This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 18/05

Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 18 May brings news of a new CEO for Tuum, while insurtech bolttech celebrates its third anniversary with a successful Series B.

Partnership

Global fintech Airwallex and travel technology company Expedia have announced a joint promotion. It aims to help customers save when booking hotel stays. Airwallex customers get a 10 percent discount on hotel stays when they book on the platform. They also get access to exclusive benefits.

DCI (Data Center Inc)a developer of core processing, digital banking and fintech solutions, has partnered with the fraud platform DataVisor. As a result, DCI customers can now better detect and mitigate application and identity theft, transaction fraud, account takeovers, money laundering and other types of banking fraud before it results in financial and reputational damage.

Artery AI has entered into a strategic partnership with Compliance systems, a provider of dynamic compliance documentation. An integrated joint solution will leverage aspects from both the Compliance Systems and Arteria technology platforms to provide customers with streamlined, compliant digital documentation in a single solution.

Westpac New Zealand has distributed a solution from Finastra to accelerate compliance with the new ISO 20022 standard for financial reporting. The solution has enabled the bank to take advantage of ISO 20022’s data-rich MX message format while providing backward compatibility with legacy message formats, without having to upgrade the entire payment ecosystem.

Factory has entered into cooperation with Kriya Payments to offer flexible credit options to customers. Kriya (formerly known as MarketFinance) is a UK fintech offering a built-in finance platform at checkout. Fractory is a manufacturing start-up, established in Estonia in 2017.

India’s Cashless payments has merged with Tazapay, Singapore-based cross-border payments company to drive its cross-border payments for Indian exporters. The partnership allows Tazapay to settle all cross-border payments directly to Indian exporters’ local bank accounts in Rupees (INR) in one business day.

More partnerships

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) and Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) has launched ICMA’s new database dedicated to sustainable bond data. The database provides ICMA members and the wider financial community with important insights into the sustainable bond market.

MDOTM Ltd, a provider of AI-powered investment solutions, announces new ChatGPT-powered features in Sphere, its investment platform for institutional investors. The custom integration with ChatGPT APIs leverages Sphere’s proprietary insights and explanatory data to generate tailored portfolio comments.

Keyless and Visual pulse has partnered to help accelerate the adoption of phishing-resistant authentication solutions in the UK to help banks fight back against Account Takeover (ATO) fraud. Synpulse says the biometric technology of Keyless aligns with its commitment to deliver digitization solutions that transform financial services.

LMAX Digital working together with Zodia custody to provide trading infrastructure and custody solution for institutional quality Coin shares. CoinShares will benefit from a fully segregated custody solution by leveraging Interchange, the over-the-counter settlement product from Zodia Custody and connectivity to LMAX Digital, a regulated exchange venue.

GoCardless has entered into cooperation with bluefort, an independent software vendor, to offer a simple way for businesses to manage invoicing, payments and accounting directly in Microsoft Dynamics 365. The recently launched GoCardless integration is available for free through Bluefort’s payment automation platform.

London-based business credit provider NUMBER has entered into a partnership with a plug-and-play finance provider Weavr to streamline the power of AI and embedded finance for a digitized business card experience. With a Weavr-powered card, NUMARQE also simplifies expense management.

Financing and investments

wefox, the Berlin-based insurtech, has announced a second close in its $110 million Series D round. That includes $55 million in revolving credit from JP Morgan and Barclays and an additional $55 million in equity raised from new and existing investors. The new financing is earmarked to further strengthen wefox’s insurance and distribution business.

Private credit market platform Percentage has closed a $29.7 million Series B funding round, more than doubling the company’s total funding, which now stands at $48.2 million. The round was chaired by White Star Capital, with participation also from B Capital Group and Susquehan. Collected funds will contribute to continued growth.

bolttech has raised $196 million in Series B at an up-round valuation of $1.6 billion. The round was chaired by Tokio Marine. Other key investors also include MetLife Next Gen Ventures and Khazanah Nasional. bolttech will use the proceeds to promote its organic growth as well as talent across bolttech’s 30-plus markets.

Finnish early stage investor Lifeline Ventures has unveiled a new fund of 150 million euros. The new fund lists as one of the largest funds ever raised in Finland. Lifeline Ventures is looking to fund early-stage companies with the potential to become category leaders, with initial investments ranging from €150,000 to €2 million.

There is also funding success for Amini. The company, which focuses on solving Africa’s environmental data gap through artificial intelligence and satellite technology, has raised $2 million. The pre-seed funding round was led by Pale blue dotin addition to Superorganism, RaliCap, W3i and Emurgo Kepple Ventures.

More funding news

Regtech AMLYSIS has closed a pre-seed investment round of $1 million. The round was chaired by Practica Capital, with participation also from First choice accelerator and venture capital fund. The funding will be used to scale AMLYZE’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) business, facilitate international expansion, as well as introduce advanced features to its core product offering.

Fintech Smart has closed its $95million Series E funding in a round led by Aquiline Capital Partners LLC. Other investors who also participated in the round included Chrysalis Investments, Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, DWS, Barclays and Natixis investment managers.

M-CUP has raised over $250 million in new debt and equity financing to expand its offering of financial services to underbanked consumers across sub-Saharan Africa. Over $200 million in sustainability-related debt financing was led and arranged by Standard Bank Group.

GTreasury, a provider of treasury, payment and risk management software, has secured a majority investment from Hg. GTreasury management and former majority owner, Mainsail partners, will continue as investors. Hg’s support enables GTreasury to continue its rapid growth.

Appointments

Fintech provider Quavo fraud and disputes has promoted Jon Lindsey to VP of Technology. He oversees Quavo’s technology stack, infrastructure, integration with client data and quality assurance. In 2023, his team is streamlining Quavo’s client onboarding and data integration processes. It will also upgrade the infrastructure architecture to support client growth.

Bank of Sharjah, a commercial bank in the UAE, appoints Mohamed Khadiri as managing director. This appointment comes as part of the bank’s efforts to strengthen the management team, accelerate the overall growth strategy and maximize value for shareholders. Most recently, Khadiri worked in Kuwait International Bank (KIB) for over six and a half years as general manager.

Thumnext generation core banking platform, name Myles Bertrand as managing director. Bertrand joins from the micropayments platform, DT One, where he was tax manager. Before that, Bertrand was also MD at Mambu APAC. Bertrand’s focus will be on expanding Tuum’s customer base and product offering as well as expanding the team and the international footprint.

Cloud accounting business implicitly has enlisted Damon Anderson to help shape the growth of the partnership channels. Anderson has become a strategic advisor to the company in a consulting role. This also includes the creation of an advisory board. Previously, Anderson served as regional operations manager at Zero leading businesses in the UK and EMEA.

synechron, a global consulting firm for digital transformation, has appointed Roelof Derickx as director of trade Synechron Netherlands. Together with Jaap HofsteeHe is responsible for commercial activities in the Dutch division of Synechron.

Mergers and acquisitions

Fabric has intercepted Judopay, a UK-based mobile payments company. The deal helps Fabrick’s Payment Orchestra benefit from Judopay’s innovation expertise in digital commerce. Together, they will define new models and standards to provide smoother payment solutions, frictionless processes and seamless checkout experiences for both merchants and customers.

Pepper Advantage, a global credit intelligence company, has acquired Rieom.ai, a specialized AI-powered credit management software platform. Rieom.ai’s flagship product is an AI/ML-powered prepayment predictive credit approval tool that uses socio-demographic as well as profile-based analysis to assess loan application documents to identify fraud risk.

Commitment company for employees The reward gate has been acquired by Eden red for £1.15 billion from funds managed by Abry Partners and Castik Capital. As part of the agreement, Reward Gateway will join the Employee Benefits Division of Edenred.

Vienna-based IXOLIT Group and its subsidiary IXOPAY has been merged into a single company, IXOPAY. The day-to-day operations and ownership structure of IXOPAY will remain unaffected, and there will be no changes to the teams working on IXOPAY. The goal is to simplify operations and eliminate administrative costs while maximizing the potential of the IXOPAY platform.

Company updates

LHV Bank, a provider of banking services and SME lending solutions, has extended its maximum loan size to £5 million. LHV Bank’s Manchester-based SME lending team offers commercial mortgages for investment properties and trading businesses, with loan amounts starting from £0.5m.