Finovate Global

Finovate Global Australia: CBA Launches Tech Hub, ANZ Plus Reaches 100K Customer Milestone, Aussie Regulators Target AMEX

Finovate Global Australia: CBA Launches Tech Hub, ANZ Plus Reaches 100K Customer Milestone, Aussie Regulators Target AMEX
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, Finovate Global

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Launches Tech Hub in Brisbane

Over the summer, Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) unveiled its latest technology hub in Melbourne. This week, we learned that the financial institution’s hub-building game is still strong, with word that that CBA has established another technology hub, this time in the city of Brisbane.

The goal of the new hub, located in Brisbane’s central business district, is to help build the technology community in Queensland writ large. The bank is collaborating with The University of Queensland (UQ), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and TAFE Queensland to enable students and graduates to participate in CBA’s Tech Associates and Graduate programs. The new hub will also create job opportunities for technology professionals including engineers, cyber specialists, and data scientists.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia Chief Information Officer Brendan Hopper pointed to COVID era trends as one reason why CBA has become especially interested in Queensland. “The COVID pandemic saw many of our technology professionals choose to relocate to Queensland to pursue a change of lifestyle,” Hopper explained. “By having the tech hub in Brisbane, our people based there will still have access to major technology employers like DBA and can make an impact in their work without having to relocate interstate.”

The technology hub in Brisbane is the third such opportunity CBA has launched this year. In February, the bank opened a technology hub in Adelaide.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a multi-national institution with operations in Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., and the U.K. The financial institution, one of the four biggest banks in Australia (along with National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ, and Westpac) was founded in 1911 by the Australian government and privatized in 1996. CBA had more than one trillion in total assets as of 2020.

ANZ’s Digital Bank Reaches 100,000 Customer Milestone

Speaking of Australia’s big banks, ANZ announced this week that its digital bank, ANZ Plus, has reached 100,000 customers, and more than two billion in deposits.

“New features, better security, along with a suite of tools and coaches to help people save more, combined with competitive rates are driving more people to ANZ Plus than ever before,” ANZ Managing Director of Design and Delivery Peter Dalton said. “(It) is the fastest growing new digital bank in Australia.”

Launched in March, ANZ Plus offers accountholders an everyday account that tracks spending, and a savings account with features to help users reach their financial goals. ANZ Plus offers 3.5% interest on savings for ANZ Save balances under $250,000; and charges neither monthly account fees nor withdrawal fees at major Australian bank ATMs. Additionally, ANZ Plus customers can schedule one-on-one sessions with a financial coach to help them uncover ways that they can enhance their financial wellness, including tips on spending less and saving more.

“We are continually adding new features to improve customer experience,” Dalton said, “and have begun piloting our digital home loan product with staff.”

Other features available on ANZ Plus include biometric logins for iOS users, as well as dynamic CVV, BPAY, pay to PayID, and the ability to join with an international passport.

ANZ – which stands for the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd – is the second biggest bank in Australia by assets. Headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, ANZ was founded in 1970 as part of the largest bank merger in Australian history at the time. In the decades since then, ANZ has grown into a multinational banking and financial services entity with more than 51,000 workers, nine million customers worldwide, and more than one trillion in assets.

Australian Regulators Take AMEX to Court

While Australian banks are expanding opportunities for technology professionals and creating new resources for financial technology users, Australian regulators are cracking down on what they believe represents bad behavior on the part of one of financial services’ biggest players.

We learned this week that the Australia Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is alleging that a pair of credit cards issued by the local unit of American Express and co-branded with retailer David Jones did not provide adequate explanations about how the cards actually work.

Specifically, regulators have filed a lawsuit claiming that customers were confused about whether they had applied for a loyalty card or a credit card. Further, the lawsuit charges that American Express did not limit distribution to customers that were exclusively interested in cards that enabled them to earn points and receive other benefits. Regulators assert that AMEX was aware of the issue as early as February, but failed to act until July.

“Product providers must monitor and review whether consumers are receiving products consistent with their needs and cannot bring a ‘set and forget mindset’ to product governance,” ASIC Deputy Chair Sarah Court said in a statement. “It is critical that providers respond to poor outcomes they identify by making changes.”

As of this time, neither AMEX nor the company that owns the David Jones department store chain have commented on the lawsuit.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

  • Tencent’s financial division, Tencent Financial Technology unveiled a new cross-border payments business, Tenpay Global.
  • Tonga Development Bank partnered with Europe-based payments platform BPC.
  • Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia launched a new digital offering, Rize.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African fintech Ukheshe secured new funding from DPI and Fireball Capital.
  • In a bid to boost digital payments, the Central Bank of Nigeria put a limit of $45 on daily ATM withdrawals.
  • Finclusion, a credit-based neobank based in the Republic of Mauritius, raised $2 million in equity financing and rebranded officially to “Fin.”

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Ukraine will be the first country to benefit from the new cross-border payments partnership forged between Mastercard and Paysend.
  • Deutsche Bank announced a partnership with NVIDIA to encourage the use of AI and machine learning in financial services.
  • German corporate financing platform FinCompare partnered with ING Germany.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • A pair of Egypt-based fintechs – consumer financing platform One Finance and BNPL provider ADVA One – announced a partnership this week.
  • Saudi Araban fintech Tweeq secured an e-money license from the kingdom’s central bank, SAMA.
  • bondIT, a fixed income investment technology company based in Israel and New York, raised $14 million in funding.

Central and Southern Asia

  • U.K.-based financial services platform Tide went live in India with its app and business account.
  • The State Bank of Pakistan announced that it is drafting legislation ahead of a planned CBDC launch in 2025.
  • SBM Bank India reported that it is pursuing funding to support the development of its BaaS platform.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Latin American cryptocurrency platform Bitso announced a partnership with remittance company Félix Pago to enable WhatsApp-based crypto-powered payments.
  • Brazil-based digital bank C6 partnered with Thought Machine for its core banking technology.
  • Argentine fintch Ualá to offer personal loans to customers in Mexico courtesy of a partnership with ABC Capital.

Photo by Steve Weir

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Canada: Clik2pay Partners with Inovatec; BMO Offers Installments; RBC Buys HSBC’s Canadian Business

Finovate Global Canada: Clik2pay Partners with Inovatec; BMO Offers Installments; RBC Buys HSBC’s Canadian Business
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Compass Plus, Finastra, Finovate Global, MasterCard, nCino, Nordigen, Nubank, ThetaRay

There are many countries whose fintech innovations are often overlooked. And Canada, America’s legendarily kinder, gentler neighbor to the north, is among them.

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent fintech headlines emanating from the Great White North this week. The news ranges from big new fundings to new product launches to deal-making in Canada’s banking industry.

Clik2pay, a payment service provider based in Toronto, Ontario, has teamed up with lending process automation expert Inovatec. The partnership will enables Inovatec’s clients to use Clik2pay’s direct-from-account payment platform to request payments from customers. The functionality leverages Interac’s e-Transfer money transfer solution to ensure safe and secure fund movement.

“Clik2pay is always looking for ways to make the payments process simpler,” Clik2pay Chief Commercial Officer David Robinson said. “Allowing borrowers to make payment directly from their bank account in real-time through an email or text makes paying incredibly easy for the customer and allows for more efficient collections and payment reconciliation by lenders.”

The collaboration will give lenders the ability to use email to collect payments directly from customer bank accounts – and have those payments reconciled automatically on Inovatec’s platform. The process supports agent-assisted collections, as well, enabling lenders to textc customers payment links and secure real-time notification of successful payments “before the borrower hangs up the phone” the company noted in a statement.

Clik2pay is the first Canadian company to provide real-time, direct-from-account payments for businesses at almost all FIs in the country. Founded in 2019, Clik2pay relaunched its Clik2pay mobile app for small businesses last month. The new app features an enhanced user experience, including improved, simplified onboarding. Mike Bradley is founder and CEO.

Canadian banks have made fintech headlines this week, as well. Bank of Montreal (BMO), for example, announced the launch of its new credit card installment offering. Currently available to BMO’s Canadian retail credit card customers via their online banking platform, the new plan – called PaySmart – enables customers to convert eligible credit card purchases of more than $100 into smaller monthly payments.

Customers will be able to choose between three, six, or 12 equal monthly payments. No interest is charged and BMO will access a monthly fee of up to 0.9%. Because purchases are within the customer’s existing credit limits, no additional credit check or approval is required.

BMO’s latest offering is part of a suite of solutions designed to help its customers better manage cash flow and finances. These solutions include the bank’s Pre-Authorized Payments Manager, Same Day Grace feature, and BMO CashTrack.

In other Canadian banking news, Royal Bank of Canada announced that it has purchased U.K.-based HSBC’s Canadian business for $10 billion (£8.4 billion; C$13.5 billion). The move comes as HSBC seeks to bolster its business in Asia – especially China. The company has more than 130 branches and 780,000 customers as part of HSBC Canada. And while HSBC has also expressed plans to abandon its retail banking operations in the U.S. and France, it is the company’s Canadian division that has turned a profit -whereas both its businesses in the U.S. and France have not.

The acquisition is the biggest by RBC under the tenure of CEO Dave McKay, who has also tried to calm concerns about potential layoffs by noting that RBC is considered one of the best workplaces in the country. McKay also pointed to the fact that RBC has nearly 6,000 open positions and referred to the acquisition as a “talent acquisition opportunity” for RBC. HSBC Canada has $134 billion in assets and 4,200 full-time employees.

“HSBC Canada offers the opportunity to add a complementary business and client base in the market we know best and where we can deliver strong returns and client value given our financial strength and award-winning service,” McKay said in a statement.

Earlier this week we shared news that Toronto-based FinovateFall 2019 alum Buckzy Payments had secured $14.5 million in Series A funding. The company offers real-time, cross border payments services, as well as banking-as-a-service capabilities, via its embedded finance platform. The company has more than 140 bank, neobank, and fintech customers since going live with its platform in 2020. This week’s funding takes Buckzy’s total equity capital to more than $23 million. The round was led by Mistral Venture Partners and Uncorrelated Ventures.

“This round of financing is a validation of Buckzy’s vision to create an intelligent and automated international payment system,” Buckzy CEO Abdul Naushad said. “We’re on a mission to build the plumbing for real-time money movement globally, the same way high-speed internet fundamentally shifted the communications industry.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Brazil’s Nubank announced that it will offer savings accounts and debit cards in Mexico via its digital banking arm, Nu México.
  • Chilean based alternative credit scoring fintech Destácame raised $10 million in funding.
  • Brazilian fund Latitud released its The LatAmTech Report 2022 this week highlighting trends for B2C fintech in Latin America.

Asia-Pacific

  • Finastra launched a new Center of Excellence (COE) at MRANTI Technology Park in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  • Cambodia’s ABA Bank leveraged technology from Compass Plus Technologies to introduce instant card issuance kiosks.
  • Financial crime compliance company Napier announced its entry to the Japanese market via its financial crime risk management platform, Napier Continuum.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • ThetaRay and Ghanian mobile financial services company Zeepay partnered to help fight financial crime in remittance transactions.
  • TechCrunch profiled South African payments company Revio.
  • Kenyan payment service provider Cellulant launched its expansion to South Africa..

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Hamburg Commercial Bank announced that it has implemented and is now live on the nCino Bank Operating System.
  • ING Germany partnered with Viafintech to launch new cash service offering.
  • Estonia-based payment tracking company Transferlink announced a partnership with open banking platform Nordigen.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • UAE-based expense management platform Qashio secured $10 million in seed funding.
  • Jingle Pay, a financial super app based in the UAE, announced a strategic agreement with Mastercard.
  • Israel-based workplace intelligence platform Shield raised $20 million in Series B funding.

Central and Southern Asia

  • KreditBee, a fintech platform based in India, raised $80 million in Series D funding.
  • Mumbai-based youth banking startup Galgal Money secured $1 million in funding.
  • M bank in Mongolia is the latest customer – and first Mongolian client – of Singapore-based B2B SaaS fintech finbots.ai

Photo by Andre Furtado

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global VC Edition: Quona Capital Backs Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets with New Fund

Finovate Global VC Edition: Quona Capital Backs Financial Inclusion in Emerging Markets with New Fund
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entrust Datacard, Finastra, Finovate Global, Mambu, MasterCard, Temenos, VISA

Good news for fintech startups in developing markets! Quona Capital recently announced that it has closed its latest fintech fund, its third, at $332 million. The venture capital firm, which specializes in emerging markets, noted that the amount raised topped its target of $250 million. The new fund, Fund III, will be focused on companies that are developing technologies that expand access to financial services for consumers and businesses in regions ranging from Latin America and India to Southeast Asia, MENA, and Africa.

“Since our earliest days, Quona has been dedicated to expanding the frontiers of financial inclusion – investing with conviction in markets and technology-enabled models improving access and quality of financial services for the masses,” Quona co-founding managing partner Monica Brand Engel said in a statement. “Our prior fund performance, robust pipeline of inclusive fintechs, and growing LP interest in our offerings are ringing endorsements of our view on the prospects of impact-oriented venture investing in emerging markets.”

With aggregate capital of more than $745 million, Fund II is the firm’s third fund since Quona Capital was launched in 2015. Those contributing to the fund as investors include global asset managers, insurance companies, both investment and commercial banks, endowments, foundations, family offices, and more. And while many of the investors in Fund III have invested in Quona Capital funds previously, the new fund did receive capital from 20 new investors, as well.

According to Quona Capital, the startups in its portfolio have served nearly nine million small and medium-sized businesses and over 30 million retail customers. Quona Capital startups have raised nearly $4 billion in capital and generated more than $800 million in revenues. Among these firms are India-based consumer lending company ZestMoney, Southeast Asia-based fintech marketplace ula, and long-time international remittance firm and long-time Finovate alum Azimo – which was acquired by Papaya Global earlier this year.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian neobank ZikZuk acquired tax e-filing platform TaxSpanner.
  • National Bank of Pakistan turned to Finastra to enhance its trade finance operations.
  • Lentra, a fintech based in India, secured $60 million in Series B funding for its loans-as-a-service business for banks.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • AstroPay introduced its Mastercard prepaid card in Brazil.
  • Mexico-based B2B payments company Mendel raised $60 million in new funding.
  • Brazil’s Agrolend, which provides credit to the country’s farmers, secured $27 million in Series B funding.

Asia-Pacific

  • Ant Group introduced its Buy Now, Pay later offering in Hong Kong.
  • Vietnam-based Sacombank partnered with Temenos to enhance digital banking.
  • Philippines-based neobank Tonik unveiled its all-digital lending products, Flex Loan and Big Loan.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian fintech Paga unveiled its Visa-branded card this week.
  • Pan-African paytech Cellulant secured a Payment Systems Operator license from the National Bank of Uganda
  • Samsung South Africa launched its digital wallet, Samsung Wallet.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Polish fintech Ramp locked in $70 million in Series B funding to build payment rails for cryptocurrency investors.
  • Co-investment platform for European startups SeedBlink secured licensing from the Romanian Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF).
  • Genome, an Electronic Money Institution based in Lithuania, partnered with Entrust to simplify digital payments.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • UAE-based Wio Bank went live with Mambu’s cloud-native banking platform.
  • Pyppl, a financial services platform based in the UAE, raised $20 million in Series B funding.
  • Saudi Arabia’s central bank presented its open banking framework.

Photo by Ricky Gálvez

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Pakistan: Embedded Finance, Digital Wallets, and Payment Apps

Finovate Global Pakistan: Embedded Finance, Digital Wallets, and Payment Apps
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

Pakistan-based embedded finance platform Neem forged a strategic partnership with BPC this week. The first Pakistan fintech to be enabled by BPC, Neem will use the company’s SmartVista platform to power its embedded finance infrastructure.

Neem is targeting the more than 200 million consumers and 3.3 million micro, small, and medium sized enterprises (MSMEs) that are un- or underbanked in Pakistan. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Karachi, Neem offers both a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform and a lending platform.

“In BPC, we have a strong technology partner with a deep understanding of the global trends and local market dynamics,” Neem co-founder Nadeem Shaikh said. “We are building our infrastructure together, firstly for Pakistan and then for the emerging markets.”

Neem’s partnership news comes a month after the company announced a strategic partnership with JS Bank. The alliance will enable Neem to leverage JS Bank’s Open Banking platform to enable Neem’s embedded finance community partners to embed payment services into their platforms. Shaikh said that the partnership takes advantage of the “core strengths” of both companies and will lower the time to market for its financial solutions as well as give un- and underbanked consumers “the trust and credibility of a Tier 1 Bank.”

Also in September, Neem announced that it had secured $2.5 million in seed funding. The investment came from local and international backers including Korean SparkLabs Fintech, Taarah Ventures, My Asia VC, Concept Vines, and Building Capital, among others. The funding will help Neem scale its operations as it pursues a license from the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to operate as a non-banking financial company. This would enable Neem to pursue its lending businesses on its own. The company is currently running its lending operations via licensed partners.

In addition to fintech and MSMEs, Neem’s products and services are used in businesses in agriculture, e-commerce, logistics, and healthcare.

Elsewhere in Pakistan’s fintech ecosystem, payment app SadaPay announced that it was partnering with Verimatrix. The company will deploy Verimatrix XTD (Extended Threat Defense) technologies to help ensure secure transactions for its customers

“SadaPay aims to eliminate the complexity of banking and simplify money through modern technologies and an unmatched, delightful customer experience,” SadaPay CEO and founder Brandon Timinsky said. “We are excited to deploy Verimatrix’s award-winning cybersecurity solutions to safeguard our mobile apps as well as monitor and defend our endpoints against potential attacks.”

SadaPay offers payment apps that enable customers to shop online, send money, pay bills, and withdraw cash for free at any ATM in Pakistan. The company also offers a free, numberless, Mastercard debit card with in-app card controls. With Verimatrix XTD, SadaPay will be able to provide comprehensive mobile app protection including continuous monitoring of apps to identify and stop cyberthreats.

“SadaPay’s mission to help serve the unbanked through distinctly simple and fee-free services is also accompanied by a commitment to protect user information, as well as their money,” Verimatrix VP of Cybersecurity Juha Högmander said.

An American, Timinsky launched SadaPay during a visit to Asia following the acquisition of his previous U.S.-based startup. Upon traveling to Pakistan, Timinsky was struck by the opportunity he saw in the country’s sizable population of smartphone-equipped young people, a relatively unsophisticated legacy banking industry, high cellular and broadband penetration, and a government that was increasingly emphasizing the values of digitization.

SadaPay has raised $20 million in funding, including $10.7 million in seed extension funding secured this spring. The company received the funding news just one day after SadaPay won approval from the State Bank of Pakistan to offer financial services via its app.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexican-based digital payments platform Clip earned a spot in Fast Company’s 2022 Brands That Matter roster in the international category.
  • The Chilean Congress has approved the Fintech Bill. The legislation – which includes the establishment of an open banking system to exchange customer data – awaits the president’s signature in order to become law.
  • Mattilda, a Mexican fintech that helps private schools manage payment collections, raised $10 million in seed funding.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Uganda-based small business credit and asset financing platform Tugende secured $10 million in combined debt and equity funding.
  • African payments company Cellulant teamed up with Mastercard to enable e-commerce payments.
  • The Ecobank Fintech Challenge presented its six African fintech finalists, representing Senegal, Togo, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, and Nigeria.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Schufa, a private credit bureau based in Germany, launched its score simulator to support credit rating transparency.
  • Latvian open banking platform Nordigen teamed up with enterprise resource planning solution myCorazon ERP.
  • Worldline acquired a majority stake in Polish fintech SoftPoS.

Photo by Aa Dil

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Singapore: MAS Embraces ESG, HSBC Invests in Customer Intel Specialist Bizbaz

Finovate Global Singapore: MAS Embraces ESG, HSBC Invests in Customer Intel Specialist Bizbaz
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

The ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) movement may be drawing snickers from some corners of the investing world. But in places like Singapore, the drive to build a more sustainable, equitable, and accountable world for investors and users of financial services, is picking up steam.

This week, the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced the launch of its ESG Hub. The Hub is dedicated to supporting collaboration between fintechs, financial institutions, and other industry participants. With 15 ESG fintechs and organizations already on board, the new hub will serve as an anchor for a variety of sustainability initiatives including the Point Carbon Zero Program and KPMG’s ESG Business Foundry.

The Hub will also facilitate MAS’ Project Greenprint, a set of initiatives launched in 2020 to help the financial industry obtain “quality, consistent, and granular data” on sustainability. The project includes a common disclosure portal to simplify the ESG disclosure process; a data orchestrator to aggregate sustainability data from multiple sources such as ESG data providers, utilities providers, and others; a ESG registry to record and manage ESG certifications; and a marketplace to help green technology providers in Singapore connect with investors, venture capital firms, and financial institutions to foster partnerships and innovations in green technology.

“The establishment of the ESG Impact Hub is a critical milestone in Project Greenprint’s journey to build a vibrant and robust ecosystem in Singapore, underpinned by technology and data,” MAS Chief Sustainability Officer Darian McBain said. “This physical Hub will augment MAS’ plans to launch a digital Greenprint Marketplace next year to catalyze the growth of the region’s online ESG community; and will serve as the launchpad for public-private partnerships that support Asia’s just and sustainable transition to a low carbon economy.”

MAS’ ESG hub will look to build Singapore’s ESG ecosystem in three ways: helping corporations and financial institutions meet their ESG needs via the “discovery, scaling, and deployment” of new green technical solutions; partnering with knowledge leaders, investors, and financial institutions to organize and launch ESG accelerator programs, workshops and other initiatives; and supporting ESG stakeholders by directing the community’s “programs and solutions toward “material, quantifiable impacts.”

As of October 4, the members of MAS’ ESG Impact Hub include:

  • Acre Resources
  • CDP
  • Climate Impact X
  • Circulate Capital
  • Eachmile Technologies
  • Equilibriuim AI
  • GDST (Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability)
  • Grow Asia
  • KPMG
  • MUFG BAnk
  • STACS
  • Stonehaven
  • Terrascope
  • The Nature Conservancy
  • World Wide Generation (WWG)

Elsewhere in the Singapore fintech ecosystem, customer intelligence and risk assessment firm Bizbaz recently secured $4 million in seed funding. The round was led by HSBC Asset Management, and featured participation from Vynn Capital and SOSV.

Bizbaz offers banks, fintechs, and other businesses the ability to leverage data to acquire new, unbanked and underbanked customers, reduce risk and cost-associated risk, and create revenues from upselling new financial products to existing customers. Founded in 2019, the Singapore-based company offers a range of financial intelligence solutions including alternative credit scoring, fraud detection, eKYC, and product aggregation and recommendation systems.

Bizbaz does business in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand, Africa, and Latin America, as well as its home market of Singapore. The company notes that more than seven out of ten Southeast Asia’s 680 million population are unbanked and have no credit history. At the same time, Bizbaz recognizes that mobile phone penetration rates of 69% give the startup the opportunity to leverage social data, along with financial data, to develop risk profiles for thin or no-file individuals.

“Most financial institutions and financial technology companies still use outdated financial history based credit risk systems,” Bizbaz CEO Hayk Hakobyan said. “Our solutions analyze all financial and non-financial data, which have meaningful impact on risk assessment for loans, insurance and other financial services.”

Bizbaz includes insurtechs eBaoTech and Aktivo, Philippine credit bureau CIBI, and digital identity and programmable communications firm Telesign among its partners. This spring, the company announced a collaboration with Australia-based Advanced Human Imaging Limited.

HSBC Asset Management is the investment division of U.K.-based HSBC Group. The firm’s investment in Bizbaz comes a little over a year after launching a new venture capital investment strategy designed to gi give customers more exposure to innovative fintechs. The Greater Bay Area in China was among the markets highlighted when the fund was announced late last summer.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Munich-based AML Surveillance technology company Hawk AI announced a strategic partnership with Know Your Customer.
  • Latvian open banking data platform Nordigen teamed up with Italian cash flow management solution provider Pelrio.
  • Germany’s ADAC Finanzdienste partnered with Solarisbank to launch new credit card offering.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Photo by Elina Sazonov

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Egypt: Our Conversation with Cartona CEO and Co-Founder Mahmoud Talaat

Finovate Global Egypt: Our Conversation with Cartona CEO and Co-Founder Mahmoud Talaat
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Finovate Global

This week, Finovate Global takes a look at fintech developments in Egypt, specifically the story of Cartona.

The company, just over two years old, is a B2B e-commerce marketplace that helps connect retailers with a curated network of suppliers and wholesalers. Cartona secured $12 million in Series A funding this summer, taking its total capital raised to $16.5 million according to Crunchbase.

Our conversation with co-founder and CEO Mahmoud Talaat includes discussion of the company’s role in the Egyptian financial services landscape, the current state of fintech in the country, and his plans for Cartona in the months to come.

Tell us about the founding of Cartona.

Mahmoud Talaat: Founded in August 2020 by Mahmoud Abdel-Fattah, Rafik Zaher and myself, Cartona is a B2B e-commerce marketplace. Cartona offers an asset-light marketplace that enables retailers to order their store needs digitally from a curated network of sellers.

Cartona began with a focus on solving the supply-chain and operational challenges for the fast-moving consumer goods industry (FMCG) by digitizing the traditional, predominantly offline, trade market.

Prior to Cartona, I was a former top executive at leading dairy company Lamar and experienced first-hand the need to make Egypt’s largely offline trade market more efficient. Cartona can greatly improve productivity and reduce waste in time and resources through the impact of its wide-ranging simplified processes.

What in your background gave you the confidence to launch Cartona?

Talaat: Cartona is my third entrepreneurial endeavor. My first job was at Lamar in 2012, back when it was still a startup and the products had not yet been launched. As CCO, I ensured that the new products were fully distributed in the market; handled the operations for many warehouses and created an indirect distribution network.

I then founded Speakol, a native advertising platform that connects publishers with advertisers, back in 2017 whilst still working at Lamar.  Speakol currently operates in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and is a leading native advertising platform, generating around two billion paid views each month.

What role does the company play in Egypt’s financial services industry?

Talaat: Cartona embraces the vision of a cashless society, investing in embedded finance and payments. We offer pay after four days or pay in four equal installments every 7-10 days. We have made sure our product is easy to use and seamlessly integrated into the ‘check-out’ section for ordering, with collection being all digital or through our supplier network. Providing retailers with this technology-integrated financial solution not only boosts financial inclusion but also enables them to grow their business and provide customers with essential products at affordable prices. To supplement our core ordering business, embedded finance is what we believe is a key challenge and we see a clear need for it by retailers in the industry.

Your mission is to digitize Egypt’s traditional trade market. What does this market consist of? How does it operate now? Cash? Cards?

Talaat: Egypt’s trade market is mostly offline, regardless of whether retailers pay distributors through cash or cards. Our aim is to change this by propelling the largely offline trade market into the mainstream digital sphere, thereby streamlining operations for thousands of retailers.

What are the biggest challenges when it comes to digitizing Egypt’s traditional trade market?

Talaat: The execution of any business strategy – especially when it involves modernizing a traditional structure – inevitably comes with day-to-day hurdles as new infrastructure is put in place. But these hurdles are very surmountable and are as much an opportunity as a challenge.

One of the biggest challenges is our own impatience! But we are reassured to see the culture changing and recognizing how digitalization and supply chain innovation can have a tremendous impact in increasing efficiency. This is proven by our rapid scaling in a short period of time. We now work with 200 FMCG companies and have 60,000 users.

Your company recently secured $12 million in Series A funding. What does this accomplishment mean and what will the investment empower?

Talaat: The $12 million we recently raised in Series A funding will enable us to continue to build a strong, digitally connected network of retailers which is currently in the tens of thousands. The proceeds will further aid our nationwide expansion beyond the nine governorates in Egypt where we currently operate and help us grow our team and explore new verticals – expanding beyond our current FMCG-heavy product base.

Cartona prides itself in being “asset-light” and “capital-efficient.” What does this mean and why is it important?

Talaat: As an asset-light business built on enhancing agility, we do not own a single asset or vehicle we distribute. We are also capital efficient in the sense we balance spending on growth with having a clear path to profitability. We optimize capital to achieve this, and the consequent demonstrable, solid unit economics sets us apart. We are thus focusing on the basics – cost price + profit margin = selling point.

What is something about fintech in Egypt that outsiders may be surprised to learn?

Talaat: The fintech sector in Egypt specifically, is highly promising and has witnessed unprecedented growth in the last few years, being one of the MENA’s fastest growing sectors. The exciting aspect is that we’re still scratching the surface with fintech in the region. It still has great potential and can revolutionize some well-established industries that are still untouched.

What can we expect from Cartona in the months to come?

Talaat: The coming period will be a time to focus on internal and external growth. As already mentioned, we are focused on bringing our revolutionary role of digitizing the trade market to millions more people.

To date, we have grown our team to over 500 people, we are also prioritizing hiring more talent to help us reach our ultimate vision – empowering all stakeholders of Egypt’s traditional trade market.

Photo by Tamer Soliman

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Finland: Building a Strong Data Economy with ReceiptHero’s Chris Moore

Finovate Global Finland: Building a Strong Data Economy with ReceiptHero’s Chris Moore
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Interview, ReceiptHero

Tampere, Finland-based ReceiptHero is on a mission to make meaningful interactions from every day transactions. The company’s platform combines digital receipts with loyalty programs and benefits to give merchants new ways to engage with their customers. Consumers benefit from an integrated solution that relieves the burden of paper and email receipts, as well as the hassle multiple loyalty cards and apps.

We caught up with Chris Moore, Chief Operating Officer with ReceiptHero, to talk about how far the company has come since its Finovate debut in 2020, and the role ReceiptHero plays in the emerging data economy. We also talked about the company’s recently announced partnership with Ingenico.

You made your Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin, Germany. What was that experience like? 

Chris Moore: Wow, that feels like a decade ago! Back then we were a very small team and had just released our Nordea bank integration. We had also started to systematically onboard our first batch of Finnish merchants to the platform. The feedback we got from the demo was fantastic; it really felt like we were solving a global problem and not just something we had been talking about here in Finland.  You could argue pitching at FinovateEurope was the catalyst to where we are today. 

Later that year you secured two million dollars in seed funding. What did that investment say about your company at the time and how did you put the capital to work? 

Moore: The seed funding also solidified we were fighting a problem big enough. We picked some great Nordic investors and they’ve provided more than just capital since the investment. Essentially, the funding was to grow the platform and increase our sales efforts in the Nordics, but also to (expand) into other markets, such as Switzerland and the U.K. and put capital towards our POS integrations which are a key part of getting the receipt data flowing from the retailers.  

Last fall ReceiptHero partnered with Mastercard and Visa. How did these partnerships come about and what was accomplished through them? 

Moore: These partnerships came quicker than we expected. To partner with both Visa and Mastercard at the seed stage was a huge milestone for us. But we also knew that tackling the digital receipt problem would only happen if we had global partners such as the two major card schemes. The partnership with both Visa and Mastercard allows us to move into new markets in Europe with less dependence on local payment providers and therefore fewer integrations before being able to launch our solution. So it was a really big win with regards to scaling the platform and providing confidence at the highest level to support our objective of removing paper receipts as the main method of proof of purchase. I don’t think these partnerships would of been possible without our great development team building out a PCI DSS compliant platform, emphasizing our commitment to safeguarding cardholder data and providing the best possible receipt platform on the market today.

Speaking of Visa, you’ve recently strengthened your relationship with the company. How so? 

Moore: Visa has seen increased client requests and interest in digital receipting over the last 18 months and, for a while, they have been trying to find a European partner who can enable such a solution. Building on the technical partnership from 2021, this new agreement puts us in the shop window as an approved partner for Visa’s clients and partners. We are already seeing the benefits of being involved in Visa’s Fintech Partner Connect program and we hope we can announce something soon off the back of this strengthened relationship.

You have talked about the idea of the data economy. In what way is ReceiptHero a part of this data economy – and what role does it play within it?   

Moore: We are surrounded by data in our daily lives, most of it is unstructured and in hard to reach places. Receipts printed on paper are just that: unstructured and, as a customer, it’s hard to apply that purchase data to good use. Part of my opening remarks at FinovateEurope was that we are showered by amazing digital payment innovations and sadly the post purchase experience has mainly been left to stay in the analog world. Purchase data is core to building a strong data economy, as this data has so far been siloed and in a format that is hard to receive in real-time. It’s not really been leveraged or valued as it should be. ReceiptHero is breaking down those silos and enabling a world where a consumer can have this data instantly in their banking app or in an approved service where the data is used to better the customer experience. 

Part of our unique role in fighting for digital, structured receipts is that we have a fiduciary duty to the data that flows through our platform to use it in a way that benefits all ecosystem stakeholders. We have no ulterior motive here; we are not a bank, a large retailer nor the cash register or payment provider enabling the sale. This allows us to act with the best interest of all stakeholders and help everyone to better utilize this new found digital data for the cardholder and the merchant. 

ReceiptHero also plays a role in the trend toward sustainability and responsible consumption. How important has this been to you and to your customers? 

Moore: For large retailers that print hundreds of thousands of receipts a day, what happens when you turn off all the receipt printers in your stores nationwide and only send customer receipts via digital channels? What are the impacts to your business from a cost perspective – but also the environmental repercussions? Simply put, less trees get turned into wood and then into paper, which then would have found their short existence as thermal receipts that sadly cannot be recycled due to the harmful chemicals on the paper. Take that scenario and then multiply it across thousands of retailers right across Europe (and, at some point, globally). That becomes a significant change in our fight for sustainability and better digital experiences.  

What can you tell us about the fintech industry in Finland that those outside of the country – and the region – might be surprised to hear? 

Moore: Well, I have personally been in Finland for 10 years now and I’ve seen the fintech space grow year over year. Sweden has always been a few steps ahead with regard to fintech unicorns, but Finland has now quickly caught up. We have a great ecosystem here where banks seek to innovate and look for fintechs to speed up those embedded features. Now we have unicorn successes such as Enfuce and AlphaSense in Europe. I also think the VC space is heating up with regards to fintech funding, with lots of appetite for investments in young ambitious fintech companies. 

You introduced a loyalty rewards solution this summer. Why this move now – and how has the early reception to the new feature been?   

Moore: Distributing digital receipts in real-time is the very foundation of what can be built with this data. What we wanted to prove is what happens in adjacent segments when you get this data and wrap a lightweight loyalty solution around it.  We’ve started to onboard our SME merchants onto the rewards program, and so far it looks like we’re able to provide even more value to the merchant and the cardholder. For larger retailers where they might already use a loyalty platform, we can enable real-time card-linked receipt data to give them better visibility over repeat spend, lifetime loyalty, and average basket size. 

You’ve also announced that you will be joining Ingenico’s new PPaaS platform. What can you tell us about this partnership?

Moore: We’ve announced this week that we’ve signed a partnership with Ingenico, one of the world’s largest payment terminal providers and now part of the Worldline group. PPaaS is Ingenico’s new payment platform that enables a “one-to-many” integration for us, so we can enable our digital receipt solution for thousands of acquirers, another partnership that supports us to scale across Europe. What’s exciting about this partnership is that we can onboard cardholders from the payment terminal, allowing another entry point to receive digital receipts for customers. 

What else can we expect to hear from ReceiptHero over the balance of 2022 and into 2023? 

Moore: Well, we’ve got some important retailers coming to the platform over the next six months so we’re really excited to announce those in due course. These are retailers that operate across multiple markets and more signs of us expanding further into Europe. There will be some bank partnership news too, but I wont give anymore away on that just yet!

Photo by Paul Theodor Oja

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Latin America: Geopagos Raises $35 Million; Paystand Acquires Mexico’s Yaydoo

Finovate Global Latin America: Geopagos Raises $35 Million; Paystand Acquires Mexico’s Yaydoo
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Finovate Global, PayStand, Ripple

Active in 15 countries in Latin America, payments infrastructure provider Geopagos has secured an investment of $35 million. The equity funding round was led by Riverwood Capital and featured participation from Endeavor Catalyst. The sum represents the company’s first institutional financing and will be used to fuel the development of new embedded payments solutions and help the firm expand throughout Latin America.

Geopagos provides financial institutions, fintechs, retailers, software companies and other organizations with end-to-end digital solutions to help them launch or grow their payment acceptance businesses in the area. These solutions include terminals that enable mobile phones to operate as point of sale devices as well as technology that turns websites into e-commerce platforms.

With clients including Santander, BBVA, Banco Estado de Chile, and Finovate alum Fiserv, Geopagos processes more than 150 million transactions and more than $5 billion in volume a year. The Buenos Aires-based company was founded in 2013 by Sebastián Núñez Castro, Julián Lisenberg, Fernando Tauscher, Raúl Oyarzun and Damián Harburguer.

“Latin America is a market with very low card penetration and Geopagos is well positioned as a software enabler and infrastructure provider to boost card acceptance and digital payments across the region,” Riverwood Capital co-founder and managing partner Francisco Álvarez-Demalde said.

Speaking of payments in Latin America, blockchain-enabled accounts receivable and B2B payments company PayStand has acquired Yaydoo, an accounts payable, cash flow management, and liquidity solution provider based in Mexico. Yaydoo is one of the fastest-growing startups in Mexico, with more than 150 employees working in more than six different countries. Founded in 2017 and operating throughout Latin America Yaydoo raised $20.4 million in Series A funding last year and this year was named a “Súper Empresa 2022” and a “Súper Empresas para Mujeres 2022” by Expansión Top Companies México.

“Together, PayStand and Yaydoo will redefine the boundaries of B2B fintech across the continent,” PayStand CEO Jeremy Almond said. “The combined company will be one of the first global B2B blockchain platforms at a significant scale. The resulting company will have processed over $5 billion in payments, added 300 additional employees, and built a network of over 500,000 connected businesses, the largest of any commercial B2B blockchain in the world.”

Founded in 2013, PayStand made its Finovate debut at our developers conference, FinDEVr Silicon Valley, one year later in 2014. The company leverages blockchain and cloud technology to digitize receivables, automate processing, lower time-to-cash, remove transaction fees, and drive new revenue. A member of the 2021 CB Insights Fintech 250 and named to the Inc. 5000 for a second year in a row in 2021, PayStand has secured $86 million in funding, most recently raising $50 million in a Series C investment led by NewView Capital and featuring participation from SoftBank’s SB Opportunity Fund and King River Capital.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Photo by Nikita Ananjevs

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Interview: Abdulla Almoayed of Tarabut Gateway on Open Banking in the MENA Region

Finovate Global Interview: Abdulla Almoayed of Tarabut Gateway on Open Banking in the MENA Region
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

This week’s edition Finovate Global is an interview with Abdulla Almoayed, founder and CEO of Tarabut Gateway. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Dubai, Tarabut Gateway is the first and largest regulated open banking platform in the MENA region. The company enables secure and friction-free data flow and connectivity between banks and fintechs in its regional network, leveraging its universal APIs to bring the benefits of open banking to financial services consumers in Bahrain, the UAE, KSA, and elsewhere.

This year, Tarabut Gateway has secured major banking partnerships in Saudi Arabia, teaming up with Riyad Bank, Saudi British Bank, Alinma Bank, and Banque Saudi Fransi as the Kingdom begins to embrace open banking. In June, the company was selected as platform partner by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) for its new Open Finance Lab. Last month, Tarabut Gateway announced a pair of C-suite appointments, introducing new Chief Product Officer Nino Ocampo and new Chief Commercial Officer Adnan Erriade.

We caught up with Abdulla Almoayed to learn more about Tarabut Gateway, its role in driving open banking and fintech innovation in MENA, and what we can look forward to from the company in the future.

How strong is the Open Banking trend in the MENA region? 

Abdulla Almoayed: While the Gulf region might have been slower to adopt Open Banking than some Western countries, such as the U.S. and U.K., the fintech ecosystem in MENA is developing rapidly and has the potential to leapfrog other regions. Open Banking is a relatively new phenomenon globally, but there is great interest around it in our region and especially in the Gulf states.

Open Banking in MENA is highly driven by forward-looking regulators that are setting implementation plans in motion. This trend is also driven by increased consumer demand for personalized products and services – a pattern of consumption consumers have come to expect from the Netflix/Amazon experience, i.e. product recommendations based on consumers’ wants and needs.

Financial apps and products providing an enjoyable user experience are at the centre of this personal finance revolution. Improved financial literacy has caused customers to research and test more before deciding which financial product or service to use, while entrepreneurs and regulators have been motivated to spearhead change.

Using insights from data to create individually tailored products prioritizing an optimal, overall customer experience, Open Banking helps transform traditional one-size-fits all financial products into more intuitive financial products experiences. Through Open Banking, the consumer gets a new level of control, far in excess of today’s standard because traditional banks’ internal systems hoard valuable, personalized data about consumers. With Open Banking, consumers regain ownership over their personal financial information.

What are the forces that are driving open banking in the area? 

Almoayed: The compelling combination of customer demand, progressive regulators, and entrepreneurial ambition is driving Open Banking. The resulting technology provides vastly increased transaction speed and the capability to manage personal finances like never before.

Internet connectivity across the MENA region has increased rapidly in recent years, covering potentially 93% of the population, or 580 million people, according to telecommunications association GSMA. Smartphone penetration is estimated to reach 80% in 2025, and over 90% in GCC countries.

MENA’s young and tech-savvy population is still underbanked, and a driving factor behind Open Banking’s growth are companies and regulators who are keen to facilitate this huge opportunity in a responsible manner.

Moreover, banks in the region understand the benefits that Open Banking brings to their institutions. Open Banking enables them to stay relevant and to compete in today’s banking sector by providing enhanced digital offerings and customer-centricity.

Tarabut Gateway acts as the matchmaker between service providers and customers, creating a competitive fintech ecosystem where users receive the best, personalized products, and services.

How has Tarabut Gateway become a major player in MENA-based open banking?

Almoayed: Tarabut Gateway was launched in 2017 and our mission is to provide the Open Banking infrastructure for the entire region; growing an Open Banking ecosystem to benefit consumers, start-ups and legacy financial institutions.

Having graduated as the first company from Bahrain’s Open Banking sandbox program, our pioneering product offering made Tarabut Gateway’s rapid expansion possible. Not only did we enter the UAE market and become the first licensed Open Banking service provider, but also we have established partnerships with major KSA banks to participate from the start in the Kingdom’s fast-moving fintech sector development.

The Middle East’s financial services industry is just beginning to implement many of the personalized services new technologies and regulation make possible. Tarabut Gateway is at the forefront to fill these gaps, offering Open Banking APIs to support banks, fintechs, and third-party service providers (TPPs) in creating new products and services. Fintech sector growth has been stunning in recent years, and is still on an exponential path. Currently, there are approximately 500 fintechs in the region.

This has been a big year for Tarabut Gateway. What accomplishments stand out to you the most this year? 

Almoayed: The major milestones achieved in 2022 – the launch of the Open Finance Lab in partnership with Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Open Banking license in the UAE, KSA bank partnerships, and newly appointed leadership roles – are all of great importance and reflect the different frontiers we are pushing as a company.

Open Finance Lab is an initiative led by DIFC. Tarabut Gateway was selected as the platform partner for the program. The Open Finance Lab is a 6-month program that will educate and engage banks, regulators, and the industry to showcase and shape the positive impact of Open Finance on the economy

To be acknowledged by the Dubai Financial Services Authority with the country’s first Open Banking license, including regulation as Account Information Service Provider and Payment Initiation Service Provider (AISP/PISP), is a symbol of our role as an ecosystem enabler.

Growing deeper roots in KSA’s market by being the fintech player with the largest, and most developed, network of partnerships validates our mission – to sit at the junction between regulators, banks, fintechs and TPPs.

Finally, the appointment of Nino Ocampo (CPO) and Adnan Erriade (CCO) further established Tarabut Gateway as international challenger, and points towards our role as a regional leader interacting with the global fintech revolution. We have attracted some of the most achieved Open Banking professionals, from leading organizations like HSBC, OpenWrks, and TrueLayer to join our team and contribute to our vision for Open Banking in the MENA.

What is something about fintech in the MENA region that many of those unfamiliar with the region would find surprising or interesting? 

Almoayed: An organic driver of fintech growth across MENA is the large number of underserved customers. MENA’s population is double that of Europe – but the region has fewer banks than Germany alone! Reaching out to the underserved and underbanked is the greatest challenge, but one of today’s most rewarding business and investment opportunities.

Unsurprisingly, developed Western markets, especially the U.S. and U.K., had a considerable head start in all things Open Banking – i.e., number of startups, amount of funding and regulation.

However, most observers underestimate the i) velocity of MENA’s regulator-led fintech sector growth during the last years, ii) the region’s demographic advantages, entrepreneurial culture, and business-friendly environment, and iii) the “second mover advantage” of designing Open Banking frameworks utilizing experiences made in pioneering developed markets.

Taken together, we think some MENA jurisdictions could leapfrog Western Open Banking development, especially with a stalling regulatory environment in the European Union.

Working closely with regulators and banks, Tarabut Gateway provides the groundwork for a thriving fintech ecosystem. Nimble fintech companies fill the gap left by traditional banking and complement the existing system. KSA, UAE, Bahrain, and even Oman and Egypt are rolling out far-sighted regulatory regimes and providing incentives to develop and implement ‘enabling’ technologies such as banking APIs.

What are some of Tarabut Gateway’s top priorities over the balance of this year and into the next? 

Almoayed: This year, the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) plans to go live with its Open Banking framework – part of the Kingdom’s “Vision 2030.” With “Fintech Saudi,” a strong platform was created to support Saudi fintech entrepreneurs and the number of fintech start-ups in the KSA increased 37% to 81 during 2021.

We are at the forefront of Open Banking progression in KSA, and it is a priority for us to support the country’s economic policy as Open Banking infrastructure provider benefitting Saudi consumers, merchants, banks and fintechs.

Our recently announced participation in the Dubai International Financial Center’s Open Finance Lab is an important step towards our exploration of Open Finance solutions – the idea of integrating even more areas of traditional finance in an Open Data framework, for example pensions, mortgages, loans, insurance, and investments. Tarabut Gateway is determined to also be the pioneering API provider for Fintech innovation in the UAE (and elsewhere).

In our first market, Bahrain, phases one and two of the Central Bank of Bahrain’s Open Banking Framework have been successfully implemented, with the regulator’s focus now shifting to Open Finance solutions. Tarabut Gateway will strive to remain the most trusted provider for the incredible growth to be expected through continual financial services innovation.

We are excited to see many new use cases developed on our platform including AIS/PIS solutions like cross-border payments, digital wallets, know your client processes and personalized financial management products.

Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global Germany: Ecolytiq Partners with Tatra Banka; Airbank Inks Deal with Klarna Kosma

Finovate Global Germany: Ecolytiq Partners with Tatra Banka; Airbank Inks Deal with Klarna Kosma
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Crassula, ecolytiq, Finovate Global, FIS, MasterCard, PaySend, Salt Edge, WorldPay

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent fintech developments in Germany where green banking, embedded finance, and open banking are the themes at the top of this week’s fintech headlines.

First up, Berlin-based Sustainability-as-a-Service innovator ecolytiq announced that it was teaming up with Slovakian financial institution Tatra Banka. The climate engagement fintech will provide Tatra Banka with the technology the firm needs in order to launch new green banking functionality on its online banking brand, Blue Planet. The new feature, which will be made available to Tatra Banka’s more than 600,000 customers, will enable users to monitor the impact their transactions may have on the environment (for example, with CO2 emissions), provide users with ideas on how to reduce their environmental impact, and offer rewards for spending that is environmentally friendly.

Founded in 2020, ecolytiq demonstrated its technology at Finovate’s developer event, FinDEVr 2021, which was held as a part of FinovateSpring that year. Putting accurate data at the center of the ability to move toward greater environmental sustainability, ecolytiq demonstrated how its open knowledge graph and streaming technology keep its data relevant and current. More recently, the company announced a strategic partnership with exceet Card Group, makers of sustainable payment cards made from wood and, the following month, teamed up with French sustainable neobank Green-Got.

Peter Golha, a director at Tatra Banka said that the institution believed it had a a role to play in the transition toward a more environmentally sustainable economy. “Not only have we a chance to change our own trajectory, but also a chance to live the topic of sustainability alongside our clients,” Golha said.

Founded in 1990, Tatra Banka was the first private bank to be established in Slovakia. Winner of the TREND Bank of the Year award for two years in a row, Tatra Banka announced this spring that it had achieved its greatest profit to date, reporting $164 million (EUR 162.1) in consolidated profits for the financial year 2021.

Second, German financial management platform for businesses Airbank inked a deal with Klarna Kosma this week. Klarna Kosma is an open banking platform launched by Swedish e-commerce innovator Klarna this spring. Seen as a rival to fellow Finovate alum Tink and its open banking platform, Klarna Kosma offers financial institutions, fintechs, and merchants connectivity to more than 15,000 banks in 24 countries around the world via a single API. Kosma was made possible in many ways by Klarna’s acquisition of direct, bank-to-bank payments company SOFORT in 2014, and Klarna has been developing and expanding the service ever since.

“Over the past year, the demand for Open Banking services from financial institutions and fintech startups has reached a tipping point,” Klarna Kosma VP Wilko Klaassen said. “(This) is why we have built a dedicated business unit which brings together engineering, product management, sales and marketing all together in the same team to focus on this $15 billion, fast-growing market.”

Airbank will leverage its new relationship with Klarna Kosma to “accelerate” its expansion into European markets and beyond. Airbank enables businesses to consolidate their bank accounts in a single location, allowing them to more easily automate bill management, make payments, and manage their finances. Companies also can use Airbank’s platform to track their financial transactions and forecast future liquidity. The partnership with Klarna Kosma will make it possible for Airbank to securely access account information from thousands of banks around the world, expand more aggressively, and better serve its SME customers that have global requirements.

“By the end of this year, we will serve over 50 counties, making Airbank the most comprehensive global banking solution for SMEs in the industry, with the ability to connect bank accounts from almost anywhere in the world,” Airbank founder and CEO Christopher Zemina said. “We are delighted to have Klarna Kosma as an experienced and dynamic partner that shares our ambition to shape the future of B2B financial management.”

Lastly, early in the week we learned that Berlin-based embedded finance startup Monite had teamed up with Codat, a U.K. firm that offers a universal API to enable access to consented business data from banking, accounting, and ecommerce platforms. The partnership will enable both SaaS platforms and financial institutions to integrate invoicing and billing functionality into their apps. This will allow platforms and institutions to offer businesses a unified solution for managing their financial operations.

In a statement, the CEOs of both Monite and Codat praised the great variety of financial apps and platforms dedicated to serving SMEs. The challenge, according to both Monite CEO Ivan Maryasin and Codat CEO Pete Lord, is that the variety can be overwhelming for many small businesses. “What’s still missing are the ‘super apps’ that bring everything together,” Maryasin said. “It can be time-consuming to manage and get the most out of them all,” concurred Lord.

Founded in 2020, Monite has raised $7.8 million in funding for its technology that empowers financial institutions and platforms to offer financial services such as multi-banking, AP automation, invoicing, and more to their customers. London, U.K.-based Codat neared unicorn status last month upon raising $100 million in Series C funding. The investment took the company’s total funding to more than $176 million and gave Codat a valuation of $825 million. The round was led by JPMorgan Partners, and featured participation from Plaid and Shopify.

Founded in 2017, Codat began this year with the announcement of a partnership with Moody’s Analytics to enhance small business lending.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Austrian fintech Helu.io, which specializes in providing financial solutions for SMEs, raised more than $10 million in Series A funding.
  • Rubicon, a fintech headquartered in Albania, announced an expanded partnership with Mastercard.
  • Latvia’s Crassula, a white label cloud banking software company, teamed up with Canadian open banking solutions provider Salt Edge.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by XU CHEN

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Finovate Global U.K. Edition: Dynamic Planner Secures Investment from FPE Capital; Starling Bank Reaches Profitability

Finovate Global U.K. Edition: Dynamic Planner Secures Investment from FPE Capital; Starling Bank Reaches Profitability
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dynamic Planner, Feedzai, FICO, Finovate Global

Dynamic Planner, a risk-based financial planning firn based in the U.K., has secured what the company is calling a “significant investment” from private equity growth firm FPE Capital. Terms of the investment were not disclosed, but the additional funding is designed to help accelerate Dynamic Planner’s expansion plans in the U.K. and Europe.

Dynamic Planner CEO Ben Goss praised FPE Capital for not only for backing successful software companies in the past and helping them scale their businesses, but also for sharing values that Dynamic Planner holds dear. “They also share our vision for solving our industry’s major challenges through technology such as process digitization, customer experience, investing sustainably for future generations, and omni-channel financial planning in a post-pandemic world,” Goss said.

Making its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in London earlier this year, Dynamic Planner offers a single platform that enables financial advisory firms to match clients with investment portfolios that meet their individual needs and goals. The company’s technology provides client profiling to ensure that client preferences are accurately assessed and reflected in the portfolio composition process. Dynamic Planner also offers whole-of-market fund research, cash flow modeling, and pre-populated reports to make it easier for advisors to provide holistic, compliant investment portfolio reviews and reports. Via its SaaS platform, Dynamic Planner serves nearly 40% of wealth advice firms in the U.K., and more than 150 asset managers representing $300 billion (£250 billion) in assets. The company is on pace to surpass $12 million (£10 million) in annual recurring license revenues in 2022.

In addition to making its first appearance on the Finovate stage earlier this year, Dynamic Planner also launched its Client Access solution. Unveiled in March, the new offering leverages psychometric risk and sustainability profiling to make remote financial advice more precise and engaging.

“While remote advice is here to stay, it can be a challenge for advisors to make the process engaging or easy to understand for clients, as well as build deep relationships which ultimately result in better outcomes,” Dynamic Planner Sales & Marketing Director Yasmina Siadatan explained. Siadatan called the new solution “a fundamental piece of the hybrid advice puzzle.”

Headquartered in Reading, Berkshire, Dynamic Planner was founded in 2003. The company was named “Adviser Technology Provider of the Year” at the Money Marketing Awards in 2021 and, that same year, won top honors as the “Leading Independent Planning Tool Provider” at the Schroders U.K. Platform Awards.

Speaking of fintech in the U.K., a hearty congratulations to Starling Bank, the pioneering U.K.-based digital bank launched in 2014 by CEO Anne Boden. The bank announced this week that it had achieved its first full year of profitability, delivering a pre-tax profit of $38.4 million (£32.1 million). The news represents a major milestone for the company, which produced a pre-tax loss of $37.7 million (£31.5 million) the previous year.

“With our first full year of profitability, we’ve placed ourselves firmly in a category of one,” Boden said in a statement. “As an innovative digital bank with a sustainable business model and a strong balance sheet, we are generating our own capital and we stand apart from both the old banks and other challengers.”

A fully-licensed and regulated bank, Starling Bank offers personal, business, joint, euro and dollar current accounts, as well as a card for youth. Headquartered in London and maintaining offices in Southampton, Cardiff, and Dublin, Starling Bank also offers a B2B banking-as-a-service and software-as-a-service proposition, leveraging the same proprietary technology Starling uses to power its own operations.

Earlier this month, Starling Bank unveiled its Bills Manager solution for small businesses. The new feature gives small businesses greater flexibility when making Direct Debit or standing orders by taking funds from money set aside in one of their available Savings Spaces rather than from the business’ main account. The solution helps small businesses streamline their finances by making budget forecasting and cost management easier. Bills Manager seamlessly integrates with popular accounting platforms such as Xero and FreeAgent – both of which are available via the Starling Marketplace – as well as with Starling’s own bookkeeping solution I.

“Our small business customers requested this feature, so we’ve delivered,” Starling Bank Chief Banking Officer Helen Bierton said. “Uptake of Bills Manager has been strong among our personal current account customers and we’re confident it will help hundreds of thousands of small businesses better manage their money, too.”

Check out our conversation with Starling’s Boden moments after she delivered her keynote address at FinovateSpring in May.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • Malaysia-based Bank Islam launched its cloud-native, digital banking offering, Be U.
  • Bangladesh’s BRAC Bank announced a partnership with TerraPay to enable faster cross-border payments.
  • Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia partnered with financial risk management platform Feedzai.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Sudan-based fintech Bloom secured $6.5 million in seed funding.
  • Israel’s Open-Finance.ai teamed up with FICO, combining open banking with real-time credit assessment to improve the originations process.
  • Saudi Arabia-based fintech FOODICS inked strategic partnership with Alinma Bank.

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by Pixabay

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook

Singapore’s TurnKey Lender Raises $10 Million in New Equity and Debt Funding

Singapore’s TurnKey Lender Raises $10 Million in New Equity and Debt Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Funding, Turnkey Lender

Lending automation platform and decision management solution and services provider TurnKey Lender has secured $10 million in new funding. The amount raised represents a blend of both equity financing and debt. Led by OTB Ventures, the round featured participation from German development finance institution DEG and Vertex Ventures.

TurnKey Lender will use the additional capital to help expand its operations across North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia. This will help the company take advantage of the growing embrace of embedded finance, especially embedded lending.

“We are pleased to have raised our latest level of funding and to continue partnering with great investors,” TurnKey Lender CEO and co-founder Dmitry Voronenko said. “This will turbocharge the next stage of growth. We believe that embedded lending will soon be part of any customer relationship globally.”

In addition to its fundraising news, TurnKey Lender announced that it had appointed a new chair for its board of directors, Christian Morales. Morales, who participated in this week’s funding round, brings 40 years of senior experience in leading technology companies. As chair, he will be involved in supporting a wide range of the company’s initiatives in terms of revenue growth, hiring, as well as both strategic and client relationships.

TurnKey Lender offers credit scoring, decision automation, and loan management for non-bank lenders. The company’s cloud-based technology is geared specifically toward small and medium-sized lending operations, enabling them to “compete with big banks without the big investment.” TurnKey Lender’s platform supports all stages of the loan lifecycle – from application processing and automated decision-making to collection and reporting. The solution also can be readily integrated into both internal and external data sources to provide automated data retrieval and processing. TurnKey Lender’s platform is compatible with a wide variety of lending products, including consumer, microfinance, payday, auto, mortgage, SME, and P2P loans.

Making its Finovate debut at FinovateAsia 2016, TurnKey Lender returned to the Finovate stage a year later for FinovateSpring in San Jose, California. In the years since, the company has grown into a leading fintech provider with 180 clients and 50 million end users in more than 50 countries. TurnKey Lender’s customers have enjoyed profitable revenue growth of as much as 50% and net retention rates of 126%. The company was founded in 2014.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Elle Hughes

Share this:

Send Post Twitter LinkedIn Facebook