Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 2 July 2024 bringing you the latest updates from across the world.
Partnerships
AMINA Bank, a Swiss crypto bank, has unveiled a strategic partnership with Pyth Network, the decentralised financial oracle. AMINA Bank will provide price data for digital assets to the Pyth Network to bolster its real-time price feeds, benefiting users across different strands of finance.
Temenos has signed an agreement with Tech Mahindra, a global provider of technology consulting and digital solutions. By leveraging Temenos composable banking capabilities and Tech Mahindra services, Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) in the UK and Europe. will benefit from faster time to market, lower operational costs, scalable architecture and access to over 100 curated Temenos Exchange fintech partners.
Fingerprints and IN Groupe have continued their partnership with the launch of a Secure Component solution for contactless biometric payment cards, supporting global card manufacturers to scale up production of next-generation payment cards. Fingerprints and IN Groupe first partnered in November 2023 with the aim to simplify the manufacturing process, allowing for increased production by improving reliability and reducing costs.
European paytech Nexi has signed a new collaboration with Amazon.it, enabling customers to make purchases using Bancomat Pay.Through the collaboration, Nexi becomes a technical provider for Amazon.it, making its technology platform available to the e-commerce site. The agreement offers Amazon.it customers more choice at checkout.
Flexys, a debt management software company, and Tuum, a core banking provider, have joined forces. By integrating their platforms, the partnership enables banks to modernise debt collection. Their unified ecosystem replaces banks’ “creaky old core systems with a cloud-based powerhouse that streamlines debt collection workflows from start to finish”.
Company updates
Global fintech Conotoxia introduces three more settlement currencies for multi-currency cards. The Hungarian forint, the Romanian leu and the UAE dirham join the 20 currencies with which users can top up their card and pay without extra currency conversion.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has overturned a permanent licence revocation by the Bank of Lithuania, reinstating ABC Projektai’s payment institution licence. The company lost its licence in April 2020 when the Bank of Lithuania alleged unauthorised e-money issuance due to holding customer funds longer than necessary. Now the court determined that the main allegation against ABC Projektai regarding exceeding the boundaries of its payment institution licence was invalid.
Circle, a global financial technology company founded in 2013 and issuer of the USDC and EURC stablecoins, has obtained an e-money establishment licence from the Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR). In order to operate fully from France, Circle had to obtain a digital asset service provider (DASP) registration. Circle France can now issue, manage and make available electronic money.
Appointments
London-based technology company Nothing appoints Toni Petersson as its first independent board director. Petersson, along with partners from GV (formerly Google Ventures), EQT Ventures, and Highland Europe, will assist in guiding the strategic direction to further scale the business.
Alan Cleary, a mortgages expert, is appointed chair of Chetwood Financial’s mortgage advisory board. Cleary served as head of sales at BM Solutions and then as director of Halifax Intermediaries, before taking on the MD position at Exact Mortgage Experts. He is also recognised for his role at Charter Court Financial Services, which he co-founded in 2008.
Global Digital Finance (GDF), the global digital assets member’s association, announces two new senior
promotions: Elise Soucie is promoted to executive director, with an appointment to the GDF board, while Madeleine Boys is promoted to director, programmes and innovation, with an appointment to the GDF executive committee.
myPOS, the UK-based payments provider, has welcomed Matt Komorowski as chief revenue officer. He will lead all aspects of the company’s revenue growth and sales strategy. Matt brings a wealth of payments experience at companies such as PayPal, Groupon as well as the Boston Consulting Group. Most recently, he also served as CRO at Volt.io.
Funding and investments
Travel debit card Currensea has surpassed its crowdfunding target in just four hours after launching on the Seedrs platform. Currensea, a money-saving travel card linked to existing current accounts, has already raised over £1.86million from 875 investors. Currensea initially targeted a raise of £1million.
eAgronom, the agriculture-focused climate tech company, has secured €10million in its Series A2 equity round. The round includes €4.2million raised during a booster round last year, now converted into equity, plus an additional €5.8million raised this year. Funds raised will expand eAgronom’s presence in key markets and scale the company in various sustainable farming programmes, especially sustainable financing.
Rainforest has closed a $20million Series A led by Matrix Partners, with participation also from existing investors including Accel, Infinity Ventures, BoxGroup, The Fintech Fund, Tech Square Ventures, Ardent Venture Partners, and a number of strategic angels. Rainforest will accelerate investment in its core product, including features and enhancements requested by platform partners.
Insights
Young Britons find financial jargon harder to learn than a foreign language, a survey from Klarna has revealed. Study of 2,000 adults found 64 per cent of Gen Z believe picking up basic foreign words is easier than mastering money terms like APR, capital gains and compound interest. Klarna, the AI-powered payments network, is calling for the government to prioritise financial inclusion in the national curriculum.
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