The Fintech Fix, Weekly Roundup 16/12/2021

Welcome to the ninth 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 a startup generating a huge following, this is the place to keep up with the breaking news.

Hot Topics –  This is the penultimate edition of the fix this year before 2022, and we have some great stories to share. This week’s hot topics include innovations in the payments industry, with specific mention of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) services, expansions in cryptocurrency and much much more!

First though is our biggest story of the week, and it comes from bunq, the Dutch mobile challenger bank. bunq announced it will become the first European digital bank to start offering mortgages, launching in early 2022. Since mortgages are essentially a debt that nearly every single person will likely incur in their lifetime, it is no surprise that they have been viewed as the next battleground for digital banks. After taking the first step in doing so, Ali Niknam, Founder and CEO of bunq, voiced how this shows the company is one that is ‘constantly innovating and evolving to serve our users.’ The move was supported by Tulp, a Dutch lending platform. Paul Wessels, Co Founder and CCO of Tulp Group, believed the move will help bunq ‘become a successful new lender in the Dutch market.’

Klarna announced the launch of the Klarna browser extension, which allows consumers to shop with Klarna’s payment options on their desktop at every online store, regardless of if Klarna is a partner with the retailer or not. This is a huge statement and shows how commonplace Klarna have become and will continue to become. David Fock, Chief Product Officer at the company, commented that ‘while mobile shopping is surging, we also see that many consumers still enjoy the comfort of browsing and comparing items on a larger desktop  screen. At Klarna, we want to offer consumers the world’s best shopping and payments experience – no matter what device they are using.’ Automatic couponing and cashback gestures are also combined with the new extension. 

PayU, a leading financial services provider in global growth markets, announced that its patent for technology, which will improve payments routing and approval, has been accepted. Ronen Morecki, PayU’s CTO, voiced how this positions PayU as one of the most cutting edge digital payments platforms in the world, and ‘brings together top innovation that allows merchants to enjoy the highest approval rates thanks to an intelligent routing mechanism.’

Cross-border payments have never been more essential than they are today, in an era where national borders were closed, despite the internationality of our industries. With this in mind, SWIFT announced the availability of its new In-flow Translation service and confirmed that it now offers a full ISO 20022 customer testing environment for cross-border payments. Stephen Lindsay, Business Lead, SWIFT Platform, said ‘one of the guiding principles behind our strategy for instant and frictionless payments is to ensure that nobody is left behind and that institutions are able to migrate in a way that suits them and their customers.’ By enabling richer, better-structured data to be carried in payments messages, ISO 20022 will provide for an improved end-user experience and forms a key building block on which the future of the financial industry will be built.

Steve Munford, CEO of Trulioo, the global identity verification leader, said ‘the pandemic democratized the world of financial services. With cryptocurrencies becoming mainstream, digital asset issuers and exchanges understood the need to bolster their identity verification programs to securely and seamlessly onboard a huge uptick in users while meeting compliance obligations.’ This led Trulioo to announce six new customers in the cryptocurrency industry, ensuring they meet AML/KYC compliance requirements and deliver seamless onboarding experiences. Do find out more about the six companies in the link above – it’s definitely an interesting group! 

Wellbeing, whether it’s financial, mental or physical, has been increasingly emphasised as a point of awareness in today’s society. Companies need to align with this new focus. In steps Walnut Insurance, a technology company that is building a new era of transparency and accessibility around insurance Walnut are offering the first life insurance membership with additional wellness subscriptions specifically designed to serve younger Canadians.  Derek Szeto, Co Founder and CEO of Walnut, recognised the ‘incredible opportunity to not only change the way Canadians value life insurance, but to reach younger consumers that are not currently represented in the market.’ Through this holistic approach to protecting one’s wellbeing, life insurance becomes a part of a larger cohesive offering that provides more expansive and immediate value.

Monument announced their launch of a new app and first suite of savings products to the market. Clients are able to open savings accounts in mere minutes, making the process one of the quickest in the market. John Saunders, Chief Commercial Officer, was ‘thrilled to be launching our app and to be open for savings business. Whilst clients can do almost everything in the app, when they do need to “speak” to us, they can choose how they do that through the channels we have built into the app, and they can move between them.’ Monument are clearly on the path to reset service standards to the next level.

Wise, the global technology company building the best way to move money around the world, hit us with two hot topics this week. First, the company enabled B2B transfers to China from 8 currencies of up to 850,000 CNY. Abhishek Choudhari, Wise’s APAC Product Director, noted that the venture has made cross-border payments a ‘more transparent, cheap and fast process for our Wise Business customers around the world.’

Wise then went on to announce their new employee expense card. This new card allows businesses and their employees to save time and money on their expenses. Not only is it 10x cheaper than other options like Pelo or Soldo, but it aids budgeting, control and spending. The card is available to all Wise Business customers in the UK, Europe, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore and Japan. This globalization is important; James Bell, Head of Wise Business, highlighted how ‘small businesses are becoming more international, meaning solutions like this go a long way.’ 

And lastly, if you missed out on our amazing FF Awards show and want to see some highlights check them out here, where you can see our wonderful host, Ed Gamble, Brian Blessed and some of our amazing winners!  

Funding – It seems the number is the same every week, but there are 3 huge funding stories for this fix! 

Mambu raised €235 million in a Series E funding round. The funding brings the company’s valuation to €4.9 billion post money, making it one of the highest-valued B2B SaaS companies founded in Europe. Eugene Danilkis, Co Founder and CEO of Mambu highlighted that this latest round of funding ‘will allow us to accelerate our plans in expanding our mission-critical banking platform to further enable composable business models which are agile and continuously evolving.’

Kwara, a fintech startup based in Nairobi, announced a $4m seed round from investors across Africa, Asia, Europe and the US. They will use these funds to further develop their app in order to enable credit unions ‘across Africa and emerging markets’ to digitize and bring financial services to millions of people, according to Ben Marrel, Founding Partner at Breega. Kwara has already attracted top talents from Nubank, FairMoney and Pi Pay in order to perfect their app and offer clients a premium neobank experience.

And lastly, Genasys, a leading insurance software solutions provider, announced a major investment of £12.25M from Frog Capital. Jens Düing, Senior Partner at Frog Capital, commented, ‘we are delighted to invest in Genasys. The company has already created an industry leading modular state-of-the-art platform that is gaining increasing momentum in a transforming ecosystem.’ Genasys Joint CEO, André Symes, also commented that the decision to partner with the team at Frog will ‘help accelerate the next phase of our growth is based purely on the strength of the relationship that we have built with them. They have bought into our model of building sustainable growth and are genuine in their desire to add real value to our business.’

Transfer News – Just the one story to announce in our transfer column this week. Railsbank netted an early Christmas present as they added Danna Gurbaxani to their organisation. Danna comes in as the new Head of Customer Success for UK and Europe to support its customer, sales and growth plans. Danna arrives from Salesforce, and has over 15 years of experience within B2B data and technology. Louisa Murray, COO of Railsbank UK and Europe, celebrated Danna’s arrival, noting that ‘her extensive leadership and industry experience will make her an invaluable asset to the team, as well as to our customers.’

Big Partnerships To Watch – Whilst many partners are headed to winter wonderland at the moment, this week we have two partnerships that will definitely go much further. TrustPay announced their new partnership with PayPal, where the major payments platform and digital wallet will be added to the list of many alternative payment methods that TrustPay offers to its clients. Not only does this allow TrustPay’s client an even smoother purchasing experience, but it also brings on a trusted and familiar brand in PayPal. 

And to conclude this roundup, we have S-Kreditpartner, one of Germany’s leading consumer finance companies, being chosen by a hi-tech company in payment services, SIA, to support the launch of its new FlexiGeld card, which will launch in 2023. With this agreement, transactions made with the innovative FlexiGeld revolving credit card issued by S-Kreditpartner for the German savings banks, will be processed by SIA’s technology platform. That also includes advanced services for fraud management and prevention as well as dispute and chargeback management.

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.