Historic news out of the Middle East leads off our international fintech coverage this week on Finovate Global. Israel’s AI-powered transaction monitoring innovator ThetaRay has been selected by the UAE’s Mashreq Bank to help ensure secure cross-border transfers for its correspondent banking business.
The partnership marks the first time that an Israel-based fintech company has teamed up with a financial institution from the UAE. The collaboration was made possible by the historic Abraham Accords, signed in the fall of 2020, which normalized relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.
“Mashreq Bank is our first customer in the UAE,” ThetaRay CEO Mark Gazit said. “We look forward to accelerating collaboration with additional financial institutions in the UAE and the entire Middle East, as part of the continued expansion of ThetaRay’s global reach.”
Making its Finovate debut in 2015, ThetaRay offers banks and financial payment providers the ability to detect anomalies in multiple data sets, regardless of size or source. This makes the company’s cloud-based, SaaS AI analytics platform is especially effective in monitoring cross-border payments, an area that has become increasingly vulnerable to financial crime – including money laundering – in recent years. ThetaRay estimates that the cross-border payments market will grow from $37.15 trillion in 2020 to nearly $40 trillion by 2026, potentially attracting an even greater number of fraudsters and thieves.
“ThetaRay’s technology, underpinned by advanced machine-learning based models complementing rules, sets the foundation for next-generation transaction monitoring,” Mashreq Bank’s Group Head of Compliance and Bank MLRO Scott Ramsay said. “By combining speed and agility with efficiency, it allows banks to effectively thwart financial crime risks in the increasingly complex space of cross-border payments.”
A leading MENA-area financial institution, Mashreq Bank is the oldest privately owned bank in the UAE, founded in 1967 as the Bank of Oman. Last fall, the bank announced a partnership with Visa to develop a new digital reconciliation platform for business expense tracking. Mashreq Bank was also the first regional bank to launch an API developer portal, going live with the platform back in October. A month later, the institution reported a net profit of $72 million (AED 265 million) for the nine months ending September 30th.
“Mashreq’s advanced digital transformation program has continued to deliver outstanding service to customers throughout the nine months ending 30th September 2021,” Group CEO Ahmed Abdelaal said. He highlighted the role of digital platforms in supporting the bank’s growth, and embraced the “development of a diverse, inclusive, and enabling working environment” courtesy of Mashreq’s adoption of a “work from anywhere culture.”
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Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Sub-Saharan Africa
- South African fintech Stitch raised $21 million in Series A funding in a round led by The Spruce House Partnership.
- African fintech Flutterwave locked in $250 million in Series D funding, earning the company a valuation of more than $3 billion.
- Nigerian on-demand salary access startup Earnipay secured $4 million in seed funding.
Central and Eastern Europe
- Germany fraud prevention company Fraugster partnered with marketplace payout firm Payaut.
- Latvian open banking data platform Nordigen selected by DuckTech for its PFM app DuckTail.
- German digital asset manager comdirect launched a sustainable robo advisor, cominvest green. In German.
Middle East and Northern Africa
- Qatar-based finech Karty teamed up with i2c to launch its digital wallet.
- Jordanian challenger bank, Blink, announced new CEO Zein Malhas.
- Egypt ratified its Fintech Act this week, issuing new regulations to financial technology companies operating in the country.
Central and Southern Asia
- Courtesy of a partnership with Visa, Sri Lanka’s People’s Bank and People’s Leasing & Finance launched a pair of co-branded credit cards.
- International payments network EMQ opened payment corridors in both Nepal and India.
- Pakistan’s largest bank, Habib Bank Limited, announced plans to deploy technology from Temenos, including the company’s core banking solution, Transact.
Latin America and the Caribbean
- Brazilian cross-border banking startup Trace Finance raised $4.3 million in seed funding.
- PayHop, a Brazilian-based B2B credit startup, secured a $2.2 million seed investment.
- Berkshire Hathaway bought $1 billion worth of stock in Brazilian fintech Nubank.
Asia-Pacific
- Indonesian finech Akulaku announced a new investment of $100 million from Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank.
- Thailand’s central bank will let banks increase the amount they are allowed to invest in fintech – but investing digital assets was excluded from the new higher funding limits.
- Malaysian digital payments company Soft Space entered into a strategic partnership with Japan’s JCB.
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