" class="no-js "lang="en-US"> The Fintech Fix 26/01/22 | Fintech Finance
Friday, March 29, 2024

The Fintech Fix 26/01/22

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 the breaking news!

Hot Topics – In this week’s roundup, we have a huge story to kick things off! Klarna announced their launch of Klarna Card in the UK. This is great news for UK consumers, who now have more flexibility and transparency over the entirety of the payments experience, without the inherent risks of interest and revolving credit. The new physical card has features including an instant push notification for all transactions, pay up to 30 days, no foreign exchange fees and so much more. It is clear, according to Alex Marsh, Head of Klarna UK that the launch of Klarna Card is ‘giving consumers the control and transparency of BNPL for all of their instore purchases’, creating a valuable harmony between online and offline experiences.

J.P. Morgan gained headlines too as they very recently announced their agreement with Viva Wallet, a leading cloud-based payments fintech company and its existing shareholders to acquire a 49% ownership stake. For how much, we don’t know, but what is clear is that JP Morgan can further their dominance on the payments landscape. Max Neukirchen, Global Head of Payments & Commerce Solutions at J.P. Morgan commented that the ‘strategic investment in Viva Wallet signifies our confidence in their technology and team who already offer a holistic omnichannel merchant acquiring capability across Europe and better serve SMBs.’ With 17 million merchants ready to implement scalable payment solutions for, J.P. Morgan is in a great position for the future!

Cryptocurrency continues to prove its relevance in the mainstream world as Milo, a financial technology company, announced its launch of the first ever U.S crypto mortgage. This is monumental, allowing crypto investors to fluidly utilize their digital assets to purchase physical U.S real estate. Clients will have the opportunity to pledge their Bitcoin to purchase property and qualify for a low interest rate 30 year crypto mortgage, with no dollar down payments required. CEO and Founder of Milo, Josip Rupena, rightly points out that ‘the world is changing rapidly, with how customers make and invest their $2 trillion in crypto wealth’, and movements like this truly give an opportunity for crypto investors to further diversify their asset portfolio.

Representation is crucial in all facets of life, and Curve have definitely considered this with the design of their new card. The card has been inspired by cubism art, which brings different perspectives of an object together in one image. This is reflective of how Curve brings different elements of your personal financial ecosystem together in one unified card. The card also features a notch on one end, making it more usable for the blind and visually impaired, which is a great nod to furthering financial inclusion. Shachar Bialick, Founder and CEO of Curve, commented that ‘we wanted our new card design to reflect the bold advancements we’ve made to help empower people with their finances, and our card has been designed with this in mind.’

Zitec highlighted their top banking trends to watch in 2022 and beyond. Some of the big themes they pictured included the platformization of banking, the furthering of embedded finance, open banking, open finance, the continuation of neobanks finding new revenue streams and the adoption and migration to multi-cloud computing. In 2022, Digital transformation will continue to be an umbrella term, but it could be these specific facets, which I think is likely, that will play the crucial role in leading the change in the global banking space.

Oliver Wyman Digital has launched a digital, cloud-native platform with BaaS and IaaS solutions called Edge, to help incumbent banks and digital challengers accelerate their digital ventures and improve the customer experience they provide. It includes a future-ready front end, pre-integrated middle and back-end services, and productionized infrastructure. This translates to the ability to increase the distribution of products to multiple partner websites or apps, access to the latest pre-configured financial services products, and flexibility for integrations with multiple third-party providers such as eKYC. Anirudh Singh, Partner and Head of Malaysia, Oliver Wyman, said ‘Edge offers a ready-made solution that comes with onboarding, payments, lending, and insurance journeys, making it a simple, one-stop solution.’

Big Partnerships To Watch – IncredibleBank, America’s first national digital community bank, announced their partnership with Jack Henry & Associates Inc, to transform its online account opening with personalised content, same-day decisioning and fast, easy funding. Jack Henry’s online account opening solution is enhanced with Alloy and Plaid integrations already, and so there is tremendous value already on the table here. Philip Suckow, director of digital and innovation at the bank, said, ‘Jack Henry is offering the tools we need to deliver better customer experiences and grow our footprint.’

Curve made the news again as they partnered with Huawei to bring contactless payments via Curve Pay to Huawei smartphones. Huawei users will now have one digital wallet for all their cards, with access to cash back options from hundreds of popular brands and a 360˚ view of all spending with useful insights, budget and control settings, all available in numerous currencies. In addition to these features, Huawei customers will also be able to access fair exchange rates with no hidden fees, allowing them to travel with confidence when it comes to their money.

Marco, the first tech-enabled trade financing platform built for SMBs in the US and Latin America, announced their partnership with CARGOES Finance By DP World, a platform that enables rapid and seamless access to working capital for emerging-market SMEs. As an approved lender for CARGOES Finance, Marco enables SMEs within CARGOES Finance by DP World to access the financing they require to grow and ultimately help close the growing $1.7 trillion global trade finance gap that prevents small exporters from competing in global markets.

Funding – Just the one fundraising story to report today! Cushon, the workplace savings fintech with 400,000 customers, raised £35 million in their fundraising round, provided entirely by existing investors, including fintech venture capitalist Augmentum Fintech Plc, and AshGrove Capital, a leading independent pan-European specialty firm. This funding not only supports Cushon’s acquisition of the Creative auto-enrolment scheme but also provides significant growth capital for Cushon to further develop its market-leading mobile app, operational capability and organic growth. This will enable Cushon to offer faster onboarding of employers who want to offer their staff an app-first, climate-friendly, workplace savings solution.

Transfer News – ComplyAdvantage appointed a new CFO and CPO after their record growth in ARR by 80% in 2021. The two executive hires included Nabeel Vilcassim as the CFO and Oliver Furniss as the CPO, both reporting to Chief Operating Officer, Vatsa Narasimha. Vilcassim joins ComplyAdvantage from Moelis & Company where he served as Managing Director and Head of EMEA FinTech. Nabeel brings more than 15 years of investment banking and corporate finance experience, advising global financial services firms, fintech and market infrastructure firms on M&A, financing and strategic investment transactions. Prior to joining ComplyAdvantage, Oliver was most recently CPO at Dojo, the UK’s newest card payment acquirer, helping businesses to take payments face to face and online, get access to their money fast.

Our second transfer story of the roundup involves Alfred W. Moeckli, who joins Bitfrost as the new Chairman of the Board. Moeckli, who is the owner of Moeckli Finance and Management Ltd., is a banking expert with more than 20 years of international experience as a CEO, COO and Board member of various European banks. Prior to his current role, Moeckli also served as a Group Chief Executive Officer of VP Bank Ltd. During his leadership, the market capitalisation of the VP Bank doubled. He also co-founded publicly-listed Swissquote Group and subsequently built up Swissquote Bank as CEO. Bitfrost have clearly emphasised their desire to elevate themselves further with this appointment of such a professional, established and proven winner of the game in Moeckli.

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  2. PayPal Plans to Appoint Carmine Di Sibio to Board of Directors  Read more
  3. Yapily Named a Supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s Open Banking DPS Framework Read more
  4. allpay Appointed as Official Supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s Open Banking and Fund Administration & Disbursement Services Dynamic Purchasing Systems Read more
  5. Oliver Wyman Announces Mariya Rosberg as Americas Head of Banking and Financial Services Practice Read more