Wirex, a leading digital payments platform, revealed today a variety of features for new and existing customers in the UK. Following constructive dialogue with UK regulators, the Financial Conduct Authority, the company has announced that they will be resuming services in the UK.

Founded with the goal to help users make the most out of their money, Wirex is an innovative payments platform that gives customers the ability to buy, hold, exchange and sell multiple different currencies from a centralised, intuitive app. With over 5 million customers worldwide, Wirex is now set to bring a variety of upgraded and innovative products to the UK market. 

New UK users will now be able to order Wirex’s Mastercard debit card, which allows holders to seamlessly spend a variety of currencies at over 81 million locations worldwide. Additionally, all UK users will now have access to increased daily top-up and spending limits, exclusive OTC exchange rates, and zero fees on FX and transfers to contacts. 

Pavel Matveev, CEO and Co-Founder of Wirex expressed his support for the decision. “As we work towards financial inclusion, it’s vital to collaborate with industry regulators to ensure security and transparency for all users. We're grateful to have worked alongside the FCA as we proactively contribute towards building a stable and innovative environment for fintech companies operating in the UK. We’re delighted that users will not only have access to Wirex’s arsenal of industry-leading products, but also the knowledge that we’re operating with the best practices for our users and that we’re leading by example in the fintech sector.”

In the coming weeks, the company plans to add to their UK product offering by launching Faster Payments in the Wirex app as well as expanding account functionalities for GBP holders with the integration of account numbers and sort codes.

Agiloft, a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contract Life Cycle Management (CLM), today announced enhancements to its Connected Experience Platform, which provides unparalleled integration capabilities that allow users to manage contracts in the tools they already use, flow data into where it’s needed to power better business decisions, and easily connect to centralized enterprise governance systems. Key to Agiloft’s newly enhanced CEP is its new Integration Hub powered by Workato, the first Workato integration to be embedded within a CLM, removing the friction of sourcing, onboarding a new platform, and allowing the intelligence of contract data to flow freely throughout an organization.

CLM: White Hot Legal Tech

“The legal tech space is white-hot because we’ve reached a CLM tipping point as enterprises worldwide have realized the power of CLM to drive an average revenue increase of 9.2% a year–increasingly critical in the face of a slowing global economy,” said CLM Futurist and Agiloft Chief Product Officer Andy Wishart. “However, the key to truly unlocking the power of CLM is the integration with other systems. Our newly enhanced Connected Experience Platform sets a new bar in the market in its ability to deliver industry-leading manageability, data flow, and connection with corporate governance systems.”

Wishart outlined the company’s three-pronged integration strategy for the platform, to ensure customers can turn to Agiloft to get the most power and efficiency out of their CLM:

1. Work where employees work: 
   • In 2022, employees want to work with the tools they’re most familiar, with and not have to sign into separate systems. Whether they’re in legal, procurement, sales, or marketing–Agiloft allows employees to manage contracts in the tools they already use–not tools that only manage contracts. It’s more intuitive for everyone and dovetails into existing workstreams, enhancing productivity and driving out the complexity to have to use another system.
2. Data where users need it:
   • Agiloft’s new Integration Hub with Workato is seamlessly integrated into its CLM software–right in the UI. Business and IT teams no longer have to go win the budget and complete the implementation and onboarding phase for a separate tool–only to then have to toggle back and forth between user interfaces. With the Integration Hub, the barrier to flowing data formerly locked in contracts throughout the organization is gone. Users are free to experiment and learn how to best share and use that data to better empower business results in various departments in the tools they already use. Hundreds, not handfuls of business apps are easily connected to handle endless use cases from onboarding new employees to streamlining purchase orders to expediting customer entitlements.
3. Integrate with centralized integration platforms to ensure strong governance:
   • Many mature enterprise organizations centralize data integrations for all SaaS applications. This may be driven by a need to ensure consistency in tooling, or provide a standardized approach to data flow, or to have a strong and centralized governance process for enterprise data. Whatever the reason, with Agiloft’s Connected Experience Platform, users can rest assured they can easily integrate with their organization’s centralized integration platform of choice.

“We’re excited about Agiloft’s seamless integration into their UI–which puts them at the forefront of the CLM software industry,” said Gautham Viswanathan, co-founder and CPO at Workato. “Agiloft is pushing the boundaries of what it means to integrate automation practices into the new Integration Hub powered by Workato. By making it easy for users to send their contract data to more than 400 applications without having to toggle between interfaces, Agiloft is creating a more efficient and seamless future through automation.”

In a global study of enterprise buyers on CLM, the No. 2 most important CLM software demand, next only to value for the price, was seamless integration with other non-CLM tools, data, and systems. * “We could not be more excited to meet that market demand with our enhanced capability to easily let data sluice throughout organizations where it can truly help the businesses grow,” Wishart said. “With Agiloft, customers can be confident they are choosing the most integrated CLM on the market.”

Matt Parker, former Partner & Chief Financial Officer of New  York-based venture capital firm Greycroft, has joined circular economy-focused investment and innovation firm Closed Loop Partners as Chief Financial Officer & Managing Director. Matt will manage the financial operations of Closed Loop Partners’ asset management business as well as the firm’s innovation hub, the Center for the Circular Economy. 

Prior to joining Closed Loop Partners, Matt managed finance, legal and operations at Greycroft,  a seed-to-growth venture capital firm, for eight years. During his time at Greycroft, he scaled the firm’s infrastructure from $600 million of capital raised to over $2 billion, with over 200  investments under management. His time at Greycroft is preceded by a notable career in strategic and operational financial management and alternative asset investing. 

“Investment and innovation are critical pieces to building closed-loop systems, and Closed Loop  Partners has been a pioneer in accelerating the transition to the circular economy,” says Parker.  “I am thrilled to join the entire Closed Loop Partners team and look forward to combining my  finance and investment experience with the firm’s deep sector expertise.” 

“Closed Loop Partners is at a key moment of growth as the circular economy becomes a top priority for investors and corporations working to meet climate goals,” says Ron Gonen, Founder  & CEO of Closed Loop Partners. “With the circular economy driving a $4.5 trillion capital shift  by 2030 globally, we are thrilled to have Matt join the Closed Loop Partners team to advance our  firm’s strategic growth and capital optimization.”  

The firm’s investments align capitalism with positive social and environmental impact by reducing waste and greenhouse gas emissions via materials innovation, advanced recycling technologies, supply chain optimization and landfill diversion. To date, the firm has made over  60 investments in solutions advancing circularity, which has led to 6.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions avoided and 3.6 million tons of materials kept in circulation. 

Cuentas, Inc., a leading fintech provider of mobile financial apps and payment solutions, is expanding internationally. The company will commence global operations in Mexico with Cuentas LATAM and a headquarters in Mexico City. Consumers in Mexico will be able to start requesting funds via Cuentas LATAM later this year from Cuentas USA Mobile App. Current customers in the United States are able to send money from Cuentas App and pick up the funds at any Western Union locations in Mexico using the Cuentas ecosystem.

“Globally, around 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked,” says Arik Maimon, founder and Executive Chairman of Cuentas. “In Latin America, less than half of the population has access to financial products. With borderless services, Cuentas and Cuentas LATAM provide comprehensive banking solutions for remittance customers and underserved populations around the world,” he continued. “It’s difficult to overstate the dramatic impact this will have on working immigrants and their families.”

Hardbacon, a personal finance application used by more than 39,000 Canadians, announced today a new relationship with home insurance provider Square One introducing a better way for Hardbacon users to shop for home insurance in Western Canada.

As part of the partnership, Hardbacon’s home insurance comparison tool can now be used by Canadians in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, to shop and compare home insurance to secure the best deals and packages for their unique needs.

The relationship with Square One will allow Hardbacon to reach more Canadians than ever and solidifies its commitment to helping those in Western Canada shop for the best financial products. Currently, more than 55% of the traffic at Hardbacon.ca comes from outside of Quebec, which users regularly visit to compare everything from credit cards and bank accounts to insurance and online brokers.

“We are very excited to collaborate with a strong partner in Western Canada, like Square One, to further support our users across the country,” said Hardbacon CEO, Julien Brault. “Now more than ever, Canadians are looking to save and we are making it easier than ever to save on home insurance.”

The move comes on the heels of an equity crowdfunding round launched by Hardbacon last month, via the FrontFundr portal. The bulk of the proceeds of this round will be used to fuel company growth. Since its founding, Hardbacon's total financing has reached more than $2.8 million.

Launched in 2011, Square One was started by a team of experienced professionals who, after years of working in the insurance industry, recognized that traditional home insurance wasn’t meeting the needs of most consumers. Today, it offers the only home insurance policy in Canada where customers can customize their policy, choosing to only pay for the coverage they actually need.

“The home insurance industry hasn’t changed since the 1970s, but working with companies like Hardbacon we’re able to meet the needs of today’s consumers,” said Daniel Mirkovic, President at Square One. “We’re excited to work together and continue to offer a better home insurance experience across Canada.”

Jscrambler, a technology company specialising in cybersecurity products for web and mobile applications, today announced a new report: ‘The State of Application Security in UK Banking’. Analysing a sample of banks and fintechs from the UK, Jscrambler’s dedicated research team have focussed on the security of the source code of each bank or fintech’s applications and analysed their exposure to third-party risk and software supply chain attacks.

Attacks such as phishing, ransomware, malware and banking trojans have been gaining momentum globally, resulting in the theft of user data and disruption of operations. In parallel, Fintechs have been enjoying very rapid growth. With competition between players in the banking industry quickly mounting, development teams had to cut time to market, which inherently increases the chance of security weaknesses being introduced into the web and mobile apps they develop. Ultimately, consumers are left at risk, and companies face regulatory, financial and reputational risks.

Specifically, for each of these apps and websites, tests were performed with two different methodologies: an analysis of the existence of JavaScript source code protection techniques and an analysis of all scripts present on the website that come from third parties, as well as the behaviour of these scripts.

The key findings include:

• 55% of apps do not obfuscate the JavaScript code - leaving it exposed on the client-side and opening the door to attacks.

• 40% of those that do use obfuscation are using very weak protection, with little resilience - attackers can easily reverse this by means of a de-obfuscator.

• 18% use anti-debugging protection at runtime - the vast majority of UK banking websites are not impeding threat actors from experimenting with the source code at runtime.

• 23 external domains (on average) receive data from banking apps - often, security teams are not aware that their applications are sending data to so many external domains. 

"When you have a system with hundreds of critical moving parts that are sourced and maintained by dozens of vendors, third-party risk cannot be ignored,” said Pedro Fortuna, Jscrambler co-founder and CTO. “Protecting JavaScript code against attacks is essential, especially when you consider the risk posed to consumers and their data, as well as the financial and reputational damage caused to banks and fintechs.”

The results presented in this report are based on an analysis conducted by Jscrambler's security team between March and May of 2022. The sample of this analysis represents 11 banks and Fintechs from the United Kingdom. The analysis refers to a series of tests carried out on the websites and mobile apps of these institutions, used by their own customers. 

To view the report, click here.

Ruta Cizinauskaite, the cybersecurity researcher and writer at Atlas VPN, shares her thoughts on crypto phishing scams: “Brand impersonation is a common tacting among cybercriminals as people are more likely to trust the brands they know with their money or information. To lure in their victims, scammers develop counterfeit websites using legitimate brand names, similar-looking URLs or appearances. Crypto scams, in particular, are very lucrative to cybercriminals as cryptocurrency payments are irreversible, uncontrolled by central authorities, and many newcomers are not very knowledgeable in how crypto works. ”

The Disruption House, providers of in-depth risk analytics on the ESG and business resiliency capabilities of Private and Venture Funded firms, announced that their scorecards and reports will be available for many of the firms hosted on the Temenos Exchange open marketplace for fintech solutions.

Using model-based analytics developed on internationally recognised frameworks, The Disruption House’s proprietary risk assessment scorecards and reports, updated annually, enable potential purchasers to better understand and monitor the resiliency and sustainability of the fintechs under consideration. As a result, Temenos clients with access to the Temenos Exchange open marketplace can quickly identify relevant fintechs aligned to their business needs at pace and with confidence.  

Temenos Exchange brings open innovation to market faster and at scale. The marketplace offers pre-integrated and approved fintech solutions in areas such as digital identity, digital engagement and sustainability that can be easily deployed on Temenos open platform for composable banking. Enabling banks to accelerate the creation of innovative financial services offerings extends and enriches the overall user experience. This approach also helps to significantly reduce development costs.

Martin Bailey, Director of Innovation and Ecosystems, Temenos, said: “Temenos Exchange acts as an accelerator for fintechs and software developers, helping them develop, validate and monetise new banking solutions for our client community that serves the banking needs of 1.2 billion people worldwide. The Disruption House helps us to rapidly measure and understand the risk profiles of Temenos Exchange members. Making The Disruption House’s reports and scorecards available to our vast banking audience of more than 3,000 clients in 150 countries means they can quickly identify the operational resiliency risks that need to be managed when working with their chosen innovation partners.”

Rupert Bull, CEO and Founder at the Disruption House, commented. “In this volatile and highly competitive market environment, speed to change is a game-changer. And while the desire to engage with new or early-stage fintechs is very strong, most institutions find it both challenging and time-consuming. This is where The Disruption House comes into its own. Our goal is to democratise and accelerate the adoption of modern technology and services, enabling firms to inject much-needed innovation and verifiable sustainability practices across the global financial services ecosystem.”

Rupert concluded. As a result, we believe this unique collaboration marks a significant turning point for the financial institutions and the new fintech providers alike, as all users can now reap the proven benefits of our viability and risk management assessment services. We look forward to leveraging the power of the Temenos platform for the common good of all financial services industry participants.”