The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest fintech stories from around the world on Thursday 18 July 2024.
Appointments
Silverflow, a cloud platform for global card processing, has appointed Dagmar van Ravenswaay Claasen as the chair of its supervisory board. The board launched earlier this year to support Silverflow’s growth strategies, as well as provide insights into industry needs, solutions and the future of paytech. She held leadership positions at De Nederlandsche Bank, before joining Adyen as director of regulatory affairs.
TBC Bank Group PLC appoints Konstantin Kruglov as head of artificial intelligence at TBC Uzbekistan, its fintech business in the Central Asian country. His role includes building an AI-enabled virtual assistant to bolster customer experience across TBC interfaces as well as leveraging AI-based technology to optimise customer support, sales and other operations.
Evidence-based investing company Sparrows Capital announces the appointment of Arnie Millington to oversee its tailored MPS proposition for wealth managers – Sparrows Capital MPS. Millington joins the firm from Seven Investment Management (7IM), where he was responsible for maintaining and building relationships with advisers and financial planners across the Midlands and the North West. He has over 10 years’ experience in the advice and wealth sector with previous roles at Benchmark Capital and AJ Bell.
Fintech QuantumFy appoints Nexhat Salihu as project manager. Salihu joins from BPC Banking Technologies, where he served as senior project manager. In this role, he provided consultancy in payment services and managed the end-to-end implementation of numerous projects, serving fintechs, banking partners, and acquirers across Europe.
More hires
Boku, a provider of global mobile payment solutions, has named Rob Whittick as its new chief financial officer. He joins after 25 years at Natwest Group, where he held a number of senior roles. Boku’s global payments network now includes over 300 local payment methods worldwide, reaching over 7.5 billion consumer payment accounts in more than 90 countries
Weel, an Australian spend management platform, has promoted Damon Hauenstein to the expanded role of chief financial officer and chief operating officer. In his COO capacity, he will oversee the company’s daily operational execution, in addition to his existing CFO responsibilities. Hauenstein joined Weel in 2022 as its inaugural chief financial officer.
Partnerships and collaborations
NewDay, a provider of unsecured consumer credit in the UK, has gone live with D•One’s open banking connectivity and transaction categorisation products. This move to provide deeper affordability assessments supports responsible access to credit, as well as financial inclusion. NewDay customers can share their transaction data via open banking for a real-world assessment of affordability.
KYAX, a digital asset financial reporting tool, the Association of National Numbering Agencies (ANNA) and the Digital Token Identifier Foundation (DTIF) have joined forces to expedite the implementation of the ISO 24165 Digital Token Identifier (DTI) and ISO 6166 International Securities Identification Number (ISIN) standards. This collaboration aims to enhance transparency and efficiency in regulatory reporting.
The Ajman Transport Authority from the UAE has partnered with BPC, a payment solutions company, to become the first authority in the UAE to implement modern payments technology on public transport buses, enhancing smart services within the transportation sector, through introduction of O-CITY, a solution for Smart Cities’ and mobility developed by BPC.
Capital on Tap announces a renewed multi-year deal with GDS Link, utilising its decisioning platform to support and complement Capital on Tap’s proprietary risk models across its UK and US business. As it scales, Capital on Tap will leverage its partnership with GDS Link to enhance its automated risk decisioning processes.
Chelsea FC has unveiled a pre-season partnership with Skrill, the digital wallet powered by global payments platform Paysafe. Skrill will be the presenting partner of its opening fixture against Wrexham AFC. The company enables consumers and businesses to transact using 260 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world.
Funding and investments
British Business Investments (BBI) has further committed to Claret Capital Partners Limited, with a new co-investment fund. The fund will invest in high-growth technology enabled smaller businesses across the UK. BBI, a wholly-owned commercial subsidiary of the British Business Bank, aims to improve access to alternative finance for UK smaller businesses, while supporting the transition to a net zero economy.
wamo, a digital business account provider for SMEs, has secured a bridge to Series A round of $5million in growth funding, as well as an EU Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from FIN-FSA (Finland’s financial supervisory authority), positioning the company for accelerated growth across Europe. The latest round sees wamo’s total funding reach $11.8million.
Company updates
Tandem has approved £650million in new lending in green and ‘pathway to green’ home improvement lending (HIL). Then bank has also seen its customer numbers increasing to over 300,000, deposits more than doubling for a second consecutive year to over £3.6billion, and breaking into profit for the second year. Additionally, its Green Hub as had over 200,000 visits since launch and over 1,700 personalised Green Home Plan journeys fully completed.
Copper.co, a digital asset custody, collateral management and prime services company, has secured a Trust or Company Service Provider (TCSP) licence in Hong Kong. This licence, granted by Hong Kong’s Companies Registry, represents a key milestone in Copper’s global market expansion and its compliance with international regulatory framework and standards.
Meridien, a US holding company which specialises in the global payment, CRM and banking Industry, has set out plans to list on the NYSE. Alongside other strategic acquisitions, Meridien will acquire a 27 per cent stake in fintech firm DKK Partners, which has offices in Dubai, to bolster the groups capabilities. As part of the deal Meridien Holdings and DKK Partners have forged a strategic alliance to complement its business plans by securing global payment, acquiring, banking and FX liquidity capabilities.
Salt Edge, an open banking solutions provider, recently launched its 6th Open Banking Gateway API version. The company is releasing its newest version of the Account Information API first, with the Payments API slated to follow suit in short order. This latest update follows the successful launch of API V5 in 2019.
Careem has expanded its Quik delivery service to include a wide range of electronics in the UAE, available for delivery in under 60 minutes across Dubai and in select Abu Dhabi neighbourhoods. Customers can now purchase the latest iPhones, tablets, gaming accessories, wearables and more via Quik Electronics on Careem.
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