River, a leading Bitcoin technology and financial services company, launches River Link, enabling global Bitcoin payments via text message. Users can send a River Link via text, email, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, or any other messaging app. Recipients can claim Bitcoin sent via River Link to any wallet, anywhere in the world. 

"The traditional Bitcoin payment experience is clunky," says River CEO, Alex Leishman. "Fintech companies have attempted to solve this by making both users transact on the same app. While this improves the experience, it restricts user choice and dictates which app people need to use."

"River has reimagined the Bitcoin payment experience with River Link. It's a user-centric feature that matches Bitcoin's ethos of an open network," says Leishman.

River Link removes the multi-step process and information collection needed to pay or gift someone Bitcoin. There is no need to ask for on-chain or Lightning payment information.

"Simply enter the amount of the River Link, text it to your friend, and they can claim the Bitcoin to any wallet," says River COO, Julia Duzon. "This experience is truly frictionless, interoperable, and open–the way Bitcoin was always intended to be."

UnionPay International recently partnered with Trip.com, the world's leading online travel agency (OTA), to provide UnionPay cardholders an enhanced payment experience in a partnership that coincides with the gradual recovery of the cross-border tourism market.

The cooperation covers all major transaction currencies on Trip.com's global sites accepting UnionPay online payment, include Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam , and other key travel markets of Trip.com.

Trip.com currently has operations in more than 200 countries and regions covering more than 1.2 million hotels offering guests a wide range of accommodation options. It also has a flight network of more than 2 million individual routes connecting over 5,000 cities globally.

UPI serves the world's largest cardholder base with card issuance in 79 countries and regions. In line with customers' travel trends and needs, UPI continues to connect the global travel industry with seamless payment services. Since 2023, UnionPay International's airline and OTA traffic has increased by 81% and 153%, respectively. This latest collaboration expands the online acceptance for more than 200 million UnionPay cardholders outside mainland Chinese. In addition, within the Hong Kong market, local cardholders can enjoy enhanced convenience thanks to the integration of the Hong Kong version of UnionPay App, and the enablement of transactions in Hong Kong Dollars. 

This partnership with Trip.com will help to further meet the payment needs of UnionPay cardholders in major markets, and will further enhance UPI's international presence in the global OTA market in the long term, demonstrating UPI's global payment network expansion and strengthening the international influence of the UnionPay brand.

Wang Zhe, Head of Overseas Finance Business, Trip.com, said: "Trip.com has always been committed to providing our users with comprehensive, top-class travel services. The partnership with UnionPay International is another milestone in our mission to continuously innovate and enhance customer experiences. We look forward to bringing more convenient and user-friendly travel-booking services and payment solutions to UnionPay cardholders around the world in the future."

Kapital a global bank and tech platform, announced today that it has closed an oversubscribed $40 million Series B equity financing round and $125 million debt raise. Tribe Capital led the Series B, with participation from Cervin Ventures, Tru Arrow, MS&AD Ventures, Alumni Ventures among others.

Since announcing a $23 million Series A funding round and $45 million debt facility in May 2023, Kapital has continued to grow rapidly, fueled by its acquisition of Banco Autofin Mexico S.A. in September 2023. With these developments, Kapital is building a vertically integrated tech platform stretching beyond its current reach of loans, credit cards, invoicing and expense management – into payroll and benefits services, as well as treasury accounts.

Kapital leverages data and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide SMEs with sophisticated enterprise technology that rivals what is typically only available for large corporations via ERPs. With a Kapital account, SMEs can see and manage their business cash flows in real-time dashboards. Kapital will use the funds to invest further in its R&D and tech platform to strengthen its cross-border offering and grow its product suite to provide insights for its customers. For example, it is using predictive analytics to benchmark how these businesses can improve margins by selecting different vendors. Kapital already uses AI to underwrite loans to SMEs. SMEs represent 90% of businesses worldwide per the World Bank1 , yet in Mexico they represent only 10.5% of the total bank credit available for businesses (OECD2). 

“Our recent funding round will propel us forward as we embark on an exciting expansion across Latin America and beyond. Over 80,000 customers already entrust us with the financial health of their businesses, and we are introducing more AI-driven products while pushing into new markets,” said Rene Saul, Kapital’s CEO and Co-Founder. “We are grateful for the confidence our customers and our investors have shown in us, and we are excited for Kapital’s bright future ahead.”

“Kapital is punching way above its weight,” said Arjun Sethi, Chairman and CIO at Tribe Capital. “So many financial platforms raise billions before achieving this level of success: They’ve not only achieved venture-scale growth in a fraction of the time, but they’ve also done so profitably. And they’re just getting started: Kapital is in Latin America today, but the potential of the platform and the company’s growth aspirations are very much global. I can’t wait to see them grow from $100 million run rate revenue to $1 billion of revenue over the coming years.” 

illimity Bank S.p.A., signed the UN Principles for  Responsible Banking (PRB), one of the most important sustainability frameworks in the financial sector. The PRB has 338 signatories worldwide, representing approximately 54% of global banking assets, as well as $ 98.7 trillion in total assets. 

Developed by UNEP FI (United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative), an organization founded in 1992 that works with the financial sector on sustainability issues, the PRB is the reference framework for signatory banks that are committed to aligning their strategy, decision-making processes as well as their investment and lending policies, with the United Nations Sustainable Development  Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement. The goal is to inspire, inform, and allow the banking sector to engage by creating common guidelines and best practices on sustainable finance. 

"We have always been at the forefront when it comes to ESG issues and, since the foundation of illimity,  we have paid close attention to sustainability by integrating every aspect of it into the Group’s strategy,  processes, and governance." - states Fabio Pelati, Head of Investor Relations & Sustainability of illimity - "The commitment to the Principles for Responsible Banking represents for us the natural evolution of a path that has long been underway and it is a further incentive to carry out the objectives we have set ourselves with the recent Sustainability Plan 2023-2025". 

Since March 2023, illimity has set further quantitative and qualitative goals by presenting the 2023-2025  Sustainability Plan with a view to continuous growth in the ESG commitment, in order to improve its processes and create value for all stakeholders. 

Infor®, the industry cloud company, today announced that Europe's largest ventilation company, Systemair, is moving its core business system to Infor CloudSuite Manufacturing, aiming at smoother integration of newly acquired companies and developing new types of products and services.

Systemair was founded 50 years ago and currently has offices in 51 countries, supplying both private and commercial customers, including hospitals, offices and schools, where air quality is crucial for the people staying there.

The market has been expanding and is expected to continue to do so, driven by various factors including increasingly strict legal requirements for a faster energy transition. Systemair meets this growth potential through acquisitions and new business models, such as increasing service offerings around its product range.

”Systemair and Infor have had a reliable ERP partnership for over 20 years. The signing of the Infor CloudSuite Manufacturing contract is the next step in this partnership. Infor CloudSuite Manufacturing gives us the opportunity to harmonize the Systemair IT-environment further,” says Juergen Hernadi, group IT director at Systemair AB.

With Infor CloudSuite Manufacturing, Systemair gains an industry-specific, multi-tenant cloud solution, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), allowing it to quickly implement a system that makes the integration of newly acquired companies easier and faster. Systemair can centralize the entire system administration in the ever-growing company structure, significantly reducing its costs.

“People spend around 90 percent of their time indoors. We often take the air for granted, but it affects how we feel, how alert we are, or how often we get sick,” says Malte Ekedahl, SVP and GM at Infor in the Nordics. “Being able to contribute to a significant market player like Systemair and provide them with the right conditions to continue developing quality products in ventilation makes us proud.”

In a landmark event for both wholesale finance and digital asset markets, the initiation of the Sterling Fnality Payment System brings together for the first time the safety and institutional quality of central bank funds in a systemic wholesale payment system with the innovative functionality and resilience of blockchain technology. Lloyds Banking Group, Banco Santander and UBS have all played a critical role as initial participants in the £FnPS. The inaugural live payments in this first phase of the new digital FMI and regulated payment system have taken place leveraging an Omnibus Account held by £FnPS in the Bank of England RTGS service, exemplifying the ambitious innovation that Fnality brings to the markets.  

This milestone goes beyond just demonstrating Fnality's functionality — it evidences the first foundations of a broader multi-jurisdictional vision; one that enables a seamless global liquidity management ecosystem by empowering new digital payment models for payment (P), payment versus payment (PvP), and delivery versus payment (DvP) transactions in both wholesale financial markets and emerging tokenised asset markets.  

With this broader vision and our regulatory context in mind, our focus now turns to scaling £FnPS operations in a managed and phased approach. This initial phase, focused on ensuring system resilience and functionality in a live environment, is subject to limits set by the Bank of England. Scaling operations will be subject to the £FnPS meeting the Bank of England’s operational and supervisory expectations for the next managed phase. This will pave the way for establishing FnPSs in other core currencies including USD and EUR, onboarding more participant banks, and rolling-out a range of value-adding functionalities including conditional payments, digital securities settlement, intraday repos, intraday FX swaps, and more. 

Fnality appreciates the UK authorities’ commitment to innovation and resilience which has provided a robust regulatory backdrop/framework in which Fnality has been developed. In April 2021 the Bank of England published their Omnibus Accounts Policy, a vital enabler of new payment and settlement models in central bank money. In August 2022, the Sterling Fnality Payment System was recognised and designated by HM Treasury, bringing it into the regulatory remits of the Bank of England and the Payment Systems Regulator due to its likely systemic importance. £FnPS is now connected to CHAPS to prove its provision of payments services in a live environment and joins the select group of payment systems that form the UK’s recognised payment infrastructure. During this initial phase, the BoE will continue to assess £FnPS operations against regulatory expectations as we scale up to commercial operations.  

Angus Fletcher, CEO of Fnality UK, reflected: 

“This marks the culmination of significant efforts by Fnality, our shareholders and participants, our key partners, as well as the UK authorities. As we step into 2024, our focus sharpens on scaling up operations within a managed and approved framework as set out by the Bank of England, and steadily progressing towards unlocking new market use cases.” 

Rhomaios Ram, CEO of Fnality International, shared: 

“Today’s success is a major step in the wholesale payments and digital assets arenas, demonstrating the global potential of Fnality’s DLT-based payment systems. With a committed group of participant banks and Financial Market Infrastructures ready for onboarding in the coming months, alongside an exciting suite of functionality expansions under development, we are solidly on track towards realising our vision of a seamless global liquidity management ecosystem.” 

Samantha Emery, Director - Payments Industry and Development at Lloyds Banking Group, comments:  

“We are delighted to see Fnality take the next step in its journey to become a multi-jurisdictional, digital FMI. The initiation of the Sterling Fnality Payment System is a unique event, which will not only revolutionise settlement but transform the way in which Financial Institutions manage their future liquidity needs. 

Our partnership with Fnality will help us to meet our own objectives of Helping Britain Prosper, whilst aligning to the UK Government’s ambition of putting the UK on the map as being a global Fintech hub. Lloyds Banking Group have played a key role at the heart of this, through both strategic investment and technical deployment, which has enhanced our own colleagues’ expertise in an important new domain for financial services.” 

John Whelan, Managing Director of Digital Assets at Banco Santander, comments: 

“Banco Santander has been part of the visionary Fnality story since the beginning.  As one of its founders, we are delighted to be one of the inaugural banks to make payments on the first of its kind - a wholesale digital-cash settlement system. Systems like Fnality will help eliminate settlement risk and make wholesale payments instant and 24/7." 

Hyder Jaffrey, Managing Director, Principal Investments and Strategic Ventures at UBS, comments: 

“Transacting the first live payments over Fnality is evidence of the Fnality vision coming to life. The creation of a new systemically important global payment system is a once in a generation event. In conjunction with our partners at Lloyds and Santander, we and Fnality have evidenced a very real step in such a creation and we look forward to further evidencing new transformational use cases built upon Fnality rails.” 

EBANX, global fintech company specializing in payment solutions for rising economies, announced the direct integration of Botón Bancolombia, a payment method created by Bancolombia bank, to be part of its array of available payment methods in Latin America. 

This strategic partnership aims to streamline and enhance the bank transfer experience within the digital economy in the country, creating access and connecting people and businesses in Colombia to the global digital commerce market, contributing to increased conversion rates and payment processing efficiency. 

Available to more than 19 million individual customers of Bancolombia, especially its more than 10 million active digital customers, Botón Bancolombia allows users to make convenient and secure bank transfers when purchasing products and services online, from various digital commerce sectors such as streaming, SaaS, gaming, travel, online retail, among others. 

EBANX merchants can integrate this solution into their checkout, offering to their customers with Bancolombia accounts a payment option that emphasizes simplicity with just a few easy steps. Recurring payment features will be available in Q2 of 2024, improving customers' payment experience in digital commerce merchants with subscription services. 

Account-based transfers accounted for a significant 30% share of payments made on digital commerce in Colombia in 2022, according to data from Americas Market Intelligence (AMI) in EBANX's Beyond Borders study. Notably, nearly 55% of all bank transfers in the country in 2022 were made by Bancolombia users, according to the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia.

"We are excited to integrate Botón Bancolombia into our diverse payments portfolio. EBANX's global merchants will be able to tap into one of Colombia's main alternative payment methods while providing a more seamless payment experience to Colombian customers," said Sebastián Fantini, Product Director at EBANX. "This partnership is a realization of EBANX's mission to create access and connect booming digital ecosystems of rising markets to the global digital economy," he added. 

"Since its creation, Botón Bancolombia has represented an easy way for millions of Colombians to access products and services simply, safely, and timely. Integration with EBANX is another step in the right direction, as it opens doors for our customers to businesses they didn't have access to before," said Luz María Velásquez, Vice President of Retail, SMEs and Enterprises Businesses in Bancolombia. “This new relationship will strengthen the financial inclusion of millions of people who now have tools like Bancolombia A la Mano on their phones, allowing them to make purchases and continue growing in their journey through the formal financial system." 

As digital commerce continues to thrive in Colombia, the partnership with Bancolombia is poised to play a crucial role in shaping the future of digital payments. "Considering EBANX's merchant portfolio of 1,600 clients, the potential impact on the growth of digital commerce and customer convenience is substantial," said Fantini from EBANX. 

The anticipation builds as the third annual RegTech Africa Conference is set to once again bring together industry leaders, regulators, policymakers, and key stakeholders in the 2024 edition scheduled for the 23rd and 24th of May in Lagos - Nigeria. With a focus on "Harnessing Partnerships for Africa's Prosperity – Bridging the Data Trust Gap," this hybrid event transcends the traditional conference experience, promising a profound exploration of the role data governance plays in driving Africa's economic growth.

Data as the Catalyst: Navigating Opportunities and Challenges

Data, often hailed as the new form of capital in the 21st century, takes center stage as African nations navigate the opportunities and challenges presented by a digital economy. The conference aims to delve into harmonized data governance frameworks that not only unlock economic benefits but also ensure societal progress. The negotiations phase of AfCFTA is a strategic juncture for leveraging the power of data utilization and sharing, provided governments offer the necessary leadership.

Unique Value Propositions for Delegates

The 2024 RegTech Africa Conference promises a unique blend of engagement opportunities, including the RegTech4Good Challenge, Women in RegTech discussions, roundtable sessions, product showcases, fireside chats, focused workshops, and the Rockstar Awards. 

Elevating Africa's Presence in the Global Tech Landscape

Africa's narrative is evolving, and the 2024 RegTech Africa Conference is at the forefront of this narrative shift. The conference is not just an event; it is a movement towards shaping Africa's presence in the global tech landscape. With inclusivity at its core, the conference is set to be conducted in multilingual sessions, reflecting the diversity and richness of the African continent.

A Symphony of Insights and Networking Opportunities

Renowned speakers, unparalleled content, and exclusive branding opportunities are just the beginning. With a cumulative total of over 7,000 registrations from the previous two editions, this conference promises an even more immersive and informative experience. The stage is set for profound knowledge sharing, networking at the highest level, and forging partnerships that transcend borders.

Actionable Strategies

Beyond discussions, the conference is designed to yield actionable strategies. Participants will leave with concrete plans and insights that can be implemented to enhance regulatory technology efforts.

Why Africa?

Africa's economic landscape is marked by six of the world's top 10 fastest-growing economies, a GDP growth rate exceeding the global average, a young and fast-growing population, and significant mobile and smartphone penetration. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is projected to generate a combined GDP of over $3.4 trillion, providing access to more than 1.4 billion people.

Why Attend?

The conference boasts an expansive lineup of over 50 inspirational speakers and 1,000 industry experts from across Africa. Attendees can engage with progressive professionals to discuss the impact and opportunities of innovative regulation on the financial industry. Real-world use cases, cutting-edge demos, and a showcase of the latest regtech innovations offer valuable insights and networking opportunities.

Agenda Tracks and Use-Cases

The conference will delve into key tracks such as Consumer Protection, MSME & Digital Lending, E-commerce & Cross-Border Payments, Digital & Financial Inclusion, AML & Financial Crimes, Identity & KYC, Fintech Regulations, and AI & Emerging Technologies. Additionally, use-cases will cover AI Regulation, ESG & Climate Finance, CBDC & Virtual Assets, iGaming, Digital Financial Services, Microfinance, Islamic Banking, Insurance, and SupTech.

According to Cyril Okoroigwe (CEO, Regtech Media), "In the ever-evolving landscape of regulatory technology, the 2024 RegTech Africa Conference stands as a testament to the power of collaboration. Our theme, 'Harnessing Partnerships for Africa’s Prosperity – Bridging the Data Trust Gap,' reflects our commitment to unlocking the potential of technology for a prosperous and interconnected Africa."

Securing Your Spot

Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights, engage with industry leaders, and navigate the dynamic regulatory landscape. Secure your spot at this transformative event by registering on our website. For organizations looking to align with the vanguard of regulatory technology, sponsorship and partnership opportunities abound. Connect with us at info@regtechafrica.com for details.

As we stand on the cusp of this transformative event, the 2024 RegTech Africa Conference invites you to be part of a journey that shapes the future of regulatory technology, paving the way for a prosperous Africa.

For media inquiries, please contact:

info@regtechafrica.com

For conference registration and details, visit

Runa, the global digital value infrastructure for instant B2C payments, today announced its expanded partnership with ShopBack, the largest cashback and rewards platform in Asia-Pacific, offering Australians cashback on purchases at more than 4,000 online, in-store, and gift card brands, including household brands like Chemist Warehouse, Amazon, The ICONIC, and eBay.

The global cashback market is set to reach $5.7 billion by 2031, and its rising popularity is due to its ability to give consumers greater control over their finances, allowing them to counteract rising costs through the use of instant, easy rewards. ShopBack has given over $190M of cashback to Australian consumers, and Runa has extensive experience of driving innovation in the cashback industry through its global network of over 2,500 merchants.

"Expanding our partnership with ShopBack will offer users an even more rewarding experience, redefining the way they shop, store, and save their money," said Aron Alexander, CEO and Founder of Runa. "Looking forward, we envision leveraging this partnership to continue driving innovation in the cashback and rewards space."

"We're excited to partner with Runa to expand our cashback offerings for our Australian customers," said Angus Muffet, General Manager of ShopBack. "New collaborations like this demonstrate our commitment to finding new and interesting ways to enhance the shopping experience for our users."

With Runa's full-stack offering and expansion into the APAC region, businesses can integrate once and have the ability to send payouts to Australia and 35+ other countries. Global businesses will now be able to offer their customers an expanded range of payout types, including 29 payout types in Australia and 121 payout types in Singapore.

Visit runa.io to explore the website and learn about Runa's solutions and network.