This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 17/01
Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup Tuesday 17 January 2023 brings you news on funding successes and fintech partnerships.
Appointments
Provider of identity verification ID Card have named Sarah West as commercial director. West joins ID-Pal from W2 global datawhere 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 finance manager. As well as leading ClearBank’s finance team, Mark will be CEO of ClearBank’s UK board and a member of the executive committee. Fairless joins ClearBank from M&G, where he was most recently CFO of M&G Heritage Business.
ClearCoursea provider of integrated software solutions, is hiring Christina Hamilton as managing director. She succeeds the founding CEO Gerry Gualtieri, who takes up a new position as ordinary board member. Hamilton joins ClearCourse from the payment platform Stripe.
Mashrek, a financial institution in the UAE, has appointed Aziz Ata as global head of FI and NBFI. Most recently, Ata served as head of financial institutions and the public sector, MENAT. His responsibilities include overseeing Mashreq’s FI and NBFI segments worldwide.
KYND Limiteda provider of cyber risk management products and services, has appointed Dave Moreau as new chairman of the board. Moreau succeeds Mike Harris, who recently stepped down after serving as chairman since KYND’s inception.
NTT DATA UK&I has employed four new senior employees in the banking practice. Joel Craven, Rajshekar Mylavarapu, Pravin Ningoo and Sumant Kumar will work closely with Andy Nelsonhead of banking and financial markets, on supporting banks and financial institutions with their digital transformation journeys.
Royal Park Partnersthe specialist financial advisor to the fintech industry, unveils Waggelis Mackerel as a senior director, joined the London team to expand the firm’s global offering. In his new role, Makris will deliver strategic positioning and guidance for agreement structuring
More deals
Swedish fintech Simpler appoints Jonathan Hjelmäker as operations manager. 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 operative management for risk and compliance.
Global professional services company Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) has launched Sovereign Advisory Services (SAS), its new global sovereign advisory capability and appointed former governor of State Bank of Pakistan, Reza Baqir, to lead it.
CoinFund, a crypto asset manager, has revealed that its president and managing partner Chris Perkins is appointed as a representative member on Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC).
Digital trust company Aim previously appointed Ping identity COO Chris Nagel as managing director. Before 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 enhance decision-making for fraud fighters.
Law firm Morrison Foerster have welcomed Sam Riley as a partner in its transaction department to increase the fintech offering in London. She joins from Bank of England, where she last gave advice Sir Jon Cunliffe in the role of head of the committee for payments and market infrastructure.
Schematiq Ltd name Jan-Coos Geesink as managing director. Before joining Schematiq, Geesink most recently worked as an industry advisor for several securities firms, as well as an executive advisor for Dow Jones. Schematiq delivers solutions for banking, commodity trading, games, insurance and asset management.
Real estate finance company CapitalRise hires four new senior employees. Raf Chowdhury takes over as assistant director, Ryan Parrett as lending director, Julia Sinclair as product manager, and Phillip Whiting is marketing manager.
Acquisition
FNZ, the global wealth management platform, has acquired Fondsdepot Bank, an independent trading and storage platform in Germany. Following the acquisition, FNZ employs more than 1,000 people and manages assets of over €120 billion for more than two million clients in Germany.
Meanwhile, Australia’s National Deep Tech Incubator Cicada Innovations has been awarded patronage of Australia’s longest running annual deep technology conference Tech23, as the capital raised by the deep technology companies of both organizations eclipses $5.7 billion.
Looker, company’s KYC company, has been intercepted by Australian tech entrepreneur Richard White. It is the largest private investment of White, who founded and owns over 40 percent of WiseTech. He praises that Kyckr replaces manual processes and collects real-time data from various sources.
Investor AnaCapits German portfolio company Fintus GmbH has completed bolt-on acquisition of Fintree, a software and service provider for the digital transformation of financial institutions. Through this acquisition, Fintus steps up its growth efforts as a leading supplier of automation software to banks.
Financing and investments
Euphemiafamily office to Up co-founder Dominic Pymtogether with Envato founders Collis and Cyan Ta’eed has supported climate fintech Bloom in its seed round of $525,000. It reaches $1.6 million under management. In addition to the raise, Bloom has appointed former FutureSuper founders Adam Verwey as managing director.
Springa B2B payment platform, has raised a seed funding round of €6 million led by Connect Ventureswith participation also from Kraken Ventures, Inference Partners and SeedX. Existing investors Antler, Volta Ventures and Force Over Mass also contributed. Investments will be used to expand deeper into European markets and build functionality beyond the Pay by Invoice product.
B2B payment company Mondu has raised a $13 million Series A expansion round led by Valar Ventures next to FinTech Collective. The Series A expansion brings the total investment round to $56 million and will enable further market growth and product development.
yeekatee announces the close of its pre-seed round, totaling $1.9 million. Among the group of investors are serial entrepreneurs and co-founders of Avaloq Ronald Straessler. The funds are used to bring the app to market and expand the team.
peppy, a gender-specific provider of healthcare employee benefits, has secured £37 million in a Series B funding round. Lead by Albion Capital, the find helps the London firm expand into the US. Peppy uses live chat and virtual consultations to give users unlimited access to expert healthcare professionals.
Company updates
Yellow card financial announces that the new payment feature Yellow Pay is officially available across Africa. With Yellow Pay, customers can send and receive money through Yellow Card’s crypto exchange platform, at no extra cost, instantly with just a few taps on their phone.
Partnership
Provider of payment solutions BPC has expanded its cooperation with Bahrain-based International payment services, a third-party payment processing and payments company. As part of the agreement, BPC will allow IPS to expand the use of its open system e-payment platform ‘SmartVista’.
Traina car and mobility brand based in Turkey, has chosen METACO to oversee the custody and management of digital assets. Togg will leverage METACO’s Harmonize platform to facilitate use cases across Togg’s digital ecosystem, including tokenization of mobility services, carbon footprint assessment and NFT ownership.
Mizuho Trust and Banking, The Luxembourg subsidiary of Japan’s Mizuho Trust & Banking division upgrades its transaction monitoring framework strategy through a partnership with Napier, the financial crime compliance technology company. The bank also wanted to upgrade the framework to make it more robust given the importance of financial crime for credit institutions.
Fly now, pay later, reise BNPL supplier, has entered into 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 at the Eastern Airways website and payment system.
Swiss fintech NetGuardians reveals the Swiss payment app TWIN has selected its software as part of an enhanced fraud prevention program. NetGuardian’s software detects irregular payments through its behavioral analysis, machine learning and AI.
There is also a partnership for Currencycloud and Hong Kong-based money services operator Windsor first. They will launch a new multi-currency account solution to help Windsor First customers seamlessly optimize their B2B and e-commerce international payment processes.
More partnerships
BR-DGE and Visa has 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 number of digital trade products.
Meanwhile, Syndio announces a new collaboration with Broadridge Financial Solutions. Broadridge uses Syndio’s technology to better enable the critical steps of measuring and deepening its commitment to pay equity. Syndio has also recently partnered with the New York Stock Exchange to make its tools available to NYSE-listed companies.
