This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 24/01

Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup Tuesday January 24th.

Partnership

Global payment company Reliable has entered into a strategic partnership with Nordnet, the Nordic digital platform for savings and investments. The partnership enables payments via Trustly across the Nordics, making it possible for Nordnet customers to deposit money quickly, securely and with an improved user experience.

There is also a partnership for Old Mutual and CoverGo, The SaaS platform without code insurance. It follows Old Mutual’s investment in CoverGo’s $15 million Series A earlier in 2022. Old Mutual will leverage CoverGo’s platform to streamline its insurance ecosystem, increase sales through new channels, and improve user experience in 13 countries in Africa.

BNY Mellon and Fiserv, a payment and financial services technology provider, has joined forces to deliver additional real-time foreign exchange services capabilities to US financial institutions. Fiserv can now access BNY Mellon’s real-time exchange rates for over 120 currencies. This new offering means that financial institutions can perform currency conversions for cross-border payments with advance rate visibility.

Bain & Company working together with World Economic Forum to tackle climate change in the Middle East and North Africa. The management consultancy joins the WEF to create a discourse to accelerate corporate climate action.

Hargreaves Lansdowne has introduced a new online proxy voting service in partnership with Broadridge. HL customers will be able to vote their holdings of UK and European shares more quickly and easily and access all upcoming shareholder meetings, such as general meetings, linked to their shareholdings via their online account. The service covers 5,800 tradable shares, all of which are UK and European shares on the HL platform.

More partnerships

LendInvest, the UK property finance asset manager, announces a partnership with British Business Bank to help finance smaller property developers across the UK. HSBC will provide up to £100m, with British Business Bank supporting the transaction via its government-backed ENABLE Guarantee programme.

Meanwhile, Sprout.ai, the claims automation technology solution for insurance, is teaming up with AdvanceCare. Using Sprout.ai’s technology, AdvanceCare will unlock full end-to-end claims automation, leveraging product capabilities to extract relevant data from AdvanceCare’s healthcare invoices to index claims.

Amazon and Stripe sign an extended global agreement, which deepens the two companies’ long-standing partnership. Under the new agreement, Stripe will become a strategic payment partner for Amazon in the US, Europe and Canada. Stripe will expand its use of Amazon Web Services, Stripe’s long-standing cloud infrastructure provider, to run and grow its business while reliably serving millions of Internet companies.

Women in AI and Huawei join forces to promote diversity and increase opportunities for women in technology. A free introduction to AI course aims to encourage more women to take up careers in technology and equip them with the skills to succeed in this fast-growing industry.

Airwallex has entered into cooperation with American Express. Airwallex customers in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK can now accept American Express card payments from around the world through payment links, Xero invoice payments and e-commerce extensions.

The job is moving

Freedom Finance, the digital loan marketplace and provider of embedded finance, has appointed Richard Parfitt as head of data science. Parfitt will lead the company’s data product initiative, building and leading a multidisciplinary team to develop new services for customers and enhance data-driven capabilities that drive further automation and intelligence. He takes over after eight years at 118 118 Money.

BNPL platform Decoration name Daniel Lee as head of consumer products. Most recently, Lee was group product manager for payments, fraud and consumer credit at the retail giant Kingfisher. He is also a former marketing manager in Judopaythe provider of mobile card payments.

Novatus Advisory, a risk, regulatory and ESG consultancy, is making two strategic senior appointments. Will Basnett joins as head of advisory, while Richard Street joins as chief revenue officer of its regtech division. The employment follows investment from Maven Capital to accelerate the rapid growth of the firm.

Indian fintech BharatPe unveils three new hires. Ambuj Bhalla has been appointed information security manager, while Rahul Bhatia is appointed head of internal auditing. It has also appointed Ravinder Oberoi as head
compliance.

Rupert Bedell have joined Paysend as marketing manager. complete Paysend’s Exco series. Bedell previously led B2B marketing at American Express for EMEA. Bedell began his career at Barclays before you also moved on to lead B2B marketing at RBS.

Equipment.aithe provider of analysis solutions, appoints Edward Green, as managing director. He was most recently a partner and head of asset management in AnaCap. Euipped was spun off from AnaCap in 2021 to form a standalone data analytics and technology platform.

Financing and investments

TRANSThe B2B buy-now, pay-later platform for SaaS sellers has raised a $100 million equity and debt round led by SOMA CAPITAL and FOUNDERSX. The credit facility is provided by Clear Haven Capital Management. The investment will be used to expand the team in Tranch’s New York office and expand the “Pay with Transaction” payments side across multiple industry verticals.

Twinco Capital, supply chain financing solution, closes a $12 million equity and debt round. The venture was led by Quona Capital, and also included participation from Working capital. The funds will be used to accelerate the company’s expansion within the major purchasing countries and strengthen technology and data capacity, especially in relation to ESG.

Keyzy, real estate fintech, has raised £3m in a seed funding round. The proceeds will accelerate the purchase of homes and the development of the technology platform. Axeleo Capital and Outbound VC led the financing round. Seed X also participated in the capital raising together with existing investors Global Founders Capital and ActivumSG Ventures.

cover dash, an insurance startup, has officially launched after an oversubscribed seed funding round. The round was chaired by Bling Capitalwith the participation of other investors, including AXIS Digital Ventures and Tokyo Marine Future Fund. The funding will contribute to Coverdash’s ongoing expansion and development through increased product innovation, go-to-market initiatives, as well as strategic hiring.

Digital financial crime platform Themis has successfully overfunded in its latest pre-Series A funding round, raising a total of £3.1m. The company is currently valued at £15.4m and predicts robust growth.

Regtech Global Screening Services (GSS) has raised over $45 million from major investors, incl AlixPartners, The Cynosure Group and MUFG. William Langford, global head of financial crime compliance for the Americas at MUFG, will serve as an observer to the GSS board.

Mergers and acquisitions

Equisoft, a provider of digital solutions to the financial services industry, has revealed its recent acquisition, Altus Business Systems, has renamed itself Equisoft. Equisoft acquired Altus in July 2021. The company consists of Altus Consulting, which will retain its independent status and name, and Altus Business Systems, which has been renamed Equisoft.

rest less, a digital community and financial services platform for people aged 50+, has taken up Mirthy, a digital platform that offers online events and classes aimed at rethinking retirement. As part of the acquisition, Rest Less welcomes you Abbie Jessop, event manager and Mahalia Connorhead of community engagement, to his team.