This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 20/10

Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup sees an AML compliance partnership for Thum and Ointment. While Bitpanda supports N26 with the launch of its new cryptocurrency trading product.

Partnership

relay, the Swiss bitcoin app, has partnered with checkout.com, the global payment provider. Relai users can now buy bitcoin via VISA, Mastercard, Apple Pay in real time. The collaboration coincides with a wider product update, which sees a total overhaul of the Relai app, including a simpler purchase flow and improved user experience.

Circle K, the fuel and mobility retailer chain, has chosen ai Corporationits payment platform, aiEazyFuel, to power its B2B mobile payment app, Circle K PRO. The partnership enables business customers to pay directly for their fuel and other products via the Circle K PRO app. Circle K PRO is now available for business customers in the Scandinavian and Baltic regions.

CB Reidan independent firm of chartered accountants, has partnered with WhisperClaims, an R&D tax fintech company, to provide an in-house service for R&D tax claims. Previously, prior to using WhisperClaims’ software platform, CB Reid compiled reports manually in-house using Microsoft Word.

Meanwhile, Austrian fintech unicorn Bitpanda is celebrating after helping German digital bank N26 bring cryptocurrencies to its customers in Europe. N26 has launched a new cryptocurrency trading product N26 Crypto in Austria with Bitpanda managing the execution of trades and the deposit of coins. N26 customers will soon be able to trade nearly 200 cryptocurrencies.

Supplier of climate solutions south pole and agtech eAgronomist collaborates to accelerate the uptake of climate-smart agriculture in Europe and Africa. The collaboration will create a new approach to prepaying farmers for high-quality Verra-certified carbon credits that their projects generate.

More partnerships

Cardstream chooses Nupay to launch your salary now and pay in installments with open banking for online merchants. The partnership enables Cardstream’s open payment network of white label partners, including ISO and ISV merchants, to offer Nuapay’s collection services and instant open bank payment services to customers in 28 markets in the EU and the UK.

Currencycloud has become a preferred FX partner for Integrated Finance (IF), the fintech infrastructure platform. The new partnership enables IF’s customers to build cross-border payments and currency functionality into their platforms. Currencycloud will also be able to leverage the IF platform to offer its existing users a more streamlined integration into financial infrastructure, such as KYC and transaction monitoring.

Digital consultancy Fimatix partners with the regtech firm Corlytics. Through this partnership, the two firms will integrate each other’s services into their own offerings, creating a combined suite of products and solutions capable of expanding regulatory and change management systems across the financial and insurance sectors.

There is also a partnership for the core banking platform Tuum and regtech Salv. By collaborating with Salv, Tuum’s customers can gain access to an AML platform with advanced solutions for monitoring, screening and risk scoring. Tuum and Salv are also currently working with LHV UK operates on Tuum’s core banking platform and uses Salv for its AML requirements.

Research and insight

More than a third of UK businesses (36 per cent) have extended payment terms for suppliers in the past 12 months, according to Value, a cloud provider for spend management. An Ivalua mission study, conducted by Coleman Parkes, reveals that 59 per cent of UK businesses have seen suppliers end their relationship with them due to repeated late payments. Only 38 per cent of UK businesses use a discount scheme for early payment.

Almost half of IT professionals believe innovation in AI poses an existential threat to humanity. However, the data is from Atlas VPN, also reveals that 74 percent of IT professionals believe AI will automate tasks and free up more time to focus on strategic initiatives. About two-thirds also believe that AI will be a business-critical element of their business strategy in the coming years.

A new study from Stripe reveals that many of the world’s most visited e-commerce websites have incorrectly filled checkouts, frustrating customers and costing businesses revenue. The average checkout takes more than three minutes, but 60 percent of customers say they will abandon a checkout that takes more than two.

The job is moving

Broadridge has employed Stephen Johnston as MD Client Delivery Operations for Broadridge Fund Communication Solutions (FCS). He joins Broadridge from State Street, where he was managing director of the Irish legal entity IFSI. Johnston will help drive Broadridge’s support of fund data, document production and distribution, and regulatory reporting needs.

Berlin-based fintech lemon.markets appoints Marcus Gunter as managing director of the brokerage house GmbH. The former CEO of DirectAnlageBank AG and N26 Bank will support lemon.markets in becoming a regulated broker provider. Earlier this year, lemon.markets secured one of the largest seed funding rounds in Europe with €15 million in funding.

Schroder’s personal fortune have named Graham Bastin as Chief Technology Officer. He comes from Barclays Bank PLC, where he held several MD roles within group technology. Schroders’ ambition is to become one of the largest financial planning firms in the UK.

Fintech Bento motor has unveiled three new team members. Cassie Jackson takes on the role of growth manager while Marcus Davis is the new council evangelist / business development representative. Finally, Charlotte Ketelaar has joined Bento as chief of staff.

Mergers and acquisitions

Moneffa payment service provider, has snapped up a financial lifestyle app StormPay. Under the new parent company, the StormPay brand and mission will remain unchanged, while the teams will merge. Otabek Nuritdinov, co-founder of StormPay, will step down as managing director, but will remain head of business development at Moneff.

Financing and investments

Commodities AI Ltd (ChAI), the AI-powered commodity intelligence company, has completed a seed round to help expand its industry-leading services into new markets. it will also use the funding to provide real-time commodity price forecasts to new global audiences, including commodity companies and key supply chain suppliers.