Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 4 April.
Funding and investment
Fourthline, a regtech providing AI-powered and compliant KYC and AML solutions, has raised €50million from new and existing institutional investors. It provides financial institutions with a single, banking-grade solution for continuous, ‘lifetime’ financial compliance. Radboud Vlaar, managing partner of Finch Capital, has also increased his stake after leading Fourthline’s previous round.
Quantexa has completed a $129million Series E funding round. The latest investment round secures the British tech company’s unicorn status with a valuation of $1.8billion. It will also accelerate the execution of its growth strategy. Quantexa also plans to use the funding to boost technology innovation efforts and strengthen its Decision Intelligence Platform capabilities.
Coinweb has closed $2million fundraising round from SAVA Investment Management. The two cross-chain computation platform has been in development since 2017. Some of the founders, early contributors and previous team members who are no longer actively involved in the project have agreed to sell their holdings. SAVA Investment Management has partnered with Coinweb to buy back six per cent of CWEB tokens.
Acre Software, a UK startup using blockchain technology to shake up the mortgage and insurance application process for advisers, has bagged £6.5million. The London-based team also revealed plans to scale and secure new partnerships. The McPike Global Family Office (MGFO), joined returning investors Aviva and Founders Factory in the funding round.
Kashet, the Swiss-UK based premium digital finance services firm, has raised CHF6.2million funding to support its expansion and readiness for further growth. Kashet is focused on delivering a membership-based financial solution app for customers and private bank clients.
Appointments
Riskified appoints Jeff Otto as chief marketing officer. He is responsible for a global integrated marketing strategy that will amplify Riskified’s brand, strengthen its category leadership and accelerate demand for the company’s expanding product suite. Otto was most recently head of marketing at Marqeta.
Fintech DailyPay has welcomed Kevin Doerr as its first chief product officer. Doerr was most recently CPO at Marqeta, where he oversaw a global product organisation. He joins DailyPay as the company prioritises growth and product innovation.
PremFina names Allan Oliver as its first networks ambassador. He joins following 18 years at Close Brothers as network relationship manager. The premium finance provider is looking to build its footprint with broker networks and their independent broker membership.
Meanwhile Tim Johnson joins Tyl by NatWest and Payit as new head of strategy. He joins from Raidiam, a company specialising in creating secure data sharing ecosystems, where he was strategy director for over three years. He aims to drive strategic growth for both Tyl by NatWest and Payit.
Paysafe has appointed Nicole Carroll as its first ever chief strategy and innovation officer. Her primary responsibilities at Paysafe will be to further develop the company’s corporate vision and long-term growth strategy. She will also lead on its product innovation and capital expenditure programmes. Carroll joins Paysafe from Experian.
More hires
The Lending Standards Board (LSB) has welcomed its new chair Ken Scott. He replaces Chris Pond, who has reached the end of his six-year tenure – the maximum term allowed under the LSB’s governance rules. During his executive career, Scott played a role in driving the regional growth of HSBC’s commercial bank.
Motie Bring has joined PPRO as chief commercial officer. Bring is responsible for advancing the company’s commercial strategy, guiding the global business development teams and overseeing PPRO’s sales and marketing department.
Aspen Digital, the digital asset wealth tech platform, has named Elliot Andrews as CEO. He joined Aspen Digital in 2021 as head of business development overseeing the firm’s overall strategy across sales and marketing, product and operations. In his new role, he will continue to push the growth strategy of the platform within the region and into new markets across Europe and the Middle East.
Cross-border payments company CurrencyFair and Zai, its fintech arm delivering embedded payment orchestration solutions in Australia, have named Shamus Hodgson as group CEO. Zai’s merger with CurrencyFair and subsequent rebrand was recently awarded ‘Deal of the Year’ by Australia’s fintech recognition event, the Finnie Awards.
Nium, the payments infrastructure for on-demand money movement, names Volker Steinle as senior vice president and general manager, Americas. Steinle will be responsible for accelerating sales and revenue growth in the region, as well as engaging customers and prospects. He will be based in San Francisco, California.
Company updates
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has licensed Rasid Payments Company for Financial Technology to provide payment solutions through point of sales (POS). This addition brings the total number of payment companies licensed by SAMA to 24. In addition to six companies granted in-principle approvals.
Open data platform Moneyhub has announced that its APIs are now available through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) marketplace. Moneyhub is offering its Open Banking APIs, Open Banking Affordability, and Categorisation services through the marketplace, alongside a host of its other capabilities. Businesses wanting to use Moneyhub’s services can also buy using the AWS point-system.
GCEX, a brokerage in digital assets and FX, has released XplorDigital trading solutions, including two new trading platforms. XplorSpot and XplorTrader will help brokers, fund managers, hedge funds and professional traders operate more efficiently. XplorSpot and XplorTrader form key components of GCEX’s XplorDigital trading solutions – ‘Crypto In A Box’ and ‘Broker In A Box’ plug and play solutions.
British kids finance app GoHenry has been snapped up by US investing app Acorns. In the US, GoHenry will operate as GoHenry by Acorns. In the UK & Europe, GoHenry & PixPay will continue to operate under their own brands. This acquisition marks an acceleration of Acorns’ roadmap by putting the responsible tools of money management and education in the hands of kids, teens and adults, globally.
European neobank bunq has applied for a US banking licence with the FDIC in the state of New York. bunq has already expanded to more than 30 European countries and, after the acquisition of Belgian fintech TriCount, it became the second largest neobank in the EU.
Partnerships
OSB Group has entered into a multi-term partnership with fintech Paylink Solutions. The new partnership demonstrates best practice within the mortgage lending sector around understanding customer affordability and making it easier for customers to engage with OSB. Utilising Paylink’s Embark application and using open banking, customers will be able to pre-populate their budget using the Embark application.
PayPal Holdings and Live Nation Entertainment announce a multi-year strategic partnership that names PayPal as the preferred payments partner of Ticketmaster. As part of the partnership, fans can pay with PayPal and PayPal Pay Later products across Ticketmaster’s platform.
Meanwhile, global identity verification provider ID-Pal has teamed up with Bluestone Motor Finance. The partnership delivers a seamless journey for customers to verify their identity in real time and enables faster financing decisions. By using ID-Pal, dealers benefit from faster results delivered in minutes by borrowers completing the identity verification process via the ID-Pal app.
Melio, a B2B payments platform for small businesses, is partnering with small business expert Rhonda Abrams. She will provide insights to small businesses on how small businesses can optimise their financial health by reducing costs, increasing profits, as well as better managing their cash flow.
More partnerships
Origo has partnered with iPipeline to help providers build and integrate connected technology platforms. The partnership will enable both current and future provider partners onboarding iPipeline’s SSG Digital platform to streamline the process required to access different services within the Origo ecosystem via ‘plug and play’ integration
Orange Bank will migrate to Mambu’s cloud banking platform at its head office in France based on the successful launch of Orange Bank on Mambu in Spain in 2019. Using Mambu’s core banking systems, Orange Bank can scale its operations as well as improve the banking experience for its customers.
Volante Technologies and HCLTech also join forces to accelerate cloud payments modernization for financial institutions. HCLTech will combine its digital and engineering services capabilities with Volante’s cloud-native payments solutions and low-code financial platform.
The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) has launched its CBDC implementation strategy in collaboration with R3. R3 and G42 Cloud have been selected as the technology and infrastructure providers of the initiative, while Clifford Chance will provide legal oversight for the strategy. The strategy also sets out a roadmap for applying CBDC across a range of domestic and cross-border use-cases in the region.
