This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 25/08
Thursday 25 August at Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup brings you a variety of job deals, partnership news and more!
The job is moving
Mashreq Bank have named Muna Al Ghurair as CEO for marketing and corporate communications. Al Ghurair has over 20 years of experience in a variety of positions, including marketing, sales and business development.
Hinrich Pfeiferpreviously Cardano Foundation Secretary-General, has joined Partisia Blockchain Foundation as the new operations manager. After spending over two years driving blockchain adoption at the Cardano Foundation, Pfeifer will now oversee growth and operations in his new role.
Abu Dhabi Global Market based broker-dealer, Security capitalhas announced two senior appointments. Neale Crouter-Foy takes on a new role as chief technology officer, while Chris Pugh joins as the new head of product delivery.
Partnership
Binance has unveiled a collaboration with non-profit tech hub Inoni Tech, as the two companies launch a crypto education center in Yaoundé, Cameroon. The hub will become a training center for in-person blockchain training sessions.
Zambian Fashion Retailer, Read Copain’s Waikikihas signed an agreement with Cellulant Zambia which enables customers to make payments in all stores using Cellulant’s Court digital payment platform.
Chains.comthe cryptocurrency and NFT exchange platform, has joined forces with Indacoin. This partnership allows Chains.com to accept both Visa and Mastercard – making the $CHA token more accessible to millions of cardholders worldwide.
Fintech in the UK Paysend expands the possibilities to Paysend Business, an end-to-end payment solution for small and medium-sized businesses. This comes from the newly created collaboration with Currencycloud. The partnership aims to offer a simpler and more transparent method of making international transactions for SMEs.
Oddboxa fruit and vegetable delivery service, has partnered with London-based fintech Mintago. The partnership aims to provide a financial wellbeing platform for all Oddbox employees.
More partnerships
Bahrain Commercial Facilities Company (BCFC), the specialist finance company, has selected its two digital transformation partners. Both Code base technologies and Aytaf eSolutions has entered into a partnership with BCFC, which aims to accelerate its digital transformation.
In the e-commerce industry, Webxa Pakistani e-commerce platform, and Paymob, the payment gateway in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan (MENAP), has merged. Together they are launching Webx Pay, a service that aims to significantly reduce the times for businesses to accept payments.
online casino, Mystino, will begin accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method for its games. This comes after it announced a collaboration with Bitpacethe crypto payment gateway.
Investment platform Titan Bay and financial solutions provider Apex Group have entered into cooperation. The move will ensure that ESG ratings are added on all new funds to Titanbay’s platform and will also make an in-depth ESG report available to investors.
The data city and Dealroom.co has partnered to provide a more comprehensive data set to firms researching the high-tech growth market.
Financing and investments
Swedish Sustainability Platform, Worldfavorhas raised €10.2 million from its latest funding round led by SEB Private Equity. The company aims to use this recent funding pledge to fuel its growth and expansion plans.
Klar plays me, the metaverse avatar platform, has secured a total funding amount of $56 million. The funding round included participation from the likes of David Baszuckico-founder of Roblox and Justin Kanco-founder of Jerk.
Zywa, the payments platform aimed at teenagers, has raised a $3 million seed round. It aims to use this investment to focus on growth in the United Arab Emirates and expand into Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Finally, the micro investment platform, Wombat, saw a funding increase of £4 million after a four-week crowdfund. It looks to use this investment to support its growth plans, upcoming product launches and international expansion.
Company updates and expansion
Google parent company Alphabet Inc. has now launched Google Wallet in South Africa. The move sees the company trying to increase its foothold in South Africa’s digital payments space; which has seen the latest rapid development.
Dubai-based proptech startup, Huspy, has announced the acquisition of two mortgage brokers. The employees and founders of Only mortgages and Finance Lab will join Huspy in a move to strengthen its leadership position in mortgage services.
Sum suba verification software company, has opened its newest office in Miami, Florida, as it aims to further its global expansion in North and Latin America.
In more expansion news, the global financial services firm, Ebury, has also established two new offices in Perth, Australia and Vancouver, Canada. The expansion comes as the firm looks to better serve the growing demand from companies in these regions.
Finally, Paysafe has announced its own expansion into Argentina. This comes after it is acquired PagoEffective and SafetyPaytwo Latin American-based payment companies.
Product launches
Pemo, an expense management platform in the MENAP region, has launched its new Pemo Card offer. The cards allow parameters to be set by the management team and then distributed to the company’s employees, reducing the need for expense reports.
Grizzly.fi, a decentralized finance company, has launched a stablecoin pegged to the Swiss franc. This follows the recent product launch by Grizzly.fi of its liquidity mining aggregator earlier this month.
