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The Fintech Fix 21/09/2022
Welcome to The Fintech Fix, where we cover the biggest fintech stories of the working week. Whether it’s the next groundbreaking trend in crypto, or a new partnership that’s about to change the global economic landscape, this is the place to keep up with the breaking news of the future.
In with the New
This week’s big stories can be characterised by one word: beginnings. Fintechs are thinking outside the box, and developing products and services more attuned to the new age. The mysterious newfound credit card issuing fintech, Power, has finally emerged from stealth. After securing $16.1 million in seed funding, and $300 million in a credit facility, the startup is lifting the curtain on its operations and sharing their vision of credit to the world.
“After just over twelve months, Power is already live in the market and on track to issue thousands of credit cards this year,” says Randy Fernando, Founder and CEO at Power. “Looking ahead to next year, we plan to issue tens of thousands of cards across consumer, commercial and banking categories and process millions of dollars in transaction volume.”
San Mateo Unicorn, Tipalti, takes a further splash into the Eurozone, recently setting up a new Benelux office in Amsterdam. The company, currently valued at $8.3 billion+, previously launched in the UK last October and has now amassed over 100 UK-based customers. Hitting the central European market through the Netherlands will only grow Tipalti’s presence in the region with their leading automated global payables solutions.
Looking more into product expansion, global payroll and compliance solution, Deel, has announced the launch of two new products, Deel Shield and Deel API/the Deel Partner Program. The former is designed for contractor compliance, giving businesses the agency to hire across the world with a low level of misclassification risk or liability. Deel API is more geared toward demands in-house, allowing businesses to deliver their HR products with Deel’s hiring software.
Commenting on the launch, Alex Bouaziz, Co-Founder & CEO at Deel, said: “We built Deel Shield to empower businesses to hire global talent at record speed with zero misclassification risks and enjoy all the benefits that come with working with a contractor, without the HR or compliance hassle. This way, it’s our liability, not yours. As for Deel API – this is just the beginning. We have big plans to expand our API’s capabilities so companies can build more global hiring solutions.”
We are also at the dawn of a new payments revolution with the introduction of the UK’s New Payments Initiative and ISO 20022. In our recent Virtual Arena, we brought together the brilliant minds of Nationwide, ACI Worldwide, and Pay.UK, to talk about NPA and the infrastructure necessary to facilitate faster, and more secure, payments. In the VA, leaders Mark Nalder, Shane Warman, and Andrew Moseley spoke in depth about the possibilities afforded by faster payments and how the industry needs to work together to create a solid ecosystem if we want to make our payment goals actionable.
Working Together to Work Apart
Something else is brewing in the world of payments. In an international effort to improve Cross Border Payments (CBP) and align them with the aims of the European Commission’s EU digital identity wallet program – a consortium of Europe’s identity experts have proposed to deliver a large-scale, cross-border payments pilot.
In the effort, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Latvia and Norway, led by NOBID (Nordic-Baltic eID Project), plan on showing how payments and ID can be combined across borders and in multiple currencies. With a focus on payments, the pilot will leverage the existing payment infrastructures from the respective countries to facilitate features like instate payments and issuance.
Parallel to this grand collaboration, NCR Corporation, a tech provider for banks, retailers and restaurants that it will be splitting into two independent, publicly traded companies. Hopefully concluding by the end of 2023, one company will be focused solely on ATMs, and the other on digital commerce – this will be done in a tax-free process. The aim of this separation is to further bolster up the growth of NCR’s product offerings, by having their teams focus on building those specific services.
“This announcement is the right next step in NCR’s transformation. The separation would create two strong companies at scale, each with distinctive business goals and capital structures and allocation, as well as increased flexibility to innovate,” said Michael D. Hayford, CEO of NCR.
M&A are going worldwide this week with news of global payments provider PayU securing the endorsement of Columbian regulatory authorities to acquire electronic payments fintech, Ding. Already well integrated into the Columbian online payment space, PayU will have more reach to create and develop online products fitted to a developing customer base.
This is a huge win for Columbia, as with the further building of a robust payments ecosystem, the country can enforce financial inclusion amongst the unbanked and financially compromised members of its population.
Big Funding Rounds are Back!
After the understandable dry period in funding from the last two quarters, fintechs have bounced back, delivering a promising outlook for investment in 2023. B2B/C fintech Roslay, has attracted $10 million in their Seed Round, led by Fin Capital. The backing will filter into the startup’s growing effort to deliver their financial HR products to companies who want to build stronger employee loyalty and financial education.
Roslay is unique in their corporate offering as it aims to help European employees get paid in a system which suits them, rather than the consensus on monthly paychecks. With further investment, this could be huge for corporate working in Europe, changing everything from employee satisfaction to operations.
Focused again in the Eurozone, HSBC has awarded pan-European digital banking platform, Monese, with $35 million in investment, bringing their total funding to $208 million. The investment will go toward Monese’s further development of their Platform as a Service business.
Taylan Turan, Group Head of Retail Banking and Strategy, Wealth and Personal Banking at HSBC, said: “HSBC is continually pioneering new wealth and banking innovations for our digitally-savvy customers – we want to help clients make smarter decisions so they can meet their financial goals with innovative digital tools. This new partnership is a key step towards helping us deliver digital wealth and banking tools at pace and scale, combining Monese’s fintech credentials with our own global wealth and banking capabilities.”
Landing squarely in the African insurtech sphere, Turaco, a provider of insurance products and services to over a million people in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda, has secured $10 million in a Series A equity round, led by AfricInvest. The company, who specialise in L&H, and vehicle-related insurance services, is on a mission to free people of financial insecurity caused by potential unexpected health risks. With their partnerships and backing from leading financial institutions like Enza Capital, Global Partnerships, and Zephyr Acorn, the company can further reach their audience of low income earners who may be put off from protection due to the high fees and interest rates involved.
Turaco CEO and co-founder Ted Pantone said, “We are proud to help drive insurance adoption, especially among low-income earners. 90% of our customers have never had insurance before, but the surprising thing is that people really want to buy insurance! They just don’t have easy access to products that really work for them. This investment enables us to scale our business to serve millions of insurance customers across our current markets and beyond. We are thrilled to have these great new investors join our team for this next season of growth.”
As is evident, new beginnings do not come without new struggles, and with something as integral to society as payments and insurance, institutions must work together in partnership to build a more inclusive fintech community.
That concludes your weekly Fintech Fix! Stay tuned for another round of big fintech buzz, right here at FF News.
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