The Fintech Fix Weekly Roundup 01/12/2021

Welcome to the seventh week of The Fintech Fix, where we cover the biggest stories of the financial week! Whether it’s the next groundbreaking advancement in Blockchain technology, a new CEO creating an economic revolution or an upcoming startup generating a huge following, this is the place to keep up with the breaking news of the future. 

Hot Topics – This week’s hot topics will revolve around some really interesting stories. From Mastercard expanding into Latin America to  our wide range of coverage from the FinTech Talents events we’ve got it all in this roundup. But if you missed our epic coverage in the fix last week then check it out here! 

One of the most interesting topics to report this week is about Lawrence Levy, former Pixar CFO and board member. I’m sure everybody reading this is fond of at least one Pixar movie and Levy insightfully shares how he navigated one of the biggest IPOs in history, enshrining what the CFO’s role can and will be. Levy also commented on notions of company culture and how it is crucial for big businesses to identify their culture, since it seeps into every detail of how an organisation runs. 

Mastercard gained headlines in the news after announcing their expansion of bill pay solutions and other real-time payment applications into Latin America. This has become achievable after their acquisition of Arcus FI, an alum of the company’s Start Path Program. Laura Cruz, Division President for Mexico and Central America at Mastercard, highlighted that this move will ‘create new opportunities to address everyday needs by connecting more people to the digital economy.’ Arcus were definitely the right venture for Mastercard then, as individuals such as Bibiana Monterde, Co Founder of Cuenca, voiced how Arcus is a ‘personalised, fair, and 100% friendly digital experience.’

There is no doubt that the COVID pandemic magnified the need to embrace digital technologies. In talking with our host, Douglas Mackenzie, Lloyds Bank’s Gwynne Master discussed ‘how’ such technologies have, and are continuing, to make businesses more resilient going forward. Often, this requires collaboration and transparency, which Lloyd definitely adheres to as they support businesses by providing them with relevant and useful data to make more informed decisions in our dynamically changing world. 

As our technological world continues to develop, our safety and security of it must be maintained, especially for our youth population who can often fall vulnerable to fraudulent schemes and trickery. It is with that in mind that Trulioo, the global identity verification leader, announced it will implement its solutions in the German market to verify the ages of end users trying to access age-restricted content. Steve Munford, CEO of Trulioo, said that by turning to Trulioo’s solutions, media providers can ‘adhere to compliance measures while upholding a privacy-centric approach in handling this sensitive data.’

Matt Briers, CFO of Wise, was part of an interesting debate which highlighted how a Chief Financial Officer is much more than a strategic master of numbers, but a visionary for the company and one that needs a forward-thinking, forecasting ability. ‘You’ve got to be able to look forward and look around the corner … it’s really important that I can take a very customer orientated product vision and translate that into a story that investors understand.’ 

This next section will divulge into the key talking points from this month’s FinTech Talents 2021 event, where the FF News team were able to collect hugely valuable coverage from some of the industry’s biggest leaders. Some of the biggest takeaway points include:

• Russ Cohn, General International Manager at OCR Labs; customers can be better served through improved ID verification. ‘Digital verification is changing the way we bank and we live.’
• Lendha Espinoza, International Business Development Manager at Tecalis; by staying ahead of the regulatory and technological game, businesses can improve customer engagement with their brand. 
• Matt Flenley, Head of Marketing at Datactics; increasing the visibility of data between organizations is crucial for encouraging healthy collaboration in the future. By democratizing data across every vertical in the industry, coding and programming can be used to solve digital transformation problems. 
• Scott Wilson, Commercial VP at Mambu; Historically, traditional banks and financial institutions have not been as flexible as others when it comes to the cloud, to open banking, and to providing consumer-friendly language. Open banking has seen success, but have we really hit the full potential for it? 
• Prakash Patni, Managing Director at IBM Cloud; IBM’s financial services cloud system has been built for fintechs and financial organizations, big and small alike, with a focus on agile methodology and accessibility while also maintaining their heritage of working with the biggest names in the industry. How far will evolution go in our near future though? 

Funding – We’ve got 3 big stories in the funding world to catch up on. Firstly, Brazil recorded one of the largest ever Series A funding rounds in the country, as TruePay, a payment solution startup helping SMEs get free and secure access to credit, raised US$32 million. The funds will, according to Luis Eduardo Cascão, COO and co-founder of TruePay, ‘be used to further attract and develop talent in Brazil and elsewhere.’  Lee Fixel, Founder of Addition, the company who led the funding round,  commented that ‘we look forward to supporting the company as it continues to develop its innovative, convenient and low-cost payment technology.”

Freetrade recently launched their seventh public crowdfunding round, recording a £650million valuation. Beyond that, Client assets now exceed £1bn, helped by the launch of new subscription accounts, including ISAs, Freetrade’s Plus membership and the Freetrade Pension. Adam Dodds, Founder and CEO of Freetrade, said ‘This crowdfunding round represents a significant milestone for Freetrade. As we move into Europe and beyond, we’re committed to keeping our community involved every step of the way.’

And lastly, Allica Bank, one of the leading Fintech SME challenger banks, signed £110million off in their Series B Funding round. The new £110m funding round will support continued investment in Allica’s powerful proprietary technology and relationship management experience, alongside providing the capital to support the acquisition of AIB’s SME lending portfolio and continued organic growth

Transfer News – The only transfer news we have to report this week is from Thunes, the global cross border payments company, who made 4 new senior executive appointments to lead its business in strategic regions. 

Jenna Wyer has been appointed as the SVP for the Americas, with her past roles including being the founding Vice President of Sales at Braintree, where she secured deals with their largest merchants, Uber, Airbnb and Hotel Tonight. 

Simon Nelson has been appointed as the SVP for the Middle East and North Africa. Simon’s previous roles include being the CEO of Mercury, as well as building his career out of a variety of leadership positions in American Express and GE Money. 

Biren Zandani has been appointed as the SVP for Asia Pacific. Biren, based in Singapore, is a recognised payments expert with over 20 years of experience in financial services, particularly B2B, B2P, and P2P payments. Before joining Thunes, Biren was the Head of APAC at Transfast, a Mastercard company, where he was in charge of generating revenue and establishing robust network partnerships.

And lastly, Daphne Huang has been appointed as the SVP for Greater China.  Before joining Thunes, she was the Head of China for SWIFT, where she spearheaded its strategic and business development initiatives. 

Aik Boon Tan, Chief Commercial Officer at Thunes, highlighted that ‘half of our global SVPs now are women as diversity in the workplace can only strengthen us as a company.’ Thunes, keep up the great work!

Big Partnerships To Watch – And in our last segment of this week’s fix, we have 4 key partnerships that could be huge in our Fintech landscape. 

HepsiPay, the digital open wallet of leading Turkish e-commerce platform, Hepsiburada, announced their partnership with Paycell, the fintech subsidiary of Turkey’s leading telecom operator, Turkcell. Beginning in December, Turkcell customers who do not have or do not prefer to use a bank or credit card, will enjoy a frictionless shopping experience on the Hepsiburada platform. Customers will be able to quickly and easily transfer money to their HepsiPay Wallet, with the final top up amount reflected on their next Turkcell bill. HepsiPay’s General Manager, Ozan Bayulgen, said ‘This new and innovative payments feature on the Hepsiburada platform will help us to expand our total addressable market, and provide another way for Turkey’s significant unbanked population to access the benefits of the digital and ecommerce revolution.’ Onur Güven, Paycell’s CEO, echoed this sentiment, commenting that ‘We prioritize creating opportunities with technology so that more people are able to benefit from financial services in line with their changing needs.’

TrueLayer, a European Open Banking platform, and Ninety Nine, an organisation offering easy-to-use investing platforms, have partnered together in order to deliver an improved investor experience. Ninety Nine are an innovative Spanish broker, and offers great opportunities. Joe Morley, GM Europe at TrueLayer added that ‘Spain is witnessing the growth of innovative fintech firms that are embracing the benefits of open banking to deliver new digital services to consumers. We’re delighted to be working with Ninety Nine as it continues to develop its platform through the implementation of instant, account funding using TrueLayer.’ 

Regal, the operator of one of the largest and most geographically diverse theatre circuits in the United States, announced its partnership with Flexa, the leading pure-digital payments network. This partnership will help to unlock access to digital currency payments for patrons around the world.

And lastly, Paysafe, a leading payments platform, is now featured in the Huawei App Gallery. Huawei is a leading provider of information and communications technology infrastructure and smart devices, and now, Paysafe’s online cash payment solution paysafecard is available as an alternative payment method in the Huawei App Gallery in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. Commenting on the collaboration, Udo Müller, CEO of Paysafe’s eCash division, said that ‘working with a powerhouse like Huawei extends the reach of our cash-based payment solution to millions of additional consumers. This is a major step on our path to making paysafecard the payment method of choice in the digital entertainment space.’

So that’s your weekly Fintech Fix! Stay tuned for next week’s dose so that you can stay up to date with the biggest stories of the future, right here in the present.