The Fintech Fix 16/02/2022

Welcome to 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 partnership about to trigger an economic revolution or an upcoming startup generating a huge following, this is the place to keep up with breaking news.

Hot Topics – Starting off this week’s hot topics is Jack Henry & Associates, Inc.® who this week announced their new next-generation, cloud-native technology strategy. The multi-year strategy focuses on the company’s ongoing development of a single, modern open-banking platform that enables easy access to a broad ecosystem of Jack Henry solutions and high-grade, third party fintechs. This is to build on Jack Henry’s current industry leading, open-API digital banking platform. With the strategy having been in the Jack Henry pipeline for 2 years, CEO, David Foss, was keen to announce the creation of “full stack of solutions on the cloud and augmenting them with open integrations and real-time data to help community and regional financial institutions compete and capitalize on the opportunity presented by the latest disruptions to our industry.”

Luanne Lim this week was appointed as Chief Executive of HSBC Hong Kong after spending the past 6 months as interim Chief Executive. David Liao, Co-Chief Executive of HSBC Asia Pacific said “Luanne was the standout candidate for this role. Over the last six months, she has demonstrated a combination of natural leadership with a deep understanding of both the industry and how HSBC’s global aspirations fit within it.

This week also saw the release of FFNews’ latest iteration of The FinTech Magazine #23, filled with some of the biggest talking points and topics from across the industry including discussionon the future of embedded finance, how banks can help the planet, it is a must read. The magazine also features some big names and interesting opinions coming from people like Craig Wellman, Microsoft UK, Oliver Prill, Tide, Laurel Wolfe, Mambu among many more! Access to this iteration of the magazine can be found here!

As the BNPL sphere of influence increases we saw TransUnion become the first UK credit reference agency to accept BNPL finance data in its consumer credit files. The data will soon be included within TransUnion credit information to help protect consumers and enable finance providers to ensure that payment plans are affordable and sustainable. Satrajit Saha, CEO of TransUnion in the UK said “We are delighted to announce these important changes to the way buy now, pay later products are treated within the credit ecosystem,” marking another milestone in the BNPL journey.

In response to the developments being made within BNPL technology, Barclays has called for more robust regulation on such BNPL products. Focusing on how the instant-free credit providers have created a behavioral shift of shoppers taking on more debt than they can handle. Antony Stephen, CEO of Barclays Partner Finance, explained they are calling for “more consistency in the regulation, with a common framework applying to all consumer credit products” and that they were “hopeful that HM Treasury’s review will deliver this.”

Partnerships – With Valentine’s day occurring this week love was in the air as FIS acquired Payrix as it expands its e-commerce, Embedded Payments and Finance Experiences for SMB Merchants via platforms. FIS will be looking to leverage and merge its portfolio of banking and payments assets with Payrix’s advanced embedded payments solutions to create new and differentiated experiences for businesses of any size.

Verto, the leading B2B cross-border foreign exchange (FX) and payments enabler has also announced their partnership with payments specialist Acquired to deliver their innovative ecommerce wallet top-up and payment functionality. VP of Product and Analytics at Verto, Irakli Menabde said: “We are delighted to take the first step into another vertical and venture into the payments space. Ecommerce is a rapidly growing space especially in the Emerging Markets, and Verto aims to become one of the world’s leading enablers across payments and foreign exchange.”

MasterCard alongside HELPFUL launched their own micropayments scheme to reduce Scottish CO2e emissions by 160,000 tonnes per year for the Scottish Deposit Return scheme (DRS) pilot. HELPFUL is a sustainable payments provider and is trialling its digital wallets and micropayments in Glasgow to challenge throwaway culture. Scott Abrams, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Mastercard UK & Ireland added “We are thrilled to have worked with HELPFUL to develop the RECYCLE Glasgow pilot’ an initiative offering environmentally-conscious consumers an easy way to help the planet by recycling single use containers – and being rewarded for. The rewards system works through scanning the barcode on the bottle, returning the bottle into a smart recycling bin or handing it over to the shopkeeper, with a 20p refund directly deposited into their HELPFUL digital wallet.

Proceeding this, MasterCard also partnered with Egyptian FinTech Kashat, culminating in the signing of a five-year agreement that will digitize the onboarding, disbursement and collection processes for MENA’s first nano financial service provider. Kashat helps the unbanked and promote financial inclusion by allowing them to create and cultivate a financial identity with smartphone users being able to apply for small, short-term productive loans instantly from the FRA-licensed mobile application. The partnership will allow Kashat to issue prepaid cards to users and offer them safe ways to withdraw money and repay their loans using Mastercard’s technology and payment rails.

Funding – Seyna kicks off this week’s funding news after raising a record amount of €33 Million Series A funding to modernize the insurance industry’s infrastructure. This record series A for the French Insurtech is jointly being led by White Star Capital and Elaia Partners with existing investors (Global Founders Capital, Allianz and La Financière) participating in the round. The platform has built a one-stop-shop for brokers, combining insurance products and productivity software onto one platform – Raised funding

LoanStreet Inc also announced it has closed a $25 Million Series B funding led by Portage Ventures in an effort to facilitate the growth of its loan ecosystem. The round saw a host of new investors including Curql Fund 1, Coastal Financial Corporation and Sterling Bancorp to join existing investors Third Prime Capital and Arbor Ventures who also participated in the most recent funding round.

Crowdfunding for challenger bank Novus has come to a close after reaching a total of £5 Million, beating its initial target of $1.2 Million by over 250% and has further become the first of the UK Digital Banking Apps to achieve the status of a certified B Corporation™. Novus is available on the Google Play Store and Apple store and has gained a significant amount of support from angel investors such as EQT Ventures, QED, Softbank, scouts from Accel and one more Tier 1 VC alongside BrightCap Ventures to support its team in building an operational hub in Sofia.

In one of the largest ever primary equity raises within wealth management occurring this week we saw FNZ, global wealth management platform, announced that it has secured $1.4 Billion in new equity funding from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Motive partners. The capital raise will help FNZ expansion through increased R&D, as well as accelerate growth in markets recently entered, such as North America.

Our final story in funding is more close to home with the UK FinTech scene going from strength to strength as GoCardless, a leading British FinTech announcing that it has secured a Series G funding round of $312 million, securing its place as the latest European and UK Tech unicorn with a valuation of $2.1 Billion.