• Digital asset trading platform Bittrex filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
• Bittrex Global will not be impacted by the change.
• Today’s news comes three weeks after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Bittrex and its former CEO William Shihara for operating an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

U.S. digital asset trading platform Bittrex filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy yesterday. The company’s international operation, Bittrex Global, will not be impacted by the change.

Seattle-based Bittrex shut down in the U.S. on April 30, but has asked the bankruptcy court to allow it to re-open temporarily so that it can return crypto assets to U.S. customers who were unable to withdraw their funds prior to the April 30 closure.

Today’s bankruptcy filing comes after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Bittrex and its former CEO William Shihara for operating an unregistered exchange, broker, and clearing agency on April 17. Specifically, the agency alleged that Shihara encouraged crypto asset issuers to delete public statements that could lead regulators to investigate those token offerings as securities.

Bittrex has denied the SEC’s allegations that its digital assets are securities or investment contracts.

Unfortunately for the crypto world, the news of a digital asset trading platform shutting down in the U.S. is not shocking. Bittrex’s U.S. shutdown and bankruptcy follow the demise of FTX, Celsius, Voyager, and BlockFi– all of which have taken place in the past year. One reason decentralized finance (DeFi) companies operating in the U.S. are becoming an endangered species is because of the ambiguous regulatory environment in the U.S.

The SEC has not firmly laid out rules for crypto companies and, based on the fines it has issued, is making it clear that crypto firms are not as welcome in the U.S. as they are in other geographies.

Photo by Melinda Gimpel on Unsplash

• Paydora Finance is publicly launching its white-label embedded finance tool today.
• Germany-based Paydora Finance can help organizations launch their own branded digital bank account, payment card, and onboarding experience.
• Dock is powering the technology and regulatory infrastructure behind Paydora Finance.

Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) company Paydora Finance announced its public launch today. The Germany-based company offers a white-label banking platform that enables organizations to offer their own embedded finance solutions.

Businesses and organizations can leverage Paydora’s solution to offer their B2B or B2C customers a fully branded digital banking account, Mastercard payment card, onboarding experience, and customer data hub. The product enables companies to create new revenue streams while maintaining control of the branded experience. What’s more, Paydora’s BaaS platform can be launched in as few as 30 days, with no coding experience necessary.

“Companies and organizations can now embed B2C and B2B banking solutions into their own product ecosystem much faster and without any development effort and bring them to market in the shortest possible time. This allows them to offer significant added value to their existing and new customers, which generates additional revenue,” explained Paydora Cofounder and CEO Claudio Wilhelmer.

Wilhelmer comes to Paydora from Revolut and NumberX. He is joined by co-founders Matthias Seiderer, previously with Anyline and NumberX; and Christofer Trowe, previously with PPRO and Payback.

Paydora, which was originally founded last year, counts retail chain Metro, mobility service provider Eurowag, travel portal Booking.com, and more as clients. The company’s technology and regulatory infrastructure is built from Dock, a BaaS company that helps businesses digitize complex financial processes and simplify their processing.

BaaS has taken off not only within the fintech world, but also across a range of industries. Many companies have sought to create additional revenue streams by adding digital banking tools, payment cards, and more under their brands. However, as BaaS popularity has increased, so has regulatory scrutiny. Last week, the FDIC sent a cease-and-desist order to fintech partner bank Cross River Bank. The government agency accused the bank of engaging in unsafe or unsound practices related to its fair lending compliance. 

• Velmie added a card module to its updated white-label BaaS solution.
• The new card module will help businesses offer their own customized physical or virtual payment card.
• Velmie’s new release also enables businesses to issue physical and virtual corporate cards to their employees.

Mobile e-wallet platform Velmie released an updated white-label solution that offers the addition of a card module. The new BaaS offering will help companies build and launch their own fintech business.

The card module is a new feature of Velmie’s white-label solution and will offer businesses a comprehensive tool set to launch their own customized physical or virtual payment card product. The solution integrates with both Apple Pay and Google Pay, and includes 3D Secure to protect against fraud.

Additionally, Velmie enables businesses to issue physical and virtual corporate cards to their employees. Doing so offers businesses visibility and control over expenses, enables them to set spending limits, and provides them control over transaction types.

“Velmie built white-label solutions not only to speed up time to market for new fintech products but to make them scalable and future-proof,” said Velmie Founder and CEO Slava Ivashkin. “We’re excited to release our upgraded Velmie application. We believe it will be valuable for fintech companies and banks looking to create innovative solutions that meet the changing needs of their customers.”

Facilitating this week’s launch are Velmie’s recent fintech partners, including  payment, open banking, and sustainability services fintech Enfuce and all-in-one business financial platform ConnectPay.

Velmie was founded in 2010 and its technology helps traditional banks and mobile wallet companies provide compliant and scalable mobile banking, e-wallets, remittance platforms, payroll solutions and more to their end customers. With three office locations spanning from the U.S., the U.K., and Lithuania, Velmie serves customers across four continents.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto

• Business budgets and digital payments platform inbanx has partnered with Corserv.
• inbanx will leverage Corserv’s Payment Cards as a Service API to offer its business customers a Visa commercial credit card.
• According to Juniper Research, the number of payment cards issued via digital platforms will grow 170% between now and 2027.

Business budgets and digital payments platform inbanx is boosting its offerings today by partnering with card issuer Corserv. Texas-based inbanx is integrating Corserv’s Payment Cards as a Service API (PCaaSA) into its platform to offer a more holistic business payments platform.

Integrating Corserv’s PCaaSA will enable inbanx to offer a Visa commercial credit card to its business clients. The new modern payment card solution will offer real-time, configurable spend controls and cooperative authorization for businesses that rely on hierarchical approvals and spending limits.

“Our highly configurable PCaaSA platform simplifies complex processes for inbanx to launch and embed commercial cards in a secure, compliant and flexible way,” said Corserv CEO Anil Goyal. “We are thrilled to work with inbanx to integrate with their innovative budget and expense management solution.”

Founded in 2021, inbanx helps businesses budget, manage their card program, and control spending across teams. By automatically reporting the expenses, inbanx’s solution eliminates the need for employees to fill out manual expense reports.

“We serve our customers with an innovative and easy-to-use solution that adopts the next generation of payment capabilities to allow businesses and their employees to spend efficiently,” said inbanx CEO Rob Kaczmarek. “Corserv’s payment card platform was the only solution that afforded us the customizability and flexibility to build exactly what we needed for our customers.”

Corserv has been helping banks and fintechs offer issuing processing and program management services for credit, debit, and prepaid cards since it was founded in 2009. The Atlanta, Georgia-based company has raised $2.1 million in funding and recently named Anil Goyal as its new CEO.

Modern card issuing is a hot space in the fintech realm, especially as banking-as-a-service and embedded finance becomes more popular. Juniper Research expects the number of payment cards issued via digital platforms to grow 170% between now and 2027, increasing from 500 million in 2023 to 1.3 billion by 2027. Global leaders in the modern card issuing space include Thales, G+D, FIS, Fiserv, and Marqeta.

Photo by Anna Tarazevich

• Raisin has appointed Cetin Duransoy as CEO of the company’s U.S. division, SaveBetter by Raisin.
• Duransoy comes to Raisin from Fundbox, where he served as President and COO.
• Today’s announcement follows Raisin’s $64.7 million capital raise in March of this year.

Savings and investment product marketplace Raisin has appointed a new CEO for its U.S. savings division. The Berlin-based company has selected Cetin Duransoy to head SaveBetter by Raisin, its U.S. savings platform originally launched in 2020.

Raisin launched SaveBetter in 2020 to serve as an online marketplace where customers can choose from a variety of savings products, including savings accounts, money market deposit accounts, and certificates of deposit. The savings tool enables users to access more favorable rates than most traditional savings accounts from a single portal.

SaveBetter has seen impressive growth recently, having added $1 billion in assets under management in the past three-to-four months. Additionally, over the same time period, the company has brought 30 financial brands onto its online marketplace. 

In the release, Duransoy said this is an “exciting time” to join Raisin as CEO. “Having already established itself in the U.S. market, demonstrating scale to banking partners and tangible benefits in increased returns for everyday Americans, Raisin is poised to lead the way in further disrupting the American cash savings market and providing a valuable tool to help millions of savers secure their financial future,” he added.

Duransoy has more than 20 years of experience in financial services. He most recently served as President and COO Fundbox, and has also held senior positions at companies including Capital One and Visa.

Today’s announcement comes just over a month after Raisin raised $64.7 million (€60 million) in a Series E funding round led by M&G’s Catalyst and Goldman Sachs. The round boosted Raisin’s total funding to almost $305 million since it was founded in 2012.

Raisin counts more than one million customers and $31.7 billion (€38 billion) assets under management across the U.S., U.K., and European Union. The company taps its network of more than 400 banks and financial service providers from 30+ countries to offer its catalogue of savings, investment, and pension products. Tamas Giorgadse is Co-Founder and CEO.

Photo by ROMAN ODINTSOV