As more and more fintechs add their support to the people of Ukraine and create new pathways for individuals and organizations to contribute financially, the Ukrainian government has had to adapt in order to make some of these contributions not just possible, but legal.

This week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, signed month-old legislation to provide a legal framework for the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies in the country. Per the new legislation, cryptocurrency exchanges and other companies dealing in digital assets will be able to register with the Ukrainian government in order to operate in the country. Additionally, the new law will allow banks to open accounts for cryptocurrency companies.

Going forward, Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission will set the country’s policies on cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, issue licenses, and serve as a regulatory watchdog over the fledgling industry. The law is the second bite of the apple for Ukraine’s cryptocurrency advocates; the Ukrainian parliament voted to legalize cryptocurrencies last fall, but the legislation was vetoed by Zelenskyy, who cited the cost of creating a new regulatory entity to govern cryptocurrencies.

Ukrainian interest in cryptocurrencies certainly predates the Russian invasion of the country; a New York Times feature in November 2021 ran the headline “The Crypto Capital of the World” with the subhead “It has to be somewhere. Why not Ukraine?” But that interest has spiked since then as the country reportedly has received “tens of millions of dollars” in cryptocurrency donations to help Ukrainians cope with the devastation of their country at the hands of the Russian military.

Nordigen partners with French fintech Saveengs, U.K. lender Mallard Finance

Latvian open banking platform Nordigen has announced a pair of new partnerships this week. Saveengs, a French startup that specializes in helping people with little or no savings build a strong financial foundation, will work with Nordigen to help users find ways to save better. Nordigen’s technology will enable the Saveengs app to analyze the user’s finances to find opportunities to save in small amount, typically in increments of 20 euros.

“While the amount of money saved seems small at first, it definitely adds up,” Saveengs CEO Mourad Ketir said. “Open banking enables the app to perform financial analysis on our users’ existing funds and transactions quickly and easily, allowing the process of saving to start as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile across the channel, U.K.-based independent lender Mallard Finance has chosen Nordigen as its Account Information Service Provider (AISP). A specialist in providing financing for automobile purchases, Mallard Finance will leverage its new partnership with Nordigen to access financial data directly from borrower bank accounts during the application process. This will give the lender, which serves both individuals and businesses across the credit risk spectrum, a more exacting and accurate view of the applicant’s financial status.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Mallard Finance,” Nordigen CEO and co-founder Rolands Mesters said. He praised both the company’s professional team and its success in serving its customers since 1995. “We are happy to see companies continuing to choose open banking to further enhance their already existing services and internal assessment procedures,” Mesters added.

Nordigen most recently demonstrated its technology on the Finovate stage at FinovateEurope 2019 in London. At the conference, the company demoed its Nordigen Report, which enables banks and lenders to access loan applicant account histories and verify income and other important insights.

Efigence teams up with Polish bank Getin Noble

Getin Noble, a Warsaw, Poland-based banking and financial services company, has partnered with Polish digital banking solutions provider Efigence to help it launch new online banking services. The enhancements, to be introduced modularly, include new functionalities as well as modernization of its online presence.

“Today’s online banking is much more than a financial tool,” Director of Getin Noble Bank’s Electronic Banking Department Marta Dałkiewicz said. “Customers often have contact with it many times a day, so the solutions we propose must be affordable and easy to use.”

Efigence President and CTO Marek Lesiak said that increasing the accessibility of online banking was a major goal for the collaboration. This included design elements for both the web and mobile apps to make banking more convenient for the customer regardless of which channel they used. “Today, finance is connected with almost every sphere of our life,” Lesiak said, “and the use of online banking should be as easy, intuitive and pleasant as if it were part of our DNA.”

A two-time Best of Show winner, earning the honor in both its Finovate debut as well as at our second Dubai-based event in 2019, FinovateMiddle East, Efigence demonstrated the latest improvements to its digital banking platform at FinovateEurope 2020 in Berlin.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

• Bazaar, an ecommerce, fintech, and supply chain solutions company based in Pakistan, raised $70 million in Series B funding.
• Reserve Bank of India launched UPI for feature phones and a digital payments helpline.
• Pakistan-based cards and payments solutions company TPS Worldwide partnered with INETCO to offer fraud prevention solutions to their customers.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Mexico-based buy now, pay later company Kueski announced reaching the six million loan milestone, with more than one million customers served and total transactions nearing $1 billion.
• Brazil-based fintech infrastructure platform Dock announced expansion in Latin America, opening offices in Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Colombia.
• Chile’s BancoEstado teamed up with Entrust to implement cloud-based authentication for mobile banking customers.

Asia-Pacific

• Singapore-based payments and card issuer Nium unveiled a new payments solution to give financial institutions an alternative to SWIFT settlements.
• Philippines-based fintech FinScore announced a partnership with Advance.AI.
• Indonesian interbank switch ALTO teamed up with ACI Worldwide for its fraud management technology.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Nigerian mobility fintech Moove secured $105 million in Series A2 funding in a round led by SpeedInvest and Left Lane Capital.
• Kenya-based lender 4G Capital raised $18.5 million in Series C funding to scale its lending operations.
• South African payments and software company Yoco acquires Web3 software development firm Nona Digital.

Central and Eastern Europe

• Scalable Capital of Germany to expand its brokerage and new crypto offering to France and Spain.
• Revolut announced a plan to offer payment services to Ukrainian refugees displaced by the Russian invasion of their country.
• German accounts receivables and debt collection management provider collectAI partnered with payment development company of the Otto Group.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• Dubai enacted its first virtual asset law.
• Cryptocurrency exchange Binance earned a license to operate in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
• Egyptian fintech Nexta raised $2.2 million in pre-seed funding.
  

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