and more expected.  

Applications for membership to join the Review’s committee must be submitted by 31 July, with research planned for a final report due to be published in January 2023. An update to the Review will be presented at Fintech Week London 2023 in June next year.