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Finovate Global North Africa: Financial Inclusion Mobile Money, and Investing in Payments

Finovate Global North Africa: Financial Inclusion Mobile Money, and Investing in Payments
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, VISA

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at fintech headlines from companies headquartered in North Africa.

Fayda wallet goes live in Ethiopia

Designed to revolutionize the way Ethiopians access digital services, Ethiopia’s National ID Program (NIDP) has launched its FaydaPass wallet. The solution, developed in partnership with TECH5 and Visa, will help promote financial inclusion and address the need for verified electronic Know Your Customer (eKYC) services throughout society.

The wallet makes it easier for Ethiopians to secure a digital copy of the Fayda credential by enabling them to download the official app and request their digital ID credentials via the wallet. The Fayda ID system uses its data to generate the secure credential, which is delivered directly to the user’s mobile device as a verifiable credential (VC). The verifiable credential supports secure on- and offline verification for a wide range of use cases including payments and digital access to government services.

“A credential wallet would be a container for government and private sector issued standardized verifiable credentials,” NIDP Executive Director Yodahe Zemichael said. “It’s an exciting new way of delivering value to citizens and extending the functionality of Fayda Digital ID.”

Ethiopian digital-first Coopbank announced that it would leverage the Fayda app and its advanced biometric eKYC verification to enable customers to open new bank accounts. The institution’s CEO Deribie Asfaw said that the new offering will help it “reach financially marginalized communities who have long been excluded from the formal financial system due to the absence of such robust infrastructures.” Asfaw added, “This brings us one step closer to the community and reinforces our commitment to leaving a meaningful mark on the country’s digital transformation journey.”

Founded in 2005, Coopbank (Cooperative Bank of Oromia) was established by farmers and still counts farmers as more than half of its shareholders. With a focus on the country’s micro, small, and medium-sized farming and agricultural sector businesses, the institution has assets of ETB 139.56 billion ($1.04 billion), operates 745 branches, and has more than 14.5 million accountholders.

TerraPay, Wave Mobile Money partner on remittances to Mali

A partnership between international money movement company TerraPay and African mobile money provider Wave Mobile Money will enhance cross-border remittances services in Mali. The collaboration will enable Malians to receive funds from family and friends living and working abroad directly into their Wave mobile wallets. This will provide for a faster, more accessible, and cost-effective international remittance experience.

Mobile phone penetration in Mali is high, with more than 80% of the population using the technology. Many Malians rely on mobile phones for mobile money and digital wallet services, making the devices a key component of financial inclusion in the country for millions—especially the un- and underbanked. The partnership between TerraPay and Wave Mobile Money will facilitate remittance flows from Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) through the US, Canada, and Europe to Mali via a single integration.

“Our partnership with Wave Mobile Money marks a significant milestone in our mission to power borderless money movement,” TerraPay Vice President—Sub Sahara Africa, Willie Kanyeki said. “By enabling instant, cost-effective, and fully compliant remittances from key markets like the US, Canada, and Europe, we are simplifying financial access and driving financial inclusion in Mali.”

TerraPay enables payments to 150+ receiving countries and 210+ sending countries. The company’s platform facilitates payments to more than 3.7 billion mobile wallets, 7.5 billion bank accounts, and more than 12 billion cards. Founded in 2014, TerraPay is headquartered in London. Co-founder Ambar Sur is CEO.

Founded in 2018 and operating in Mali since 2021, Wave Mobile Money offers domestic and cross-border transfers, bill payments, and business services to customers in Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Mali, and Burkina Faso. Headquartered in Dakar, Senegal, Wave Mobile Money is on a self-described mission to make Africa “the first cashless continent.” Drew Durbin and Lincoln Quirk are Co-Founders.

Tunisia’s Konnect Networks secures investment

Tunisia’s Konnect Networks has raised an undisclosed amount from Attijariwafa Ventures. The investment was part of a wider fundraising effort that featured Utopia Capital Management, 54 Collective, Visa, Plug and Play Tech Center, Renew Capital, Digital Africa Ventures, and Sunny Side Venture Partners as investors. The company said it would use the capital to help fuel both its continued expansion and further innovation in payments technology.

Founded in 2021 by Amin Ben Abderrahman, Konnect Networks provides payment links, e-commerce plugins, and APIs. Serving both retail and business customers, the firm’s payment orchestration platform covers online and point-of-sale payments, payment aggregation, and real-time transaction capabilities. The company’s funding news comes in the wake of it being approved as a Payment Facilitator (PayFac) by Tunisia’s central bank. Konnect Networks currently has 2,000 users of its technology in Tunisia.

Konnect Networks is just one of a number of innovative new fintechs headquartered in Tunisia making fintech headlines of late. Other notable startups in the news include financial super app Flouci, named one of 2025’s 50 most influential fintechs in MENA by Forbes Middle East, and EasyBank, a fintech offering digital banking solutions that raised $370,000 at the beginning of the year.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African fintech Sava secured $2 million in pre-seed funding.
  • International money movement company Terrapay teamed up with Wave Mobile Money to enable cross-border remittances for users in Mali.
  • Disrupt Africa discussed the relationship between traditional savings systems and fintech innovation.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • MENA-based digital private wealth platform Vault went live this week.
  • Israel-based fintech Sequence raised $7.5 million at a valuation of $14.5 million to support its financial management platform.
  • Emirates NBD selected global Know Your Payee (KYP) validation provider iPiD.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech CRED secured $75 million in funding to further develop its credit card business.
  • TBC Bank Uzbekistan integrated customer experience solution provider Genesys’ Engage platform into its customer care operations.
  • Times of India looked at the current state of the country’s fintech sector, including its potential for growth via product expansion.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • The Japan International Cooperation Agency inked a deal to invest in Brazilian agri-fintech Agrolend.
  • Mercado Pago announced plans to apply for a banking license from the Central Bank of Argentina.
  • Méliuz became Brazil’s first publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company this week.

Asia-Pacific

  • Paytech Tribe Payments entered into a strategic collaboration with Singapore-based fintech Finmo.
  • Visa went live with Click to Pay in Hong Kong in partnership with digital bank ZA Bank.
  • Cryptocurrency exchange ByBit secured a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) license in Australia.

Photo by MELIANI Driss

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Finovate Global Israel: Talking Revenue Workforce Solutions with Stav Levi-Neumark of Alta

Finovate Global Israel: Talking Revenue Workforce Solutions with Stav Levi-Neumark of Alta
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Ripple, VISA, Xero

This week’s edition of Finovate Global features an interview with Stav Levi-Neumark, CEO and Co-Founder of revenue workforce solutions provider Alta.

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Israel, Alta leverages data and AI to help drive revenue growth at every level for businesses. The company’s AI Revenue Workforce agents ensure that everyone on the team is connected, aligned, and equipped with the data insights and AI automation they need to enable their businesses to scale efficiently and grow faster. Alta’s agents have helped produce a 3x increase in qualified leads, a 15% increase in win rates, and a 80% reduction in costs.

Our conversation with Levi-Neumark is also a part of Finovate’s and Finovate Global’s commemoration of Women’s History Month. Be sure to check out her thoughts on gender diversity, current opportunities for women in fintech, as well as her advice for female CEOs.

Can you tell us a little bit about Alta and the revenue workforce solutions business?

Stav Levi-Neumark: AI is impacting almost every industry now. But go-to-market and revenue teams across many vertical markets are struggling to fully harness AI for sustained growth. Choosing the right tools to enhance capabilities of salespeople while also automating relevant tasks is a real challenge.

Alta is an AI revenue workforce that is data-driven. It supports revenue teams, allowing each person to be like a 10x version of themselves.

Alta agents automate repetitive and mundane tasks that require limited human oversight, such as researching potential leads and conducting personalized outreach across multiple channels. The agents also provide actionable insights based on real-time data across all revenue functions. This streamlined workflow helps companies achieve improved revenue growth by working more efficiently, accelerating their sales cycle, and enabling humans to focus on relationship-building opportunities, strategic, and creative work.

Who are Alta’s primary customers and how do you reach them?

Levi-Neumark: Alta has really diverse customers across virtually every business sector, and they range from SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. We’ve been able to ramp up the number of clients we have really quickly as well, adding almost 100 customers in less than six months.

Your latest solution—AI Revenue Workforce—leverages innovations in agentic AI. Can you talk about how this technology and new product empower go-to-market and revenue teams?

Levi-Neumark: Agentic AI has endless potential to dramatically improve efficiency and drive revenue growth. By leaving automated tasks to AI agents, human-led go-to-market and revenue teams can work smarter and faster, focusing their attention where it matters most: developing strategy, building relationships, closing deals, and increasing ROI through creative thought.

AI agents in Alta’s workforce include Katie, a Sales Development Representative (SDR), Luna, an AI RevOps agent, and Alex, an AI Calling agent. The workforce can integrate into more than 50 internal and external marketing, sales, and revenue systems that include CRMs, ERPs, payment, advertising, social media tools, and more.

Alta is a very young company, founded in 2023. There has been a lot of discussion about the current environment for tech startups. How would you characterize the climate for startups today?

Levi-Neumark: The founders who thrive will be those who can harness technological advancements while building businesses with solid foundations that can stand on their own, beyond the AI hype. Here’s the advice I typically share when talking with other tech founders:

  1. Success means your customers attribute significant revenue growth directly to your product. When they look at their business results and can clearly see your impact on their bottom line, that’s when you’ll know you’ve truly succeeded.
  2. Maintaining balanced, healthy growth is key. While it may be tempting to focus more attention on one specific area of your organization, it’s critical to ensure all departments grow at an equal pace.
  3. Be proactive rather than reactive to market shifts to position yourself ahead of certain trends. When deeply focused on product development and customer acquisition, it’s easy to miss emerging signals from the broader ecosystem.

Alta recently secured $7 million in seed funding. What does this investment mean for the company and what will it enable Alta to do?

Levi-Neumark: This funding solidifies Alta’s position as an industry leader in workforce intelligence automation. It will allow Alta to continue developing out-of-the-box solutions that redefine the relationship between AI and sales teams to unlock limitless revenue growth opportunities.

We plan to utilize the investment to expand into new markets, grow operations, scale R&D, and accelerate product development to meet increasing market demand from enterprise and mid-market customers. In fact, we are currently developing our newest AI agent, Greg, a sales assistant for account executives, to further bolster our workforce’s capabilities.

You are one of very few female CEOs in the enterprise AI space. Are there unique challenges to greater gender diversity in enterprise AI compared to other areas of technology, fintech, or financial services?

Levi-Neumark: I don’t feel there are unique challenges specific to the AI space compared to other tech sectors. The gender diversity issues we face in enterprise AI mirror what we see across technology, fintech, and financial services more broadly.

The fundamental challenges remain consistent: representation gaps, unconscious bias in hiring and promotion, and the need for more visible role models.

That said, I prefer to focus on the opportunity. AI is still a relatively young field, and at the end of the day, our success is what will define us. I hope more female founders and women will enter this market and look forward to welcoming them.

What advice would you give to female CEOs, especially those who are new to the role?

Levi-Neumark: I would advise female CEOs, especially those new to the role, to build strong support networks early. Connect with other female founders and executives who understand your specific challenges—these relationships become invaluable resources for candid advice and emotional support that you can’t always find within your company.

Trust your unique leadership style and perspective. There’s often pressure to conform to traditionally masculine leadership traits, but the most effective leaders bring their authentic selves to the role. Your different viewpoint is actually a strategic advantage that can help identify opportunities others might miss.

Be strategic about which battles to fight. As a female CEO, you’ll likely face additional scrutiny and challenges. Learn to distinguish between issues that are worth addressing directly and those where it’s better to let your results speak for themselves.

Prioritize building a diverse leadership team from the start. This not only leads to better decision-making, but also creates a culture where different perspectives are valued.

Finally, remember that your visibility matters. By succeeding in your role, you’re creating pathways for others. Share your journey, mentor upcoming leaders, and when possible, be the voice and representation you wished you had when starting out.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

  • UK-based open banking payments company Atoa announced an integration with New Zealand-based small business platform Xero.
  • Vietnam-based Buy Now, Pay Later platform Fundiin announced a strategic partnership with Visa to enhance its credit scoring model.
  • Australia’s Bank of Queensland Group teamed up with digital lending technology company Trade Ledger.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • African money movement company Chipper Cash partnered with Ripple to provide crypto-enabled cross-border payments.
  • Payment orchestration platform FinMont announced a partnership with South African online payment gateway Payfast by Network.
  • Ethio Telecom integrated its mobile money platform with Mastercard Africa to enhance finanical inclusion in Ethiopia.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Hamburg-based fintech Flexvelop secured $47.4 million (€44 million) to grow its business equipment financing model.
  • Romanian trading and investing app NAGA announced zero commissions for Romanian stocks on its platofmr
  • Estonian fintech Hoovi raised $8.6 million (€8 million) from Finish Multitude International Bank.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Dubai-based embedded payments company Enza secured $6.75 million in funding.
  • National Bank of Kuwait announced enhancements to its mobile banking app.
  • Australia-based debt resolution company InDebted launched operations in the UAE.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based fintech Findi raised $28.4 million (INR 243 Cr) to enhance operations of its majority-owned Indian subsidiary TSI.
  • Mastercard inked an agreement with Dubai-based Mashreq to support its launch as a digital bank in Pakistan.
  • Indian startup OneStack secured $2 million in Series A funding, with another $1 million expected.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Colombian fintech Gold raised $50 million in Series C funding to fuel further development of its e-payment solutions.
  • Uruguayan cross-border payments company dLocal enabled Airtel Mobile Money as a payment method for Google Play in Kenya.
  • UK-based AstroPay expanded access to its multicurrency wallet to users across Latin America.

Photo by davebusiness GT13

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Finovate Global South America: Investment, Partnership, and Innovations in Embedded Finance

Finovate Global South America: Investment, Partnership, and Innovations in Embedded Finance
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, MasterCard, Salt Edge, Sumsub, VISA

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from the South American countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.

Ualá Raises $66 Million at $2.75 Billion Valuation

In a funding round that featured participation from Mexican media titan TelevisaUnivision, Argentina-based fintech Ualá has added $66 million in funding to its Series E round. The additional funding brings the round’s total to $366 million and gives the company a valuation of $2.75 billion.

The capital comes via an equity sale and will be used to fuel Ualá’s growth throughout Latin America—with a particular emphasis on expansion in Mexico. Ualá Founder and Chief Executive Officer Pierpaolo Barbieri praised the participation of TelevisaUnivision, which he called a “very relevant and influential outlet, across Spanish-speaking markets but especially in Mexico.” Barbieri added, “It will help us create confidence and closeness with a lot of Mexicans that still don’t know us.”

The first close of the Series E round was led by Allianz X, German insurance company Allianz SE’s venture capital arm. Also participating in the first close were Stone Ridge Holdings Group and Pershing Square Foundation. Additional investors in the extension round were not named.

Founded in 2017 in Argentina, Ualá offers financial services including payment accounts connected to an international Mastercard prepaid card, as well as savings accounts, loans, investments, business collection solutions, and more. The company has nine million users in the region, including in countries such as Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico.

Ualá began the year by announcing the availability of six new mutual funds in its ecosystem, including one fund denominated in dollars. In February, the company integrated an advanced artificial intelligence platform, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4, into its customer service process.

dLocal partners with Temu, Belmoney

Uruguayan fintech and cross-border payments company dLocal announced a pair of partnerships in recent days. First, dLocal launched a new collaboration with Europe-based, remittance-as-a-service (RaaS) provider Belmoney. The goal of the partnership is to facilitate cross-border payouts, leveraging the integration of more than 900 local and alternative payment methods (APMs) such as credit and debit cards, bank transfers, and instant transactions. The collaboration is also designed to boost service reliability and efficiency for those making cross-border transactions in countries including Bangladesh, Ecuador, Peru, and Pakistan.

“Our partnership with dLocal is a game-changer in the remittance space,” Belmoney CEO and Founder Bruno Pedras said. “By integrating with dLocal’s comprehensive network, we can significantly lower costs, improve transaction speeds, and provide a better cross-border payments experience for both senders and recipients.”

Second, dLocal announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Temu, the international e-commerce platform of China’s PDD Holdings. Together, the two companies seek to provide shoppers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America with new seamless and secure payment options that are suited to local preferences. Millions of customers in 15 emerging markets in these regions stand to benefit from the collaboration.

“By partnering with dLocal, we’re excited to extend these benefits to millions of customers in emerging markets, ensuring that more people can enjoy accessible, convenient shopping experiences,” a Temu spokesperson said in a statement.

Launched in 2022, Temu is an online marketplace that offers consumer goods at significantly discounted prices. Shipping goods directly from the People’s Republic of China, Temu reportedly has more than 292 million monthly active users of its app worldwide. The app was among the most popular in US app stores for both iOS and Android in 2024.

Founded in 2016, dLocal is headquartered in Montevideo, Uruguay. The country’s first unicorn, dLocal offers an all-in-one payment platform that enables companies to accept and disburse a wide range of local payment methods and currencies. In 2024, the company processed more than $25 billion worth of payments. dLocal works with 700+ merchants, supports 900 payment methods, and operates in more than 40 countries. A publicly traded company on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker DLO, dLocal has a market capitalization of $2.7 billion. Sebastián Kanovich is CEO.

Ant International’s Bettr brings embedded finances services to ecommerce merchants in Brazil

Speaking of partnerships between businesses in Asia and Latin America, we learned this week that Bettr, Ant International’s AI-driven lending business, has gone live in Brazil. Bettr will help expand lending opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by working with local partners such as AliExpress. Through this partnership, Bettr will introduce a new financing solution, Bettr Working Capital, for local merchants working on AliExpress’s platform.

“This collaboration reinforces our commitment to helping small and medium-sized businesses thrive by providing accessible and efficient financial tools that can take their operations to the next level,” LatAm director of AliExpress Briza Bueno said. “In this way, we are not only supporting the individual growth of these entrepreneurs but also contributing to the advancement of e-commerce in the country.”

Bettr Working Capital will be introduced gradually; the first round of disbursements began this week. The technology analyzes merchant sales records and other unstructured business data from AliExpress to make smarter, tailored, more affordable loan solutions. This will help small and medium-sized businesses better manage cash flow and expand into new markets.

Headquartered in Singapore, Ant International is an international digital payments and financial technology provider. Bettr is the company’s digital lending business, which specializes in serving micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). The firm combines emerging technologies like AI and data-driven credit modeling to offer secure financial solutions that better fit borrower needs.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

  • Indonesian ride-hailing service InDrive teamed up with Singapore’s Fingular and Indonesia’s Sharia-compliant P2P lending platform Ammana to launch its new inDrive.Money app.
  • Malaysian wealth management platform Versa raised $6.8 million in Series A funding.
  • Japan’s international payment brand JCB partnered with integrated payment provider First Cash Solution, expanding JCB Card acceptance in Germany.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • African payments technology giant Flutterwave integrated with Pay With Bank Transfer to support businesses in Ghana.
  • Mastercard extended its collaboration with London-based Paymentology to boost financial inclusion in South Africa.
  • Compliance and fraud prevention platform Sumsub announced a partnership with the Association of Fintechs in Kenya.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Lithuanian identity verification provider iDenfy announced a collaboration with mobility provider Evemo.
  • Estonian fintech Hoovi raised €8 million in funding via a structured bond issue from Finland’s Multitude International Bank.
  • Moldova-based digital wallet and electronic money institution (EMI) Paynet partnered with open banking services provider Salt Edge.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Israeli fintech FINQ became the first Israeli company to secure a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Registered Investor Advisor (RIA) license without relocating to the US.
  • Egyptian fintech Fawry inked a strategic agreement with Contact Financial Holding to expand access to Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services.
  • MENA-based payment service provider Telr secured a Retail Payment Services license from the UAE’s central bank.

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by Juan Cruz Palacio Mir

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Musk’s X Partners with Visa for In-App Payments

Musk’s X Partners with Visa for In-App Payments
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, VISA
  • X (formerly Twitter) has selected Visa as its first payments partner to launch the XMoney Account.
  • X’s new payments feature will be powered by Visa Direct, which will enable instant P2P payments, transfers to bank accounts, and creator monetization within the social media app.
  • X CEO Linda Yaccarino expects that X’s in-app payments will debut later this year.

Visa and X (formerly Twitter) have partnered to facilitate payments on X, or what the company owner Elon Musk refers to as the “everything app.” According to a tweet from X CEO Linda Yaccarino, the XMoney Account, which will facilitate in-app payments, will debut later this year.

X will leverage Visa Direct, Visa’s real-time payment platform that enables businesses and individuals to instantly send and receive money directly to an eligible debit card or X Wallet. Once users connect their debit card to allow for P2P payments, they will have the option to transfer the funds to their bank account.

A payment partnership has been in the works for a long time. Musk purchased X (which was then called Twitter) in 2022 for $44 million. That same year, the company filed with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and began obtaining necessary state licenses, as well. The move was one of the first steps Musk took to create an “everything app” that he envisions will help users manage their entire financial lives. Today, X Payments is licensed in 41 states.

According to CNBC, which spoke to someone familiar with the matter, “The X Money service is expected to launch in the first quarter, and deals with more financial partners are likely. One of the first use cases for X Money is to allow creators on the site to accept payments and store funds without external institutions.”

Once launched, XMoney will compete with formidable players such as Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Zelle. XMoney may be able to differentiate itself in this competitive space by integrating social media, content creation, and financial tools. This would position it as more than just a payments platform, but rather as a central hub for digital interactions, creator monetization, and financial management. Its success, however, will depend on its ability to gain user trust, ensure security, and offer functionality that rivals established players.

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alkami Technology, DriveWealth, Fintech Rundown, Tink, VISA

Reports of a major breakthrough in Chinese AI technology sent stocks reeling in the U.S. to begin the week. Here at Finovate’s Fintech Rundown, we’ve got one eye on the latest from DeepSeek and another eye on the latest developments in fintech.

As Monday begins, we share news of a partnership in the open banking space, an expansion into the APAC, and both new funding and new tools for business banking.

Open banking

Tink and Adyen team up with prepaid platform Recharge to offer its German customers Pay by Bank services.

Payments

Visa and South Korean fintech DealMe team up to offer cross-border card installment payments.

Canadian paytech Nuvei expands into the APAC region on the completion of its acquisition of Paywiser Japan and granting of its acquiring license from Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry.

Skipify partners with Retail Realm to launch identity-powered payments for Microsoft Dynamics 365 merchants.

Viffy leverages Finfare’s Finfare Connect payment linking technology.

Digital banking

Cloud-based digital banking solutions provider for financial institutions, Alkami Technology launches its Business Banking Digital Maturity Assessment tool.

Shanghai Commercial Bank partners with Hong Kong-based digital banking solutions provider Planto.

Alliant credit union selects Backbase to accelerate banking innovation.

Crypto / DeFi

Stablecoin payment infrastructure provider BVNK forges a strategic partnership with First Digital, the organization behind First Digital USD (FDUSD).

European cryptocurrency platform Bitpanda receives MiCAR license from BaFin.

Web3 and crypto technology fund Binance Labs rebrands as YZi Labs as part of an expansion into AI and biotech.

Small business banking

Wyzr, a SaaS-based financial management platform for small and micro businesses raises nearly $500,000 (£400,000) in new capital.

Regtech

Marketing compliance specialist for fintechs, Adclear announces raising $636,000 (£510,000) in pre-seed funding to automate FCA compliance.

c/side launches PCI compliance dashboard for new PCI DSS 4.0.1 requirements.

Wealth management

Brokerage-as-a-Service innovator DriveWealth partners with Moment Technology to expand its fixed-income asset class offering.

Risk, security and privacy

authID launches PrivacyKey, bringing privacy and compliance to its biometric identity authentication platform.

REPAY and Worth partner for KYB and underwriting tools to speed merchant onboarding and vendor enrollment.

Lending and credit

Vergent LMS launches the Vergent EMPOWER program for community banks and credit unions.

Delfi partners with three U.S. banks.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

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Finovate Global Ireland: Innovations in Payments, Regtech, and Debt Consolidation

Finovate Global Ireland: Innovations in Payments, Regtech, and Debt Consolidation
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Experian, Finovate Global, GIEOM Business Solutions, VISA

This week’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent fintech headlines from Ireland.

NomuPay secures $37 million at a valuation of $200 million

Dublin, Ireland-based fintech NomuPay announced an investment of $37 million this week. The funding round, which began in September, gives the company a valuation of $200 million. The company will leverage the new capital to help accelerate the expansion of unified payment access in Asia.

“Over the past two years, we’ve grown our revenue by 100% annually and are on track to become profitable this year with an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of $20 million,” NomuPay’s Faye Duncan wrote on the NomuPay website. “Our valuation has reached $200 million, and with this latest funding round, our total funding now stands at $90 million. We’re proud to support over 1,600 merchants — including Ikea — and look forward to expanding into markets like Indonesia, Japan, and Vietnam, while continuing our M&A efforts.”

Founded in 2021, NomuPay offers state-of-the-art, unified payment solutions to help businesses scale in high-growth regions in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The company’s uP Platform offers high-penetration alternative payment methods; real-time payout disbursements; and compliant, end-to-end marketplace funds management.

This week’s investment will help NomuPay assist international acquirers, merchants, Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) as they seek to expand in markets such as those in Asia, where differences between local regulations and a broad variety of payment methods add to both cost and complexity.

To this point, NomuPay CEO Peter Burridge noted that many organizations are stymied by the offerings of the dominant international gateway acquirers that, in some instances, provide limited access or fewer payment options. Burridge called for a more “sophisticated and less prescriptive approach.”

Experian acquires debt consolidation technology from Paylink

To help millions of consumers better manage their debts, international data and technology company Experian announced this week that it will acquire ReFi, the debt consolidation innovation from Paylink Solutions. ReFi, which specifically helps manage the “double counting” challenge in lending, will become a part of the Experian Consumer Services Marketplace.

“Our research shows that millions of consumers are stuck in a revolving debt trap, due to the systemic issue of ‘double counting’ when consumers apply for debt consolidation products,” Experian Consumer Services Managing Director Edu Castro explained. “ReFi’s innovative solutions will play a crucial role in addressing the debt challenges faced by many consumers, unlocking access to debt consolidation products that could help them save money on their debt and even pay it off sooner.”

Double counting can occur when an individual applies for a debt consolidation loan and a lender counts both the individual’s original debts and their new consolidation loan as part of the affordability assessment. Lenders “double count” because there is no guarantee that the funds from the new consolidation loan will be deployed to retire existing debt. This means that otherwise creditworthy individuals can be denied consolidation loans to help them more affordably pay off their debts.

ReFi provides this assurance for lenders, working with both parties to settle debts directly with existing creditors. This enables applicants for consolidation loans to be assessed solely on the basis of the consolidation loan amount. And as debt is paid off, old accounts are closed, providing convenience for customers and further bolstering confidence for lenders.

“The team who built ReFi feel tremendously privileged to already have helped thousands of people reduce their monthly outgoings and cut the amount of interest they have to pay overall,” Paylink CEO Jake Ranson said. “Becoming part of Experian will enable us to further innovate, accelerate, and grow the impact ReFi will have on delivering better outcomes for lender and borrower alike.”

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Grantham, Lincolnshire, U.K., Paylink Solutions launched its ReFi solution in the fall of 2023. Piloted by financial wellness company Salary Finance, ReFi has saved Salary Finance customers more than £10 million in interest payments.

With its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, Experian helps businesses around the world enhance lending practices, fight fraud, and better engage their customers. A Finovate alum since 2011, Experian is a FTSE 100 Index company, publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker EXPN.

Data privacy firm Dataships raises $7 million in Series A funding

Data privacy software company Dataships secured $7 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Osage Venture Partners, and featured participation from Lavrock Ventures and the Urban Innovation Fund. In a statement, the company said that the funding will help “accelerate our mission to help merchants dramatically grow their marketing lists while maintaining ironclad data privacy compliance.”

Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Dublin, Dataships began as a compliance technology company and has since transitioned to compliance management. The company notes that it has helped its merchant customers realize a 10x increase in SMS opt-in rates, a 3x to 4x boost in email marketing contacts, and $112 million in additional revenue generated via 1.1 million repeat purchases. Dataships recently announced a pair of new innovations to its platform: SMS Easy Opt-in, which replaces “Reply Y” with in-checkout verification, and A/B Testing Engine that provides transparent measurement of baseline versus opt-in rates.

“We’re building Dataships to be the essential growth platform for modern e-commerce brands,” the company’s Matt Gottron noted in a blog post. “One that transforms compliance from a burden into a competitive advantage, helping merchants build larger, more engaged marketing lists that drive sustainable revenue growth.”

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Latin American payments service processor Kuady introduced its new physical prepaid Mastercard for users in Peru after launching a virtual version in September.
  • Onchain finance solutions provider Tokeny has teamed up with El Salvador-based Digital Asset Service Provider Ditobanx.
  • Latin American cross-border payments platform dLocal secured an authorized payment institution license from the U.K.’s FCA.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • TechCrunch profiled “Africa’s newest fintech unicorns.”
  • Visa launched its 2025 Accelerator Program for African fintechs.
  • BusinessDay Nigeria examined the impact of cybercrime on Africa’s fintech and digital banking industries.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Germany-based fintech unicorn N26 announced its first profitable quarter to close out 2024.
  • Lithuania and Romania earned praise for their growth potential in sustainable banking in a recent report from the International Sustainable Finance Centre (ISFC).
  • Financial Times featured German fintech Trade Republic as the firm announces it has no intention to go public at this time.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based operational resilience solutions provider Gieom teamed up with hybrid observability platform LogicMonitor.
  • Mumbai, India’s BRISKPE introduced its unified, cross-border payments platform form micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).
  • Mastercard and Crypto Credential launched in Kazakhstan and the UAE.

Photo by Lukas Kloeppel

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Apiture, Featurespace, Fintech Rundown, Fiserv, Scalable Capital, SoFi, VISA

It’s a holiday-shortened week here at the Fintech Rundown. But rest assured that we’ll have you covered on the the top fintech news headlines as 2024 moves toward a close.

We’re starting off with a series of stories in the embedded finance front, including an acquisition, a new launch, and a major fundraising.

Digital banking

Data-driven statement provider HC3 forges strategic partnership with digital banking solutions company Apiture.

TBC Uzbekistan raises $37 million from majority shareholder TBC Bank Group.

Payments

Visa completes its acquisition of Featurespace.

Turkey-based private bank İşbank expands its collaboration with Alipay+.

Cybersecurity

Chainalysis acquires web3 security solutions provider Hexagate.

Embedded finance

Fiserv boosts its embedded finance capabilities with its acquisition of earned wage access company Payfare.

Embedded SME lending platform CredibleX raises $55 million in seed funding.

Kobble, an embedded finance platform, launches in Australia.

Wealth management

Scalable Capital launches its World ETF, the Scalable MSCI AC World Xtrackers UCITS ETF.

Financial wellness

SoFi reaches ten million member milestone.

Photo by Daniel Reche

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Visa Expands its Flexible Credential Card to the U.S.

Visa Expands its Flexible Credential Card to the U.S.
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Daily news, VISA
  • Visa’s Flexible Credential card is now available in the U.S. and U.A.E., offering cardholders flexibility to pay from multiple account funding sources.
  • In the U.S., Affirm will integrate VFC into its buy now, pay later (BNPL) Affirm Card, while UAE-based Liv will leverage VFC to enable multi-currency transactions through a single card.
  • The VFC is similar to Curve’s multi-payment card offerings, however, Visa’s VFC requires users to select the payment type before transactions.

Payments giant Visa announced earlier this week it has expanded its Visa Flexible Credential (VFC) payment card to launch in both the U.S. and the U.A.E. The unique credit card allows users to pay from different account funding sources, ultimately offering cardholders more options and greater control over how they pay.

In the U.S., VFC will roll out in partnership with buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Affirm. The BNPL company will use VFC for its Affirm Card. With 1.4 million consumers, the Affirm Card offers consumers flexibility to pay at the time of their transaction or pay over time in the Affirm app.

“We’re excited about the partnership we’ve formed with Visa,” said Affirm CEO Max Levchin. “Since our founding, our mission has remained the same — build honest financial products that improve lives. Part of building better financial products also means giving consumers more control and flexibility, which has always been a key feature of the new Affirm Card. We look forward to bringing millions more people a product that seamlessly brings debit and credit together, without late or hidden fees.”

In the U.A.E., the VFC card will launch in partnership with digital banking platform Liv, which will enable cardholders to access multiple currency accounts from a single card. The VFC will automatically route the transaction to the account with the selected currency. Cardholders can use the Liv mobile app to move money between local and foreign currency accounts.

“At Liv we stay true to our promise of providing the most innovative products to our customers,” said Emirates NBD Chief Digital Officer, Retail Banking and Wealth Management, Pedro Sousa Cardoso. “As the UAE’s first digital bank, we are pleased to collaborate with Visa to offer our customers a simple, flexible card solution that better serves their evolving financial needs.”

“Working with innovative partners like Affirm, Liv and SMCC helps us turn that idea into a reality. Together we’re enabling more ways to pay and adapting to the unique needs of consumers – wherever they are in the world, or in their financial journey,” said Visa Chief Product and Strategy Officer Jack Forestell.

VFC first launched just over a year ago in Japan through a partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company (SMCC), which uses VFC to power its Olive card. Today, SMCC has more than three million cardholders using the Olive card, 70% of which use the card to toggle between different account funding sources like debit, credit, and prepaid.

Visa plans to roll out its VFC to other geographies in the future.

Overall, there are not many card companies competing on Visa’s VFC. COIN, a digital smart card that promised to replace all of the cards in consumers’ wallets, tried and failed in 2016.

Today, the strongest competition in the multi-payment type card market comes from U.K.-based Curve, which offers a credit card that allows users to toggle between different payment cards. Unique to Curve, users can spare themselves from embarrassment at the point of sale with the Anti-Embarrassment mode that allows the payment to go through even if the card is declined (with restrictions). Curve also offers a Go Back in Time feature that enables users to change which card is used for a transaction up to 30 days after the fact. 

With Visa’s VFC, however, cardholders must choose the funding source or payment type for their transaction before they initiate the purchase. It does not allow them to retroactively change the payment type or card type after a transaction is completed.

Photo by Rann Vijay

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Fintech Rundown, Salt Edge, Tink, VISA

It’s going to be hard to avoid the avalanche of news coverage of the U.S. Presidential election this week. But if you’re looking for a respite from the political headlines, Finovate’s Fintech Rundown is here for you! Be sure to check back all week long for the latest in fintech news.

Open banking

Financial API platform Salt Edge partners with Central Bank of Bahrain to enhance corporate banking with open banking.

Tink teams up with international money app Zing to launch automatic and one-tap top-ups leveraging open banking.

Digital banking experience platform Plumery announces partnership with payments and open banking solutions provider Payment Components.

Cryptocurrency / DeFi

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget introduces a new contactless, P2P payment service, Bitget Pay, via its Bitget app.

Commercial Bank International, a UAE-based financial institution, inks a Memorandum of Understanding with digital asset platform Zumo.

Cryptocurrency platform Kraken appoints Stephanie Lemmerman as Chief Financial Officer.

Identity verification / fraud prevention

ID verification specialist iDenfy partners with O2Factoring to improve financial security for entrepreneurs.

U.K.-based Starling Bank unveils new solution to help customers defend themselves against bank impersonation scams.

E-commerce

E-commerce payment network Affirm launches its pay-over-time options in the U.K.

Lending

Document AI platform Ocrolus teams up with Merchant Cash Advance (MCA) origination and servicing platform LendSaaS.

Lending-as-a-service infrastructure company Finfra secures $2.5 million in funding to bring embedded lending solutions to SMEs in Indonesia.

Payments

European banking group Intesa Sanpaolo and Visa renew their strategic partnership to accelerate and support the growth of digital payments.

Integrated payments and commerce technology company Shift4 announces new partnership with payments platform ConnexPay.

Personal Finance

BMO partners with Personetics to help customers reach personal savings goals.

Photo by Tara Winstead

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Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News

Fintech Rundown: A Rapid Review of Weekly News
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Dynamic Planner, Experian, Fintech Rundown, Glia, IBM, Ocrolus, On Deck Capital, Payoneer, VISA

As October gets underway in earnest, Finovate’s Fintech Rundown shares news of expedited payments to help those impacted by hurricane Helene, another partnership to help new Canadians secure credit, as well as a major investment in cross-border payments and a big acquisition in the fraud prevention space.

Be sure to check back all week long for more fintech news and updates!

Payments

Payoneer teams up with Tech Mahindra to optimize the company’s crowdsourcing platform, Populii.

Payments acceptance platform Cashflows partners with Mastercard to offer merchants Click to Pay.

FedNow will expedite Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) payments and transactions for survivors of hurricane Helene.

The U.S. Faster Payments Council (FPC) releases its 2024 U.S. Instant Payments Adoption Quantitative Study.

Formerly WorldRemit, Zepz raises $267 million to support expansion into new African markets.

Woodforest Acceptance Solutions partners with FreedomPay.

Venmo introduces payment scheduling.

Lending & credit

Quarters and Nova Credit team up to help immigrants to Canada transfer their credit histories from their home countries.

Experian Consumer Services partners with non-bank consumer lender Oakbrook to offer debt consolidation loans.

Plaid partners with MoneyLion to provide lenders with cash flow underwriting insights.

LendingClub and Pagaya acquire assets of Tally Technologies.

SoFi launches two new credit cards: SoFi Everyday Cash Rewards and SoFi Essential.

Identity and fraud prevention

Experian acquires Brazilian cybersecurity firm ClearSale in a deal valued at $350 million.

Meta expands its information-sharing partnership with banks in the U.K. to help fight fraud and scams.

DeFi and crypto

21.co, parent company of cryptocurrency exchange-traded product (ETP) issuer 21Shares forges strategic partnership with Crypto.com.

UAE to exempt crypto transactions from Value Added Tax (VAT) effective in November.

Visa launches platform to enable banks to issue stablecoins and tokens.

Open banking / open finance

Open banking payments network TrueLayer secures $50 million extension of its Series E funding round.

Open finance operating company Fabrick partners to TerraPay to enhance cross-border payments in Europe.

Small business financial management

Ocrolus and On Deck issue their Small Business Cash Flow Trend Report for Q2 2024.

Communications

Customer interaction technology provider Glia launches its Unified Interactions Index Online Calculator.

Digital banking

Coreless banking platform provider XYB announced a collaboration with IBM.

Grasshopper Bank to acquire AAA Bank, Auto Club Trust.

Regtech

Ireland-based regtech Corlytics announces expansion of its U.S. operations.

Financial advisory and wealth management

U.K.-based digital advice platform Dynamic Planner unveils new CRM integration with Adviser Cloud.

Photo by Guzel’S

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Cardlay Teams Up with Visa to Enhance Spend Management

Cardlay Teams Up with Visa to Enhance Spend Management
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Cardlay Payment Solutions, Daily news, VISA
  • Cardlay Payments Solutions has inked a partnership with Visa.
  • The collaboration combines Cardlay’s spend management technology with Visa’s payment network, data capabilities, and market position to drive innovation in spend management for commercial card issuers and their customers.
  • Headquartered in Denmark, Cardlay made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateSpring.

Danish fintech Cardlay is collaborating with digital payments leader Visa to power innovations in the spend management space for commercial card issuers and their clients. The two companies’ new referral relationship combines Cardlay’s white label spend management platform with Visa’s market position, payment network, and data capabilities to provide fully embedded commercial cards and spend management solutions to their clients.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Visa, a highly respected leader in the digital payments industry,”  Cardlay CEO Jørgen Christian Juul said. “To be able to fuel our product and commercial growth further together with Visa is great and the collaboration will help bring our vision to life: delivering fast and effortless spend management to commercial card issuers.”

Cardlay leverages the integration of virtual and plastic payment cards, card management, and expense management (including automated VAT reclaim) to help companies automate key business processes. A strategic partner to banks, fintechs, card issuers and processors, as well as other financial institutions, Cardlay also runs its own virtual card program to complement its software suite.

Cardlay’s technology enables commercial card issuers to enjoy a fast time-to-market and ROI, as well as benefit from data capabilities such as real-time virtual credit cards and Visa’s Fleet 2.0 data. These capabilities provide greater efficiency via access to data and insights, facilitate cost reduction, and help support sustainable transportation and mobility budgets.

“We’re delighted to have partnered up with Cardlay and look forward to our work together, helping to streamline financial operations for businesses, providing them with greater transparency and control over their spending,” said Helen Jones, Executive Director, Visa Commercial Solutions, Visa Europe.

Headquartered in Denmark and founded in 2020, Cardlay Payment Solutions made its Finovate debut at FinovateSpring earlier this year. At the conference, the company demoed its bank-integrated, real-time expense management solution, Cardlay Expense. More than 500 companies and 5,000+ users in 10 markets around the world are taking advantage of the technology to simplify and streamline the spend management process.

Cardlay has raised more than $29 million in funding according to Crunchbase. The company’s investors include Global PayTech Ventures and SEB Venture Capital.

Photo by Stefan Grage

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Visa to Acquire Featurespace

Visa to Acquire Featurespace
By Julie Muhn (@julieschicktanz) Posted on
Categories: Alumni News, Featurespace, Mergers & Acquisitions, VISA
  • Visa is acquiring fraud prevention company Featurespace to enhance its own fraud detection and risk-scoring solutions.
  • Terms of the agreement were undisclosed and the deal is expected to close in 2025 pending regulatory approvals.
  • The acquisition comes as Visa faces legal challenges from the U.S. DOJ over alleged monopolization in debit card markets.

Visa signed an agreement to acquire fraud prevention company Featurespace today. Financial terms of the deal, which is subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals, were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close in 2025.

Featurespace was founded in 2008 as a project in Cambridge University’s engineering department. The U.K.-based company offers AI-based tools that analyze transaction data to detect fraud. The company’s ARIC Risk Hub assesses behavioral analytics in real-time to identify abnormal user behavior, and leverages machine learning to adapt to changing behaviors and new scams, while improving accuracy over time.

“Providing our clients with solutions that can adapt to and anticipate the changing threat landscape is of the utmost importance,” said Visa Global Head of Value-added Services Antony Cahill. “Featurespace’s strong foundation in AI will enhance our existing product portfolio and enable us to address our clients’ most complex and pressing challenges. We look forward to welcoming the Featurespace team to Visa.”

Visa expects that Featurespace will complement and strengthen its existing portfolio of fraud detection and risk-scoring solutions. By leveraging Featurespace’s expertise, Visa will empower its clients to manage payments fraud in real-time while minimizing false positives and ultimately cutting costs.

“Over the past 12 years we have served the financial services industry, building a company that has gone from strength to strength, and we are thrilled to become a part of Visa,” said Featurespace Founder Dave Excell. “With Visa, we can bring the innovation, integrity and purpose of our platform and our team to more payment service providers and ultimately, stop more people from becoming victims of financial crime.”

Shadowing today’s deal is Visa’s previous failed purchase of Plaid. In 2021, Visa was forced to terminate its planned $5.3 billion acquisition of financial data access company Plaid. At the time, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a civil antitrust lawsuit that ended the merger about a year after discussions were initiated. The lawsuit argued that Visa wanted to acquire Plaid to protect its U.S. debit business against the threat of the fintech. Visa argued that the DOJ did not understand its business and the competitive landscape, saying that Plaid would complement its existing capabilities.

Visa’s planned acquisition of Featurespace is quite different than that of Plaid, however. That’s because the fintech will likely be seen as enhancing Visa’s existing fraud management capabilities and does not pose the same competitive risks as the Plaid deal did.

Even still, the Featurespace deal comes at an interesting time for Visa. The payments giant is re-living some of its 2021 woes with the DOJ. The department sued Visa earlier this week, alleging that it is monopolizing debit card markets. “We allege that Visa has unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees that far exceed what it could charge in a competitive market,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “Merchants and banks pass along those costs to consumers, either by raising prices or reducing quality or service. As a result, Visa’s unlawful conduct affects not just the price of one thing – but the price of nearly everything.”

As some experts have pointed out, however, banks and merchants have multiple payment rails to choose from, and that Visa’s global market share is simply a result of capitalism.

Photo by Florenz Mendoza

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