This week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 28/03

welcome to Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup Tuesday, March 28.

Mergers and acquisitions

Ingenico, a payment acceptance solution company, has unveiled the 100 percent acquisition of Phos, a software-only point-of-sale (SoftPoS) provider. The strategic purchase of Phos is a next step in Ingenico’s evolution towards software-driven services, following the recent acquisition by Ingenico of the investment funds managed by affiliates Apollo Global Management in September 2022.

The job is moving

Digital insurance company Breezewhich has developed an online platform especially for logistics companies, has appointed Patricia Kern as an insurance manager. Most recently she worked at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions‘ global marine division, where she led the unit’s shipping and hull operations.

Calastone, a global fund network, has named Brian Godins as sales manager. Ross Fox has moved from Singapore to the UK as managing director, head of UK and Europe, while Justin Christopher has been appointed CEO, Head of Asia. In addition, Ed Lopez has moved into a newly created role as president of money market services.

Quavo fraud and disputes name Brittany Usher as its first chief revenue officer. As CRO, Usher oversees Quavo’s marketing, sales, client success and dispute resolution teams. In March 2022, Usher became the first female non-founding member of Quavo’s management team.

CoinFunda web3 investment company, appoints Jenna Pilgrim as manager of portfolio growth. Pilgrim will partner with CoinFund portfolio companies to leverage the power of the firm’s capabilities and network for their most critical needs, including strategic development, team growth and additional fundraising.

InspereXSMthe technology-driven fixed income and market-linked product distribution and trading firm, is hiring Marshall Nicholson as president of InspereX Technologies. He will focus on further developing and implementing strategy for BondNavInspereX fixed income technology platform serving institutional investors.

Partnership

CSI, a supplier of end-to-end fintech and regtech solutions, has partnered with Hawk AI, a provider of anti-money laundering and anti-fraud technology for banks and payment companies. Their news products, WatchDOG® Fraud and WatchDOG® AML, create multi-layered, automated monitoring that monitors, detects and reports fraudulent or suspicious activity in real time.

Global payment technology company Brightwell has forged apartistry with Visa to integrate real-time payment technology into its solutions using ReadyRemit via Visa Direct. Through this collaboration, Brightwell customers can launch a fully managed cross-border payments program that includes compliance, tier two support and price management in their offerings.

Daffythe modern platform and community for charitable giving, and Secfi, an equity planning, financing and wealth management platform, has also announced a partnership. It allows Secfi Wealth’s start-up staff and senior clients to use Daffy to make donor-advised fund (DAF) contributions.

Signified and Adobe partner to make industry-leading fraud and abuse protection available to Adobe Commerce customers. Trade protection provider Signifyd has achieved Platinum Partner status in the Adobe Technology Partner Program for Experience Cloud.

Fylean expense management platform, has launched a real-time credit card feed integration for business cards issued on MasterCard Network. With this capability, any Mastercard customer who signs up for Fyle can access real-time transaction feeds from users’ cards that sign up and consent to help them improve operational efficiency and gain a sharper lens on their financial numbers.

The Very groupa UK integrated pureplay digital retailer and financial services provider, has expanded its embedded marketplace partnership with Freedom financing for a further three years, which gives the service greater panel width. This increases the range of credit products available to Very’s customers.

Additional partnerships

Askari Bank working together with BPC. BPC will implement its next generation SmartVista suite to enable a credit card management system by migrating existing solution and services. In addition, an enterprise fraud management solution powered by AI and machine learning models will be introduced to detect and prevent fraudulent activities on Askari Bank’s digital channels.

London-based SME financier 365 Business economics has signed a multi-year agreement to become an associate partner of Crystal Palace Football Club. Including the remainder of the 2022/23 season, the company’s branding will be visible to fans at Selhurst Park.

Finaro has merged with the payment technology company MasterCard to distribute its European Cloud Commerce solution across important Nordic markets. Together with Nordic neobank and POS supplier Northmill and NMI, Finaro’s procurement services and cross-border expertise will support Mastercard’s cloud-based software-based acceptance solution for small retailers across several Nordic markets.

Financing and investments

SKUx, a payments technology and consumer engagement platform, has raised $11 million in Series A funding. SKUx’s Series A round was led by a strategic family office investor focused on fintech and payments and also included significant participation from Advection growth capital. The funding will be used to help scale SKUx’s current product offering.

Generative AI and synthetic computing company Hazy gets a financing round of 9 million dollars in series A. The venture is led by judgement, with participation also from UCL Technology Fund, Microsoft, Wells Fargo and Nationwide Construction Association. The investment will enable Hazy to drive expansion in the UK, US and Europe. It will also invest in product and engineering to improve its synthetic computing capabilities.

Aden Financial, a cross-border OTC asset e-trading platform for RMB assets, has raised several million dollars in Series A funding. The round was chaired by Eight Roads Ventures. The proceeds will strengthen the company’s technological capabilities, strengthen its presence in the Asian market, as well as enrich its access to target global regions.

TONcoin.Fund leads $1.5 million in seed funding for Megaton Finance to drive DeFi growth further The Open Network (TON). The financing round was included Cypher Capital, First Stage Labs, Orbs in addition to MEXC Ventures.

Launcher

Payment security company Giesecke+Devrient has a new offering for banks to speed up the authentication and payment process to give their customers easier access to digital banking services and eliminate the need for passwords. The new solution, Convego AUTH-U, enables seamless transactions via mobile apps and across browsers, using two-factor biometric authentication via fingerprint or face scan.