This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 16/02

Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup reveals the new name of fintech Limepay while Saudi fintech Hala procures Payment.com.

Partnership

Fintech Froda has entered into cooperation with Visa to develop a new loan solution for companies. In the first instance, Froda and Visa will also connect with Nordic digital bank Lunar. Lunar’s customers get access to business
loans through Froda’s proprietary built-in lending platform, with direct payments and
repayments via Visa’s card.

Visa also collaborates with fintech Wedge to start a debit card connected to the Wedge app. The Wedge Visa debit card is issued through Wedge’s program manager in collaboration with a bank partner.

Arta TechFin, a hybrid asset fintech platform, has merged with a digital asset firm OSL, to create an end-to-end financial services ecosystem for virtual assets. The partnership intends to offer a full range of regulated VA solutions, including origination of security-backed security tokens and secondary trading of physically settled derivatives.

MasterCard has merged with a video game retail company Xsolla to collaborate on frictionless, secure and rewarding payments for players. This will range from improved payment experiences using credit card loyalty points to simple in-game currency gifts to improved payout processes for creators.

WPS consultancya wholly owned deVere Group the company has been chosen as the leading pensions adviser for British Members of Parliament. The WPS will provide guidance, modeling and opportunities for UK policymakers within the scheme to help them achieve their long-term retirement financial goals.

New day, a provider of consumer credit in the UK, has appointed Checkout.com as its payment provider for debit card payments. The new partnership will see NewDay streamline its payment process, operations and reporting. Checkout.com also marks 10 years of its license in the UK.

Financing

Shelfa no-code command center for payments, has emerged from stealth with $9 million in seed funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in addition to Vertex Ventures, FJ Labs. Existing investors Picus Capital also participated. With this investment, Ledge will enhance its automated financial operations platform and introduce greater financial management capabilities. The round will also be used to expand the team and product globally with a focus on North America.

Uplinq, the credit rating platform for SME borrowers, raises a strategic investment of $600,000 from Cambrian Venturesa venture capital firm focused on early fintechs. Uplinq has raised $5.6 million, following an investment of $1.25 million from ATX Venture Partners and a pre-seed funding round of $3.5 million. As well as helping to expand its global presence, the funding will enable Uplinq to scale its workforce and product offering.

Fintech Sandbox Banking has carried out a strategic investment led by Horizon Ventures, bringing the company’s total seed funding to $6 million. Participating investors include Forum Ventures in addition to SixThirty, Tuesday Capital.

Pakistan’s end-to-end digital lending infrastructure provider AdalFi announces a $7.5 million funding round. The financing round was led by COTU Ventures, Chimera Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures and Zayn’s capital along with angel investors including executives from Plaid.

Shifta provider of credit and payment platforms for Australian businesses, has closed a AU$27 million Series C funding round, led by Sequoia capital of Southeast Asia. The funding round follows an increase in Shift’s debt financing capacity and follows a record period of growth for the company, with both funding and revenue exceeding 50 percent growth in each of the past three years.

smile identity, which provides digital identity verification solutions for Africa, has secured $20 million in Series B funding. The round was chaired by Costanoa and Norrsken22. Additional new investments came from Commerce Ventures, Courtside Ventures, Two Culture Capital and Latitude. Lexi Novitske broom Norrsken22 also joins the board.

Appointments

deepki, The ESG data intelligence firm, has appointed Sigrid Duhamel as an independent member and chair of its strategic committee, as it accelerates its growth and builds its customer base globally. She has previously held positions as managing director in France and global CIO for BNP Paribas REIM.

Uome have named Kent Vorland as sales manager. He was previously the managing director of SimplyPayMe and helped solidify the brand to become one of the most disruptive providers of mobile payment technologies out there. Vorland has also held leading positions at UBINU and Envirotech Norway and was previously non-executive director of Find indexable.

salt safety, The API security company, adds Gilad Gruber to his management team as senior vice president of engineering. Gruber will lead engineering functions as well as drive technology innovation. In 2022, Salt created the positions of Chief People Officer and Vice President of Customer Success.

Lloyds Bank Business & Commercial Banking appoints Tim Biddle as head of invoice finance and asset finance field sales. Biddle will lead his team across the UK to deliver invoice and capital finance products that enable businesses to drive growth by rapidly releasing working capital and funding new business-critical assets. He joins from Paragon Bank.

Buy now, pay later supplier Decoration has appointed Joseph Tucker, as CFO. He takes over after having held various roles at New day, one of the UK’s largest credit card issuers. Tucker is expected to play a key role as Deko transitions to the next stage of business development.

The Bank of London have welcomed Norbert Becker as head of the EU region for the firm. In addition to this role, Becker serves as chairman of the board Administration des Biens du Grand-Duc. He also founded CBP Quilvest private bank that was acquired by Fideuram Bank Luxembourg.

More job news

WealthKernel, a provider of digital investment infrastructure, has announced Mike Rigby as its new chief compliance officer. He joins WealthKernel from Investec Wealth & Investment, where he held the position
managing director and risk manager. Rigby will lead the compliance, risk and financial crime function across WealthKernel and manage the day-to-day relationships between the regulator and the company.

Airwallex is adding two new senior hires to its global leadership team as the global payments and finance platform focuses on expansion into 2023. Justin Yek takes on the newly created role of head of strategic finance and business development. While Jon Stone takes over as global marketing manager. The Airwallex marketing team also intends to add new senior deals across Australia and New Zealand, North America and Europe this year.

The Derivative Service Agency (DSB), the global source of benchmark data for over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, has invited industry experts to join its product committee. The committee’s existing membership includes experts from the buy-side, sell-side, custodians, data providers, trade registers, trading venues as well as trade associations.

Ann Harris OBE, CPFA is reappointed to Money and pension service (MaPS) board of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Harris has served as a non-executive director on the MaPS board since it was first established.

Company updates

Regtech Clause match has launched a new office in Lisbon, Portugal, its first office in the southern European country. It is the company’s third branch worldwide, in addition to the UK and North America. The team of nine employees specializes in engineering and product development. Additional employees will join the Lisbon team in the coming months.

AI powered order-to-cash platform Side trade has joined The UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. The voluntary leadership platform is for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible business practices, with over 15,000 companies and 3,800 non-business signatories based in over 160 countries and more than 69 local networks.

Australian fintech Limepay has rebranded to April. April reflects the startup’s ethos of being an ally to its banking and commercial partners, and is underpinned by its commitment to being “shiny in the background”. April Managing Director Willie Pang says the company aims to capitalize on new market opportunities and is moving it toward being an enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) business.

The holding company of Saudi Arabia based fintech Hala has bought a start-up in the UAE Payment.com. Paymennt.com, formerly known as Point Checkout, is a payment service provider. The acquisition will help Hala further improve its product offering by including online payments.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has renewed Cellulantits payment service provider license in Nigeria. This license enables Cellulant to continue to provide online and offline payment solutions including collection, checkout, invoice aggregation and disbursement services to businesses across Nigeria.