This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 28/02

Fintech Times The Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday, February 28 brings news of funding success for Pagos and Carmoola.

The job is moving

Bahrain-based SINNAD Company, a card processing payment company, has appointed Rana Almaeeli as managing director. Almaeeli has held a number of top management positions in SINNAD. The appointment is part of SINNAD’s efforts to drive its digital strategic vision and scale business offerings across the GCC and the African market.

MetaComp, a Singapore-based digital asset platform, appoints John Kang as the new CFO. Kang will oversee the firm’s financial activities, including those of MetaComp’s sister company, MetaVerse Green Exchange (MVGX), the Singapore-based green fintech firm. Kang has previously had roles on Citigroup Global Markets, Citadel Investment Group and Goldman Sachs.

Standard Chartered Bank name Muhannad Mukahall as the new CEO of Standard Chartered Bank Qatar.
Mukahall joined Standard Chartered in 2013 and has since held senior assignments including CEO in
Standard Chartered Bank Jordan. Before joining Standard Chartered, he held several management roles at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Arab Bank, HSBC Dubai and Jordan Kuwait Bank.

Global Processing Services (GPS) has appointed three non-executive directors to its global board. The appointments to Paulette Rowe, Shane Happach and Lynn McCreary follow three other additions to its senior management team last month with the appointment of Jim McCarth, Kevin Fox as well as Jeff Burns.

More deals

investcorp, a global alternative investment company, is entering the Japanese market with the opening of its office in Tokyo. Furthermore, Investcorp has appointed Professor Heizo Takenaka in the role of chairman. The opening of Investcorp’s office in Tokyo will allow the firm to offer global alternative investment solutions in Japan, as well as laying the foundation for Investcorp’s direct private equity and real estate investments.

General Atlantica global growth equity company, is hiring Samir Assaf for the newly created role of chairman of the board in MENA. Assaf will work with the General Atlantic team to identify investment opportunities and build relationships in the MENA region as the firm seeks to expand its global footprint.

Cellulant appoints Ibrahim Gbolahan Aminu as General Manager for Nigeria. He will manage and oversee day-to-day operations and provide leadership as Cellulant expands its coverage Thing, Cellulant’s digital payment platform, nationwide.

Financing

Fintech startup in the UK ZIP ZERO has raised over £1 million in seed funding. ZIPZERO, which has more than 100,000 users in the UK, will use the funding to further expand its platform. It will also secure new partnerships with retailers and brands and give consumers value and autonomy over their personal shopping data.

Pagos raising $34 million. The company’s bird-themed SaaS platform transforms complex payment data into real-time actionable insights. The funding will be used to expand Pago’s engineering team and advance the platform’s suite of enterprise products included Parrot, peacock, canary, toucan and Loon.

UK car finance fintech Carmoola has raised an £8.5m Series A round and a £95m debt facility. The round was led by US-based fintech specialists QED investorswith the participation of existing investors VentureFriend and InMotion Ventures. It also includes a debt facility provided by night west, primes Carmoola for rapid growth in a lucrative £120bn UK market.

Finmap, a cash flow management tool for businesses, closed a new funding round of €1 million. The main investor is SMOK Ventures, an American-Polish venture capital fund that was founded with the participation of the investor Paul Bragiel. The portfolio of 400 companies includes unicorns UBER, Stripe, Niantic, Unity and Zappos. This is the fund’s first investment in a Ukrainian project.

Sprout, a platform for underserved private investors to access a select selection of leading venture capital funds, has raised $1 million in pre-funding. The funds will be used to scale the Sprout platform and build on its impressive growth since the business launched in late 2021.

Mergers and acquisitions

Spanish merchant Sabadell agrees to sell payment arm to Nexi for up to 370 million dollars. Nexi will take over 80 percent of Sabadell’s merchant business, after it was spun off into PayComet. Nexi will finance the transaction entirely through available cash resources. A long-term exclusive distribution partnership has also been agreed, with an initial term of 10 years and two potential five-year renewals.

MAPFRE AM, the asset management of Spain’s largest insurance group, has bought an additional 26 percent stake in the French ESG-specialized mutual fund shop La Financière Responsible (LFR). It takes its total stake to 51 percent as it targets growth of SRI-derived strategies. It is also seeking to increase its international footprint in the French fund market.

Partnership

Vallourec, a multinational pipe and drill manufacturer, has chosen Balance to operate the payment solution for its new online platform. Behub-e enables energy and industrial market players to interact and trade online. In cooperation with Balance, companies in the global energy market can safely facilitate payments online with multiple merchants worldwide.

iDenfyend-to-end identity verification, compliance and fraud prevention startup is teaming up with AMLYZE, The SaaS provider of anti-financial crime solutions. A referral agreement signed by AMLYZE and iDenfy will enable mutual growth.

eTorothe social investment network, has entered into cooperation with Sentifi to launch a social sentiment portfolio. SocialSentiment offers exposure to US companies with solid ESG performance as well as high levels of positive social talk. Sentifi analyzes over 50,000 shares, currencies, commodities, indices, passive and active funds.

Pundi X enters into a partnership with Binance Pay. This partnership will bring Binance Pay, Binance’s payment service, to Pundi X’s XPOS devices, enabling thousands of merchants in 30 countries to more easily accept cryptocurrency payments.

More partnerships

Provider of payment orchestration BR-DGE has entered into cooperation with a payment company Total treatment to provide better payment experiences for sellers and customers. The partnership gives BR-DGE’s merchants access to Total Processing’s solutions. In turn, this offers a network of global buyers, full-featured dashboards and dynamic risk-based fraud tools.

Biometrics company Fingerprint working together with Flywallet, a biometric wearables technology startup. Together, they will develop and launch biometric wearable products for the European market. Portable products from Flywallet will now contain Fingerprints’ biometric sensors, software and algorithms.

Company updates

Davies has unveiled a new organizational structure that simplifies operations, after a period of organic and M&A growth. From March, the firm will align across three operating units: Davies Global Solutions, Davies UK & Ireland and Davies US, enabling the business to focus its investment and growth plans. Globally, Davies’ 6,500+ colleagues operate in 10 countries, including the UK and the US.

FinanceZero, the online credit marketplace in Brazil, has so far reached 40 million loan applications via its platform. FinanZero’s partner banks were founded in São Paulo in 2016 Santander, Itaú, Inter, Creditas.

DKK Partners has started a Dubai operation. It will act as a central hub for DKK in the region and provide greater access to the trade corridors in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The expansion will be led by senior staff in the region, all with Tier 1 banking experience in forex, trade finance and structured products.