The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest fintech stories from around the world on Wednesday 4 September 2024.
Appointments
Malcom Finance (formerly 4Trans), a fintech company specialising in financial services for supply chain and logistics SMEs, has appointed the founder of Twisto as a non-executive director. Michal Šmída will actively participate in shaping the company’s strategy, leveraging his extensive experience in building and scaling successful fintech businesses.
Mollie, a European financial service provider, has appointed Dave Smallwood as its UK MD. This appointment comes as the company scales its UK operations following triple-digit year-on-year growth in the first quarter of 2024. In line with this strategic investment, Mollie has also grown its team by over 60 per cent. Smallwood has previously worked at American Express, PayPal and Super Payments.
UK fintech Ripe has welcomed Alan Thomas, the former UK CEO at Simply Business, as its new CEO. Thomas succeeds Paul Williams who is moving to an advisory, non-executive director role at Ripe, having recruited his replacement after almost eight years as CEO of the company. Ripe serves over 360,000 policyholders, offering hyper-targeted insurance solutions across 20 different products.
Edinburgh’s Smart Data Foundry has promoted Linda King to chief of strategy and engagement. King, who previously held the role of head of marketing and communications at Smart Data Foundry, will help the company as it continues to leverage financial data, research and insights to enact positive change across society, the economy and the environment.
The Bank of London has revealed that its founder, Anthony Watson CBE, is stepping down from his role as CEO. Watson will transition to a new role as senior adviser while continuing to serve as non-executive director of The Bank of London Group – the firm’s holding company – and remains a shareholder. Stephen Bell, currently the chief risk and compliance officer has been promoted to CEO, subject to approval.
More job news
Intix, a transaction data management company, appoints Yoann Vandendriessche to its executive team as chief product officer. He brings two decades of international experience in financial technology, having held senior leadership positions at organisations including Finastra, Misys and Thomson Reuters.
Digital bank OakNorth adds Nilan Peiris as a non-executive director to its board. Peiris is the chief product officer at Wise, where he is responsible for product, design, analytics and sales across Wise’s multiple product lines and geographies. OakNorth hailed Peiris’ “breadth and depth of expertise” as it continues to scale, both in terms of product offering and geographic footprint.
Technology specialist Altia has appointed a new head of product as it looks to drive forward its investigation software across the UK and beyond. Sarah Saxton-Jones joins Altia’s UK team and will be tasked with leading the expansion and development of the tech expert’s products and services offering. Key to her role will be overseeing the delivery of Altia HQ, the company’s new flagship platform.
XYB, the coreless banking platform, has strengthened its lending proposition by welcoming a team from Bankish, known for its lending solutions. Among them are Marek Piller, Ian Kalla and Raul Rebane. The new team is set to enhance XYB’s lending capabilities and accelerate the advancement of its next-generation lending engines.
Company milestones
Zilch, the ad-subsidised payments network, has revealed its first month of operating profit while surpassing a revenue run rate of more than $130million. The business has reached these milestones within just four years of launching its consumer payment platform. Zilch has also announced the appointment to its board of Mark Wilson, former CEO of Aviva and AIA and current member of BlackRock’s board of directors.
PKF Smith Cooper Systems, a Sage business partner, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary on 14 October.
The company, which started with eight employees in 2014, now employs more than 60 people across four offices. Celebration activities include a staff celebration at Pride Park Stadium, gifts for all employees, as well as donations to charity.
Bitget Wallet, a Web3 wallet with over 30 million users, is celebrating the growth of its incubated project Tomarket, a decentralised trading platform. Tomarket has surpassed 18 million users and more than six million daily active users, making it “the fastest-growing mini-app on Telegram since its launch with support garnere from Bitget Wallet”.
UnaFinancial, an international fintech group of companies, has disbursed $2billion in loans. Meanwhile, the number of registered customers of the group reached 17 million. In 2023, the Group showed a 57 per cent year-on-year increase in loan disbursement.
Policy Expert, the UK personal lines insurtech, has surpassed 1.5 million policyholders for the first time. The milestone follows another year of growth for Policy Expert in home and motor insurance. The business has grown new policy sales by 45 per cent versus May 2021, and total policies have increased by 51 per cent over the same period. Its total customer base has grown by more than 100,000 over the last year.
Appital, the peer-to-peer price discovery and liquidity sourcing technology for asset managers, adds Virtu Financial’s POSIT MTF as an European execution venue, expanding Appital’s European equity coverage to more than 21,000 equities across 24 European countries. At the same time, Appital adds Virtu Financial as an executing broker for client flows negotiated on Appital’s BookBuilder platform.
Partnerships and collaborations
Legal & General, a DC pensions provider in the UK, has appointed Moneyhub, the fintech and open finance firm, as its Qualifying Pensions Dashboard Service technology provider, helping to shift the dial on how people plan and prepare for retirement. The two firms will partner on a new Pensions Dashboard, allowing L&G pension scheme members to find and view all their pension data in one place.
dLocal, a cross-border payment platform, unveils a strategic partnership with global travel tech company Kiwi.com. The partnership unlocks a payin-solution across 25 countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey as well as Uruguay.
Ecobank Uganda Limited has formed a strategic partnership with Ria Money Transfer, a cross-border remittance services company. This partnership will significantly improve remittance options across Uganda, enabling customers to receive funds directly into their Ecobank accounts. Both account holders and non-account holders will also have the option to collect cash transfers.
Moneybox, the savings and investment platform, has chosen next-generation reconciliation software company Aurum Solutions, to automate its reconciliations. The integration of Aurum’s automation will enable Moneybox to handle higher transaction volumes, expand its product offerings, and invest in new app features.
Funding and investments
Ziina, the UAE financial platform supporting consumers and businesses, has raised $22million in a Series A funding round led by US-based Altos Ventures. Other top-tier investors also participating in this round include Fintech Collective, Avenir Growth, Activant Capital, Y Combinator, FJ Labs, MEVP and Jabbar Internet Group. This funding will fuel Ziina’s expansion, as well as accelerate Ziina’s technological advancements and product innovations.
Placy, an AI-powered tool that automates tasks in the real estate industry, such as property valuations, research, scheduling property viewings, and the drafting of agreements, has recently secured €1million in pre-seed funding led by Zubr Capital. Zubr’s funds will seek to improve Placy Pro, a white-label SaaS tool focused on B2B integrations developed for agencies and agents, and improving the primary features of
Placy, which allows integration into WhatsApp and Telegram for landlords, sellers and buyers.
M&As
Tarabut, an open banking platform in the MENA region, has acquired London-based Vyne, a real-time account-to-account payments platform for online businesses. This strategic acquisition, which has been approved by both the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), bolsters Tarabut’s ability to deliver faster, more accessible, and more interconnected financial services, both across the region and globally.
Axway announces the successful completion of the acquisition of Sopra Banking Software. This major step in the company’s development not only marks a change in dimension, but also initiates a transformative alliance project aimed at delivering substantial value to all its stakeholders.
ClearCourse, a provider of industry-specific software and embedded payment solutions for SMEs and targeted enterprises, has snapped up CSY Retail Systems, an electronic-point-of-sale provider for retail businesses in the UK. Following the acquisition, CSY will become part of the ClearCourse retail and hospitality division, strengthening the group’s integrated offering in this sector.
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