Finovate Global

Finovate Global Mexico: Banorte’s Digital Bank, Amazon’s BNPL Partnership with Kueski Pay

Finovate Global Mexico: Banorte’s Digital Bank, Amazon’s BNPL Partnership with Kueski Pay
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Kuspit, MasterCard, Nufi, Prestadero, Sr. Pago, Temenos

This week in Finovate Global we take a look at some recent fintech developments in Mexico.

First up is news that Grupo Financiero Banorte has launched Mexico’s first fully digital bank, bineo. The company noted that it hopes to add 2.8 million new customers in the next five years.

“The launch of bineo is a great milestone in the history of Grupo Financiero Banorte that will allow us to meet all needs: those who prefer a human-digital combination and those who seek 100% digital banking, with the financial security that has always characterized the institution,” Grupo Financiero Banorte chairman Carlos Hank Gonzalez said.

Bimeo offers a pair of accounts for customers. The bimeo Total Account allows for unlimited deposits. The Light Account has a monthly cap of 3,000 UDIS (investment units), which equals approximately 24,000 Mexican pesos.

Account holders will have access to both a digital and a physical debit card that includes a feature that enables them to allocate their savings toward specific goals. Card holders can use their physical card at more than 10,000 Banorte ATMs. Additionally, in a nod to sustainability, the physical card consists of biodegradable materials.

The new digital bank also offers financing products for bineo account holders. Customers will be able to apply for digital loans in amounts ranging from 5,000 to 200,000 MXN. Repayment terms range from six to 24 months. The bank also pledges competitive rates and instant access to funds once loans are approved.

“We imagine a bank that puts people at the centre, and we created it!” bineo CEO Victor Moya said. “We think in a different way of managing finances, where personalization is the heart of what we do. Bineo will offer new products and services based on customer needs so as not to confine them to a product designed by us.”

A partnership between Amazon Mexico and Kueski Pay will bring a new, installment payment option to Mexican consumers. Currently available only to select Amazon customers, the payment option will be available to all eligible Amazon customers “soon.”

Pago en Quincenas with Kueski Pay is the name of the new payment option. It enables payment for purchases in biweekly installments, helping make shopping on Amazon more affordable to many Mexican consumers. The option also helps deal with the fact that less than a third of the adult population in Mexico has a credit card. By leveraging Kueski Pay, one of Mexico’s most popular buy now, pay later platforms, Amazon Mexico helps expand purchase financing beyond both credit as well as debit cards.

“Our agreement with Amazon demonstrates the need Mexicans have for more flexible , secure, and inclusive payment alternatives,” Kueski Pay SVP of Sales Lisset May said. “Kueski Pay enables merchants to deliver more innovative shopping experiences and help Mexican consumers live their personal finances with more excitement.”

Kueski Pay has provided nearly 15 million loans to date. The company notes that 1 in 4 of Mexico’s most relevant merchants offer the payment option. Customers who opt for Pago en Quincenas with Kueski Pay can choose from plans of up to four interest-free biweekly payments as part of an introductory offer, or as many as 12 biweekly payments. Payments can be made by linked bank account, debit card, or cash at participating networks. A one-time application must be completed during the Amazon checkout process the first time a customer chooses the Kueski Pay option.

Finovate has been happy to host a handful of fintechs from Mexico over the years. Some of our Mexico-based alums include:

Nufi

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Nufi made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2021 in New York. The company demoed its Fintech Legos offering, a set of modular building blocks that enable firms to build their own financial solutions. At the conference, Nufi showed how its Fintech Legos could be used to build a modular, adaptable KYC process that could be deployed by any company.

Sr. Pago

Mexico City-based fintech Sr. Pago was founded in 2010 and made its Finovate debut at FinovateFall 2014. At the conference, the company’s CEO and co-founder Pablo Gonzalez Vargas demoed the Sr. Pago Card + Reader, which help small businesses and individuals accept card payments for services and have those payments loaded onto the recipient’s Mastercard. The company was acquired by Mexico-based online lending platform Konfío in 2021.

Prestadero

Also headquartered in Mexico City, Prestadero made its Finovate debut in 2013 at FinovateSpring. Founded in 2011, Prestadero was the first fully legally compliant and operational P2P lending platform in Mexico. At FinovateSpring, the company demonstrated how its proprietary management software enabled Prestadero to parse out declined loans in seconds and offer rates for approved loans in less than a minute.

Kuspit

Founded in 2010 and based in Mexico City, Kuspit is a regulated broker/dealer in Mexico. The company targets retail investors with little investing experience and offers an investing community in which learning, sharing, and investing “dynamically integrate with one another.” Making its Finovate debut in 2012 at FinovateSpring, the company showed how it uses visualization to help investors understand the relationship between risk and return.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Regulators in India ordered digital payments provider Paytm to cease much of its business operations due to non-compliance issues.
  • Mastercard and SadaPay extended their partnership to support the financial needs of SMEs and freelancers in Pakistan.
  • Indian private sector bank Karnataka Bank teamed up with financial services platform Northern Arc Capital.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Paytech Paysecure announced its intention to expand into Latin America, with an initial focus on Brazil.
  • Mexican financial group Grupo Financiero Banorte launched its new digital bank, Bineo.
  • Mexico-based Kueski Pay teamed up with Amazon to launch a new deferred payment offering, Pago en Quincenas.

Asia-Pacific

  • China announced plans to revise its AML rules to accommodate cryptocurrency transactions.
  • Philippine-based Asia United Bank (AUB) announced that its HelloMoney e-wallet solution is now accepted in South Korea, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
  • KrAsia offered “seven key takeaways” about the fintech industry in Thailand.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian fintech Miden to join Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 cohort.
  • IT Web profiled South African fintech SOLmate amid growing demand for its digital wallet.
  • Fintech Futures interviewed Principal and Head of Africa at CommerzVentures Hangwi Muambadzi on the growth of fintech in Africa.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Digital engineering company Nagarro teamed up with Temenos to help build banks in Romania and Poland.
  • German payment processing provider Unzer launched its mobile POS solutions in Austria and Luxembourg this week.
  • Garanti BBVA, a financial services provider based in Turkey, introduced a new Request Payment feature via its mobile and online banking services.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán

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FinovateEurope Best of Show Winner Finshape Partners with Arab National Bank

FinovateEurope Best of Show Winner Finshape Partners with Arab National Bank
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Compass Plus, Finovate Global, Finshape, PayPal

Digital banking solutions provider Finshape announced a strategic collaboration with Arab National Bank (anb). The partnership will enable anb to leverage Finshape’s personalization and data analytics platform to enhance its digital banking services. The bank will also be able to take advantage of Finshape’s latest offering, Money Stories. This new solution categorizes spending and provides forecasts to help individuals better track their finances. At the same time, Money Stories empowers banks to make personalized, relevant offers to their customers.

“This collaboration reflects our commitment to speed up innovation and customer-centricity in the Middle Eastern banking scene,” Finshape Chief Growth Officer József Nyíri said. “Together with anb, we aim to transform how customers manage their finances, providing them with tailored solutions that empower them to reach their financial aspirations.”

Finshape demoed Money Stories in its Best of Show-winning debut at FinovateEurope 2022. Inspired by Instagram Stories, Finshape’s Money Stories helps banks boost engagement and enhance the customer experience. The solution highlights key financial events in the user’s life via short, seven to ten second snapshots. The shots are swipeable and easy to view and digest, providing a unique and memorable way for users to track their finances.

“(The) integration of a social media story-like format within our banking app, mark(s) a significant milestone in Saudi Arabia’s financial landscape, setting a precedent for engaging and educational digital interactions,” Arab National Bank COO Aiedh Al-Zahrani said

After winning Best of Show in 2022, Finshape returned to the Finovate stage the following year for FinovateEurope 2023. With 100+ clients in 25 countries, and more than 20 million users, Finshape ended last year with collaborating with Banca Transilvania, helping the bank launch its BT Go app. Designed to support corporate banking, BT Go offers an intuitive overview of business finances, unified card management, and automated invoicing. Within a month after launch, the solution has garnered 1,400 active users.

Finshape was founded in 2021 via the combination of Czech Banking Software Company (BSC) and Hungarian fintech W.UP.

Interested in demoing at FinovateEurope in London next month? Applications are still being accepted from innovative companies with new solutions that are ready to show. Visit our FinovateEurope hub today to learn more.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Pontera, an Israel-based software platform for financial advisors, raised $60 million in new funding.
  • Egyptian fintech and customer loyalty app Zeal secured $4 million in funding.
  • The Central Bank of Oman granted Paymob a Payment Service Provider (PSP) license.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Kumari Bank, a commercial bank based in Nepal, partnered with Compass Plus Technologies to enhance its payments processing.
  • India’s Hitachi Payment Services launched its financial inclusion initiative Money Spot Plus.
  • Raqami Islamic Digital Bank (RIDB) forged a partnership with Euronet Pakistan to boost digital payments in the region.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Latin American embedded banking company Prometeo secured $13 million in new funding courtesy of investments from PayPal and Samsung.
  • Argentina-based payments infrastructure company Pomelo raised $40 million in Series B funding.
  • Contxto looked at the challenges Mexican fintechs are facing in meeting the standards of the country’s new fintech law, enacted in 2018.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Romanian fintech Finqware introduced its FinqPayments solution to enhance financial services for medium-to-large businesses in Europe.
  • German challenger bank N26 launched stock and ETF trading, starting first in Austria.
  • iDenfy, an identity verification company headquartered in Lithuania, announced a partnership with Latvian online gaming company SPINS.

Photo by Alamin Prodhania

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Finovate Global Switzerland: Temenos Unveils Enterprise Services, Rivero Raises $7 Million

Finovate Global Switzerland: Temenos Unveils Enterprise Services, Rivero Raises $7 Million
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finastra, Finovate Global, MasterCard, nanoPay, Nubank

Swiss fintech Temenos launched its end-to-end Temenos Enterprise Services on the Temenos Banking Cloud this week. The new offering will enable banks to lower the cost, complexity, and risk of modernization, and deploy new software solutions in 24 hours.

Temenos President Product and Chief Operating Officer Prima Varadhan called the offering “a game-changing approach.” Varadhan added, “the ability to deploy fast, take advantage of a functionally-rich system from day 1, and benefit from continuous updates, help banks to attack the largest cost elements of running core banking software.”

Temenos Enterprise Services features 120+ pre-packaged banking products, predefined customer journeys, and more than 700 pre-configured APIs. The offering enables banks, regardless of size, to launch a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and have a build and test environment within 24 hours. Whether the goal is the launch new business lines or to modernize legacy systems, Temenos Enterprise Services enables banks to benefit from continuous updates, optimal security controls, resilience, and high-performance Service Level Agreements. Banks and FI will also get immediate access to the Temenos Exchange ecosystem with another 115+ complementary solutions.

“Speed, security, and business agility are key for banks to compete and thrive in the digital world,” Varadhan said. “With our end-to-end Temenos Enterprise Services on Temenos Banking Cloud, banks of all sizes can have a ready-to-go system in 24 hours with pre-configured banking products, turn on new features, and benefit from faster time to value.”

A Finovate alum since 2013, Temenos counts more than 700 banks and 3,000+ FIs across 150 countries as users of its technology. The Swiss fintech’s offerings support retail, business, and corporate banking, as well as wealth management and services for fund administrators. Temenos ended 2023 with a new partnership with Lesha Bank, a Qatar-based investment bank that migrated to Temenos’ core banking platform in December.

Swiss payments technology company Rivero raised $7 million in Series A funding this week. Inference Partners and 6 Degrees Capital led the round. Kraken Ventures, Seed X Liechtenstein, the venture arm of PostFinance and angel investor and former Adyen COO, Robert Kraal, also participated in the funding. The company will use the capital to fuel expansion into new markets, enhance product development, and add to its workforce.

“We’re thrilled to share the news of our Series A round,” Rivero CEO and co-founder Thomas Müller said, “especially given the current challenging market conditions. We take this as confirmation of our strong business model and clear market demand for our products.”

A specialist in payment digitization and automation, Rivero makes payments easier for financial institutions, especially issuing banks. The company has two primary SaaS offerings: Kajo, a payment scheme compliance solution, and Amiko, which provides tools for fraud recovery and dispute management. Rivero has forged partnerships with more than 20+ financial institutions including Swiss bank Cembra, which deployed Amiko, and payment card issuer Cornercard, which deployed Kajo.

“Globally, banks spend billions of dollars on scheme compliance and payment dispute management,” 6 Degrees Capital partner Thibault D’hondt noted. “Rivero is the first of its kind to offer a suite of SaaS solutions to help banks and processors address the challenge.”

Founded in 2019, Rivero is based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • German crypto custodian Fiona raised $15 million in strategic funding at a valuation of $100 million.
  • Estonian fintech Money Industries secured a $1.5 million investment led by Caucasus Ventures.
  • Omnicredit, Romania’s first micro financing, scoring and factoring company, won the “Best Digital Lending in CEE Among Fintechs” award from the SME Banking Club Association.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • MENA-based Paymob teamed up with GCC-based shopping and payments platform Tamara.
  • Ooredoo, a Qatar-based fintech, forged a partnership with Commercial Bank to launch its direct debit solution.
  • MENA-based payments solutions provider Magnati collaborated with Oxinus Holdings to enhance payments in the food and beverage business.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian pay tech Mylapay raised $550,000 in seed funding.
  • nanopay brought its remittance solution, Foree Remittance, to Pakistan courtesy of a partnership with the National Bank of Pakistan.
  • India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) integrated with Singapore-based PayNow to support remittance flows from Indian’s in Singapore back home.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Conta Simples, an expense management and corporate card services platform based in Brazil, secured $41.5 million in new funding.
  • Argentina-based fintech Ualá launched the country’s first no-fee credit card.
  • Brazilian fintech Nubank to expand into Colombia.

Asia-Pacific

  • Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (LPBank) partnered with Finastra.
  • BitGo secured in principle approval to launch operations in Singapore.
  • Funding for fintech startups in Indonesia fell by more than 50% last year, according to a report from Tracxn Technologies.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Mastercard partnered with illicocash to launch virtual card program in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
  • IT Web Africa looked at the potential for fintech development in Ethiopia.
  • Vienna Payment Solutions teamed up with Interswitch East Africa (Kenya).

Photo by H. Emre

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Finovate Global Kazakhstan: Solva Secures Investment, Kaspi to List in the U.S.

Finovate Global Kazakhstan: Solva Secures Investment, Kaspi to List in the U.S.
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

An earlier version misidentified a funding source as Zhang Capital Partners.

Some of the more interesting stories in international fintech this week come from the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan. Solva, a Kazakhstani fintech that provides working capital solutions, has secured an investment of $20 million. The funds will help Solva grow from a microfinancier into a SME-based bank. The transition is expected to be completed this year. The investment came courtesy of the Sawiris family of the Egyptian Orascom Group and Zoser Capital Partners (ZCP).

Solva co-founder Boris Batine said that the capital will help drive the company’s “regional strategy and expansion plans.” Batine added that the transition from a nonbanking financial institution to a fully-licensed bank will be that much easier with “a well-known and respected international investor” such as Zoser Capital Partners (ZCP) at Solva’s side.

Founded in 2017, Solva is the first neobank for both MSMEs and consumers in Central Asia. The firm offers revolving credit lines up to $20,000; installment loans up to $30,000 with terms ranging from one to five years; and short-term working capital solutions up to $5,000 for as many as 120 days.

Solva has issued microloans worth 66 billion KZT ($145 million) to more than 50,000 small business owners throughout Kazakhstan. The company notes that 70% of the loans in its portfolio – more than $85 million – go to female-led businesses. Solva is also a supporter of the UN Global Compact corporate responsibility initiative. The initiative establishes principles involving human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption principles.

Financial literacy is also a priority for the company. Solva has endorsed the Kazakhstan government’s Program for Improving Financial Literacy for 2020-2024 initiative. Approximately 7,000 Kazakhstanis have participated in the Solva’s financial literacy programs over the past two years.

In other Kazazkstan-based fintech news, Kaspi.kz is on track to become the first company from the Republic of Kazakhstan to list in the U.S. A major Kazakhstani fintech, Kaspi.kz offers a payments platform that enables consumers to make payments to merchants and service providers, as well as P2P fund transfers.

The company also has a marketplace platform that connects on- and offline merchants with consumers, and a fintech platform that offers BNPL services. Kaspi.kz is the parent company of the Kasp.kz Super App, which has become among the most widely recognized financial services app in Kazakhstan. Kaspi.kz reports 13.5 million average monthly users on the app, with 65% of them using the app on a daily basis.

That said, Kaspi.kz has objectives beyond both its native Kazakhstan and Ukraine and Azerbaijan, where the company also does business. The firm’s prospectus mentions a goal of growing to 100 million users. And Kaspi.kz co-founder and CEO Mikheil Lomtadze underscored the ability of the listing to stimulate growth.

“Being in Kazakhstan, we do not have the luxury of being able to rely on private equity or venture capital money to fund our operations and growth,” Lomtadze said. “With a U.S. listing, we believe Kaspi.kz can reach a larger and more diverse investor base that will enjoy being with us for the next stage of our development.”

Kaspi.kz is already listed on the London Stock Exchange, where the company boasts a valuation of almost $19 billion.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • ADIB-Egypt launched its personalized, Sharia-compliant private banking services for high net worth clients.
  • The Jerusalem Post looked at how fintechs are partnering with Israel’s National Bureau for Counter-Terror Financing (NBCTF) to deal with terrorism financing.
  • Saudi Arabian fintech savings platform Hakbah teamed up with MENA-based open banking platform Tarabut.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Photo by RDNE Stock project

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The Best of Finovate Global 2023: Digital Transformation, Financial Inclusion, AI and Automation

The Best of Finovate Global 2023: Digital Transformation, Financial Inclusion, AI and Automation
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, FIS, Interview, Mambu, MasterCard, Nubank, WorldPay

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

Sub-Saharan Africa

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

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by Markus Spiske

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Finovate Global Australia: Payments Partnerships, Verification Pilots, and Debating the Fate of BNPL

Finovate Global Australia: Payments Partnerships, Verification Pilots, and Debating the Fate of BNPL
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, eToro, Finovate Global

A newly announced partnership between institutional payment orchestration platform Paydock and Australia’s Commonwealth Bank (CBA) will give merchants in Australia the ability to offer their customers a range of new payment options. This new flexibility comes courtesy of PowerBoard, which provides a dynamic payments experience to customers via API, without requiring businesses to make major changes to their existing payments infrastructure.

“Our partnership with CommBank sets a global precedent for financial institutions,” Paydock CEO and founder Rob Lincolne said. “It shows not only how banks can bring flexible payment strategies to customers in record time with payments orchestration, but also it establishes a new paradigm whereby banks can become more competitive and deliver more value by working with fintech players.”

PowerBoard will make it easier for CBA to deploy the latest payment methods, types, providers, and processors to merchants. CBA General Manager of Merchant Solutions Karen Last noted growing customer interest in new payment options. In a statement, she highlighted alternatives such as account-to-account payments, digital wallets, and Buy Now Pay Later as reasons to pursue the partnership with Paydock.

“PowerBoard makes it significantly easier for Australian merchants to offer choice to customers and manage their payments ecosystems, without all the costly integrations,” Last said.

Headquartered in London, Paydock also maintains an office in Sydney, Australia. The company has raised $31.8 million (£25 million) in funding according to Crunchbase. This capital came in the form of a Series A investment in May that was led by IAG Silverstripe.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia is one of the top 50 banks in the world. Founded in 1911, CBA became a fully private bank in 1996. The institution is part of the “big four” of Australian banks, along with the National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ, and Westpac. CBA had total assets of 1.2 trillion AUD as of 2022.

Speaking of Commonwealth Bank, the institution also announced this week that Bendigo Bank and fraud monitoring firm Satori will pilot CBA’s NameCheck technology. Launched this spring, NameCheck is built to prevent scams and mistaken payments. According to the bank, the solution has prevented more than 10,000 scam payments and reduced mistaken payments by more than $100 million, to date.

“With scams and fraud costing Australians and businesses billions of dollars annually, it’s clear a whole of ecosystem response is needed to combat this problem,” CBA Group Executive Business Banking Mike Vacy-Lyle said. “We are proud to be able to extend our industry-leading technology to others and contribute to protecting more Australians against cyber criminals.”

NameCheck leverages advanced technology and CBA’s access to payment data to help establish the accuracy of account credentials. Bendigo Bank will integrate NameCheck into its Up app. Financial fraud monitoring company Satori will also take advantage of the technology.

“We are excited to work with CBA and extend the NameCheck service to our corporate customer base to complement the existing AI driven financial controls monitoring service driving operational efficiency and preventing fraud,” Satori Executive Director of Growth Mark Bookatz said.

Founded in 2002, Satori is headquartered in Sydney, Australia. The company has more than 200+ customers in the APAC region who rely on its automated transaction monitoring services. These firms include Afterpay, Qantas, and Volkswagen Group.

The Australian government’s plans to regulate Buy Now Pay Later services are having a hard time keeping up with public enthusiasm for the payment option.

This week, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) shared results of a survey that indicated a significant increase in use of Buy Now, Pay Later services. The specific demographic was individuals between the ages of 18 and 39. The survey showed that more than 40% of those in this cohort had used BNPL services in the past year. The survey, which had almost 1,000 participants, also noted an overall increase in the number of people using BNPL. Incorporating data from a Reserve Bank of Australia research paper from 2022, the RBA determined that there has been an increase of 8% in adult BNPL use since 2019.

Designing a regulatory framework for Buy Now Pay Later services in Australia has been on the government’s to-do list since the spring. The goal is to bring BNPL under the umbrella of existing credit regulations, including credit license requirements, and minimum standards on conduct, services, and products. This also includes mandating that BNPL companies conduct credit history checks. Overall the regulations, which will treat BNPL services as conventional lending products, are seen as among the toughest proposed.

But the rollout has hit a snag. The RBA has announced that the new regulatory framework for BNPL will arrive next year rather than at the end of 2023 as originally planned. The reason for the delay was “resourcing pressures” on the government’s legislation writing team. And while this will likely give New Zealand regional bragging rights over its larger neighbor when it comes to adoption of BNPL regulations, the impact of the delay on the Australian BNPL market should be slight.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Latin America-based fintech Clara launched its new payment account in Brazil this week.
  • ACI Worldwide partnered with Mexican fintech Mexipay.
  • Payroll automation specialist Somapay teamed up with software accounting firm Fortes Tecnologia to launch FortesPay in Brazil.

Asia-Pacific

  • Taiwanese software company TPIsoftware teamed up with digital lending platform provider HESFinTech.
  • Airo, a branch of CP Global Fintech Solutions went live as Malaysia’s first actively managed digital investment platform.
  • JuanHand, an online lending platform based in the Philippines, inked a loan channelling partnership with SeaBank.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Microlender Ezra teamed up with Kacha Digital Financial Services S.C. and Global Bank of Ethiopia to launch a digital lending service in the country.
  • South African fintech Stitch launched its Pay with Crypto feature.
  • Electronic Payments International looked at the role of bank/fintech partnerships in Africa’s financial services industry.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by David Jia

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Finovate Global China: Fintech’s Future, Cross-Border E-Commerce, and Digital Wallets

Finovate Global China: Fintech’s Future, Cross-Border E-Commerce, and Digital Wallets
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Temenos

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are meeting in California this week. With that in mind, Finovate Global turns to China for the latest fintech news from the world’s second most populous country.

For context, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) released its Fintech Development Plan for 2022-2025 almost two years ago. In its analysis of the PBOC’s Plan, China Briefing noted that the country had “much to gain” from innovation in fintech and financial services. In large part this was because of China’s “insufficient supply of inclusive finance, especially in rural areas.” The country reached a consumer fintech adoption rate of 87% in 2019. And, again, further fintech adoption in rural areas could cause this rate to quickly climb even higher.

What obstacles confront China’s fintech sector? China Briefing suggests that “unbalanced application of intelligent technology” is among the issues to be resolved – or at least better managed. The report references the so-called “Matthew Effect” in which stronger positions become stronger and weaker positions become weaker to describe the one of China’s bigger challenges when it comes to innovation in financial services.

Read the report from China Briefing to learn more about how China plans to “leapfrog improvement of the fintech sector”.

China’s JD.com launched its enhanced authentication solution for imported goods in the region, JD Smart Check. The new process is part of the company’s cross-border e-commerce platform, JD Worldwide.

JD Smart Check has three main focuses: improving quality inspections for cosmetic products, leveraging blockchain technology to enhance anti-counterfeiting activity, and providing on-demand authenticity inspections for products shipped by direct mail. New X-ray fluorescence analysis to provides fast, on-site assessment of cosmetics and personal care products at JD’s logistic centers. With regards to anti-counterfeiting efforts, the company leverages serialized tracking codes, supply chain monitoring, and product inspection videos to ensure accurate scrutiny of inventories. Lastly, JD Worldwide will be able to better serve direct mail shoppers by adding reports from authoritative centers to its product inspection services.

China’s largest retailer by revenue, JD.com serves nearly 600 million customers. The company operates the largest fulfillment infrastructure for any Chinese e-commerce firm.

Ant Group has forged a partnership with Payments Network Malaysia (PayNet). The partnership will enable travelers from eight nations – representing eight different supported digital wallets – to use PayNet’s DuitNow QR in Malaysia.

The DuitNow QR network consists of more than 1.8 million merchant touchpoints throughout Malaysia. The eight supported wallets are Alipay (China), AlipayHK (Hong Kong SAR), HelloMoney by AUB (Philippines), Hipay (Mongolia), MPay (Macau SAR), Naver Pay (Japan), Toss Pay (South Korea) and True Money (Thailand). Group CEO of PayNet Farhan Ahmad said that the cross-border digital payments collaboration with Ant Group signified “a new Silk Road emerging” that will be “powered by cross-border payment functionality.”

The Ant Group/PayNet partnership comes as a recent report commissioned by Alipay indicates that increases in average consumer spending over the past few years will help accelerate intra-Asia cross-border travel and payments. The companies noted that the partnership extends “beyond connectivity” to include joint marketing efforts that will boost merchant and brand visibility in digital wallets.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Lian Rodriguez

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Finovate Global MENA: Tabby Raises $200 Million, Finastra Powers Innovation in Qatar, Kuwait Promotes Financial Wellness for Teens

Finovate Global MENA: Tabby Raises $200 Million, Finastra Powers Innovation in Qatar, Kuwait Promotes Financial Wellness for Teens
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finastra, Finovate Global, MasterCard

Tabby, a Buy Now, Pay Later platform based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, has secured $200 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Wellington Management. The investment gives the company a valuation of $1.5 billion, making Tabby MENA’s latest fintech unicorn. With participation from Bluepool Capital and existing investors STV, Mubadala Investment Capital, Arbor Ventures, and PayPal Ventures, the investment comes ahead of Tabby’s planned IPO in Saudi Arabia.

“Tabby set out with a purpose to reshape financial services – one that’s fair and responsible – and with this investment we can advance our mission across Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” Tabby CEO and co-founder Hosam Arab said. “We’re very happy to have Wellington Management lead this round given their deep expertise in financial services.”

Buy Now, Pay Later services are an interesting development especially in markets where access to credit and financing products is limited. Tabby reports 10 million users and more than 30,000 brands on its platform. These brands include to of the largest retail groups in the MENA region. Managing more than $6 billion in annualized transaction volume, Tabby notes growth in its presence in physical stores, now representing more than 20% of the company’s total volume.

Meanwhile, some 600 kilometers to the east, Qatar-based CQUR Bank has forged a partnership with digital banking solutions provider Finastra. CQUR Bank will implement a pair of Finastra’s solutions – Trade Innovation and Corporate Channels – to power its new online banking portal.

Trade Innovation is an end-to-end solution for frictionless trade and supply chain financing. Corporate Channels is a digital banking platform that gives CQUR Bank a single portal to unify a variety of services for corporate clients. These services include trade, cash, supply chain finance, lending, and treasury operations.

“Corporate customers are increasingly demanding faster, digital, and connected services from their bank that truly elevate how they manage their finances and pursue new avenues for growth,” Finastra Managing Director, MENAT Lending, Kamal El Khoury explained. “By delivering new services and improving the end-to-end customer experience, the bank can future-proof its business while continuing to enhance economic growth through trade and sustainable development.”

Formed out of a merger between Misys and D+H in 2017, Finastra is headquartered in the U.K. The company has more than 8,000 financial institutions, including 45 of the world’s top 50 banks, using its software solutions and services. Simon Paris is CEO.

This week, Kuwait Finance House (KFH) launched the first shari’a-compliant digital bank in the country. Named Tam Digital Bank, the new institution was hailed as a major milestone in KFY’s digital banking transformation efforts.

“With its modern, youthful design, user-friendly and efficient usage, along with innovative banking services backed with advanced technology, we are confident that Tam will fulfull customers’ desires and exceed their expectations,” KFH Acting Group CEO Abdulwahab lesa Al Rushood said. “At KFH, we take account of factors such as convenience, speed, quality, safety, and innovation in line with our motto ‘Easy Banking Experience’.”

In order to open a Tam account, customers must be at least 15 years old. They must also have a civil ID, and a smartphone to download the Tam app. There are no documents to present and no bank branch to visit in order to get started.

KFH Kuwait CEO Khaled Yousef AlShamlan underscored the importance of appealing to younger customers. “Through Tam, youth will receive many benefits, including opening an account, transferring student allowance(s), tracking expenses, transferring funds, in addition to rewards program, points, offers, and exceptional discounts that meet all their needs, as well as 24/7 customer service,” AlShamlan said.

A pioneer in Islamic Finance and Shari’a Compliant Banking, Kuwait Finance House was founded in 1977 as the country’s first Islamic bank. KFH sits at the center of the KFH Group banking network. This network includes 430 branches, more than 790 ATMs, and 8,600 employees. KFH’s Shari’a compliant products and services cover real estate, trade finance, and investments, as well as commercial, retail, and corporate banking. In addition to Kuwait, KFH operates in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Malaysia, and Australia.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Photo by Abdullah Ghatasheh

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Finovate Global Singapore: Multi-Currency Wallets, MAS on Scams, and the OCBC OKs AI

Finovate Global Singapore: Multi-Currency Wallets, MAS on Scams, and the OCBC OKs AI
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Entersekt, Finovate Global

Arguably the premier fintech hub in Asia, Singapore has benefitted from its own strong growth, the emerging economies of its neighbors, and a robust regulatory regime in the form of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

According to the 2022 FinTech State of Play report from the Singapore Fintech Association, Singapore has more than 1,000 fintech firms in its jurisdiction. The majority of fintechs in Singapore are involved in payments, financial services infrastructure, regtech, lending, and money management. Payments is considered the most mature sector within the industry. At the same time, observers have highlighted regtech as an area of potential opportunity for growth.

This week in Finovate Global we take a look at handful of recent developments in Singapore’s fintech industry. These items include a new investment, positive signs for AI adoption in financial services, and new regulatory guidance from the MAS.

Singapore-based multi-currency mobile wallet company YouTrip has secured $50 million in funding. The Series B round was led by venture capital firm Lightspeed. The investment takes YouTrip’s total capital raised to more than $105 million. The company plans to use the funding to launch new products and features, invest in technology, and expand into new markets. YouTrip also expects to offer GooglePay later this year.

“YouTrip launched in 2018 with the bold vision to empower everyone with a smarter and more convenient way to pay in foreign currency,” YouTrip CEO Caecilia Chu said. “The latest funding round is a testament to our strong potential in the B2C and B2B payment spaces.”

YouTrip is a mobile financial platform that offers a multi-currency mobile wallet and a contactless Mastercard. Users can make fee-free payments in more than 150 currencies. YouTrip also features 10 selected currencies that are available for in-app exchange. This enables users to lock in favorable exchange rates when they become available.

In a blog post at the company’s website, YouTrip thanked its customers for not abandoning the company during the pandemic. “You stuck with us through thick and thin – supporting us when we expanded to e-commerce to help you continue saving on FX transactions as you stayed safe indoors,” the company noted.

YouTrip achieved profitability in April. The company processes $10 billion in payments annually. These payments come largely from the consumer side of YouTrip’s business. This includes facilitating payments for users traveling overseas, transactions on international websites, and corporate spending by SMEs that use YouTrip’s YouBiz service.

How eagerly are financial services companies embracing AI? OCBC Bank Singapore announced this week that it is making a new AI-powered chatbot available to its 30,000-member staff across 19 countries. The bot, OCBC ChatGPT, was developed in partnership with Microsoft Azure, and operates similarly to Open AI’s ChatGPT.

The solution will be used to help bank employees with writing, research, and ideation, and comes to OCBC Bank after a six-trial. Approximately 1,000 OCBC employees participated in the trial, and reported completing their tasks twice as fast with the bot – including fact-checking – compared to without.

OCBC Bank is currently working with four specific generative AI functions. These roles are: Wingman, which helps coders write code; Whisper, which transcribes and summarizes voice calls; Buddy, which retrieves data from company documents and records staff meetings; and Document AI, which provides summaries of documents like financial reports.

“We are excited to be one of the first banks in the world to deploy generative AI tools at scale,” OCBC Head of Group Data Donald MacDonald said. “We believe that these tools have the potential to transform the way our employees work by automating a wide range of time-consuming tasks, freeing up their time to focus on more strategic and value-added work.”

Looking for someone to blame when it comes to phishing scams? The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) have weighed in with a new paper proposing a Shared Responsibility Framework (SRF) for phishing scams. The framework points to specific actions both financial institutions and telecommunications companies need to take in order to mitigate the damage from phishing scams. The SRF also requires these entities to pay affected scam victims when these actions are not carried out.

“This incentivizes vigilance by all parties in the ecosystem to uphold safety in e-payments,” MAS Deputy Managing Director Ho Hern Shin said. Additionally, the two entities proposed heightened standards in the E-payments User Protection Guidelines (EUPG) to strengthen anti-scam efforts. IMDA Deputy Chief Executive Aileen Chia praised the involvement of telecommunications companies in the effort to fight phishing. “The inclusion of Telcos in the Shared Responsibility Framework as supporting infrastructure providers serves to strengthen the ecosystem against scams,” Chia explained.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Saudi Arabia-based fintech Hala introduced new Chief Technology Officer Saleem Arshad.
  • UAE-based digital payments provider Hubpay launched its cross-border “Collect & Remit” solution.
  • Egyptian bank Banque Misr partnered with telecommunications company Etisalat Misr to launch e-payment technology company, SuperPay.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India’s first digital escrow platform Escrowpay raised $6 million in funding.
  • Mint reported that India ranked third among countries with the most fintech unicorns.
  • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced an investigation of Kazakhstan fintech Freedom Holding over compliance issues.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Uruguay-based cross-border payments processor dLocal forged a partnership with ACE Money Transfer.
  • Open Finance platform Belvo teamed up with Colombia’s MOVii to help fight digital payments fraud.
  • Plata, a Mexico-based fintech platform, turned to South Africa’s Entersekt to boost security for its Plata credit card.

Asia-Pacific

  • Triple-A, a Singapore-based digital currency payment institution, raised $10 million in Series A funding.
  • GoTo Financial partnered with Indonesia’s Bank Jago to launch new bank account for everyday transactions, GoPay Tabungan by Jago.
  • International B2B payment infrastructure platform Thunes has teamed up with China Construction Bank to enhance cross-border payments.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Disrupt Africa profiled Ghana-based payments infrastructure startup PAL.
  • Cameroon-based fintech Koree won the 2023 Ecobank Fintech Challenge
  • Rest of World featured Nigerian money transfer app OPay.

Photo by Stijn Dijkstra

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Finovate Global Philippines: Insurtech, SuperApps, and Turning Corner Shops into Banking Hubs

Finovate Global Philippines: Insurtech, SuperApps, and Turning Corner Shops into Banking Hubs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Temenos, VISA

Philippines-based digital bank Tonik has entered the insurance business. The neobank announced a new strategic partnership this week with life insurance company Sun Life Grepa Financial, Inc. (Sun Life Grepa).

The partnership will enable Tonik to offer its customers Payhinga, a credit life and disability insurance product. Payhinga gives policyholders access to life and disability insurance with coverage of up to 120% of the loan amount. Further, policyholders can use a two-month payment holiday to reschedule upcoming loan payments in the event of financial difficulty.

“The partnership with Sun Life Grepa will significantly expand our suite of products, and insurance is a highly sought-after addition our customers have been requesting,” Tonik Country President Long Pineda said.

The Philippines’ first, digital-only neobank, Tonik offers loan, deposit, and payment products to consumers via its digital banking platform. The bank teamed up with FC Home Center, launching its Shop Installment Loan with the retailer in August. In June, Tonik announced that it had reached the one million customer milestone. Greg Krasnov (CEO) founded Tonik in 2020.

Speaking of digital banks based in the Philippines, UNO Digital Bank is teaming up with Collabera Digital. A digital engineering services provider, Collabera Digital will help the bank develop and integrate a mini app within superapp GCash.

Collabera Digital provided the strategy to address key issues such as AML and KYC, and built an integrated API platform. The leading superapp in the Philippines, GCash provides a wide range of financial services including money transfer, billpay, savings, investments, insurance, lending, and more. UNO Digital Bank’s integration into GCash will boost access to financial services to individuals across the socio-economic spectrum. The integration also supports the growth of the digital economy via services like mobile banking and digital wallets.

“Our partnership with GCash is significant in scaling and increasing our customer reach,” founder and CEO of UNO Digital Bank Manish Bhai said. “As a greenfield bank, built independently of a larger traditional institution, we have to be innovative in identifying opportunities to grow and expand. GCash, with their 90+ million users and active thrust towards financial inclusion, is a great partner leading to a win-win proposition for both the entities.”

UNO Digital Bank was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Taguig, a city in the Manila metropolitan area. The institution had total assets of $29 million (PHP 1.78 billion) as of end of year 2022.

What are fintechs in the Philippines doing for small businesses? Merchant fintech platform yufin announced a series of partnerships this week designed to bring new services to Philippines-based merchants. The new additions to yufin’s partnership ecosystem include wholesaler Lots for Less, delivery firm Transportify, and streaming content company Vivamax.

Shubhrendu Khoche, President and co-founder of yufin Philippines, noted that the new partnerships will drive greater digital adoption by businesses throughout the value chain. “As the financial growth engine for small merchants, these new partnerships will create more reasons for digital payment for our small merchants, their shoppers, and suppliers,” Khoche explained.

Founded in 2021, yufin aims to raise the income of 10 million households at least by 50% in the next five years. The company’s partnership ecosystem helps turn small, corner shops into preferred banking and credit hubs for their customers. With a goal of partnering rather than competing with local banks, yufin offers assisted digital financial services that enable underserved communities to leverage technology to improve financial outcomes.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South Africa’s Lipa Payments secured full SDK certification for Tap to Phone from both Visa and Mastercard.
  • Kenyan fintech and mobility solutions company Data Integrated won approval to operate as a Payment Service Provider from the country’s central bank.
  • Stitch, a business payments company based in South Africa, raised $25 million in Series A funding.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • German B2B Buy Now Pay Later payments provider Mondu registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
  • Polish fintech Verestro integrated the Quicko Wallet money transfer service within the Slack application.
  • Cloover, a climate-based fintech based in Germany, raised €7 million in pre-seed funding.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech Aurionpro acquired loan management system Omnifin for $9.8 million.
  • Pakistan-based SadaPay enabled Apple Pay invoicing for freelancers in the country.
  • Indian credit card company Slice earned the approval of the Reserve Bank of India to merge with North East Small Finance Bank.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Digital banking and payments solutions provider i2c announced a partnership with Peru’s Banco de Credito.
  • Payments platform Airwallex inked an agreement to acquire Mexico-based payment service provider MexPago.
  • Chile-based fintech Forpay launched a new feature that enables companies to directly charge bank accounts with requiring intermediaries.

Asia-Pacific

  • Vietnam’s Lien Viet Post Joint Stock Commercial Bank (LPBank) teamed up with Temenos to update its core banking platform.
  • International payments provider Nium expanded its B2B travel payments offering in the Asia-Pacific region.
  • BigPay teamed up with payments platform Thredd to support its expansion into Thailand.

Photo by Meo Fernando

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Finovate Global UK: Funding Innovation in Rewards, Payments, Lending, and Crypto

Finovate Global UK: Funding Innovation in Rewards, Payments, Lending, and Crypto
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Coinbase, Finovate Global, Fiserv

London-based fintech and digital wallet HyperJar announced a partnership with digital gift card network, Tillo. The announcement makes HyperJar the first spending app to integrate instant Cashback Gift Cards. The cards enable customers to earn instant cashback of up to 15% from more than 50 top brands including Ikea and Amazon.

In a statement, HyperJar’s Nicola Longfield underscored that not only was HyperJar the first app to integrate the cashback gift cards with a spending account, but also HyperJar was the first to offer “merchant cashback.” This option enables users to choose a higher cashback rate that is specific to a given merchant.

HyperJar’s partnership news comes one month after the company secured $24 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Susquehanna Private Equity Investments. More than 500,000 individuals, including more than 100,000 child cardholders, use HyperJar’s digital wallets.

HyperJar began the year with the appointment of a new CEO, Morgan Stanley veteran Rob Rooney.

A handful of U.K.-based fintechs secured funding this week. Instant payments company Lopay announced a seed investment of $7.3 million (£6 million). Participating in the round were BackedVC, Portage, The Venture Collective, and angel investors. With 20,000 SMEs signed up since launch, the company offers a app that allows small businesses to accept card payments. The app also enables instant access to cleared funds as soon as transactions are completed. Founded in 2022, Lopay plans to use the capital to expand its operations.

Fellow U.K.-based fintech Kennek was another company that locked in seed funding this week. The firm raised $12.5 million in new capital in a round led by HV Capital. Dutch Founders Fund, AlbionVC, FFVC, Plug & Play Ventures, and Syndicate One also participated. The investment follows a $4.5 million pre-seed round closed in February.

Founded in 2021 and headquartered in London, Kennek offers an operating system for lending via a platform that supports the entire lending lifecycle from loan origination to servicing. The company will use the funds to further develop its core technology and add employees.

But the big winner of the week for U.K. fintechs in terms of funding was Untangled Finance. The firm, which operates a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) marketplace, secured $13.5 million in strategic funding in a round led by Fasanara Capital. Founded in 2020, Untangled Finance plans to use the capital for product development and to fuel growth.

The London-based company offers a tokenization platform that facilitates placing traditional financial assets on a blockchain. These real-world financial assets can range from bonds to real estate. Untangled Finance is part of a growing field within the digital asset industry that specializes in asset tokenization, a field that could grow as large as $5 trillion within the next five years, according to a recent report. Note that, along with its investment, Fasanara Capital opened two private tokenized credit pools on Untangled Finance’s platform.

Speaking of DeFi, for those who believe that regulation is the path to greater acceptance of cryptocurrencies, this week’s announcement from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) could be considered good news.

Within 24 hours of its new cryptoassets regulatory regime going live, the FCA has issued 146 alerts to non-compliant companies that were promoting cryptoassets to U.K. customers in violation of the new policy, which was announced earlier this year.

In a statement, the FCA urged consumers to check its publicly available “Warning List” before investing or trading in cryptocurrencies. “We take a risk-based approach, so not alll firms of potential concern will be added straightaway,” the FCA explained. At the same time, regulators hope their Warning List will nevertheless help would-be crypto investors “understand where firms’ promotions may be breaking the law and to consider the promotion with the full information available.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

  • Coinbase secured a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
  • Packworks, a Philippines-based fintech, inked a deal to help SMEs secure microfinancing.
  • Forbes looked at the current challenges facing Chinese fintechs.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Nigerian startup Haba InsurTech raised $75,000 in pre-seed funding.
  • Kenya-based Buy Now, Pay Later fintech Lipa Later announced an investment of $3.4 million.
  • Nigeria’s Paystack announced an expansion into offline payments with the launch of virtual terminals for in-person bank transfers.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Slovakia-based online payment solutions provider TrustPay launched an instant refunds feature.
  • BlackRock secured a minority stake in German digital wealth managment platform Upvest.
  • AML prevention and compliance solutions provider Savy forged a partnership with Lithuanian regtech AMLYZE.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • MENA-based open banking platform Tarabut partnered with digital lending platform FLOOSS to bring digital loans to Bahrain.
  • Israeli fintech Stampli secured $61 million for its AI-powered accounts payable automation platform.
  • Emirates NBD launched its digital wealth platform.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based Axis Bank partners with Fibe to launch the country’s first numberless credit card.
  • Uzum Group, and a group of institutional investors, have pledged to invest $300 million in Uzbekistan’s digital economy.
  • Indian fintech Spice Money announced a collaboration with NSDL Payments Bank.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • U.K.-based TerraPay teamed up with Bancolombia to enhance cross-border remittances in Colombia.
  • Fiserv acquired Brazilian EFT solution Skytef.
  • Chilean fintech Galgo secured $40 million in funding led by Mexico’s Nazca fund.

Photo by Marianna

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Finovate Global Lithuania: The Rise of Regtech in One of the Europe’s Most Dynamic Fintech Hubs

Finovate Global Lithuania: The Rise of Regtech in One of the Europe’s Most Dynamic Fintech Hubs
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

Lithuania is one of those countries that punches above its weight in terms of fintech innovation. With a population of less than three million, the country boasts more than 260 fintech companies. It is the largest fintech hub in the EU when it comes to licensed companies. These fintechs, numbering nearly 150, represent the majority of fintechs in the country and are licensed e-money institutions, payment institutions, or specialized banks.

Some of the more widely known Lithuanian fintechs include account-to-account infrastructure company kevin and e-money institution Paysera. Revolut Bank is licensed and regulated by the Bank of Lithuania, the country’s central bank.

Given the country’s strength as a fintech hub, it is no surprise that Lithuania holds its own on the regtech front as well. Two of the country’s more active regtechs are AMLYZE, an automated transaction monitoring and risk assessment solution provider that raised $1 million in funding back in May, and identity verification and fraud prevention company iDenfy. Both companies made significant partnership announcements in recent days.

Lithuanian identity verification and fraud prevention company iDenfy will help ECNG Digital, a virtual currency exchange and payment services firm, enhance its onboarding process. The partnership will enable ECNG Digital to deploy a variety of customized identity verification procedures via a KYC solution that combines high accuracy and an optimized user experience. These procedures range from validating government-issued identification documents to live selfie detection to cross-referencing databases. Additionally, iDenfy’s in-house KYC specialists will provide real-time verifications to enhance the accuracy of the technology.

“In the realm of virtual currency exchange and payment services, the real challenge lies in balancing fraud prevention with swift identity verification,” iDenfy CEO Domantas Ciulde said. “Our mission is to guide ECNG Digital on this path, ensuring precision while accelerating understanding.”

ECNG Digital is not the only company turning to iDenfy for identity verification. German online marketplace Quoka and iDenfy also have announced a partnership this week. iDenfy’s verification technology will help Quoka manage its sizable volume of ID verifications, leveraging both biometrics and document recognition.

Headquartered in Kaunas, Lithuania, iDenfy was founded in 2017.

Lithuanian credit union group KREDA has selected Lithuanian regtech AMLYZ as its compliance software partner. The organization is one of the largest credit union organizations in the country and has 14 member institutions. KREDA will leverage AMLYZE’s transaction monitoring technology as part of a modernization of its compliance standards. The technology will also help KREDA with customer risk assessment, case management, and sanctions screening.

AMLYZE CEO and co-founder Gabrielius Bilkštys said the partnership represented the company’s “commitment to helping organizations like KREDA navigate the complex current regulatory landscape, detect financial crime, and ensure the highest standards of compliance.” Founded in 2018, KREDA has $528 million (€0.5 billion) in assets under management.

AMLYZE also recently announced that it was working with Estonian core banking provider Tuum. The two firms have forged a strategic partnership that will give banks and other financial institutions access to “out-of-the-box” compliance that is integrated into Tuum’s core banking, payments, and card modules. Tuum VP of Global Strategic Partnerships Jean Souto said that the collaboration would allow “banks and financial institutions to free themselves from the burden of legacy applications so they can respond quickly to market challenges and new opportunities whilst ensuring compliance with increasingly evolving stringent regulations.”

Founded in 2019, AMLYZE is headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexican neobank Albo secured $40 million in Series C funding.
  • Issuer-processor Paymentology teamed up with Colombia-based expense management firm Tuily to bring Apple Pay to the company’s SME customers.
  • Uruguay-based digital payments company dLocal announced a pause in its expansion plans.

Asia-Pacific

  • Cross-border payments infrastructure network Thunes expanded its Acceptance network to five markets in southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
  • Currencycloud announced that it has more than tripled its Chinese customer growth rate across the Asia-Pacific since opening its regional headquarters in 2021.
  • Wealth app Sharesies teamed up with New Zealand-based Maori fintech starup BlinkPay.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South Africa-based Ukheshe partnered with Xion Global to enable crypto payments on its Scan to Pay app.
  • Nigerian wealth management platform Risevest has acquired digital trading platform Chaka.
  • Revio, a fintech headquartered in South Africa that specializes in payment orchestration, secured $5.2 million in seed funding.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • U.K.-based TangoPay partnered with Israel-based transaction monitoring specialist ThetaRay
  • Israeli-fintech Earnix introduced new Chief Technology Officer Erez Barak.
  • UAE’s Neopay announced a partnership with Alipay+.

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by Natallia Photo

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