Partnerships 

Ratepay, Part of Nexi Group, Enters Payment Partnership with PayPal

Ratepay, part of Nexi Group, enters payment partnership with PayPal: the white label payment by invoice from Ratepay can be offered by any German merchant who works together with PayPal and has been checked accordingly. Ratepay takes over the complete processing with the buyer in the background as well as the default risk. The connection is made possible by Ratepay's new Payment API 2.0, which allows Ratepay payment methods to be integrated flexibly, scalable and easily with online payment service providers such as PayPal.

The ai Corporation (ai) and Ignixxion Technologies Limited partner to launch the World’s first EMV (open loop), fuel payments and digital fleet management solution

The ai Corporation (ai), an expert in fraud prevention and payment solutions, and Ignixxion Technologies Limited, an innovative fintech fleet solution provider, announced the launch of the World’s first integrated, EMV open loop, fuel payment and fleet management solution. Utilising ai's world-leading fuel payments platform, aiEazyFuel, and Ignixxion's cutting-edge cloud digital fleet platform, the new solution will enable payments providers and fuel card issuers to offer their fleet customers the choice of purchasing and paying for their fuel and other vehicle and driver-related expenses from any retailer, anywhere, at any time.

BVNK Partners with Simple to Unlock Cryptocurrency Banking Services for 2,000 Family Offices

BVNK, the crypto-powered banking platform for global businesses, announces a partnership with Simple that will bring cryptocurrency expertise and knowledge to 2,000 member family offices based in the European Union. Based in Copenhagen, Simple is the next-generation market intelligence, data and insights lab focused on helping family offices and private investors to professionalise and be future-ready. With BVNK’s flagship Yield service family offices can enjoy returns that typically range between 4% and 8% APY in USD Coin (USDC) and Tether (USDT).

Lemonade Finance Partners with Currencycloud, Adding Fizz with a Multi-currency Solution

Oakland-based financial services company Lemonade Finance has partnered with Currencycloud, the experts simplifying business in a multi-currency world, to offer immigrants and businesses a more streamlined experience when sending money home to Africa. By partnering with Currencycloud and providing business and consumer customers with multi-currency wallets, Lemonade Finance can make sending money home much easier for Africans living in North America and Europe. Now, Lemonade’s customers can not only hold multiple currencies but also settle to Lemonade Finance who then make onward payments to local African-based partners like Flutterwave.

Nuvei and XT.COM Team Up to Enhance the Onboarding of New Users

Nuvei Corporation announced its partnership with XT.COM to facilitate the onboarding of new users. The collaboration between Nuvei, via its Simplex cryptocurrency on/off ramp solution, and XT.COM, one of the leading global cryptocurrency exchanges, will make it easier for users to fund their accounts through convenient payment methods. The partnership between Nuvei and XT.COM is expected to introduce many new users to the XT.COM platform as they can fund their accounts with credit and debit cards, Apple Pay and bank transfers, allowing for quick and seamless access to over a hundred crypto assets.

PCI Pal Partners with Five9 to Provide Secure Payments on the Five9 CX Marketplace

PCI Pal, the global provider of secure payment solutions, announces it has joined the Five9 CX Marketplace as an approved Secure Payments partner. The PCI Pal solution has been accredited and listed on the Five9 CX Marketplace. Five9 is an intelligent cloud contact centre provider, which facilitates billions of call minutes annually, and the Five9 CX Marketplace offers current and prospective customers a user-centric hub in which customers can browse Five9’s innovative partnerships with the goal of delivering or purchasing an ever improving, superior customer experience.

PXP Financial Partners With Award Winning Booking Engine Platform, Profitroom

PXP Financial, the expert in acquiring and payment services, announces a new partnership with Profitroom, a leading provider of online sales and marketing services that seeks to drive revenue and increase profits for leisure hotels and resorts around the world. At the forefront of serving the global hospitality industry since its launch in 2008, Profitroom has cultivated expertise in exceptional customer service through longstanding relationships with hundreds of hotel industry experts and operators.

Blockpass, Lykke Partnership Integrates Zero Fees Exchange, Adds $PASS/USD

Blockpass announced that the long-standing association between Blockpass and cryptocurrency exchange Lykke will be strengthening. As the first step in this process, the PASS/ETH pair was delisted and replaced with the brand new opportunity of PASS/USD. Lykke's mission is to build a new ecosystem for the outdated finance industry by leveraging the power of the blockchain. As a cryptocurrency exchange, Lykke has drawn acclaim and attention with its incredible zero trading fees and tiny buy-sell spreads for high-frequency trading.

Temenos and Mastercard Join Forces to Accelerate the Adoption of Request to Pay

Temenos, the cloud banking platform, announced a collaboration with Mastercard, a leading global technology company in the payments industry, that will help banks to accelerate their introduction of Request to Pay services in the UK. This new initiative combines pre-composed solutions on the Temenos Banking Cloud with market-certified Mastercard services, making it easier, faster and cheaper for financial institutions to introduce Request to Pay services.

CellPoint Digital Appointed by Virgin Atlantic and Holidays as Payment Partner

CellPoint Digital, a leading global provider of Digital Commerce and Payment Orchestration solutions, announces a new partnership with Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays. The airline and holiday package provider will use CellPoint Digital’s full payment orchestration platform to seamlessly integrate new payment methods, new acquirers and stored card facilities, enabling reduced costs, increased acceptance rates and a better customer experience.  

Launches 

Citi Launches Latest Digital Money Index: The Rise of an Entrepreneurial State

Citi, in partnership with Imperial College Business School’s Centre for Financial Technology, has launched its latest Digital Money Index. The index, now in its eighth year, tracks 113 countries (up from 84 in previous years) in terms of their development of digital money readiness. The index continues to classify countries into four clusters – Incipient, Emerging, In-transition and Materially Ready - according to their levels of digital readiness. This year’s revamped index includes new indicators and profiles the progress made by several developing economies in driving digital money readiness.

Klarna Launches Nationwide SME Roadshow to Bring SME Leaders Together

Klarna, a leading global retail bank, payments, and shopping service that helps consumers save time and money, and be informed and in control, has launched its nationwide SME Roadshow to host panel discussions, networking events and drinks to bring small and medium retailers together. The roadshow’s announcement coincides with UK FinTech Week, one of the world's leading FinTech events which showcases innovation in the financial service sector.

Visa Announced Launch of NFT Programme

Visa has created a scheme to help non-fungible token artists expand their businesses. The company estimates that 50 million artists, musicians, designers, filmmakers, and other creators work full- or part-time to support a $100 billion economy. The new Visa Creator initiative will enable artists who want to use NFTs in their business model. Those chosen for the cohort will receive technical and product coaching from Visa's crypto experts, as well as access to other members, industry thought leaders, clients and partners.

CYOTC: Brand New Store Launch at Yuen Long

CYOTC has launched their store in Yuen Long, with free consultation seminars to help investors solve problems and assess risks. CYOTC provides exchange services for USD Tether and Hong Kong dollar and holds regular talks for beginners to gain knowledge of cryptocurrency investment. According to CoinGecko's data, as of March 8, the circulation of stablecoins on the entire network has exceeded $187.2 billion, of which USDT ranks first with $80.2 billion, and USDC ranks second with $52.6 billion.

BingX Introduces Innovative Spot Grid Copy Trading to Let Anyone Execute Consistent Trading Strategies

BingX, the leading crypto social trading platform, has introduced a new Spot Grid Copy Trading feature, offering unprecedented flexibility to users. As the name suggests, the system combines the benefits of Grid trading with that of Copy trading, using strategies from professional traders to earn money from crypto asset volatility. Grid trading is similar to providing liquidity on AMM DEXs, as it sets up gradual buy and sell orders in a defined range of prices. As long as the price oscillates within the band, users can make reliable profit from these fluctuations.

Klarna Launches ‘Klarna Kosma’ Sub-brand and Business Unit to Harness Rapid Growth of Open Banking Platform

Klarna, the leading global retail bank, payments, and shopping service that helps consumers save time and money, be informed and in control, launched ‘Klarna Kosma’, a sub-brand and business unit to harness the rapid growth of its world-leading Open Banking platform. By providing simple access to more banks than any other Open Banking provider, Kosma rapidly reduces the time for new fintech services to reach global scale and provides the essential building blocks for innovation in financial services. 

KPMG and Volante Technologies Launch Strategic Alliance for Real-Time Payments and ISO 20022 Modernization

Volante Technologies, the global leader in cloud payments and financial messaging, and KPMG are joiningforces to offer financial institutions comprehensive ISO 20022 and real-time payments (RTP) readiness diagnostics. The strategic alliance will offer banks a winning combination of cloud-native payment solutions and related advisory, enabling banks to modernize their payments processes and operations faster than ever. As a result, banks and payment service providers can start their real-time payments journey immediately with The Clearing House RTP®, and prepare for new instant payment schemes such as the FedNowSM Service as they become available.

CME Group Announces Launch of Micro-Sized Bitcoin and Ether Options

CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, launched options on Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether futures, further expanding its suite of cryptocurrency derivatives offerings. Options on Micro Bitcoin and Micro Ether futures will complement CME Group's diverse slate of more than 20 Micro products, which, together, have traded more than 1.2 billion contracts since their introduction.  

Merger & Acquisition

Medius Acquires US-Based OnPay Solutions to Strengthen ‘Last Mile’ Payment Automation

Medius, a leading provider of accounts payable (AP) automation solutions, announced the acquisition of OnPay Solutions, an invoice payments provider, for an undisclosed sum. The deal will enable Medius to integrate payment processing – AP automation’s ‘last mile’ – directly into its source-to-pay platform, enhancing its customers’ operational efficiency and strengthening their anomaly, fraud and risk detection capabilities.Founded in 2009 with a mission to improve the lives of accounting professionals globally, and lead by Neal Anderson and Juliet Negrete-Anderson, OnPay Solutions helps its clients streamline AP processes and lower costs by automating invoice payments.

Deutsche Börse Group acquires leading fund data manager Kneip

Deutsche Börse Group is expanding its offering in the data services space by acquiring Kneip Communication S.A., a leading European fund data specialist. The companies have reached an agreement through which Deutsche Börse will acquire 100 percent of the Luxembourg-based fund data manager. Further terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of March this year.

Job Moves

Bybit Appoints Alphan Gogus As Its First General Manager For The Turkey Market

Bybit welcomed senior management executive, Alphan Gogus, as the regional general manager for Turkey. This appointment is part of Bybit's global expansion to support the emerging markets and develop a stronger presence locally with the crypto communities and regulators. When it comes to driving growth for the crypto business, and the development trajectory towards Web 3.0, in his words, "Turkey is fast emerging as a strategic market in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. The local community has adopted not only mainstream coins but also embraced other utilities such as NFTs, fan tokens and gaming in the metaverse," said Gogus.

Saurabh Puri Joins Zaggle as the Chief Business Officer - Credit Cards

Zaggle, a profitable SaaS FinTech company and a pioneer in digitizing business spends, announced the appointment of Mr. Saurabh Puri as its Chief Business Officer - Credit Cards. Mr. Puri's appointment comes at an opportune time as the company prepares to enhance its product line by adding innovative offerings as part of a holistic service proposition for its users. He will work towards developing and leading the credit card business in partnership with Banks and NBFCs.  

DTCC Appoints Two Leaders In Financial Technology Innovation To Its Board Of Directors

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade infrastructure for the global financial services industry, announced that two new members were elected to its Board of Directors during the firm’s Annual Shareholders Meeting. The Board plays a critical role in setting the strategic direction of DTCC, providing oversight and offering guidance on topics including risk management, regulatory matters, technology, innovation and the development of new products and services. The new directors are William (Bill) Capuzzi of Apex Fintech Solutions and Kelley Conway of Northern Trust.

DataGuard Appoints Michelle Schrey as VP of Finance

DataGuard, the compliance software company with a focus on data privacy and information security, has hiredMichelle Schrey as VP of Finance. Schrey has over 10 years of experience in investment banking, corporate finance, enterprise SaaS, and digital payments. At DataGuard, Schrey will head the Finance and Business Intelligence teams. In her new role, London-based Schrey will help DataGuard solidify its position as a leading player in the field of Privacy, InfoSec, and Compliance (PIC).

Synchtank Appoints Janet Kirker as Chief Product Officer

Synchtank, a B2B SaaS company that provides asset and rights management and royalty accounting solutions for the music, media and production industries, announces the appointment, effective immediately, of Janet Kirker as Chief Product Officer. Kirker brings to Synchtank more than 20 years of entertainment industry experience in creative and administrative systems delivery, with a focus on intellectual property rights management and integration of rights with financial operations. Kirker will lead the company’s product roadmap and report to Rory Bernard, Chief Executive Officer.