The new digital spending account from Canadian fintech Mogo does more than help Canadians get control of their finances. The solution – which also comes with a Mogo Visa Platinum Prepaid Card – also offers cardholders generous cashback rewards and a way to make a positive impact on the environment by reducing their carbon footprint.

“With MogoSpend,” company founder and CEO David Feller explained, “our goal was to create a product that gives consumers even more control than a debit card and with cashback rewards that rival the best credit cards in Canada, without charging monthly or annual fees, and importantly, we wanted to make this a card that also help make a positive impact on the planet.”

Feller noted that 57 percent of Canadians carry credit card debt, which he connected with the problem of overspending. This, according to Feller, leads to overconsumption which he said was “directly linked to climate change.” He added, “Being more mindful around spending can help us achieve important life goals like buying a home and retirement, and many of us are becoming increasingly aware that being a mindful consumer is key to a healthy planet.”

MogoSpend is accessible via Mogo’s iOS and Android app, and can be set up in less than three minutes. The free service has no monthly or annual fees, works like a checking account, and enables users to instantly transfer funds from their bank account to their MogoSpend account. MogoSpend gives 1.5% cashback on domestic purchases and 3% on international currency purchases. Users can see how much cashback they have earned on the app in real time, and those funds are credited to the users account on a monthly basis, rather than at year’s end.

The only payment card in Canada to offer a carbon offset program, MogoSpend will offset one pound of CO₂ for every dollar MogoSpend users spend using the card. The program comes courtesy of a partnership between Mogo and Canadian sustainability and carbon-management solution provider, Offsetters.

Mogo will make the new offering available to members on its waiting list “in the next few months.” Those interested can join the waiting list by downloading the free Mogo app and opening an account.

If your insurance company is offering you drone insurance, you know it’s not your grandmother’s insurance agency. Germany-based insurtech Getsafe does just that– and the company announced today it is expanding its home contents insurance offering (though, sadly, not its drone insurance offering) to users in the U.K.

Starting today, U.K. users will have access to Getsafe’s “neo-insurance” offering via its mobile app. The launch is made partially possible via a partnership with Hiscox, which will serve as the carrier for Getsafe’s U.K. contents product. The fintech’s other insurance partners include Munich Re and AXA.

Getsafe’s selection of the U.K. as its next launch site is a strategic one since U.K. residents are already comfortable with mobile-based services and payments. In fact, the U.K. is one of the leading regions of the globe for challenger banks.

The company has already proven itself as the fastest growing insurance agency for millennials in Germany. “Over the last two years, we have shown that our product meets a core need for the young, tech-savvy generation,” said CEO and founder Christian Wiens. “With our insurance delivered through your smartphone, we are developing a product that fits perfectly with the living and communication habits of this generation.”

Getsafe states that today’s move into the U.K. is “just the beginning.” The company plans to expand its offerings to all of Europe in the next few years.

Getsafe has raised $17 million and was founded in 2015. In addition to its contents and drone insurance products, the company offers ad-hoc insurance for travel, liability, bike theft, legal protection, routine care, dental care, and dental replacement. Getsafe also has plans to launch a digital life insurance company in Germany, its flagship market.

Risk management and advisory services firm INTL FCStone announced today that its London-based subsidiary has agreed to acquire GIROXX for an undisclosed amount.

Headquartered in Germany, GIROXX offers international bank transfers and currency hedging. INTL FCStone plans to leverage this technology to expand its current client base to small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

As part of the agreement, INTL FCStone’s advisory services will be made available to GIROXX’s clients. GIROXX founders Klaus Hoffmann and Jörg Sonnenschein said that the deal will help the company “gain the resources to offer hedging services on a multi assets basis.” As a result, the founders anticipate that GIROXX will solidify its client base and boost company expansion.

The purchase marks INTL FCStone’s sixth acquisition and its fourth in less than 10 months. The company said that these purchases, combined with internal restructuring, are part of an effort to protect clients from negative effects of Brexit.

“Our objective is to offer SME’s the ability to hedge all parts of their production processes, and to allow these corporates to have access to a digital payments and hedging platform,” said Carsten Hils, Global Head of INTL FCStone’s Global Payments Division.

Following the deal, INTL FCStone plans to open its client base to companies with less than 1,000 employees in Europe, a market with 350+ correspondent banks. The acquisition is pending approval from BaFin, Germany’s financial regulatory authority.

Founded in 1981, INTL FCStone is publicly listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker INTL. The company has a market capitalization of $947 million.

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s Central Bank, announced it has accepted an application from American Express (AmEx) that expressed the company’s intention to operate in China.

Reuters reported that the PBOC announced the receipt of AmEx’s application via a WeChat post on Wednesday. The bank, however, did not disclose information about the approval timeline.

This follows the PBOC’s approval in November of 2018 for AmEx to clear card payments in partnership with China’s LianLian Pay to process payments in Yuan. This week’s announcement also makes AmEx the first U.S. card network company to gain access into the China market. In order to commence operations, however, AmEx still needs final approval from the PBOC.

China is beginning to open up its credit card payments market to foreign players after restricting access. For the past ten years, foreign payment card companies could only tap into China’s credit card market via partnership with state-run UnionPay.

Visa and Mastercard are expected to follow suit to claim their stake in China’s $27 trillion market.

Traditional players aren’t the only ones eyeing the China opportunity. Last October PayPal gained controlling interest in China-based GoPay. The move granted PayPal a license to offer online payment services in China, making it the first foreign company to be granted such license.

HighRadius, a company that offers AI-powered order-to-cash and treasury management solutions, announced today that it has raised $125 million in Series B funding. The investment boosts the Houston, Texas-based firm’s valuation to $1 billion, earning it the status as one of the first new fintech unicorns of 2020.

The round was led by Iconiq Capital, and featured participation from Citi Ventures and Susquehanna Growth Equity. Iconiq Capital partner Will Griffith praised the way HighRadius’ platform had improved the efficiency of accounts receivable and treasury teams, and put the company’s accomplishments in the broader context of other innovative firms in its portfolio. “Digital transformation is increasingly a CFO priority,” Griffith said, calling HighRadius’s platform “game-changing.”

HighRadius’ integrated receivables technology optimizes accounts receivables operations by combining all receivable and payment modules into a single, unified business process. The company’s treasury management technology provides treasury departments with greater visibility into cash operations – including cash levels – and automates reconciliation. Founded in 2006, the company, which includes Citi and Bank of America Merrill Lynch among its clients, has processed more than $1.3 trillion in transactions via its AI-enabled platform.

“Today marks an important milestone for HighRadius and we’re thrilled to have ICONIQ join us in our vision to modernize the Order to Cash space,” HighRadius founder and CEO Sashi Narahari said. He pledged to build the company “into a self-sustaining, long-term category leader.”

Earlier this year, HighRadius partnered with London-based, e-payments company PPRO to give merchants a broader range of options to accept payments from buyers. The combined offering will allow for the discovery and support of local payment methods (LPMs) in key locations, and is designed to help merchant clients keep up with the increasing diversity of payment options around the world.

This spring, the company unveiled its Collection Agency Data Exchange solution which enables customers using HighRadius Collections Cloud to electronically send accounts and invoices to a trio of third-party collection agencies directly from the HighRadius platform. HighRadius began the year with the launch of its order-to-cash digital assistant, Freeda, and a partnership with the Media Financial Management Association to provide credit management automation for the organization’s subsidiary credit association, BCCA.