After 20 years as a player in the retail banking market of the Czech Republic, ING is calling it quits. The firm announced this week that it plans to withdraw from the country’s retail banking scene and is encouraging its customers to consider Raiffeisenbank Czech Republic as their alternative bank going forward.

ING expects to end its operations in the Czech Republic by the end of this year. The company has approximately 375,000 retail banking customers in the country and has worked with Raiffeisenbank to ensure the smoothest possible transition for ING customers to take advantage of the opportunity to transfer their savings and investments. This agreement is pending regulatory approval.

ING Group said that the decision in part reflects an assessment of whether or not operations “are likely to achieve the preferred scale in their market within a reasonable time frame. ING has more than 39 million retail and wholesale customers in 40 markets around the world.

We will stay in the CEE for this week’s Finovate Global Profile, which features payever, a German platform-as-a-service commerce solution for banks and insurance companies. Founded in 2013 and led by CEO Artur Schlaht, payever made its Finovate return last fall at our all-digital FinovateWest event. At the conference, the Hamburg, Germany-based company demonstrated its Commerce Infrastructure that enables banks and insurance companies to connect to hundreds of thousands of businesses – as well as million of consumers – online as well as at the point of sale.

Payever offers a variety of Business Apps that cover the entire sales cycle. The company’s Checkout solution gives customers wide access to a range of payment options without requiring the merchant to undergo complex integrations. With Shop, merchants can build their own online store in without needing any coding experience. The solution features design template as well as cloud hosting and support.

Payever’s PoS technology enables its partners to offer cashless payment acceptance using QR codes instead of expensive hardware. Other solutions offered by payever include a Studio to help merchants better display their wares digitally and Mail, an e-mail marketing solution for building newsletters, sending personalized offers and more – all without needing to code.

Check out payever’s demo from FinovateWest last year.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

• Tinkoff collaborates with oneFactor to put AI-powered predictive analytics to work in enhancing credit scoring.
• Bulgaria’s TBI Bank teams up with Onfido to enhance security in its customer onboarding process.
• German fintech TechQuartier announces ecosystem partnership with SWIFT.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• AIO, a fintech based in Israel, and Finastra earn $1 million grant from the Board of Governors of the Israel – USD BIRD Foundation.
• Dutch payments company Adyen opens new Middle East headquarters in Dubai.
• Jewish News looks at how collaborations between the U.K. and Israel are driving fintech innovation.

Central and Southern Asia

• Kotak Remit, the remittance solution offered by Kotah Mahindra Bank, is now live on the company’s mobile banking app.
• Pakistan-based fintech Safepay scores seed funding from Stripe.
• India-based payments and banking technology provider Cashfree introduces its payments toolkit for e-commerce merchants.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Banco Promerica El Salvador launches its Cuenta Inicia, a new digital account, courtesy of a partnership with local Mobbeel partner, Veentrix.
• Brazil’s Nubank launches new credit card dedicated to serving the country’s 60 million un- and underbanked citizens.
• Jamaica Co-operative Credit Union League to partners with ERI to bring its Olympic Banking System to credit unions in the country.

Asia-Pacific

• Is sharia banking the path to a better Islamic fintech ecosystem in Indonesia? KrAsia considers the possibilities.
• Singapore based blockchain company Lightnet partners with cross-border money transfer specialist Moneygram.
• Malaysian engineering services company Minetech announced plans to enter the fintech business via acquisition of a payment solutions company.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Central Bank of Nigeria unveils regulatory framework for Open Banking.
• South Africa embarks on the second trial of both a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and a wholesale settlement token for interbank use. For more on the rise of CBDCs, check out our Finovate List Series Feature, Five Things to Know about CBDCs.
• Mama Money, a money transfer fintech based in South Africa, reports 5x volume growth in 2020.

Photo by Daniel Frank from Pexels

In a Series D round led by existing investor Coatue Management, Indian financial services company BharatPe has secured $108 million in new funding. The investment, which also included participation from all of the firm’s current institutional investors, boosts the company’s total to $268 million and gives BharatPe a valuation of $900 million.

The company highlighted that the oversubscribed round in its statement was “one of the fastest round closures for any startup in India.” But the company’s co-founder and CEO Ashneer Grover was quick to underscore what part of the news deserved the most attention. “We, at BharatPe, do not celebrate fund raises – it is akin to procuring raw material. We are super excited though to have returned INR 125 crores of capital to angels and all ESOP holders, earning them one of the highest returns on investment.”

Grover added that the company has experienced 5x growth in its payments business and 10x growth in its lending business in the last 12 months. “This growth reiterates the trust that the small merchants and kirana store owners have showed in us.” He said BharatPe remains committed to the goal of building “India’s largest B2B financial services company” and a “one-stop destination for small merchants.”

Founded in 2018, BharatPe was launched to bring better financing and payments services to Indian SMEs. The company was the first to offer a UPI interoperable QR code, first to offer a ZERO MDR payment acceptance service, and first to provide a UPI payment backed merchant cash advance service. More than five million merchants rely on BharatPe’s platform, which handles an annualized total payment volume of $7 billion.

For this week’s FinovateGlobal Reports, we turn to a 2021 forecast of fintech in the Middle East published by Finextra earlier this month. The report features contributions from a number of sources, including S&P Global, Findexable and its Global Fintech Index, the WEF Global Competitive Report, as well as a 2019 analyst overview published by Clifford Chance, Fintech in the Middle East – Developments Across MENA.

“Fintech continues to transform the delivery of financial services across the region and remains high on the agenda of industry participants and governments seeking to develop and modernize and, for GCC governments, to diversity from natural resources,” the report noted. Among the key takeaways on a region that (according to Accenture) is expected to see its fintech market grow to $2.5 billion in value by 2022 are:

• Public and public institutions are helping reinforce a “collaborative approach to fintech.”
• Regional leadership in fintech remains seated in the UAE “both in respect of the number of participants and forward-thinking approaches.”
• Wariness toward cryptocurrencies and digital assets remains even as some regions, such as Dubai, have begun to “embrace blockchain” technology.
• Embedded fintech products into governmental services and banking have improved efficiencies and increased opportunities for fintech innovation.

Read the full report.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Cowrywise, a wealth management startup based in Nigeria, raised $3 million in pre-Series A funding in a round led by Quona Capital.
• Private share and debt trading platform Globacap secured $9 million Series A extension courtesy of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
• Is fintech innovation in Kenya outpacing the ability of consumers and businesses to take advantage of the technology safely? African Business looked into the country’s “fintech revolution.”

Central and Eastern Europe

• Germany’s Mambu partnered with Norway’s Signicat to expand digital identity management options for businesses across Europe.
• Klarna launched its new bank account offering in Germany.
• BasisBank, headquartered in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, announced a partnership with Backbase to support its digital transformation.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• UNIPaaS, a payments solution provider for digital marketplaces and B2B SaaS companies based in Israel, raised $10 million in seed funding.
• Vodafone Qatar teamed up with Commercial Bank to launch its own Buy Now Pay Later installment payment offering.
• SadaPay, an online money management platform based in Pakistan, teams up with Mastercard to launch numberless, contactless cards in the MENA region.

Central and Southern Asia

• Indian fintech and financial services corporation BharatPe scored $108 million in Series D funding.
• Azimo partnered with commercial bank HBL to bring its cross border money transfer service to Pakistan.
• Paytm unveils new feature, Rent Payments, for its instant money transfer solution.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Spreedly partnered with Visa to boost network tokenization in Latin America via its Payments Orchestration solution.
• Mexican based telecommunications company, AT&T México, launched its AT&T ReMo e-wallet.
• Spanish fintech software provider Latinia announced investment in Colombia-based microlender Ábaco.

Asia-Pacific

• PYMNTS.com profiled Indonesian rideshare and digital payments company Gojek and its plans for expansion throughout Southeast Asia.
• Philippine fintech Ayannah announced plans to raise Series B funding to support growth in Vietnam and India.
• Courtesy of a Shariah-compliant crowdfunding platform Ethis Malaysia, Global Sadaqah raises $111,000 (RM450,000) for its Islamic social finance solution.

Photo by ritesh arya from Pexels

CRED, a credit card repayment company based in Bangalore, India, has scored $81 million in funding courtesy of a Series C round announced earlier this week. Led by existing investor DST Global, the investment featured the participation of Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Tiger Global, and General Catalyst, and gives the company a valuation of $806 million.

The company’s founder Kunal Shah said in a statement that the funds would help support CRED’s growth and added that CRED is committed to providing wealth-creation opportunities for its employees, as well. Shah said that the company has allocated 10% of its cap table for ESOPs (employee stock ownership plans).

CRED processes a fifth of all credit card bill payments in India. The membership-based company rewards those who pay via CRED with CRED coins that can be used to win exclusive rewards or to earn access to curated products and services. More than 35% of premium credit card holders in the country use CRED, which has seen its overall user base climb to more than 5.9 million users. The company also benefits from creditworthy borrowers – the median credit core for CRED users is 830. CRED members reportedly spend on average 2x the amount of the average CRED user.

For some, news that German digital bank N26 was entering the increasingly competitive challenger banking market in Brazil was met with a loud “it’s about time!” The neobank, which previewed its intentions to launch operations in Brazil back in 2019, may have been temporarily wrong-footed by the twin complications of Brexit and COVID-19. But the news this week suggests that the firm is back on track with its Latin American expansion plans – and a showdown with Nubank.

Not only is Nubank the home team when it comes to neobanking in Brazil, the institution is also the biggest challenger bank in the world in terms of customers and valuation (25 million of the former, $10 billion of the latter). This compares favorably with N26’s five million customers and valuation of approximately $3.5 billion. That said, the Berlin-based challenger bank has significant wind at its back, having just celebrated the one-year anniversary of its arrival in the U.S. back in August and, more recently, locking in $100 million in one of the largest funding rounds of 2020.

Here is our look at fintech around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

• Berlin, Germany-based Mambu raises $135 million in new funding.
• Russian bank Tinkoff announces that its voice assistant is now available as both Oleg (male) and Olya (female).
• PYMNTS.com features Toms Niparts, CEO of Jeff, an app-based lending platform headquartered in Latvia.

Middle East and Northern Africa

• A new 425 million euro line of credit from the European Investment Bank will help Egypt’s Banque Misr support small businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• A partnership between Visa and fiat-to-crypto service provider Simplex will enable the Israel-based fintech to issue crypto debit cards.
• Qatar-based telecom Ooredoo inks payments partnership with Al Khalij Commercial Bank enabling its customers to pay for services online directly from their accounts with the bank.

Central and Southern Asia

• RuPay launches new payment solution for Indian merchants – RuPay PoS – courtesy of a partnership with RBL Bank and PayNearby.
• The normalization of relations between Israel and some of its neighboring countries has encouraged the State Bank of India to offer trade finance solutions to Israeli corporations.
• A collaboration between Pakistan’s BankIslami and booking platform Bookme.pk will enable bank customers to use digital banking channels to pay for bus and airline tickets, as well as other travel and hospitality expenses.

Latin America and the Caribbean

• Bank of Jamaica announces plan to regulate electronic retail PSPs as part of strategy to boost the country’s $4 billion e-payments business.
• German digital bank N26 picks up banking license from the Brazilian central bank.
• Critics have called a new regulation in Mexico that bars third-parties from using platforms or APIs to offer financial services directly “a death sentence” for the fintech-as-a-service model in the country.

Asia-Pacific

• P2P lender Robocash brings its BNPL service to the Philippines.
• Hong Kong’s digital banks turn toward small business lending and wealth management.
• A new report from the UOB, PwC, and the Singapore Fintech Association sees geographic expansion as a post-COVID goal for 80% of fintechs in the ASEAN region.

Sub-Saharan Africa

• Kenya-based MSME financing platform Pezesha takes first prize at the 2020 AFI Inclusive FinTech Showcase.
• Chairman of the Digital Lenders Association of Kenya Kevin Mutiso weighs in on the role of “customer-centric regulation” in shaping the growth of fintech.
• South Africa’s Gadget takes a look at the growth in the country’s fintech industry.

Photo by NEOSiAM 2020 from Pexels