Welcome to Fintech Fridays! The Fintech Times new weekly roundup serves up something for the weekend – a shopping list of the latest deals, product launches and service updates.
Plum expands investment offering
Smart money app Plum has expanded its investment offering to 3,000 US stocks.
The addition of 2,000 new stocks give customers the opportunity to buy fractional shares in companies such as Sony Group, Airbnb, Duolingo and Credit Suisse from £1. Customers across the UK and EU have access to the new stocks.
Plum launched stock investing on its app last year, following the success of its automated passive investing function for funds. The company also intends to add watchlists and price alerts for stocks in the coming months.
Later in the year, Plum is also looking at adding news functionality to its investment products and offering ETFs for customers in the EU.
Vaultavo Card Unveiled
Fintech startup Vaultavo has developed a patent-pending crypto custody solution that combines a biometric digital asset custody smart card with proprietary vaults and secure SaaS digital platform and access portals.
The integrated hardware and software solution protects digital assets by creating and managing the blockchain private key on the Vaultavo Card.
The Vaultavo Card can be used standalone, or as part of the Vaultavo Custody Solution.
Klarpay AG expands its global payment capabilities
Klarpay AG expands its international payment offering with the launch of 13 new currency IBAN accounts.
This enables digital companies to collect and disburse payments in AED, AUD, CAD, DKK, HKD, HUF, JPY, MXN, NOK, PLN, SEK, TRY, and ZAR globally via their corporate Klarpay account.
It follows the addition of USD and GBP accounts in 2022.
Crypto tax dashboard offering from Recap
Crypto tax calculation service Recap has released Recap Dashboard, providing UK investors with a single view of their crypto portfolio.
The Recap Dashboard provides users with an overview of all their assets, transactions and tax estimations in one place.
It also includes automated portfolio tracking and HMRC-compliant tax exports.
Revolut launches crypto staking
Revolut, the global financial super app, has introduced a new crypto feature, Staking.
The new feature unlocks additional benefits for customers investing in crypto with Revolut with the ability to earn rewards for specific tokens such as Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot, and Tezos.
The rewards are granted in the native token. Customers can either stake their existing crypto balances for these tokens or buy and then stake the balance of one or more of the four tokens.
Rewards are based on the balance they staked. The payout, cadence and required minimum time to stake varies by token with customers able to earn up to 11.65 per cent APY. Staking is available in the UK & select EEA markets.
Uome introduces new point of sale feature
Uome has launched an application point of sale (aPOS) system via its Plaid integration. It enables Uome users to take in person payments directly from their customers and clients.
Customers scan a QR code on the business owner’s phone to accept payment via Uome’s open banking solution. This settles the funds directly to the businesses bank account, immediately after the customer confirms payment.
To celebrate the launch, Uome is waiving all aPOS fees for the first 500 businesses that subscribe to its £9.99 a month plan. For new subscribers, aPOS transaction fees will also be waived for one whole year.
AMEX and Microsoft expense management solution
American Express has expanded its partnership with Microsoft to develop a suite of solutions built on Microsoft Cloud and AI technologies that focus on reducing ‘business travel friction’.
The first solution developed through this collaboration is an expense management process. It simplifies and automates manual expense reporting and approvals, enhancing audit efficacy. It also streamlines reconciliation and reimbursements for accounting teams.
Microsoft will pilot the solution with its employees, by integrating it into the company’s internal expense system later this year.
eCredits launches eVault reward feature
eCredits, a decentralised, blockchain-based ecosystem, introduces a new reward feature. It enables users to earn rewards for committing their eCredits (ECS) on the network for a fixed period of one year.
eVault is designed to support the development of eCredits by ensuring that transactions on the network are verified and secured in a decentralised manner by network participants.
The feature also lets users lock their ECS for a period of one year as well as receive a reward of two, three, or even six per cent of their transferred assets, depending on a subscription membership, via a secure smart contract.
Sarwa introduces Sarwa Save
UAE investing platform and app Sarwa has launched its new product Sarwa Save.
Sarwa Save is a cash account offering a three per cent interest rate, zero transfer cost for AED local accounts. There are also no management fees.
Sarwa Save is available to new and existing clients through the Sarwa website and mobile app.
Standard Chartered and Allinpay offer cross-border payments
Standard Chartered Bank and Singapore’s Allinpay have enabled PayNow instant cross-border payments for merchants and businesses in Hong Kong using QR codes.
Participating merchants in Hong Kong can accept Singapore PayNow payments without infrastructure or operational charges.
Furthermore, Singaporeans will not have to face currency exchange rates or cross-border fees.
This solution is made possible with Standard Chartered’s proprietary solutions. These include its omnichannel gateway Straight2Bank Pay and API-based FX pricing engine SCALE.
Visa supports small businesses with new offers
Visa has launched new offers aimed to help small and micro businesses accept digital payments.
With Visa SavingsEdge, eligible Visa Small Business cardholders can unlock automatic savings and discounts on business-related services and goods through their card issuer, as well as offers from Bench Accounting and Yahoo.
Visa is also offering a special two-day promotion to help businesses reduce the costs associated with getting online and accepting digital payments.
This weekend, Authorize.net, Visa’s small business digital payment management platform, will waive its monthly gateway fee for the life of the account. The offer is only for US customers.
