Our final Finovate Global column of 2023 celebrates the conversations we’ve had this year with fintech innovators from around the world.
Stay tuned in 2024 for more interviews with some of the most interesting founders, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders in fintech and financial services.
“We developed BehaviorQuant because every financial decision is ultimately made by a person or a team. BehaviorQuant solves a core problem that underlies the entire investment industry: we don’t have systematic knowledge about the people and teams behind investment decisions. And that’s true for financial professionals and clients alike.” Dr. Thomas Oberlechner, founder and CEO of BehaviorQuant. Interview.
“Moniepoint solves the problem of fragmented, inaccessible, and low-quality financial services for businesses in emerging markets. It is a full-service business banking platform seeking to provide all the digital financial services a typical business needs.” Tosin Eniolorunda, founder and CEO of Moniepoint. Interview.
“Eight hundred million voice conversations are recorded daily in Europe and many more worldwide. A tiny 1% of these conversations are checked for quality control, employee training, and business results improvement. Ender Turing is a conversations intelligence and automation platform to close 99% of the conversation gap for business growth.” Olena Iosifova, CEO of Ender Turing. Interview.
“Capital raising is broken. Private companies spend months and even years in the fundraising process, learning how to raise capital and repeating the same mistakes, approaching the wrong investors and often spamming them with irrelevant investment opportunities.” Ulyana Shtybel, CEO of Quoroom. Interview.
“At Refine intelligence, our mission is to help banks regain that superpower of really knowing their customers’ life stories, so their financial crime teams can quickly clear AML or scam alerts triggered by legitimate customer activity. We work with Risk, Financial Crime, BSA and AML teams. Fraud teams look at our technology to help with scam operations.” Uri Rivner, co-founder and CEO of Refine Intelligence. Interview.
“It was an honor to be ranked by CB Insights in its Fintech 250 list and, as one of only seven African start-ups featured, it speaks to the pioneering approach we are introducing to the world – revolutionizing payments and creating a financial services ecosystem for Africa.”
“As sub-Saharan Africa gains recognition on the global stage, we are seeing innovative and pioneering products emerge and rise in popularity amongst consumers, diversifying the products they can choose from.” Tayo Oviosu, founder and CEO of Paga. Interview.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Asia-Pacific
- Singaporean fiat-to-crypto payment gateway Alchemy Pay forged a partnership with Worldpay from FIS.
- Indonesian P2P fintech JULO added insurance coverage with the launch of its JULO Cares solution.
- Philippines-based Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) announced regulatory changes to support green and sustainable financing.
Sub-Saharan Africa
- Mastercard launched new contactless payment solutions in Nigeria.
- EMTECH, a company that provides infrastructure for central banks, provided a CBDC hackathon as part of a pilot project with the Bank of Ghana.
- African fintech Bloc launched its business banking solution this week.
Central and Eastern Europe
- Berlin, Germany-based cloud banking platform Mambu to power the new Neobank Engine launched by Trigger Software.
- Mintos, a multi-asset platform based in Latvia, announced addition of personalized ETFs to its product suite.
- Hungary’s OTP Bank partnered with Intellect Global Consumer banking (iGCB), the consumer banking arm of Indian banking technology copany Intelltect Design Arena.
Middle East and Northern Africa
- UAE-based Buy Now, Pay Later company Tabby secured a $700 million debt facility from J.P. Morgan.
- MDP, a card issuing platform based in Egypt, teamed up with Mastercard to launch a Carbon Calculator for consumers.
- Oman’s Development Bank partnered with low code digital transformation platform Newgen Software.
Central and Southern Asia
- Bangladesh-based Eastern Bank launched a biometric metal Mastercard courtesy of a partnership with Idex Biometrics.
- EnKash secured regulatory approval from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a payment aggregator.
- Pakistan’s first digital student loan platform, EduFi, raised $6.1 million in funding for its “Study Now, Pay Later” offering.
Latin America and the Caribbean
- Mexican SME payments platform Kapital secured $40 million in Series B funding, and a $125 million debt facility.
- Brazilian neobank Nubank partnered with Circle to introduce the USDC stablecoin to its customers in Brazil.
- Mexico’s Banorte announced plans to launch its digital banking product, Banco Bineo in January.