Finovate Global

Finovate Global: Showcasing International Alums at FinovateSpring

Finovate Global: Showcasing International Alums at FinovateSpring
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: 9Spokes, Finovate Global, FinTech Insights by Scientia, FINTEQ & Smart Faktor, Flybits, Fundica, Horizn, Hyperswitch, Kani Payments, Lucinity, Nubank, PayTic, SESAMm

With FinovateSpring only days away (May 23 through May 25), this week’s edition of Finovate Global will showcase those innovators demoing at the event that are headquartered outside the United States.

There’s still time to register and join us in San Francisco, California for our annual Spring fintech conference. Visit our FinovateSpring 2023 hub today and get your ticket today!

9Spokes

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New Zealand, 9Spokes unlocks open banking and data, giving financial institutions a powerful set of tools to engage SMB customers. LinkedIn.

FinTech Insights by Scientia

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, U.K., FinTech Insights by Scientia offers a competitive analysis tool for banks and fintechs to help them create compelling digital banking experiences. LinkedIn.

FINTEQ

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Poland, FINTEQ removes credit risk from the supply chain, giving suppliers a healthy and sustainable trade finance alternative. LinkedIn.

Flybits

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Flybits offers a personalization platform that enables financial institutions to deliver best-in-class personalized digital banking experiences. LinkedIn.

Fundica

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Fundica is a government funding platform used by some of the largest financial institutions in North America to acquire clients at scale. LinkedIn.

Horizn

Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Horizn helps financial institutions maximize the impact of digital and accelerate returns on digital investments with customers and employees. LinkedIn.

HyperSwitch

Founded in 2022 and headquartered in India, HyperSwitch is an open source payments switch designed to make payments fast, reliable, and affordable. LinkedIn.

Kani

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Newcastle, U.K., Kani offers end-to-end reconciliation and reporting, automating the back office for payments companies and fintechs, and ensuring accuracy and compliance. LinkedIn.

Lucinity

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland, Lucinity combats financial crime with innovative GenAI technology for smarter and faster FinCrime compliance. LinkedIn.

PayTic

Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Charlottetown, Canada, PayTic is a SaaS platform that automates and manages all key aspects of program management: network fees, reconciliation, reporting, and fraud. LinkedIn.

SESAMm

Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Metz, France, SESAMm specializes in big data and artificial intelligence, providing analytics from more than 20 billion articles and messages using NLP. LinkedIn.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

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Finovate Global France: Automating Payments, Extending Loans, and Collaborating on Crypto

Finovate Global France: Automating Payments, Extending Loans, and Collaborating on Crypto
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, iProov, Mambu, MasterCard, Numeral, PaySend, Revolut, VISA

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at recent fintech developments involving companies headquartered in France.

First up is news that European Buy Now, Pay Later firm Alma has partnered with BNP Paribas and new Finovate alum Numeral to automate payments.

“As part of our goal to create the most fluid and seamless experience for both merchants and customers, paying our 11,000 and growing merchants reliably and efficiently is critical,” Alma COO and co-founder Guillaume Desloges said. “Numeral enables us to scale with confidence and focus on our core business.”

Alma Finance and Strategy Senior Manager Simon Shohet explained that the integration of Numeral into both its systems as well as BNP Paribas’ systems, audit trails, and approval rules will enable automation of the process of managing “thousands of daily payments at scale.” Shohet added, “Thanks to Numeral, we can focus on the most critical incidents and rapidly solve merchant’s issues.”

Alma plans to eventually use Numeral’s platform to become a SEPA participant via BNP Paribas. This would enable Alma to issue IBANs in its own name, a strategic advantage for the firm.

Numeral made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope in London earlier this year. At the conference, the Paris-based company showed how financial institutions can leverage Numeral’s platform to automatically send, receive, and reconcile SEPA payments. The platform also enables financial institutions to manage payment errors via SEPA R transactions. The company is on track to process €5B in 2023.

Also this week, we learned that Revolut will begin offering customer credit products in France at the end of the month. The company announced that consumer loans will be available to Revolut’s more than two million French users starting on May 30th.

Revolut currently offers lending products in other European markets. These markets include Ireland, Lithuania, and Romania. Mortgage products are not part of the current package. But Revolut VP of Growth Antoine Le Nel said that these products are in the pipeline.

Thanks to Revolut’s embrace of open banking, prospective borrowers will be able to apply for loans without having to deal with hardcopy paperwork. Instead, applicants will get virtual “instant feedback” on their loan requests. Loans come with zero opening fees and are available from as low as €1,000 to as high as €50,000. Terms range from three months to 84 months and interest rates range from a low of 3.9% to 21.12%.

France has earned a reputation for being friendly to the cryptocurrency industry. This week’s news of a partnership between Canada’s Advanced Payment Solutions (APS), Cyprus’ Armenotech, and France’s Tempo France is another modest testament to this.

Back in at the beginning of the year, Armenotech and payments company Tempo Finance teamed up to develop an ecosystem supported by the Stellar blockchain. This week, we learn that London-based Advanced Payment Solutions has joined the pact.

APS CEO Serik Igbayev highlighted the importance of giving businesses the ability to work with traditional and digital assets. And in a statement, Igbayev praised the partnership with Armenotech for playing a key role in making this happen. “Clients increasingly demonstrate a demand for services that would enable them to operate both traditional and digital assets, combining various payment methods,” Igbayev said. “We have successfully been using state-of-the-art Armenotech solutions to meet this demand.” These solutions included tools that facilitate the conversion between fiat and digital assets, as well as products for fraud protection, security, KYC, and ALM.

Tempo France is serving as the corporate payment operator for the alliance. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Paris, Tempo France provides a fast and secure bridge between cash and cryptocurrencies. The company offers online, offline, and digitally backed remittances to nearly 100 countries with more than 300 physical agent locations. Alla Zhedik is CEO.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Photo by Chait Goli

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Finovate Global London: Helping Companies Raise Capital with Ulyana Shtybel of Quoroom

Finovate Global London: Helping Companies Raise Capital with Ulyana Shtybel of Quoroom
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Quoroom

Meet Ulyana Shtybel, CEO of Quoroom: the end-to-end fundraising and cap table management software provider for private companies.

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in London, Quoroom made its Finovate debut in March at FinovateEurope. At the conference, Shtybel demoed Quoroom’s investor relations tools that help companies connect with the right investors, provide a clear visualization of the company’s financial metrics, and keep shareholders “in the loop” as the business grows.

In this Q&A, we talked about the current challenges private companies are facing when it comes to securing funding. We also discussed the enabling technologies and strategies that are available to help enhance and accelerate the process of raising capital.

What problem does Quoroom solve and who does it solve it for?

Ulyana Shtybel: Capital raising is broken. Private companies spend months and even years in the fundraising process, learning how to raise capital and repeating the same mistakes, approaching the wrong investors and often spamming them with irrelevant investment opportunities.

In today’s world, startups have to become professionals in raising capital, as they cannot get funded otherwise. However, hiring a professional adviser is not a common practice, as they are expensive and there is no appropriate culture to hire an investment banker until a business becomes pre-IPO.

While fundraising, companies become distracted from their core business activities and rely too much on raising capital. Investors often express their desire for startups to focus more on product development.

The reality is that there are a lot of nuances and techniques involved in the fundraising process. Without proper knowledge and execution of these techniques, startups and scaleups often fail to raise capital. According to a study by CB Insights, 47% of startup failures in 2022 were due to a lack of financing.

With over 10 years of experience in capital markets, finance, and venture capital, my team and I decided to address this issue and rethink how fundraising is done. We automated the fundraising workflow, data visualization, and sharing of updates with investors so companies can easily do what is necessary for successful capital raising: building relationships with investors prior to the funding round and creating an investor’s FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

Quoroom also provides a data room and investor portal to close deals with investors and a capitalization table to manage shareholders and the administration of the company.


How does Quoroom solve this problem better than other companies?

Shtybel: Quoroom is the first data-centric capital raising and company administration software. Companies use Quoroom to build relationships with investors and raise capital up to four times faster while saving thousands of dollars in software and legal fees annually.

We have a deep understanding of the capital raising process and what actually drives investors to invest in startups. Unlike other investor relations software on the market, we help companies send investor updates and share data with potential investors, not just existing ones.

Quoroom combines all the necessary tools for raising capital and managing investors, which are currently fragmented, in one place. It covers private company administration from funding to secondary liquidity in one platform, saving companies tons of money and time in the long term.

Who are Quoroom’s primary customers? How do you reach them?

Shtybel: Our primary audience is private companies from the technology sector, including startups and scaleups. We reach out to them through our useful content, events, and our partners, such as lawyers, corporate finance advisers, and other fans of our product.

Can you tell us about a favourite implementation or deployment of your technology?

Shtybel: Quoroom is not only a SaaS platform for companies, but we also offer our technology as a white label for investment banks and boutiques to provide great value to their clients.

Our technology is easy to deploy, and through investment firms, even more companies and investors can experience a seamless capital raising process.

What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge?

Shtybel: As a former Executive Director of the Warsaw Stock Exchange Office in Ukraine, I had the opportunity to meet many technology companies that were not ready for an IPO, but wanted to raise capital to scale their businesses. This is how I started working with startups and scaleups on the one hand and VC investors on the other. Later, I co-founded my first tech business and went through the fundraising process, running into many of the same problems and mistakes, despite having a fantastic network of investors in my contacts.

My firsthand experience in successful and unsuccessful fundraising helped me identify patterns, and this is how Quoroom was born and launched in late 2020.

The private capital market is yet to grow and decisions will become more data-driven, I’m quite confident Quoroom is a solution to help traditional inventors and AI-driven VCs take better decisions.

What is the fintech industry like in your area? What is the relationship between emergent fintech startups and the country’s established financial services sector?

Shtybel: Quoroom is legaltech and fintech software that operates in the capital markets industry, which is predominantly represented by solutions for public capital markets, and some solutions that service private companies. However, these solutions are fragmented, and an average private company usually invites investors to five different platforms and uses eight platforms to manage the same investment, which can be a costly and inconvenient approach. One of the most established players in our industry is Carta, which is U.S.-based cap table management software. They don’t have the fundraising component, but they are actively acquiring companies in the sector. The U.S. venture capital and private equity market are much larger than the European market – 60% versus 21% of global VC deal value – but Carta acquired a European portion of the cap table management market via the acquisition of Capdesk. The year 2022-2023 is showing that the fintech market tends to consolidate.

You recently demoed your technology at FinovateEurope in London. What was that experience like?

Shtybel: FinovateEurope was truly one of the best events I have ever attended. The format was very different from any other conference, as the entire audience was there to listen to startup demos. This was absolutely fantastic and unique, as both corporate and investors came to listen to the demos. After our demo, we received much attention from investors and potential partners.

What are your goals for Quoroom? What can we expect from the company over the balance of 2023 and beyond?

Shtybel: We rectify the capital raising process to help more companies thrive. Our platform offers both capital and compliance solutions for companies, as well as data, high-quality deal flow, and exit infrastructure for investors. We look forward to working with companies and partners from different countries, so more people can explore the value of Quoroom.

Photo by Recal Media

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Finovate Global: CFDs, Licenses, and the Latest on Crypto in Central and Eastern Europe

Finovate Global: CFDs, Licenses, and the Latest on Crypto in Central and Eastern Europe
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: ACI Worldwide, Finovate Global

One of my biggest takeaways from my conversations about digital assets with delegates at FinovateEurope last month was the idea that new use cases will be among the first signs that the industry has emerged from so-called “crypto winter.”

That bar is likely years away from being cleared. In the meanwhile, crypto exchanges continue to expand access to digital assets for traders and investors. Today’s edition of Finovate Global looks at recent developments in the cryptocurrency and digital asset industries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Austria-based Bitpanda announced this week that it now offers CFDs – contracts for difference – for trading cryptocurrencies. CFDs are available for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana on Bitpanda’s platform. These products enable cryptocurrency traders and investors to speculate on both rising and falling prices. The new offering, on the platform under the appropriate name “Bitpanda Leverage,” also gives cryptocurrency traders the ability to leverage their trades 2x.

According to coverage in The Paypers, Bitpanda is well aware of both the risk of “complex financial instruments” like CFDs and the “high risk of losing money” they often bring to traders’ portfolios. Bitpanda also acknowledges that the new products are more suited to short-term trading than longer-term investing. The CFDs have been available to a limited number of Bitpanda customers since late 2022. This week, the company is announcing that the products are being made available to all traders on the Bitpanda app.

CFD trading is not as regulated as trading in other financial products like stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). As such, CFD trading is illegal in the U.S. and U.S. residents are forbidden from opening CFD accounts. The derivatives are traded in markets in the Euro Zone, however, as well as in the U.K., Switzerland, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand, among others.

There are many ways in which Ukraine, which continues to defend itself from Russia’s invasion more than a year ago, is seeking greater integration with its neighbors to the West. This week we can add cryptocurrency regulatory policy to that list.

Ukrainian regulatory authorities announced this week that they would adopt the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation just passed by the European Parliament. Heralded as a major advancement for the cryptocurrency industry in Europe, MiCA seeks to provide uniform regulations and standardized rules for digital assets in the E.U. At present, companies in the cryptocurrency space in the region must negotiate 27 different regulatory frameworks – crippling efficiency and limiting innovation.

“We, along with colleagues from the NKCPFR (National Commission for Securities and the Stock Market) and other regulators, are already working on implementing some provisions of MiCA to make crypto assets legal in Ukraine,” Yaroslav Zheleznyak said. Zheleznyak is the Deputy Chairman of the Tax Committee of Ukraine.

Cryptocurrencies have played an interesting role in Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression. An article at the World Economic Forum last month noted that more than $21 million in cryptocurrency has been donated to pro-Ukrainian war efforts. According to blockchain analytics company Elliptic, $80 million of that amount went directly to support the Ukrainian government.

Cryptocurrency investors and traders in Lithuania have a new exchange to do business with. Crypto exchange Bitget, which is based in the Seychelles, announced this week that it has secured its registration in Lithuania. This will enable Bitget to offer its service in or from the central European nation.

Analysts consider Lithuania to be among the leading countries in the European Union when it comes to legislation helping develop the cryptocurrencyindustry. The country has been praised for the clarity and transparency of its regulations regarding cryptocurrency licensing – as well as a shorter licensing process compared to other countries in the E.U.

“The global regulation of digital assets is advancing on a daily basis, and we actively observe the regulatory changes around the globe,” Managing Director of the Bitget exchange Gracy Chen said. “We have a whole dedicated compliance team in place to focus on various regulatory compliance matters.” In its statement, the company noted that its compliance team has grown by 50% in the last 12 months. Bitget also recently launched a $300 million user protection fund.

Founded in 2018, Bitget serves more than eight million users in more than 100 countries and regions.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by Anthony Beck

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Finovate Global Israel: “Catching the Good Guys” with Uri Rivner of Refine Intelligence

Finovate Global Israel: “Catching the Good Guys” with Uri Rivner of Refine Intelligence
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: CEO Interview, Finovate Global, Refine Intelligence

In this week’s edition of Finovate Global, we feature Uri Rivner, co-founder and CEO of Refine Intelligence. The Tel Aviv, Israel-based company, founded in 2022, made its Finovate debut earlier this year at FinovateEurope. At the conference, Refine Intelligence demoed its technology, Life Story Analytics, that leverages AI to help banks better defend themselves against money laundering.

We discussed the challenge of fighting financial crime, the innovations that Refine Intelligence brings to the market, and the relationship between upstarts and incumbents in Israel’s dynamic, fintech and financial services ecosystem.

What problem does Refine Intelligence solve and who does it solve it for?

Uri Rivner: If you’re a bank, your AML Operations team is massive, and needs to grow every year to cope with growing alert volume. But the team can have a pretty frustrating daily routine, as almost all the alerts they’re investigating end up being totally legit activities done by the customer. 

Take an account that did a large wire transfer to Mexico for the first time. The AML Transaction Monitoring is screaming like a banshee – maybe there’s money laundering here? But after investigating, the team finds out the customer just has a daughter studying in Mexico, and this was to pay her tuition. 

Years ago banks knew these life stories, because everything was done at the branch. But now with digital transformation, banks have lost that superpower.

At Refine intelligence, our mission is to help banks regain that superpower of really knowing their customers’ life stories, so their financial crime teams can quickly clear AML or scam alerts triggered by legitimate customer activity. We work with Risk, Financial Crime, BSA and AML teams. Fraud teams look at our technology to help with scam operations.

How does Refine Intelligence solve this problem better than other companies?

Rivner: Refine Intelligence takes a unique approach for fighting Financial Crime – we call it ‘Catching the Good Guys.’ 

Think of someone who got married and now deposits a large amount of cash from wedding gifts. Or a couple withdrawing cash in order to pay for a big renovation project. Think of people starting a new cash-intensive job, or depositing money from a fundraiser. These are all legitimate activities that look abnormal, triggering transaction monitoring alerts. 

Refine discovers these sort of “life stories,” i.e. legit customer activities behind a flagged anomaly. There are two ways to do that:

The first is to ask the customer and Refine provides that capability through our Digital User Outreach which allows a bank to reach out to customers automatically and collect their explanation within minutes.

The second way is to train AI to recognize the life story behind an anomaly, without reaching out to the customer. Our Life Story Analytics does that, and the training uses our unique, proprietary data set of genuine explanations.

The outcome: clear, fast evidence that helps AML teams clear away falsely flagged anomalies by identifying the legitimate customer activity behind them. 

Who are Refine Intelligence’s primary customers? How do you reach them?

Rivner: We work with large to mid-sized banks who operate a big team of investigators to look into AML alerts. Refine helps those banks reduce their operational effort significantly without making any change in the Transaction Monitoring system. 

Our founders and senior management team have been working with financial crime units for decades, and we expand our reach via participating in events such as Finovate, as well as our own virtual events. 

Can you tell us about a favorite implementation or deployment of your technology?

Rivner: A Top 50 bank in the U.S. deployed Refine Intelligence to handle customer outreach for AML. Before using Refine, the AML team approached the branch when they couldn’t find a good explanation to a flagged anomaly. The branch tried calling customers, leaving messages and chasing them for answers. A district manager described the situation as “we are the punching bag of the AML team.”

After the bank started working with Refine, it became clear why the existing RFI (Request for Information) process was driving everyone crazy. The average time to complete a customer outreach was 16 days with 3.6 back-and-forth emails between the AML team and the branch, as initial responses were often insufficient. The process consumed resources that were better used elsewhere.

Refine Digital User Outreach automated the process by messaging customers through digital channels. Response time was cut from two weeks to two minutes, completely changing the game for the Operations team who could work on alerts without interruption, receiving quality responses. With an 85% answer rate, the digital process outperformed manual outreach. Data collected was structured and allowed analysis and benchmarking, and soon most RFIs (Requests for Information) turned digital using the Refine system. The AML team loves the new approach.

What in your background gave you the confidence to respond to this challenge?

Rivner: I’ve been fighting online fraud for 20 years in Cyota, RSA and BioCatch – which I co-founded. This helped me take an outside look at the way AML was operating and realize that the current paradigm isn’t sustainable.

Online fraud detection benefits from context-rich signals that go well beyond transaction monitoring, device analysis, geo-location or behavioral biometrics. These signals feed into AI that is trained using a huge pool of fraud cases, as victims report fraud in their bank account. But no one reports money laundering in their own account, and when a bank files a Suspicious Activity Report, they never get feedback from authorities. You can’t train AI to recognize bad guys without feedback, so the industry had to revert to anomaly detection. 

You can get more and more efficient in anomaly detection, but at the end of the day most of what you find is irregular activity in good people’s accounts. Any improvement in detecting bad guys is doomed to be marginal. And that’s not good – the industry needs a game changer… 

This brought the insight of reversing the focus, to “Catching the good guys,” that is, detecting the legit activities that were falsely flagged as anomalies.

What is the fintech industry like in Israel? What is the relationship between fintech startups and the country’s established financial services sector?

Rivner: Israel, widely known as the ‘start up nation,’ is a powerhouse of cyber, fintech and financial crime fighting. Many market-shaping startups grew up in Israel: Cyota, now RSA Outseer, was first to introduce risk-based authentication using device and geo-location analysis. IBM Trusteer was first to launch an anti-Trojan tech. BioCatch was first to leverage behavioral biometrics for online fraud and scam detection. Forter and Riskified pioneered the chargeback guarantee market in eCommerce, Simplex did the same in crypto, and DoubleVerify prevents fraud in the digital advertising market. The largest global player in AML is Nice Actimize, and companies like EverC and ThetaRay help acquiring banks and payment providers manage financial crime risks. This might explain why there’s a vibrant community of fraud fighters in Tel Aviv.

Interestingly enough, the local Israeli market has never been a big target for those innovators. Most Israeli Fintech startups work directly with global design partners, who recognize the disruptive, out-of-the-box thinking behind their technology.

You recently demoed your technology at FinovateEurope. What was that experience like?

Rivner: Demoing at FinovateEurope was fantastic! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to demo together with so many other innovative fintech companies, and to meet with banks that are looking to incorporate innovative technologies into their operations. The experience was very TED-like, professional, and the vibe was exciting.

What are your goals for Refine Intelligence? What can we expect from the company over the balance of 2023?

Rivner: Everyone we talk to is very excited about what Refine is doing. When showing our Digital Outreach capabilities, AML teams come up with so many ways to use it effectively – from automating requests of information for resolving transaction monitoring alerts to helping the line of business with Enhanced Due Diligence and Cash Structuring education. Fraud teams are particularly interested in digital outreach to potential scam victims, and it is a great way to conduct rapid investigations of incoming wire and check deposits.

But the biggest amount of interest is in our other bit of magic – Life Story Analytics. That’s where we train AI to recognize the legit customer activity behind a flagged anomaly, without reaching out to the user. Financial Crime teams are excited about the notion of keeping their AML transaction monitoring or scam detection models as is, despite the high degree of false positives, and letting AI sweep aside the legit customer activities so what’s left are the real unexplained anomalies that might be money laundering or scam victims. That’s going to be a major area of expansion for Refine.

Photo by Haley Black

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Finovate Global France: Ledger Scores, Burger King Goes Crypto, and French Fintechs Get Funded

Finovate Global France: Ledger Scores, Burger King Goes Crypto, and French Fintechs Get Funded
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Backbase, Finovate Global, Secfense, ThetaRay

This week’s edition of Finovate Global takes a look at the wave of funding that fintechs in France have received in recent weeks. The $108 million secured by hardware crypto wallet maker Ledger appropriately leads the pack. But there have been a handful of investments in a variety of French fintechs that are also noteworthy.

First up, though, it’s Ledger’s massive fundraising. The Paris, France-based crypto wallet designer and manufacturer announced that it raised $108 million in funding this week. The investment is part of the company’s Series C round and, as such, does not change Ledger’s $1.4 billion valuation. The funding does add to the $385 million the company raised in 2021.

Ledger’s latest investors are a lengthy list of new and existing backers. True Global Ventures, Digital Finance Group, and VaynerFund are among the new investors. Existing investors 10T, Cité Gestion Private Bank, Cap Horn, Morgan Creek, Cathay Innovation, Korelya Capital, and Molten Ventures are among Ledger’s existing investors who also participated.

“Today, Ledger announced our funding round. These funds will accelerate our mission to bring a new generation of secure consumer devices to hundreds of millions exploring critical digital assets and blockchain-enabled technology,” Ledger chairman and CEO Pascal Gauthier wrote in a blog post at the Ledger website.

Ledger demonstrated its crypto hardware technology at FinovateEurope back in 2016. The company currently offers three hardware wallets, Ledger Nano X and Ledger Nano S Plus, and Ledger Stax. The latter model, the company’s latest, was only recently announced and is scheduled to begin shipping to customers within the next few months.

The investment in Ledger is a reminder that France remains among the more crypto-friendly countries in Europe, if not the western world. U.S. based Circle, the company behind both USDC and Euro Coin, recently announced that it had chosen France for its European headquarters. This is just one reflection of the country’s openness to the cryptocurrency industry.

News that Burger King fast food restaurants in Paris will begin accepting cryptocurrency for payment may be another. The company has partnered with Instpower, who will deploy its power bank rental machines in Burger King’s Paris locations. The power bank rental machines are connected to a pair of cryptocurrency payment services – Alchemy Pay and Binance Pay. Now Burger King consumers will be able to get their Whoppers, charge their mobile devices, and pay in crypto all in the same place. The move is a boon for Instpower as it seeks to expand the popularity of power banks in Europe. The collaboration is also a clear win for crypto, which benefits from both the publicity and the convenient new use case for crypto holders.

Ledger is not the only French fintech scoring investor dollars this month. N2F, a French startup that offers business financial management software, raised $26 million (€24 million) in a round led by PSG Equity. A French fintech called Elyn that offers try-before-you-buy services raised $2.7 million (€2.5 million) in pre-seed funding in a round led by Headline and Sequoia Arc. On the financing front, B2B lender Aria secured a $53.3 million (€50 million) debt facility courtesy of M&G Investments. The funding added to the $21.7 million (€20 million) debt facility the company announced last year.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Poland’s Secfense joined the Cybersecurity program of Google’s Startups Growth Academy. Secfense demoed its passwordless authentication technology at FinovateEurope 2022.
  • Austria-based Finmatics secured $6.5 million (€6 million) in Series A funding for its technology that brings the power of AI to accounting and tax planning.
  • Swiss fintech Klarpay AG announced achieving profitability in its first year of operations.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Photo by Alessandro Bonanni

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Finovate Global Indonesia: Kredivo Raises $270 Million; Broom Scores $10 Million in Pre-Series A Funding

Finovate Global Indonesia: Kredivo Raises $270 Million; Broom Scores $10 Million in Pre-Series A Funding
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Temenos

Kredivo Holdings has raised $270 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Japan’s Mizuho Bank. Square Peg Capital, Jungle Ventures, Naver Financial Corporation, GMO Venture Partners, and Openspace Ventures also participated. Kredivo will use the funding to enhance its status as a digital financial service provider, particularly via online lending, credit cards, and its buy now, pay later offering. The company will also use the capital to power the launch of its neobank brand, Krom.

“The upcoming expansion into digital banking is deeply synergistic with the existing Kredivo product and also opens up a very promising channel for us to become the digital financial services platform of choice for tens of millions of consumers in Southeast Asia,” Kredivo Holdings CEO Akshay Garg said. “Finally, we are delighted to have Mizuho join us as a valuable investor and strategic partner.”

Formerly known as FinAccel, Kredivo Holdings operates a number of brands including its digital credit platform, Kredivo, which serves customers in Indonesia and Vietnam. Kredivo Holdings also maintains a bank entity, Krom Bank Indonesia (formerly Bank Bisnis Internasional). Most recently, the company announced that it is launching an Indonesia-based neobank called Krom.

The new funding takes Kredivo Holdings’ total equity capital to nearly $400 million, according to TechCrunch. Valuation information was not immediately available. Garg indicated to TechCrunch that the firm’s valuation has increased by 4x to 5x with each valuation round.

Last spring, Kredivo launched its Infinite Card. The offering is a virtual card that enables Kredivo customers to transact on e-commerce and online platforms using their linked Kredivo accounts. The Infinite Card can be used across all of Mastercard’s online merchant network.

Broom, an Indonesian firm that enables automobile dealers to secure short-term funding by using their car inventories as collateral, has raised $10 million in pre-Series A funding. The round was led by Openspace Ventures, and featured participation from MUFG Innovation Partners, BRI Ventures, AC Ventures, and Quona Capital. Broom will use the capital to diversify its product mix and “accelerate inventory turnover” for its customers.

The investment takes the company’s total capital to $13 million. Valuation information was not immediately available.

Founded in 2021 by CEO Pandu Adi Laras and CFO Andreas Sutanto, Broom launched its flagship service, Buyback, a year later. Buyback supports used car dealers in Indonesia who often struggle to secure financing. Laras noted that car dealers typically must wait until they sell enough of their existing inventory in order to raise the capital to acquire new inventory. Instead, with Buyback, dealers get access to short-term working capital via a temporary car sale service with a built-in repurchasing option. Rather than a loan, Buyback involves a temporary sale – including a change of ownership – after which the dealer can buy back the inventory “at a slightly higher price.”

With more than 5,000 used car dealer customers in Indonesia, Broom said that its technology has enabled dealers to triple their inventory size. Broom noted that the used car market in Indonesia is estimated to be worth $65 billion, with analysts expecting the market to grow to $70.3 billion by 2027.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

Middle East and Northern Africa

Photo by Tom Fisk

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Finovate Global Israel: From Innovations in Payroll to the Impact of Politics

Finovate Global Israel: From Innovations in Payroll to the Impact of Politics
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

Israel-based payroll and payments technology company Papaya Global unveiled its latest solution this week. The new offering, Papaya Global Payroll Payments, is a fully automated, embedded payments platform that facilitates global payroll processing and mass payments. The solution is designed to assist payroll vendors who typically outsource these payments to third party vendors who often are not best suited to handling payroll payments.

“Papaya Payroll Payments is a game changer, full stop.” Papaya CEO and co-founder Eynat Guez said. “No other company is offering fully automated, embedded payments designed for payroll. We are the first payroll payments company in the industry to help its clients navigate the needs of the local employee and the global employer.”

Papaya’s solution will also enable its customers to process payments faster given the fact that Papaya owns money transfer licenses globally and its technology is built specifically to facilitate payroll payments. The company said that payroll payments typically arrive within 72 hours, which it calls “an industry first.”

“We’re giving organizers with global workforces a true borderless solution for getting team members their payments quickly and accurately,” Guez said. “No more manual processes, no more late or inaccurate payments, no fees reaching the employees.”

Founded in 2016, Papaya Global maintains offices in Tel Aviv, New York, Austin, London, Kiev, Singapore, and Melbourne, Australia. Named to the Forbes Cloud 100 and CNBC’s Top Startups for the Enterprise, Papaya Global has raised more than $444 million in funding from investors such as Scale Venture Partners and Insight Partners.

E-commerce risk management platform Riskified announced late this week that it was pulling $500 million in cash and equivalents out of Israel. The move comes as concerns grow about a controversial judicial reform plan championed by the current government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The proposal would give the executive branch greater control over judge selection and limit the ability of the country’s Supreme Court to strike down legislation.

Riskified CEO Eido Gal was quoted by Reuters as fearing that the Israeli government might limit transfers and withdrawals of large sums should the financial situation in the country “continue to deteriorate.”

In addition to transferring funds out of the country, Riskified reported that it will expand hiring in its research and development site in Lisbon, Portugal.

Riskified was founded in 2012 and is based in New York. The company is publicly traded on the NASDAQ under the ticker RSKD and has a market capitalization of more than $940 million.

Learn more about the challenges currently faced by startups in Israel in this explainer from Crunchbase News. Note that Papaya Global, mentioned above, also moved funds out of Israel earlier this year, citing similar concerns about the country’s business climate and political uncertainty. Shuly Galili, founding partner at UpWest, a Silicon Valley-based seed investor that specializes in funding Israeli startups, was quoted as saying that passage of the judicial reform legislation would result impact “investments coming into the country, founders staying or not staying in the country.” Galili added that the new law could result in between $7 billion to $10 billion in funds leaving Israel.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • U.S. payment service provider i2c forged a partnership with UAE-based Mashreq.
  • Egypt-based Paymob announced a collaboration with streaming platform Shahid.
  • Crunchbase News featured Papaya Global in its look at the challenges faced by startups in Israel amid the country’s political turmoil.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based fintech unicorn Slice acquired a 5% stake in Indian bank North East Small Finance.
  • Pakistan fintech platform for the country’s trucking industry, Trukkr, raised $6.4 million in funding.
  • GrayQuest, the largest education-focused fintech in India, secured $7 million in new Series A funding.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexican fintech Bitso launched its Bitso Card payment solution in partnership with Mastercard.
  • Brazilian financial giant Nubank appointed former Meta executive David Marcus to its board of directors.
  • AI automation provider Esker partnered with Ecuador-based outsourcing and consulting specialist BPONE.

Asia-Pacific

  • Philippines-based Security Bank Corporation partnered with ACI Worldwide to enhance its real-time payment capabilities.
  • WeChat added digital yuan to its payment platform offerings.
  • Indonesia’s Bank BTPN teamed up with Surecomp for its trade financing platform Doka.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • A partnership between U.S.-based Clickatell and South African telecom Telkom will enable mobile messaging payments via WhatsApp.
  • Nigeria’s central bank issued new open banking legislation.
  • Diamond Trust Bank (DTB) teamed up with Mastercard in a strategic agreement that will enable banks to offer payment cards to fintechs in Kenya.

Central and Eastern Europe

Photo by Haley Black

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Finovate Global Ireland: Hiring Tech Talent, Banning ChatGPT, and Shining a Spotlight on Fintech in Northern Ireland

Finovate Global Ireland: Hiring Tech Talent, Banning ChatGPT, and Shining a Spotlight on Fintech in Northern Ireland
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, Salt Edge

Ireland’s Central Bank to Staff: No ChatGPT for You!

While organizations, institutions, and businesses of all kinds are scrambling to figure out how to best make use of generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, the Central Bank of Ireland already has staked out a position – at least for its employees.

Ireland’s The Business Post reported that the Central Bank of Ireland has banned its staff from using ChatGPT as part of its cybersecurity policy. The move was described to the newspaper as the implementation of “appropriate and relevant technical and organizational measures to ensure the on-going protection of the organization.”

The Irish Central Bank isn’t the only financial institution in the region giving ChatGPT the side eye. The Business Post reported that three of Ireland’s high street banks – AIB, Permanent TSB, and Bank of Ireland – are considering similar restrictions. The Central Bank’s decision comes just a month after JP Morgan and a number of Wall Street institutions including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America banned their employees from using ChatGPT for internal communications.

Bank of Ireland to Boost Tech Staffing

In roles ranging from engineering and cloud technology to cybersecurity and data, the Bank of Ireland announced that it will be hiring 100 new technology workers. The goal will be to have the new workers develop new customer features on digital channels, help the bank execute its cloud strategy, and protect consumers from cybercrime.

“We have some exciting digital projects underway across the Group, and we’re looking for talented specialists who want to drive improvements in the banking experience for millions of customers,” HR director for Group Technology & Customer Solutions, Eimear Harty said. “Banking is changing fast, it’s exciting, and these new positions will be at the forefront of advances in the sector.”

The staffing decision comes in the wake of the bank’s recruitment of 230 technology specialists since 2021. The Bank of Ireland was fined $26 million (€24.5 million) by the country’s central bank over IT deficiencies that took the Bank of Ireland more than 10 years to fix.

Taxback International Teams up with WTS Global on VAT Compliance

Irish VAT compliance specialist Taxback International (TBI) has forged a strategic partnership with global tax practice WTS Global. The company will leverage TBI’s Comply platform to power its VAT compliance services around the world. Comply will give WTS Global a supported and configurable compliance platform that uses complex, country-specific rules to keep businesses compliant when operating in different – and changing – markets and regulatory regimes. In addition to using Comply to power its VAT compliance service around the world, WTS Global will also promote the technology in its global partner network.

Taxback International CEO Karl Nolan called the partnership “a great endorsement for Irish fintech” and a testament to both the “talent and vision” in Ireland’s fintech industry. Founded in 1996, Taxback International is headquartered in Kilkenny. The company enables the real-time processing of more than 10 billion transactions across 180 countries. With “almost all” of the Fortune 500 among its clientele, Taxback International supports more than 12,000 customers in 129 countries.

A Look at the Rise of Northern Ireland’s Fintech Industry

Our sister publication, Fintech Futures, published a special feature on fintech in Ireland earlier this week. Sponsored by Invest Northern Ireland, the article discusses the way the region became a global hub for technology and financial services innovation in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The article also notes that the capital of Northern Ireland, Belfast, was “named a top three fintech location for the future” by the Financial Times in its 2019 Foreign Direct Investment Markets report.

“Today, there are roughly 46,000 people employed in the financial and related professional sectors in Northern Ireland,” the article noted. “In fact, Northern Ireland has the highest concentration of fintech employment in all of the United Kingdom.”

Read the rest.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Bank of Israel issued a framework to enable international payments firms to use its payment network.
  • Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) announced a partnership with anti-financial crime compliance company Napier.
  • Codebase Technologies teamed up with enterprise information technology company Saudi Business Machines.

Central and Southern Asia

  • Indian fintech CRED introduced both a Buy Now, Pay Later service and a Tap to Pay feature.
  • Yubi became the first fintech to offer an indigenous open source language model for Indian fintechs.
  • India-based BaaS platform Mintoak secured $20 million in Series A funding.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Thanks to an approval from Brazil’s central bank, Brazilians can now use WhatsApp to pay SMEs in the country.
  • Latin American open finance platform Belvo went live with its payment initiation solution, Bipa, this week.
  • Brazilian fintech Blipay raised $6.7 million.

Asia-Pacific

  • Singapore-based cross-border payments company Tazapay announced a partnership with payments gateway Volt.
  • Vietnamese fintech Gimo that helps workers get on-demand access to earned wages secured $5.1 million in Series A funding..
  • Shanghai Commercial Bank selected Salt Edge to build a bespoke banking experience based on open banking.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • MFS Africa announced a partnership with Western Union.
  • Cryptocurrency infrastructure provider Binance added support for African currencies including the Liberian Dollar, Gambian Dalasi, and Cape Verdean Escudo.
  • ImaliPay inked a deal with Renda to support order fulfillment for SMEs in Africa.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • German regtech Flagright announced a collaboration with Lithuania-based fintech kevin.
  • Tietoevry completed a major systems upgrade for Serbia’s Chip Card.
  • U.K.-based fintech myPOS partnered with Raiffeisen Bank to bring new payment technologies to businesses in Hungary.

Photo by Lukas Kloeppel

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Finovate Global Canada: Paytech M&A, Mobile Top-Ups, and New Rules for Crypto Exchanges

Finovate Global Canada: Paytech M&A, Mobile Top-Ups, and New Rules for Crypto Exchanges
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global, ThetaRay, Western Union

Canada Inks New Guidelines for Crypto Exchanges

In the wake of the FTX scandal and the so-called “crypto winter,” the Canadian Securities Administration (CSA) has issued a set of new regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges. The new guidelines involve both commitments to investor protection as well as a registration mandate. The mandate requires “crypto asset trading platforms” (CTPs) operating in Canada to provide a pre-registration commitment to Canada’s security regulators within 30 days – and begin a full registration process. Announced this week, CTPs in Canada will have until late March to comply. Those institutions that do not comply will not be allowed to legally serve Canadian clients. The regulations also institute a significant crackdown on the trading of stablecoins. Defined as “securities and/or derivatives” by the CSA in 2022, these digital assets can no longer be purchased or stored on cryptocurrency exchanges without written permission from the CSA.

“Recent insolvencies involving several crypto asset trading platforms highlight the tremendous risks associated with trading crypto assets, particularly when conducted on unregistered platforms based outside of Canada,” CSA Chair and Chair and CEO of the Alberta Securities Commission Stan Magidson said.

The new rules will undoubtedly make life tougher for cryptocurrency exchanges in the near-term. Nevertheless, the new regulations may provide more room for these businesses to operate than it may seem at first glance. From the multi-part registration process to the ability to secure permission to offer stablecoins, it seems clear that Canadian regulators are taking a relatively cautious approach to correcting the course of cryptocurrencies in the Great White North.

Ding and Western Union Bring Mobile Top-Up to Canadian Customers

The international mobile top-up platform Ding has teamed up with one of the leaders in the money transfer business. Ding has reached an agreement with Western Union that will enable customers in Canada to send international top-up payments to the mobile phones of more than five billion prepaid customers worldwide.

“We are thrilled to be teaming with one of the largest money transfer operations in the world,” Ding Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Rockett said. “The launch of Ding Checkout with Western Union will give consumers access to a complimentary service which they can use to support their friends and families around the globe. We are excited to unveil our capabilities as a digital value transfer platform and drive growth in both new and existing customers for Western Union.”

The partnership between Ding and Western Union will launch in Canada first. The partnership will give Western Union customers access to Ding’s network of more than 600 mobile operators across 140+ countries, covering 95% of the world’s population. The collaboration also gives Western Union customers a new way to add minutes and data quickly to their mobile plans.

Nuvei Completes $1.3 Billion Acquisition of Paya

At the beginning of the year, Canadian paytech Nuvei announced that it had agreed to acquire U.S. integrated payments and commerce solutions provider Paya for $1.3 billion. This week, Nuvei reported that the transaction has been completed.

“This is an important milestone for Nuvei as we continue to build a preeminent payment technology provider with strong positions in global eCommerce, Integrated Payments, and B2B,” Nuvei Chair and CEO Philip Fayer said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to officially welcome our new colleagues form Paya to the Nuvei family. We have been working diligently on our integration planning, and we are ready to begin the next step on this exciting journey as a single, unified team.”

Paya processed $50 billion in annual payment volume in 2022, with much of that amount coming from companies in verticals such as healthcare, non-profit, government, utilities, and other B2B end markets. Nuvei paid $9.75 per share for the NASDAQ-listed company, which went public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) FinTech Acquisition Corp III in 2020.

Headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Nuvei was founded in 2003. The company also made headlines this year in forging new partnerships with enterprise digital commerce platform VTEX, Colombian payment processor Redeban, and online business marketplace platform Le Panier Bleu.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Swiss software firm Netcetera acquired Slovenian mobile app and digital identity development company Kamino.
  • Saldo Bank launched in Lithuania.
  • Germany-based business financial management (BFM) company finway secured $10 million (€9.2 million) in Series A funding.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Remittance processor Remitly went live with its outbound remittance solution in the UAE.
  • Morocco-based fintech Gwala raised pre-seed funding to support its on-demand payment solution for employees and employers. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.
  • Saudi Arabia-based fintech Hala acquired UAE payments company Paymennt.com – previously known as PointCheckout.

Central and Southern Asia

  • India-based banking-as-a-service platform Decentro launched in Singapore this week.
  • Pakistani digital lending platform AdalFi announced a $7.5 million investment led by UAE-based COTU Ventures, Chimera Ventures, Pakistan-based Fatima Gobi Ventures, and Zayn Capital.
  • Indian payments solution provider PayU launched its 3D Secure 2.0 SDK.

Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Mexican mobile banking app Tudi selected ThetaRay as its AML/transaction monitoring partner.
  • Brazil-based fintech Celcoin announced its $16.3 million acquisition of open finance company Finansystech.
  • Refresh Miami interviewed Juan Pablo Jiménez, Chief Sales Officer of Ecuador’s first unicorn, Kushki.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • South African mobility fintech company, Planet42, raised $100 million in combined equity, debt, and a credit facility.
  • WorldStage profiled Nigeria-based Islamic fintech startup HalalVest.
  • Kenya-based micro-lender Power Financial Wellness secured $3 million in seed funding.

Photo by Andre Furtado

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Finovate Global Hong Kong: Digital Payments, Cross Border Partnerships, and New Leaders

Finovate Global Hong Kong: Digital Payments, Cross Border Partnerships, and New Leaders
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Finovate Global

Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) launched a new digital payments solution this week. The new offering, called HSBC Merchant Box, is designed to make it easier for SMEs to make international payments across regional and global e-commerce platforms using real-time exchange rates.

HSBC Merchant Box will be available to selected HSBC commercial customers initially. The technology is subscription-based and is fully integrated into HSBC Business Internet Banking. A range of fee options helps make the offering more affordable for businesses of different sizes and payment requirements. The company noted that it will extend the service to all customers in Hong Kong “in the coming months.”

Cross-border ecommerce is a significant factor in China’s external trade operations, HSBC Head of Commercial Banking Frank Fang explained. As a major regional trade hub, Hong Kong is seen as especially well-located to take advantage of the opportunity for greater and easier trade between companies in the area. HSBC Merchant Box also arrives at a time when there is greater travel between Hong Kong and mainland China due to the easing of COVID restrictions regionally.

“Simple and cost-efficient payment management solutions are key to the success of small- and medium-sized ecommerce merchants,” HSBC Managing Director and Regional Co-Head of Global Payments, Asia Pacific Yvonne Yiu said. “HSBC Merchant Box reduces the complexity of cash flow management for SMEs by giving them speed, control, and visibility on their international receivables and payments.”

Speaking of Hong Kong and payments, HK-based digital payment platform developer Yedpay announced a new partnership this week. Yedpay is teaming up with Venture Cap, the Thailand-based subsidiary of ASL Securities, as well as the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Easylink to help drive fintech innovation in the ASEAN region. “ASEAN” refers to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and includes Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Brunei.

The announcement was made as part of the 16th Asian Financial Forum (AFF). YedPay offers an open payment platform that helps merchants process credit card transactions and e-wallet payments in brick-and-mortar locations as well as online. The firm has played a major role in developing Hong Kong’s cashless market, and in helping Hong Kong’s taxi industry go digital. At the forum, Yedpay COO Beatrice Tai said that the company planned to expand its business across borders, with an initial stop in Thailand. Yedpay also expects to launch new diversified financial products and build an “ASEAN Payment Hub” that would connect markets in ASEAN, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China.

Co-founded in 2014 by Chief Operating Officer Beatrice Tai, Yedpay offers an all-in-one payment platform for merchants. The company’s solution supports multiple payment methods on a single device, giving customers greater flexibility when making payments and making the collection process easier for merchants. Yedpay is also known as The Payments Cards Group Ltd.

Hong Kong-based digital bank ZA Bank introduced new CEO and Executive Director Ronald Iu. He was appointed to his new position after serving as Chief Strategy Officer for Za Bank parent company ZA International in February 2022, and was subsequently promoted to Chief Risk Officer at ZA Bank. The banking and finance executive has more than 20 years of experience in the industry, having been chief executive at Airstar Bank, a General Manager and Executive General Manager at China CITIC Bank International Ltd, and CEO of HKCB Finance Ltd.

Iu takes the top spot from outgoing Rockson Hsu who was ZA Bank CEO for nearly four years. ZA Bank has not yet announced a new Chief Risk Officer.

One of the first virtual banks to be established in Hong Kong, ZA Bank received its license from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in 2019, publicly launched in 2020, and introduced its business banking services for local SMEs in 2021. The firm currently has more than 600,000 users.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Sub-Saharan Africa

  • Is Nigeria ready for a “cashless economy”? Techpoint Africa looks at the country’s attempt to redesign its currency as a cautionary tale.
  • Tempo France and Nairagram teamed up to enable remittances from the EU to 20 countries in Africa.
  • TechCabal reviewed the “State of Buy Now, Pay Later” in South Africa.

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Germany’s DekaBank will apply for a crypto custody license.
  • Lithuania-based iDenfy partnered with real estate auction platform Residenture to bring greater security to the Swiss firm’s onboarding process.
  • Germany-based B2B payments company launched its new B2B service MonduSell.

Middle East and Northern Africa

  • Sales and automation specialist InvestGlass teamed up with Arab Bank.
  • In partnership with Plug and Play Abu Dhabi, Emirates Islamic bank launched a new fintech accelerator program.
  • A partnership between Uber and HSBC will bring on-demand cashouts to unbanked drivers in Egypt.

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Asia-Pacific

Photo by Jimmy Chan

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Finovate Global Estonia: Partnerships, Fundraising, and the Fight Against Financial Crime

Finovate Global Estonia: Partnerships, Fundraising, and the Fight Against Financial Crime
By David Penn Posted on
Categories: Bankish, Crypterium, Finovate Global, MasterCard, Modularbank, TeamViewer

In this week’s edition of Finovate Global, we take a look at a handful of developments in Estonia’s fintech industry. With a population of more than 1.3 million, Estonia has the Baltic Sea to the west, the Gulf of Finland to its north, Latvia on its southern border, and the Russian Federation on its eastern flank. The Northern European nation achieved its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 following the “Singing Revolution” between 1988 and 1990. Estonia is considered a high-income economy per the World Bank, and has been referred to as a “Baltic Tiger” due to the country’s rapid growth.

First up is news on the regtech front. Estonian startup Salv announced that it recently secured a $4.3 million (€4 million) seed round extension. The funding was led by New York-based ffVC and featured participation from Germany’s G+D Ventures, as well as existing investors. Salv’s signature offering, Salv Bridge, is a real-time collaborative crime-fighting platform that leverages the power of its network to reduce non-compliance and combat financial crime. The company said that the funding will help accelerate development of its technology, as well as support Salv’s expansion into other markets, starting with Poland.

“The digitalization of the financial industry has resulted in an avalanche of financial crime, and the numbers are only projected to grow,” Salv CEO Taavi Tamkivi said. “Salv Bridge is proven to be effective against money laundering, sanctions, and fraud.”

The new funding takes Salv’s total capital raised to $8.2 million. Headquartered in Estonia’s capital city of Tallinn, Salv was founded in 2018. The company wrapped up 2022 with a pair of new partnership announcements – teaming up with Estonian-based banking platform Tuum and collaborating with greentech innovator Single.Earth.

Speaking of partnerships, Estonia-based identity verification and AML services provider Veriff announced a partnership with digital asset company Baanx. Veriff will provide identity verification services to the firm, enabling Baanx to confirm user identity during the onboarding process. Veriff’s technology can verify more than 11,200 government-issued identification documents from more than 190 countries and in 47 different languages.

“Cryptocurrencies are disrupting the world of finance, and the crypto industry has evolved dramatically over the past few years,” Veriff COO Indrek Heinloo said. “However, transactions between users are generally anonymous and instantaneous, providing more opportunities for fraudsters and criminals looking to evade conventional anti-money laundering controls. And right now, fraud rates for crypto transactions are at an all-time high.” Heinloo added, “it has never been more important for online banking platforms that offer crypto services to be several steps ahead of these bad actors.”

Veriff was founded in 2015 and is based in Tallinn. The company has raised more than $192 million in funding from investors including Tiger Global Management and Alkeon Capital, who led the company’s Series C round in January of 2022. Also this month, Veriff announced the appointment of Javier Ortega as the firm’s new Chief Revenue Officer.

In recent years, Finovate has showcased a handful of Estonian fintechs. Among the Finovate alums that call Estonia their home are: Bankish, which demoed its technology at FinovateEurope 2020; Modularbank, which made its Finovate debut at FinovateEurope 2019; and Crypterium, which demoed its technology at FinovateFall 2018. At FinovateEurope 2023 next month, we will feature our latest Finovate alum from Estonia: call center performance management software provider, Ender Turing. Learn more about our upcoming fintech conference, FinovateEurope, March 14 through 15 in London, at our FinovateEurope hub.

Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.

Asia-Pacific

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central and Eastern Europe

  • Tech.eu profiled Germany-based connectivity platform, Team Viewer, and its new partnership with global consumer goods company Henkel.
  • Lithuanian regtech firm AMLYZE teamed up with fraud prevention company Ondato.
  • Turkey-based fintech Papara reached 15 million users, ranking the firm among Europe’s largest neobanks.

Middle East and Northern Africa

Central and Southern Asia

Latin America and the Caribbean

Photo by Marlene Leppänen

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