Buy-Now-Pay-Later agency in Australia Openpay has terminated US operations and dismissed most of its staff, Reuters reports. 

The lender is the latest BNPL participant to experience the effects of rising interest rates and a wider economic slowdown, leading it to stop issuing loans in what it had recently called its major growth area.

Openpay blamed its growing losses on investments in an "Americanized" platform. It's leaving after failing to find a US investor. 

It quit the UK market this year after a three-year drive that failed to erode other brands' market dominance. The resignation followed an FCA crackdown on unfair and confusing BNPL contract terms. 

The BNPL industry, a dominant driver in recent years, faces rising interest rates. Klarna is nearing a fundraising round that will reduce its valuation from $45.6 billion to $6.5 billion. 

Another lender, Sezzle, has cut 20% of its US personnel.

Financial process automation experts and certified Peppol Access Point providers for Australia and New Zealand, Valta Technology Group (Valtatech), today announced its Peppol Connector for Coupa Invoice will be available to users in the Coupa App Marketplace, connecting businesses with certified, pre-built solutions to enable them to send and receive e-invoices and e-orders via the Peppol network. Coupa Software (NASDAQ: COUP) has also certified Valtatech’s Peppol Connector for Coupa Invoice for use within its Coupa Business Spend Management (BSM) Platform, the cloud-based platform that empowers companies around the world with the visibility and control they need to make smarter spending decisions.  

The Valtatech Peppol Connector for Coupa Invoice enables Coupa customers to onboard and trade via the Peppol network in as little as three weeks. Peppol e-invoicing saves Coupa customers and their suppliers, time, and money by:

• Removing any manual data entry of invoice data
• Eliminating the risk of email-based invoice fraud
• Enabling automatic workflow of non-PO and PO-matched invoices
• Being available to suppliers of all sizes

Business adoption of Peppol e-invoicing in Australia and New Zealand is a key focus of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Both Governments have taken a series of actions to accelerate the adoption of e-invoicing and encourage more businesses to join the network.

Mark Stockwell, Director of E-invoicing at the Australian Taxation Office, comments: “More than 1.2 billion invoices are exchanged in Australia every year, with around 90 per cent of invoice processing still partly or fully manual. Every time an e-invoice replaces a paper or email invoice, the businesses involved in the transaction can save up to around $20 in cost savings. Businesses of all sizes can benefit from the efficiencies that e-invoicing provides and getting started is easy as more and more finance platforms become e-invoice enabled.”

“The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), in our role as the NZ Peppol Authority, is committed to supporting the adoption and use of e-invoicing by NZ businesses,” says Stu Ross, E-invoicing Adoption Manager. “The common international standards, that Peppol brings, allow different systems to ‘speak’ to each other and means any size business can use e-invoicing. With over 280 million business-to-business invoices exchanged in New Zealand each year, savings to our economy through e-invoicing are estimated to be $4.4 billion over 10 years. The more businesses that send and receive e-invoices, the more we all share in the benefits such as admin time savings and faster payments. So, we really encourage businesses to get started with e-invoicing.”

“Coupa supports the Australian and New Zealand Governments' initiatives to help businesses become more digital. With e-invoicing becoming more commonplace in Australia and New Zealand, the need for Coupa customers to easily and quickly implement a way to receive e-invoices is imperative now,” said Roger Goulart, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Alliances at Coupa. “We’re proud to have Valtatech on the Coupa App Marketplace to give our customers even greater invoice automation options and easily comply with the rapid adoption of Peppol e-invoicing across the region.”

As a certified CoupaLink solution, Valtatech Peppol Connector for Coupa Invoice meets the requirements established by Coupa through its CoupaLink Partner Program and is available in the Coupa App Marketplace. The CoupaLink Partner Program enables software partners to build complementary solutions that easily connect to the Coupa platform. Customers benefit by discovering and connecting solutions to optimize their business spend and reducing business risk while reducing the cost of third-party software integration.

“Connecting our Peppol Connector for Coupa Invoice into the Coupa Business Spend Management Platform gives our customers a streamlined and straightforward way to be enabled to receive Peppol e-invoices and enjoy the benefits that Peppol e-invoicing can drive for businesses across the region, we are excited to be the first Peppol Access Point certified on Coupa’s App Marketplace,” said Jussi Karjalainen, Founder & Managing Partner at Valtatech. “We are proud to be part of the Coupa App Marketplace and a trusted CoupaLink technology partner. We look forward to our relationship with Coupa to further help customers transform, automate and optimise their finance and procurement operations.”

Open banking maturity has soared across Europe over the last 12 months,  according to new research published in Yapily’s annual European open banking league table. 

Combining expertise, knowledge, and experience with data from its open banking platform, Yapily has ranked 18 European countries on a 10-point scale according to the maturity of open banking in each market. The league table is based on a number of criteria, including local regulatory oversight and enforcement, digital readiness of the population, domestic payments infrastructure, bank integrations, presence of third-party providers (TPPs), and API performance and standardisation.

The UK takes the top spot for the second year running, with Germany moving up to 2nd place and Sweden 3rd. 

With significant political support and a pro-innovation regulatory environment, open banking adoption has continued to skyrocket in the UK. There are now 6 million active users and open banking payments are growing 500% YoY, according to the latest statistics from the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE). The UK also boasts the highest number of registered third-party providers in Europe, helping to turbocharge the development of its open banking ecosystem. 

Close behind is Germany, given its strong regulatory supervision and usage of Berlin Group’s API standards, the most prescriptive after those adopted by the UK’s OBIE. The country also makes the final with high payment conversion rates, maturity of local Bank API standards, and rich coverage across all payment types scoring highly.

In third place, Sweden leads some impressive results for the Nordics in this year’s table, with regional regulatory regimes, highly developed digital infrastructures, and a collaborative approach to cross-border payments driving open banking maturity in the region.

However, as the ecosystem continues to evolve at a fast pace, there are a number of challenges and opportunities on the horizon. Improved collaboration between banks, governments, regulators, and TPPs at the local and EU level is needed to address a lack of standardisation and inconsistent levels of regulatory oversight and enforcement.

Stefano Vaccino, Founder and CEO of Yapily, said: “The league table shows that Europe is making significant strides in open banking, but we must continue to press on. We are on the brink of a financial revolution that will help to create better and more accessible financial services for everyone. I’m excited to watch these markets continue to drive innovation and adoption forward as we evolve from open banking towards open finance - and beyond that horizon, open data. ”

Maria Palmieri, Director of Public Policy at Yapily, commented: “Whilst the ecosystem as a whole is moving in the right direction, discrepancies across EU member states could slow the rate of progress. Although the European Commission has proposed to implement an open finance framework by 2024, member states that are still behind in open banking could face a number of interoperability challenges, exacerbating the fragmentation that already exists.

“At the same time, the UK may have retained its position at the top of the leaderboard, but other markets are fast catching up. To stay there, the UK Government must act quickly and decisively to encourage further growth and innovation,” she added.

Zaggle, a profitable SaaS FinTech company and a pioneer in digitizing business spending, has been selected by NPCI and MeitY to showcase its solutions at the 8^th edition of Digital India Week 2022 to be hosted in Gandhinagar, Gujarat from 4-8^th Jul 2022. Out of 50+ entries, NPCI and MeitY hand-picked Zaggle for its innovative and state-of-the-art solutions.

Digital India Week has been inaugurated by the honourable Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi Ji and the theme for this year is ‘Catalyzing New India’s Techade’. Zaggle is showcasing its Lending Solutions for MSMEs and SaaS Products at the event.

Speaking on the development, Mr. Raj N, Founder and Chairman, Zaggle said, “Digital India programme was launched by the Government of India with a vision of transforming India into a knowledge economy and digitally empowered society. We are honoured and humbled to be part of Digital India Week. It is an extremely proud moment for everyone at Zaggle to be part of this journey. Technology has played an important role during the pandemic to build a resilient and connected Indian economy and the startup ecosystem will be a strong pillar of growth for India for years to come. Zaggle has seen a phenomenal growth journey since its inception and we are excited and optimistic to tap the $1 trillion addressable spend management market in India.”

Speaking on the development Mr. Avinash Godkhindi, MD & CEO, Zaggle said, “We are extremely honoured and excited to be a part of the Digital India Week 2022. At Zaggle, our mission is to digitize business spends for corporates, SMEs and Startups to drive growth and unlock value through innovative and automated workflows. To be selected by NPCI & MeitY as one of the few BFSI companies to showcase its solutions is another step that will lead us to achieve our goals and help revolutionize the spend management business in the country.”

Zaggle has had a phenomenal growth journey, starting from a gross transaction value (GTV) of just Rs 4 crore in 2012, to a GTV of about Rs 15,000 crore per annum, today in the $1 trillion addressable Indian spend management market. The company provides its customers with a unique expense management system along with employee rewards and recognition program services. Zaggle has been regularly expanding its product line with an aim to expand the spend management business in the country.

Three in five (60%) UK adults have used embedded finance services as part of the checkout process when shopping online in the past 12 months, according to a new survey from Temenos, the world's leading open platform for composable banking.

The availability of embedded finance services – financial services provided online by non-financial companies - has grown substantially over the past few years. These embedded services include the use of an e-wallet such as PayPal or Google Pay (used by 42% of UK adults in the past 12 months); paying in instalments through a Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solution (17%); rounding up the payment at checkout to donate to a charity or transfer to a personal investment (15%); purchasing insurance when buying a high-value product (13%); and taking out a loan at checkout to cover the cost of expensive items (6%).

Embedded finance services are particularly popular amongst younger generations, with four in five (80%) within the 18-34 age bracket having used one in the past year.

With a high proportion of customers using at least one of these at least once a month and citing appealing features including speed, convenience, security and user-friendliness, the embedded finance market is growing fast, creating new opportunities for banks, specialist fintech lenders, banking-as-a-service providers as well as the merchant brands.

The drivers and implications of embedded finance for banks and the whole banking ecosystem are explored in a Temenos white paper Open Banking and the Rise of Banking as a Service.

Kanika Hope, Chief Strategy Officer, Temenos, commented: "From retailers to airlines, ride-sharing apps and coffee chains, brands are embedding financial services into their online and mobile offerings to increase revenues, increase customer loyalty and gain deeper insights on their customers. The findings in this survey show that the use of these services is starting to gain real momentum, particularly among Gen Z looking for seamless and integrated online experiences in their daily lives. This presents new opportunities for incumbent banks as well as new entrants like the banking-as-a-service providers."

The Temenos survey found that using an e-wallet was the most popular embedded finance service, with 42% of respondents doing so in the last year, rising to 51% for those aged 18-34. Of those who have checked out using an e-wallet, almost three-quarters (72%) do so at least once a month, with speed (66%) and security (40%) viewed by users as the most appealing factors.

Point-of-sale instalment loans, specifically BNPL, are experiencing explosive growth in popularity and value. In 2021, online revenue through BNPL increased by 45% compared to 2019. McKinsey estimates fintechs have diverted up to $10bn in annual revenues away from banks over the past ~24 months with BNPL offerings.​ According to the Temenos survey, over half of UK BNPL users (54%) claim that the fast-to-use nature of BNPL attracts them to the service, the most commonly cited benefit, followed by its user-friendliness (31%), and that they recognize and trust the brand they are interacting with (30%).

However, with inflation and the rising cost of living, affordability and responsible lending are growing concerns, and legislation is imminent in the UK.

Earlier this year, Temenos launched the first AI-driven BNPL service, helping banks create ethically-driven lending programs by providing transparency into automated decisions and matching BNPL customers with appropriate credit offers based on their history. A global payments provider launched its Buy-Now-Pay-Later service on the Temenos Banking Cloud, growing to 22 million loan applications in only nine months.

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

Easyship, tasked with overseeing new business, brand strategy and growing the sales department. Prior to this, he spent four years serving as regional sales manager for Mindbody, with responsibility for growing the UK and EU market and supporting its IPO. The company went on to be acquired by Vista Equity Partners in 2019 for $1.9bn.

He will be tasked with growing SleekFlow’s UK operation, including building the customer pipeline, developing the sales team, and expanding its operations by hiring up to 50 staff in the next three years.  

The latest funding round was led by top-tier New York-based venture capital firm Tiger Global Partners, whose notable investments include Facebook, Bytedance, UiPath, Toast, and Databricks, followed by Transcend Capital and AEF Greater Bay Area Fund, which is managed by Gobi Partners GBA*.  Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund (AEF) participated in last year's SleekFlow’s pre-Series A round. The fresh injection of funds from the Series A round will empower SleekFlow’s strategic market penetration in Southeast Asia, specifically in Singapore and Malaysia, while extending Asia’s success to the UK, Europe, and other emerging markets. SleekFlow will also use this investment on continued product development within fintech and analytics to uncover emerging trends in the one-click checkout process on popular social media platforms across all dimensions, such as centralised product listing and easy in-chat payments, etc.

The SleekFlow platform integrates over 2,500 tools and messaging channels, such as Official WhatsApp Business API, Facebook Messenger and Instagram Business, by utilising the smart routing and targeted automation campaigns to help businesses track and retain potential sales leads from both online and offline avenues. With the newly launched one-click checkout payment feature, businesses can now get paid in chat directly, developing a complete conversion funnel on social for boosting revenue and profits.

From its founding team of three, SleekFlow has now expanded to 60 team members strong across regions including the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The brand has seen a valuation growth of 1200 per cent in the last 12 months and 500 per cent revenue growth. It aims to scale the business internationally, from countries across SEA and Europe. 

Craig Johnson, UK sales director, SleekFlow, comments:

“SleekFlow is an incredible business, and I am excited about the opportunity to work alongside Henson and the team to develop and scale up our UK operation. We have huge plans for this market, supported by a product and services that will revolutionise how organisations operate and communicate through social commerce.”

Henson Tsai, founder of SleekFlow, comments: 

“Craig is the perfect choice to lead our newly launched UK business, bringing with him a huge array of skills and understanding of the local market. Following our highly successful funding round, we have pledged to create many new jobs in the UK market and rapidly expand our operations, offering customers incredible capabilities through our platform.

“People nowadays spend more than 80% of their time on social platforms. It’s already a habit for us to discover products and even buy on social channels directly. The huge social commerce market potential is expected to rise to 3.37 trillion by 2028, so we are excited that SleekFlow is part of this e-commerce revolution. Other than our market expansion to the UK, EU and other thriving social commerce markets, the new fund injection will be invested in advanced product development including detailed buyer journey tracking and analytics which provide invaluable actionable insights for enterprises. With the trust we gained from Tiger Global, Transcend Capital, and AEF Greater Bay Area Fund, SleekFlow strives to be the top social commerce unified hub, merging conversations, product catalogue, payment solutions and order management for businesses to unlock their social commerce power and embrace this unstoppable megatrend.”

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. 

With 14 years of experience at American Express, including roles across Consumer, Commercial and Merchant businesses, Hannah’s expertise will be invaluable in further growing the business’ strong position in the UK. This will include further expanding its customer base, leading and evolving its products, as well as strengthening local strategic partnerships.  

Hannah will lead an almost 6,000-strong colleague base and is passionate about ensuring American Express remains one of the best places to work, thrive and grow a career in the UK. She has championed several Learning and Development initiatives for UK colleagues, including personal coaching, and is a strong advocate for the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion agenda. She was named a Women in Payments UK Rising Star in 2019 and is an active participant of UK Finance, an industry body. 

The appointment comes during a period of strong performance for American Express in the UK, with key business metrics – including new customer acquisition – exceeding pre-pandemic levels. Following the return of travel and in-person events, the business announced a new partnership with The Wilderness Festival, is currently sponsoring the Wimbledon Championships, and Summer Series at Somerset House and is presenting partner for BST Hyde Park which joins, the London Film Festival and other leading events in the UK as part of the American Express Experiences programme offered to Cardmembers. 

Hannah succeeds Charlotte Duerden, who held the post of UK Country Manager for four years and led during a period of record growth and customer retention. Charlotte has now been promoted to the newly-created role of Executive Vice President, Chief International Customer Officer. In this role, Charlotte is responsible for growing relationships with American Expresses commercial and consumer customers internationally including leading the development of best-in-class products and the evolution of customer acquisition and the enhancement of capabilities.                 

Hannah Lewis, Senior Vice President, Head of UK International Card Services and UK Country Manager, comments; “I’m delighted to step into the role as UK Country Manager, particularly at such an exciting time for the business. I look forward to working with our incredible team to continue to expand our customer base and drive growth. I’m also very much looking forward to supporting efforts to ensure our business is an inclusive and welcoming environment for all colleagues in our new flexible working model, Amex Flex, to grow their career.”

Charlotte Duerden, Executive Vice President, Chief International Customer Officer, comments; “Hannah has an exceptional track record at American Express, and will be instrumental in strengthening our current partnerships, expanding our horizons and leveraging the momentum that we’re currently experiencing. Beyond her results, Hannah is also a respected leader, who cares deeply about the development of her team, and will remain a champion for our ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion work.”

American Express recently launched Amex Flex, the company’s new working model for its colleagues, including the almost 6,000 based in the UK, who can choose to work in the office, at home, or take a hybrid approach that combines both.

Mambu, a leading cloud banking platform, today 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 for fintechs along with incumbent financial institutions. Mambu is developing an integration with Visa DPS that will give institutions more flexibility in offering new card products and services to their customers. 

Kevin Trilli, Chief Product Officer at Mambu said: “Customer demand for card services is growing rapidly, whether it is incumbent financial institutions or fintechs. Strategic partnerships and interoperability of service providers offer the best value, choice, and flexibility for clients, whether they are embarking on digital transformation or scaling a new card programme. This is a major step to bringing more simple, transparent and connected services to any company offering financial services. 

“We’re creating an opportunity for our customers to transform, scale and achieve operational excellence with this integration. Institutions can create their unique customer payment card experiences on Mambu, regardless of whether it is a deposit or loan account and get it rapidly to market. They can then leverage the issuer processing capabilities of Visa DPS to deploy new products and solutions for their customers. This partnership will enable our customers to create powerful, digital-first payment solutions and experiences.”

Todd Brockman, SVP, Global Head of Issuing Solutions, at Visa said: “Today’s banking and payment landscape requires agility and an architecture that can easily adapt to the rapid pace of innovation in our industry. We’re excited to bring our modern API-based processing capabilities to Mambu’s growing marketplace of composable payment solutions and believe our collaboration will create tremendous value for our clients and their cardholders.”

The partnership with Visa DPS extends Mambu's product partnerships marketplace. With payment services being a critical part of financial institutions’ offerings, the integration will help increase access and business opportunities across all regions.

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. One of Axerve’s first clients to implement PSD2 Optimize, KIKO Milano, saw an exemption of nearly 99% of orders from Strong Customer Authorization (SCA) using Transaction Risk Analysis (TRA) and a more than 10% increase in approval rates for transactions.

Compliance with the European Union’s PSD2 regulations and SCA requirements has added complexity for merchants, PSD2 Optimize enables merchants to minimize the effect of the European Union’s PSD2 regulations on their Ecommerce by leveraging TRA exemptions to provide a seamless and secure payment experience for legitimate users and low-risk orders and for the use of 3D Secure payments (3DS)* to be applied only when it’s necessary. At a time when eCommerce continues growing, ensuring friction-free solutions is vital to improving the shopping experience for consumers and the collection experience for merchants.

PSD2: the double-edged sword of customer experience

Axerve works with over 100,000 customers globally, and its ultimate goal is to simplify complex checkout processes for its clients while guaranteeing high-security standards. When PSD2 came into force, eCommerce merchants across Europe immediately felt its effect on the customer journey: friction added to the checkout flow caused shoppers to abandon their carts, which negatively affected conversion rates. KIKO, in particular, experienced a high volume of support tickets from customers complaining they couldn’t complete their purchase. With almost 70% of orders challenged by 3DS, accompanied by a high decline rate, they realized they needed a tool to optimize their checkout process and safeguard revenue - while also ensuring full compliance with the regulation.

The Riskified approach: more optimization for less friction

To help merchants overcome the challenges imposed by PSD2, Axerve introduced Riskified PSD2 Optimize as part of its payment processing platform: Axerve Guaranteed Payment. KIKO Milano, a long-time Axerve client, has historically championed investing in new solutions to enhance customer experience and had been looking for a fraud prevention solution to reduce fraud costs and increase conversion rates.

“When PSD2 went live, Axerve notified us that our denied transactions rate was quickly increasing, and our customer care team also alerted us that the number of tickets opened by customers was multiplying four-fold,” said Diego Morgandi, Ecommerce Director at KIKO Milano. “We were glad to hear about Riskified’s solution from Axerve, and we immediately wanted to test it. The benefits from PSD2 Optimize were immediate. We saw a reduction in failed transactions that drove the approval rate up and allowed us to grant our customers a real frictionless checkout experience.  This partnership is key for us to succeed.”

In an environment as complex as the payments ecosystem, flexibility and innovation are fundamental to satisfy the increasing need for protection in the whole payment process while making it as friction-free and seamless as possible while being secure and compliant. Riskified’s solutions help eCommerce merchants safely approve more orders, increase revenue, expand into new markets, and deliver a better customer experience. Thanks to the partnership with Axerve, Ecommerce merchants from various industries in Europe can now enjoy Riskified’s PSD2 Optimize solution to leverage exemptions and ensure a frictionless payment experience for their customers.

“As a partner for our clients in the world of payments, it is our duty to always offer the most innovative solutions that allow us to guarantee our clients the best possible authorization rate,” said Alessandro Bocca CEO of Axerve. “The initial phase of the PSD2 adoption was difficult since the system and the industry were not equipped for the challenge, both in managing the authentication part and also on the issuer side to manage exemptions which led to a high loss in conversions. The challenge of the SCA, and in general of fraud management, has become an opportunity after being able to join forces with Riskified, best in class on fraud prevention.” 

“When PSD2 was introduced, we knew that our merchants and partners needed an immediate solution. They needed to comply with the regulation and implement 3D-secure and at the same time, leverage exemptions in order to improve their customer experience. In order for a merchant to maximize exemptions, they have to perform a transaction risk analysis and identify those low-risk orders. And this is exactly the capability that Riskified possesses as we’ve been perfecting this in the last decade” said Naama Ofek Ard, Chief Operating Officer at Riskified. “At the end of the day, the goal of everyone involved is to provide higher conversion rates to our merchants and a smooth experience for their customers, and this partnership is a testament to our mission and our capabilities.”

Zand, UAE’s first digital bank to provide both retail and corporate services, announced that it has been granted a banking licence from the Central Bank of UAE to become Zand Bank.

The digital bank is now authorised and regulated to operate as a fully independent commercial lender.

Zand’s chairman, Mohamed Alabbar said, “We’re thrilled that Zand has reached another milestone and is now a fully licenced bank. With a UAE banking licence, we look forward to commencing our innovative banking services and contributing to the UAE’s legacy of innovation as well as economic growth.”

Zand is activating its strategic partnerships with regional and international companies to provide its corporate customers with a banking experience underpinned by security, transparency, and convenience. It is also powering up all systems and connections for its personal banking launch phase.

Zand’s co-founder and CEO, Olivier Crespin, added, “We got our banking licence on June 30, and we celebrated by welcoming our first corporate customers. Zand’s corporate offerings will be made available to our customers incrementally. We look forward to revealing our full innovative banking services and expanding them to key sectors of the UAE economy.”

This announcement comes following the formation of Zand’s board of directors earlier this month.