The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest fintech stories from around the world on Thursday 30 August 2024.
Company milestones
Busha, a cryptocurrency exchange platform in Nigeria, is granted one of the first provisional licences by the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to operate as a regulated virtual asset service provider. It said: “This licence is not just a recognition of Busha’s efforts, but also a long-awaited move to sanitize and strengthen the cryptocurrency space in Nigeria.”
Business bank Allica has acquired bridging lender Tuscan Capital from Quilam Capital, representing Allica’s first foray into the bridging finance market. The Tuscan team, based across the UK, will integrate fully into the Allica team. Allica will also be able to leverage Tuscan’s existing bridging expertise and broker network. Additonally, Allica hires Justin Trowse as head of bridging to spearhead its bridging distribution strategy.
Appital, the peer-to-peer price discovery and liquidity sourcing technology for asset managers, has introduced a new functionality designed to stimulate natural liquidity among Appital’s buyside clients. Price Discovery enables buyside traders to invite select feedback on live orders and gain insights on potential pricing and volume before committing an order to a bookbuild or before launching a bookbuild themselves.
HPS, a global provider of payment software and solutions, has completed the acquisition of 100 per cent of the issued share capital of Ireland-based CR2, following the satisfaction of all the relevant customary regulatory conditions. The acquisition of CR2 by HPS was first announced on 24 May 2024.
Partnerships
Global fintech Unlimit has expanded its long-standing partnership with Alchemy Pay, the fiat-crypto payment gateway, aimed at enhancing its growth in key target markets, like the EU, SEA and LatAm, with the support of Unlimit’s extensive payment method portfolio. Alchemy Pay facilitates fiat-to-crypto purchases across 173 countries, with coverage in Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
Zero, the B Corp Certified fintech, is gearing up for its launch later this year, targeting climate-conscious 21-34 year olds in the UK. Key partnerships include Mastercard for debit card schemes, Transact Payments for BIN sponsorship and e-money services, Flagright for transaction monitoring, Marqeta as transaction processor, TAG Systems for card manufacturing, Onfido for identity verification and KYC, Kani for reconciliation, and Plaid for open banking connectivity.
DeFi.Gold, a company developing a non-custodial decentralised exchange (DEX), launchpad, and NFT marketplace on the Bitcoin blockchain, has forged a strategic partnership with Luna PR, a global marketing and communications agency specialising in Web3 and emerging technologies. Luna PR will provide communications strategies, social media management and growth marketing campaigns.
Fintech platform Adyen announces a global partnership with Swedish home furnishing business IKEA. The new partnership with Adyen will enable IKEA to ‘connect the dots’ between in-store and digital sales channels and offer better payment and loyalty experiences for customers. IKEA will also now be able to gather payment data from all its sales channels on one platform.
10x Banking, the cloud-native core banking platform, forges a strategic partnership with SunTec Business Solutions, the relationship-based pricing and billing provider, to enable banks to offer personalised and contextual products, services and offers to their customers, across corporate, SME and retail banking. The partnership expands the capability of 10x’s newly launched meta core banking platform to personalisation.
Funding and investments
TBC Bank Uzbekistan (TBC UZ), a mobile-only bank, has secured $25million in debt financing from Switzerland-based impact investor BlueOrchard. These funds will be dedicated to further expanding TBC UZ’s ecosystem. This will also contribute to the ongoing growth of the digital bank’s loan portfolio and promote financial inclusion in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s largest country by population.
Comun, a digital bank focused on serving immigrants in the US, has raised $21.5million in a Series A funding round. The company plans to expand its remittance programme and launch several other features by the end of the year. Its Series A funding round was led by Redpoint Ventures with participation also from ANIMO Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, FJ Labs, RTP Global and South Park Commons.
Appointments
Fintech SumUp has reinforced its European operations with a series of exec appointments at its Dublin office. SumUp Limited appoints Niall Mac as CEO of its Irish branch, with Alastair Nolan, previously CFO for SumUp Group Europe, now serving as head of finance. Claire Gillanders, after four years in SumUp’s risk organisation, is head of compliance, and Jessica Cotta is now chief risk officer. Meanwhile, Gareth Walsh has transitioned to a non-executive director board role, alongside Siona Meghen as an independent NED.
atNorth, the Nordic colocation, high-performance computing and AI service provider, appoints Taina Ahti-Aalto as operations director for Finland. Her key responsibilities will be to lead atNorth’s operations team across new and existing facilities and to ensure atNorth’s Finnish facilities continue to align with industry best practices.
TD Securities (TDS), a global corporate and investment bank offering integrated capital markets products and services, has promoted MD Carl Hayes as the new head of European cash equities. Based in London, Carl’s appointment supports TDS’ continued focus on extending its reach in European equity market.
Happy Money, a provider of unsecured lending for credit unions, unveils Matt Potere as its new CEO. He joins from Sunlight Financial, a provider of affordable loans for clean energy projects, where he served as CEO for nearly a decade. Potere has also also held leadership roles at Bank of America.
FNZ, the end-to-end global wealth management platform, announces that its founder Adrian Durham has transitioned from his role as group CEO to a non-executive role as founding director and senior advisor. He will continue to sit on the group board and will also remain a shareholder in the company. Blythe Masters is appointed Group CEO of FNZ, while Roman Regelman is named group president. Additionally, Stephen C. Daffron becomes a strategic advisor to the Group.
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