PXP Financial, the expert in acquiring and payment processing services and DaoPay, the all-in-one payment service provider, licensed and headquartered in Austria, has announced the next phase in their relationship to deliver payment services throughout Europe.

PXP Financial and DaoPay started working together in 2017 when DaoPay acted as its payment facilitator. Today, the launch of the joint solution in Europe marks a new chapter in what has been an incredibly successful partnership.

Thanks to the strategic partnership, both PXP Financial’s and DaoPay’s customers will benefit from an enhanced card acquiring service at launch, and an alternative payment method (APM) aggregation service throughout Europe later this year. For customers, this means getting all services related to acquiring - from accepting card payments or APMs to receiving money from a single source, as well as access to 100+ payment methods, including mobile and patented phone-based payment solutions. As a result, administrative efforts will be reduced to a minimum, and customers will benefit from greater flexibility and less friction in the payment process.

Kamran Hedjri, CEO of PXP Financial, commented: “DaoPay has vast experience in the payment space and shares our approach to client relationships and putting customers first. We have built a very close relationship which has allowed us to work together to implement a truly robust solution.”

“Payments are a complex field with many players involved. Adding acquiring to the service portfolio means providing a better service without the dependency on third parties and helping customers optimise conversion rates.”

Peter Krapfl, founder and CEO of DaoPay, added: “Like DaoPay, we know PXP maintains a close and trusting relationship with its merchants. Our work together will widen the merchant segments and allow unparalleled possibilities and synergies for our merchants, suppliers and us. DaoPay has worked over two decades in the finance industry and we understand the payment needs of clients in this fast-growing and ever-changing industry.  Our joint expertise generates a win-win situation for all involved parties.”

Mr Hedjri concludes: “The future for this partnership is bright. Customers can look forward to migrating to the acquiring solution we have created, and we look forward to working on adding new services to the scope, as well as providing best-in-class customer service based on our strong client relationships.”

AtScale, the leading provider of semantic layer solutions for modern business intelligence and data science teams, today announced that Trumid, a financial technology company and fixed income electronic trading platform, chose AtScale to build out its internal advanced analytics and data science capabilities.

Trumid centralizes performance data from multiple sources into a Google BigQuery data warehouse. AtScale connects BigQuery data to Google Looker reports, ensuring consistently high analytics performance and enabling permissioned non-technical users to interact with a business-oriented view of data. “Headline KPIs” related to aggregated volume and trading on the platform can be reviewed, and internal permissioned users are allowed to interactively explore more granular performance analytics. This approach enables a broader set of users to make data-driven decisions and unlocks the power of Trumid’s modern data and analytics stack.

“Using AtScale in conjunction with Google Looker creates a powerful platform to capture valuable insights from our performance data,” said Mutisya Ndunda, Head of Data Strategy and AI at Trumid. “By delivering a business-oriented view of data to a broader audience, we are able to drive more value from our cloud data and analytics investments.”

Trumid is also exploring the use of AtScale AI-Link to bridge data science programs to broader data and analytics users. This approach allows data scientists to treat the AtScale semantic layer as a feature store, simplifying access to business-vetted features for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models. Further, model-generated insights can be published back through the semantic layer, enabling permitted business audiences to see broader visibility of predictions.

Sales Layer, the leading PIM (Product Information Management) SaaS platform provider for B2B, has today announced that it has raised $25m in Series B funding, led by PeakSpan Capital with participation from its Series A investors. The funding follows on from the $3.5m raised by Sales Layer’s Series A investors, Swanlaab and Bright Pixel, in 2020. 

The Series B will accelerate Sales Layer’s rapid global growth, hiring across all functions while continuing the expansion of international operations. Alongside the evolution of its product roadmap, Sales Layer will continue to reach new customers and increase its presence in the UK and US markets. With 100% growth year-on-year since 2017, Sales Layer will use this investment to solidify its position as the number one PIM solution in the B2B space.

PeakSpan Capital is a growth equity firm based in New York City and San Mateo, CA with a portfolio of high-growth software businesses and over $1.5B in AUM. The investment will support Sales Layer in scaling and evolving within the maturing e-commerce landscape.

Jack Freeman, Partner at PeakSpan Capital comments on the recent investment: “We’ve been tracking the PIM space for several years and know the industry is poised for substantial growth in light of growing product complexity, an explosion of new channels and the continued rise in E-Commerce volume. We identified Sales Layer last year as an emerging player with a clear focus and opportunity to win the B2B PIM space and have since witnessed the business innovate and scale rapidly on a global basis. We’re excited for the future with Sales Layer and see ample opportunities to scale the team, product and customer base further.”

Álvaro Verdoy, Founder & CEO of Sales Layer, explained: “PeakSpan was the strongest VC candidate for Sales Layer. Its team had a very elaborate thesis around e-commerce, supply chain and digital transformation, where PIM plays a very important role. Furthermore, PeakSpan’s experience scaling European businesses in the US will help us to accelerate our expansion.”

Following Sales Layer’s Series A funding round in 2020, which was launched to scale globally to offer international operations and strengthen its infrastructure, previous investors Swanlaab and Bright Pixel Capital have continued to support the company throughout the expansion.

Miguel Bagulho, Investment Director of Bright Pixel Capital added: “We are thrilled to continue to support Sales Layer in this new phase of growth. We know from experience how key product information is and Sales Layer’s solution plays a key role in solving this problem for retailers, brands and B2B players.”

Mark Kavelaars, Founding Partner at Swanlaab also said: “We have been accompanying the Sales Layer team since its initial seed round and four years after we are extremely confident in the team’s capacity to scale its unique offering in the B2B PIM sector. This new phase comes as no surprise since Sales Layer has continuously demonstrated its potential for becoming a worldwide key player in the space”.

After closing out the Series B investment round, Sales Layer is excited to play an even greater and more pivotal role in international digital e-commerce.

80 per cent of data breaches in 2021 were caused by user error, according to a new analysis of data from the UK’s Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) carried out by cyber security awareness and data analytics company, CybSafe. 

In 2021, UK organisations reported an alarming number of cyber security breaches to the ICO. A total of 2,692 reports were sent to the public body last year, consistent with the reports shown in 2020. The past two years have revealed the highest number of cyber incidents reported since GDPR came into force. 

Of breaches reported in the last year, CybSafe has found that 80 per cent of these incidents could be attributed to actions taken by end-users. While it's promising to see this decrease from 90 per cent in 2020, a significant proportion of data breaches are still caused by human error, highlighting the need for organisations to do more to consider the human factor within their security strategy.   

CybSafe found that phishing was the primary cause of breaches in 2021, accounting for 29 per cent of all reports. In 2020, nearly 38 per cent of breach reports were made to the ICO as a result of successful phishing attacks. Although phishing attacks have declined in the last year, ransomware continues to be a growing risk to every sector.  

The steep rise in ransomware attacks, with 692 incidents reported in 2021 alone, became the second most common cause of cyber breaches last year. Causing 20 per cent of all cyber incidents, ransomware poses a significant threat to the safety and privacy of various organisations. 

Oz Alashe, CEO of CybSafe, said: “As identified in the analysis, human error is a major contributing factor enabling attackers to access sensitive information and encrypted channels within organisations. Cybercriminals will often identify the route of least resistance and exploit the vulnerabilities of employees. Therefore, it is crucial that we shift our focus onto user security behaviours within our businesses.” 

“To combat the threat of cyber security breaches, we need to get rid of box-ticking awareness exercises and address the human aspect of cyber security to achieve genuine behavioural change. An empathetic and understanding approach is likely to have the desired outcome of improving employees’ security awareness and their behaviour, without negative consequences.” 

“Addressing this issue is key to reducing successful attacks against organisations. People have an important role to play in helping to protect the companies they work for, and human cyber-risk can almost always be significantly reduced by encouraging changes in staff cyber-awareness, behaviour, and culture,” Alashe concluded. 

Millions of people will be protected through strengthening regulation of interest-free Buy-Now Pay-Later credit agreements, under plans announced by the government today (20 June).

Buy-Now Pay-Later credit agreements can be a helpful way to manage your finances, allowing people to spread the full cost of a purchase over time. However, people do not currently have the usual full range of borrower protections when taking out this type of loan and they are rapidly increasing in popularity, resulting in a potential risk of harm to consumers.

Under plans set out by the government today, it confirmed that lenders will be required to carry out affordability checks, ensuring loans are affordable for consumers and will amend financial promotion rules to ensure Buy-Now Pay-Later advertisements are fair, clear, and not misleading. Lenders offering the product will need to be approved by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and borrowers will also be able to make a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). 

Economic Secretary to the Treasury, John Glen said:  

“Buy-Now Pay-Later can be a helpful way to manage your finances but we need to ensure that people can embrace new products and services with the appropriate protections in place.

“By holding Buy-Now Pay-Later to the high standards we expect of other loans and forms of credit, we are protecting consumers and fostering the safe growth of this innovative market in the UK.”

Today’s consultation response sets out the government’s proposals for the regulation of the sector. Given its complexity, the government will publish a consultation on draft legislation toward the end of this year. Following this, the government aims to lay secondary legislation by mid-2023, after which the FCA will consult on its rules for the sector.

The government has also confirmed that other forms of short-term interest-free credit, such as those used to pay for dental work or larger items like furniture, will be required to comply with the same rules announced today, given the risks posed are similar and consumers should receive consistent protections from similar products. These rules will apply to businesses that partner with a third-party lender to provide credit, and the government is asking for further stakeholder feedback to confirm whether they should also apply to online merchants who directly offer credit for the purchase of their own products.   

Today’s announcement forms part of the government’s plan to grow the economy to tackle the cost of living. The Chancellor has provided £37 billion of support to help, including providing the eight million most vulnerable British families with at least £1,200 of direct payments this year – and giving every household right across the UK £400 to help with their energy bills.

From this month, customers of The Cumberland will find it easier to monitor their carbon spending with a tool to measure and reduce their carbon footprints.  
  
The building society’s 70,000 current account customers are being encouraged to download the Cogo app and link their Cumberland account to give them a clear picture of how their spending affects the environment – covering financial transactions, investments, and day-to-day purchases. The app will also give customers suggestions of how to reduce or offset their carbon footprint based on their personalised spending.  

 Cogo has a powerful algorithm that can calculate the carbon emissions of all transactions on an account. To calculate a person or household’s carbon footprint, Cogo first analyses the banking data and matches every transaction to a specific industry (i.e. fashion, grocery, insurance). It then estimates the carbon footprint of that transaction using secure open banking data. For example, £1 spent at a UK fashion retailer creates on average 1kg CO2e. The app also factors in the type of products sold by each company, for example, which energy suppliers use 100% renewable electricity.   

This partnership with Cogo, which begins the sustainability journey for the building society, focuses on informing and educating customers to encourage positive collective action. As the first building society in the UK to promote carbon tracking, The Cumberland is forging the path for others to embrace sustainability and help customers consider how their finances are affecting the planet.   

Based on Cogo’s previous experience, each customer that engages and takes action could save approximately 130kg of carbon emissions a year; the more action they adopt the greater their potential savings. If all of Cumberland's customers engage with this carbon tracking tool, the initiative has the potential to save over 9 million kgs CO2e per year - that is equivalent to flying 26.6 million miles, which is the same as over 1000 circumnavigations of the globe.  

Emma Kisby, UK and Europe CEO at Cogo, said:  

“At Cogo, we are committed to getting people to measure, reduce and offset their impact on the climate. In order to achieve impact at scale, we need to work with like-minded organisations, such as this first building society partnership with The Cumberland.  

“Through the use of our powerful data-driven insights, The Cumberland’s thousands of customers will now be able to understand their own carbon footprint and learn more about how their everyday choices impact the planet.  

“We’re excited to be entering into this first-of-its-kind partnership with The Cumberland, leading the way in championing a sustainable approach to spending.  

Nigel Taylor, Head of Marketing and Brand, at The Cumberland, said:“ 

“At The Cumberland we are aware of how instrumental sustainability is to our strategy and goals. We’re excited to partner with Cogo as it aligns perfectly with our core purpose, helping people understand how they can positively impact the environment and be kinder to the planet. 

“Through our partnership with Cogo, we aim to help educate our colleagues and customers so they can understand their carbon footprint. We are also keen to learn ourselves as we continue to scale up our own journey to reduce carbon emissions. Cogo provides us with incredibly useful insights and data to inform the decisions and actions we need to take to build a sustainable future for all.”

Protean eGov Technologies Limited (formerly NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited), a market leader in universal, citizen-centric and population-scale e-governance solutions and PayNearby, India’s leading digital payments and largest branchless banking network today announced a strategic partnership to offer PAN-related services for PayNearby’s retail partners through Aadhaar and biometric or SMS-based OTP authentication for their customers.

The partnership will help improve service delivery for millions of citizens as they enter the formal financial sector. It will facilitate quick and easy access to online PAN services in neighbourhood stores at affordable rates, thus eliminating the submission of physical applications and supporting documents. Once the online application form is submitted, a digital copy of the ePAN will be generated within a couple of hours while a physical copy will be delivered to the customers at their chosen address in 4-5 working days.

Protean, which accepts and processes PAN applications on behalf of the Income Tax Department, Government of India, has played a pioneering role in laying down the basic e-governance infrastructure for the nation and providing citizen-centric services to the masses. Under the collaboration, PayNearby will work as the PAN Service Agency (PSA) of Protean.

PayNearby’s goal has been to simplify technology for consumption during the last-mile delivery and ensure the democratization of financial and digital services. With PayNearby serving nearly 75% of the Indian market, retailers can now accept PAN applications in paperless mode, while Protean will be able to further expand the coverage of PAN services across the country, especially to remote locations, through a PayNearby store.

Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, Managing Director and CEO, PayNearby, said, “We are happy and proud that Protean eGov Technologies Limited has chosen us as their partner for their PAN card services. We have been continuously working on innovation-led partnership models to offer easy access to financial and digital solutions for everyone, everywhere. With this association, we look to offer all the citizens of the country the availability of PAN card services at a neighbourhood store. This will enhance its uptake and make this unique identification popular amongst all at the last mile. With this partnership, we continue to expand the bouquet of services available at our retail stores while providing Protean with the reach it needs to the inaccessible hinterlands of the country. Our partnership with Protean solidifies our determination to bring each and every citizen in the country into the formal financial fold so that the gap between India and Bharat is bridged forever.”

Suresh Sethi, Managing Director and CEO, Protean eGov Technologies, said, “We are delighted to partner with PayNearby as part of our strategy to contribute to a financial ecosystem that offers socio-economic benefits across all strata of the society. Our partnership will help to advance our shared vision of an inclusive and empowered India. This initiative is aligned with our mission to leave no citizen behind and bring the digitally excluded into the fold of formal financial economy.”

Over the course of the last 25 years, Protean has played a pioneering role in laying out the e-governance infrastructure for the nation. It has provided citizen-centric services at a population scale. Access and inclusion lie at the heart of any e-governance initiative and towards that the company has adopted and established a “Phygital” (Physical+Digital) model to ensure a truly inclusive service delivery paradigm. This partnership is designed to make the entire process seamless, hassle-free and accessible across 17,600+ PIN codes in the country through PayNearby’s DaaS (Distribution as a Service) network of 50+ lakh micro-entrepreneurs.

The partnership will bring the underbanked and unbanked segments of the population within the tax fold through trusted local touchpoints, add to the country’s tax kitty and provide micro-entrepreneurs with an additional source of revenue.

Worldline India, a global leader in payment services has partnered with Bajaj Finance Limited (BFL), the lending arm of Bajaj Finserv Limited and India’s largest and highly diversified NBFC company, to develop point-of-sales (POS) payments acquiring solutions for its merchant network. 

Worldline India, a company with a rich experience in the payment ecosystem in India and globally, has been chosen by Bajaj Finance Limited as a technology and service partner to develop and manage their merchant acquiring initiative, which will be present at pan-India merchant locations. 

With this tie-up, Bajaj Finance Limited aims to enhance its relationship with both its existing and new network of merchant partners, by providing point-of-sale terminals and enabling acceptance of a wide range of payment instruments such as EMI cards, credit cards, UPI and wallets on those terminals. In addition to the transactional services, the tie-up will provide value-added services like billing integrations, EMI offerings, transactions processing, data analytics and fraud management services.

The merchant value proposition will allow Bajaj Finance’s 58 million customer base to avail of its various services such as Bajaj Network EMI Card, Bajaj Pay Wallet, Bajaj Pay UPI and Bajaj Coins’ redemption at the point-of-sale outlets.

Commenting on the partnership, Rajeev Jain, Managing Director, Bajaj Finance Limited, said, “As a part of our broader strategy to expand the digital offerings, we forayed into the digital payments business last year to offer an integrated payment solution to customers and merchant partners. Bajaj Finance has been consistently delivering seamless and agile credit solutions to consumers and merchants alike, and this partnership will only help extend our product suite to go beyond credit products to commerce and payments technology across our large and expanding network of merchant stores, spread throughout the length and breadth of the country. 

He further stated, "Bajaj Finance has always been at the forefront of digital technology, and we are confident of leveraging Worldline’s cutting-edge technology to deliver a disruptive and game-changing in-store payment acceptance experience for our ever-growing merchant partner ecosystem."

Deepak Chandnani, Executive Chairman, Worldline India, SA & ME said, “Worldline India is proud to partner with Bajaj Finance Limited to provide easier, faster and secure digital acceptance solutions. Our expertise in creating and managing the entire merchant lifecycle journey will benefit BFL in offering a rich experience to their valued customers. Our dedicated workforce will ensure seamless execution of Bajaj Finance’s requirements which will contribute to the growth of both entities. We have successfully managed large-scale partnerships in India and other markets and are looking forward to a long-term mutually beneficial partnership with Bajaj Finance Limited.”