The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 17 January 2023 brings you news of funding successes and fintech partnerships.
Appointments
Identity verification provider ID-Pal has named Sara West as commercial director. West joins ID-Pal from W2 Global Data, where she served as chief commercial officer since 2017. Last year, ID-Pal completed a Series A funding round, led by Inspire Investments.
ClearBank appoints Mark Fairless as chief financial officer. In addition to leading ClearBank’s finance team, Mark will be an executive director on ClearBank’s UK board and a member of the executive committee. Fairless joins ClearBank from M&G, where he was most recently CFO of the M&G Heritage Business.
ClearCourse, a provider of integrated software solutions, hires Christina Hamilton as chief executive officer. She succeeds founding CEO Gerry Gualtieri, who assumes a new position as a non-executive board member. Hamilton joins ClearCourse from payments platform Stripe.
Mashreq, a financial institution in the UAE, has appointed Aziz Ata as global head of FI and NBFI. Most recently, Ata served as the head of financial institutions group and public sector, MENAT. His responsibilities involve overseeing Mashreq’s FI and NBFI segments worldwide.
KYND Limited, a provider of cyber risk management products and services, has appointed Dave Moreau as its new chairman. Moreau succeeds Mike Harris, who recently retired after serving as chairman since KYND’s inception.
NTT DATA UK&I has appointed four new senior hires to its banking practice. Joel Craven, Rajshekar Mylavarapu, Pravin Ningoo and Sumant Kumar will work closely with Andy Nelson, head of banking and financial markets, on supporting banks and financial institutions with their digital transformation journeys.
Royal Park Partners, the specialist financial advisor to the fintech industry, unveils Vaggelis Makris as senior director, joining the London team to broaden the firm’s global offering. In his new role, Makris will deliver strategic positioning and deal structuring guidance
More apppointments
Swedish fintech Zimpler appoints Jonathan Hjelmåker as head of operations. He will lead Zimpler’s operational work with the anti-money laundering and customer service teams. In addition, Hjelmåker will lead cross-functional teams and handle a large part of the operational management for risk and compliance.
Global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) has launched Sovereign Advisory Services (SAS), its new global sovereign advisory capability and appointed former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, Reza Baqir, to lead it.
CoinFund, a crypto asset manager, has revealed that its president and managing partner Chris Perkins has been appointed as a representative member on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)’s Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC).
Digital trust company Sift appoints former Ping Identity COO Kris Nagel as CEO. Prior to Ping Identity, Nagel was CEO of Vindicia. His appointment at Sift comes as the company reports a year of strong customer growth as well as new capabilities designed to boost decision-making for fraud fighters.
Law firm Morrison Foerster has welcomed Sam Riley as a partner in its transactions department to boost its fintech offering in London. She joins from the Bank of England, where she most recently advised Sir Jon Cunliffe in his role as chair of the committee for payments and market infrastructures.
Schematiq Ltd names Jan-Coos Geesink as CEO. Prior to joining Schematiq, Geesink most recently worked as an industry advisor for several investment firms, as well as an executive advisor to Dow Jones. Schematiq provides solutions for banking, commodity trading, gaming, insurance and asset management.
Property financing firm CapitalRise appoints four new senior hires. Raf Chowdhury joins as associate director, Ryan Parrett as lending director, Julia Sinclair as head of product, and Phillip Whiting is head of marketing.
Acquisitions
FNZ, the global wealth management platform, has acquired Fondsdepot Bank, an independent platform for trading and custody in Germany. Following the acquisition, FNZ employs more than 1,000 people and manages assets of over €120billion for more than two million customers in Germany.
Meanwhile, Australia’s national deep tech incubator Cicada Innovations has acquired custodianship of Australia’s longest-running annual deep technology conference Tech23, as the capital raised by the deep tech companies of both organisations eclipses $5.7billion.
Kyckr, the corporate KYC company, is snapped up by Australian tech-entrepreneur Richard White. It is the biggest private investments by White, who founded and owns over 40 per cent of WiseTech. He praises Kyckr replacing manual processes and aggregating real-time data from disparate sources.
Investor AnaCap‘s German portfolio company Fintus GmbH has completed the bolt-on acquisition of Finstreet, a software and services provider for the digital transformation of financial institutions. Through this acquisition, Fintus is stepping up growth efforts as a leading automation software provider to banks.
Funding and investments
Euphemia, the family office of Up co-founder Dominic Pym, together with Envato founders Collis and Cyan Ta’eed have backed climate fintech Bloom in its $525,000 seed round. It reaches $1.6million funds under management. In addition to the raise, Bloom has appointed former FutureSuper founder Adam Verwey as its executive director.
Sprinque, a B2B payments platform, has raised a €6million seed funding round led by Connect Ventures, with participation also from Kraken Ventures, Inference Partners and SeedX. Existing investors Antler, Volta Ventures and Force Over Mass also contributed. Investment will be used to expand deeper into European markets and build functionality outside the Pay by Invoice product.
B2B payments company Mondu has bagged a $13million Series A extension round led by Valar Ventures alongside FinTech Collective. The Series A extension takes the total investment round to $56million and will enable further market growth and product development.
yeekatee announces the close of its pre-seed round, totalling $1.9million. Among the group of investors is serial entrepreneur and Avaloq co-founder Ronald Strässler. The funding is being used to bring the app to market and expand the team.
Peppy, a gender specific healthcare employee benefits provider, has secured £37million in a Series B funding round. Led by Albion Capital, the found helps the London firm expand into the US. Peppy uses live chat and virtual consultations to provide users with unlimited access to expert healthcare providers.
Company updates
Yellow Card Financial announces that its new payment feature Yellow Pay is officially available across Africa. With Yellow Pay, customers can send and receive money through the Yellow Card crypto exchange platform, without any extra charges, instantly with just a few taps on their phone.
Partnerships
Payment solutions provider BPC has extended its collaboration with Bahrain-based International Payment Services, a third party payments processing and payments firm. As part of the agreement, BPC will allow IPS to extend the use of its open system e-payment platform ‘SmartVista’.
Togg, an automotive and mobility brand based in Turkey, has selected METACO to oversee the custody and governance of digital assets. Togg will leverage METACO’s Harmonize platform to help facilitate use cases across Togg’s digital ecosystem, including the tokeniSation of mobility services, assessment of CO2 footprint and NFT ownership.
Mizuho Trust and Banking, the Luxembourg subsidiary of Japan’s Mizuho Trust & Banking division, is upgrading its transaction monitoring framework strategy through a partnership with Napier, the financial crime compliance technology firm. The bank also wanted to upgrade its framework to make it more robust given the importance of financial crime for credit institutions.
Fly Now Pay Later, the travel BNPL provider, has forged a partnership with Eastern Airways. When planning their next trip, customers of the airline will no longer be required to pay in full at the time of booking. The service is available via an online widget on the Eastern Airways website and payment system.
Swiss fintech NetGuardians reveals that Swiss payment app TWINT has selected its software as part of an enhanced fraud prevention programme. NetGuardians software detects anomalous payments through its behavioural analytics, machine learning and AI.
There’s also a partnership for Currencycloud and Hong Kong-based money service operator Windsor First. They will launch a new multi-currency account solution to help Windsor First clients seamlessly optimise their B2B and eCommerce international payments processes.
More partnerships
BR-DGE and Visa have unveiled a three-year partnership to offer payment solutions to merchants and consumers. BR-DGE will gain access to Visa’s open network. The collaboration will also focus on a range of digital commerce products.
Meanwhile, Syndio announces a new partnership with Broadridge Financial Solutions. Broadridge is employing Syndio’s technology to better enable the critical steps of measuring and deepening its commitment to pay equity. Syndio also recently partnered with the New York Stock Exchange to make its tools available to NYSE-listed companies.
