This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 26/10
Today’s The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup brings you the latest fintech partnerships and funding round updates.
Job moves
Titanbay, the private markets investment platform, has appointed Gareth Read as chief operating officer. He previously worked at Barings as MD as well as AshGrove Capital as finance and operations director. Read assumes responsibility for Titanbay’s operational infrastructure and will also lead further development of its fund structures to facilitate geographical expansion.
FloBiz, a neobank for Indian SMBs, has unveiled Manoj Bajpayee as a brand ambassador. The Bengaluru-based fintech aims to accelerate its outreach to the SMB sector and promote the adoption of its flagship product myBillBook. The actor will feature in the brand’s ‘Business Ko Le Seriously’ campaign across all media platforms for the next year.
Mastercard has appointed Gabriel Swanepoel as the new country manager for South Africa. This serves as a promotion from his current role as the vice president of business integration for Mastercard. He’s tasked with driving the company’s strategic vision, as well as its innovation and growth agenda. Meanwhile his predecessor Suzanne Morel returns to Mastercard’s New York office.
Fintech Taulia has named Todd Musselman as chief wellbeing officer. Under Todd’s leadership, Taulia will strengthen its wellness culture, empowering its more than 300 employees to put their wellbeing first, helping them maximise their professional and personal performance and development.
Mergers and acquistions
Sysnet Global Solutions, a provider of cybersecurity and compliance solutions, has acquired SecureTrust, a division of Trustwave, in order to accelerate its market expansion. SecureTrust, a provider of payment card industry (PCI) compliance, provides innovation and processes for achieving and maintaining compliance and security.
Research and insight
Over the last 12 months, the fintech industry in Saudi Arabia has continued to grow at a rapid pace, reveals the Fintech Saudi Annual Report 2020/2021. The number of Saudi fintech companies operating in the Kingdom rose by 37 per cent with an investment amount exceeding SAR1.3billion. There has also been a number of regulatory and infrastructure developments including the release of new fintech activity regulations.
Funding and investments
Brass, a Nigerian digital bank for SMEs, has secured $1.7million in funding to address underserved banking needs of local businesses. The financing round saw participation from Olugbenga Agboola, Ezra Olubi, Hustle Fund, Acuity Ventures, Uncovered Fund as well as Ventures Platform. The new funding will play a key role in accelerating Brass’ expansion into South Africa and Kenya.
Metrolink.ai raises $22million in seed round from Grove Ventures plus Eclipse Ventures for its ‘data plumbing’ platform. The company plans to use the funds to expand its R&D, marketing and sales efforts as well as lay the groundwork for a US expansion. Metrolink.ai also unveils its DataOps platform designed to help enterprises and small businesses quickly build and deploy complex dataflow infrastructures.
Sustainable banking service Ando has announced a $6million seed funding round led by TTV Capital. It also included investments from HOF Capital, Kinetic Ventures and NNS Group. Ando uses customer deposits to fund solar initiatives and other carbon-reducing projects.
Quantum computing startup Multiverse Computing closes €10million investment round. The round was led by JME Ventures and also included Quantonation, EASO Ventures and Ezten Venture Capital Fund. The funding will be used to consolidate its growth and globalisation strategy as well as to continue to advance its technology and marketing.
Finally, Citcon, the mobile wallet payment provider, has received $30 million in Series C financing. Norwest Venture Partners and Cota Capital led the round, with Sierra Ventures and Sonae IM also joining. The new funding will support the addition of new staff as well as a global expansion.
Partnerships and collaborations
Embedded financial services platform Orenda has joined forces with payments firm Nium. The partnership will see Orenda leverage Nium’s banking-as-a-service API suite to embed an array of no-code configurable financial services products and features across multiple geographies.
PensionBee has adopted software from regtech firm Clausematch to manage its internal policies and control. Clausematch has helped the online pension provider organise its company policies in one place to help staff find the information they need while providing a comprehensive audit trail.
Cirralto has partnered with Mastercard to launch B2B buy now pay later functionality into online fashion marketplace Whola. Cirralto says implementing Mastercard ‘Track Business Payment Service’ into its payment services means it can offer customers additional security and enterprise integration.
ACI Worldwide, the digital payment software firm, has unveiled a strategic partnership with RocketFuel Blockchain. ACI’s secure e-commerce solution with RocketFuel integration lets merchants incorporate new payment methods into the mobile checkout. The single integration will also quickly update new cryptocurrencies as RocketFuel adopts them.
Mashreq Bank has collaborated with Visa to develop a digital reconciliation platform for real-time tracking, tracing and analysis of company expense accounts. A new suite of digital Visa corporate solutions has been developed to make it easier, safer and cheaper for large businesses to track every individual transaction.
Further partnerships
Worldline and Chargebee are also collaborating – providing an end-to-end payment, subscription and revenue operations solution for merchants operating in a subscription model. The combination of Worldline’s payment gateway and Chargebee’s subscription management solution means merchants can manage subscription billing and recurring payments through one central solution.
Barclaycard Payments has extended its relationship with SAP by integrating its Smartpay gateway into SAP’s Upscale commerce platform. It also enhances the procure-to-pay services available through SAP Ariba. Any business signed up to SAP Upscale Commerce can now access Barclaycard Smartpay.
Policybazaar UAE has entered into a technical/API integration with Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB) to run real-time credit score eligibility checks. Customers of Policybazaar UAE can now apply for credit cards and have an immediate indication of whether their application is pre-approved. Policybazaar.ae will bear the costs of the AECB Credit Score.
Product launches
Automation platform Ocrolus has unveiled its ‘Build on Ocrolus’ program that lets fintech developers leverage custom applications that automate document-driven workflows. The program was introduced at Money 20/20 this week. Innovators can use the document automation infrastructure to create complete applications, using verified data to power financial decisioning.
Veritran, a low-code development company, has released Face Identity – a suite of 3D liveness services and facial biometrics authentication. It aims to simplify the operations carried out by daily users of digital channels in the financial, retail and health sectors.
Tech startup LifeTidy has launched a digital life organisation platform. LifeTidy provides a safe and secure place for people to record, store and track important life information. A dashboard provides a holistic overview of a user’s current wealth position.
Company updates
LXME, India’s financial platform for women, has won the title ‘The Female Economy Fintech of the Year’ at the Financial Alliance for Women Hackathon. The Hack was judged by a panel of global leaders in the financial services/fintech space. It was hosted in partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and on the APIX platform.
Digital insurer Getsafe has received its insurance licence from Germany’s financial regulator BaFin. The licence means Getsafe can accelerate its expansion to the rest of Europe. Getsafe currently offers home and car insurance but plans to expand into further verticals including life and health.
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