Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 7 March 2024 for the latest global fintech updates.
Funding and investments
Nuke From Orbit, a fintech startup based in the UK, has raised £500,000 in a pre-seed round to take its product to market. The funding comes from several UK-based companies and investors, including Oliver Bridgen, co-founder and COO of specialist FX broker Ballinger Group, and Jordan Hallows, founder of Wey Bridging Finance.
RemotePass, the HR and fintech platform that helps companies onboard, manage, pay and retain remote workers, has secured $5.5million in Series A funding. The oversubscribed funding round was led by 212 VC with participation also from Endeavor Catalyst, Khwarizmi Ventures, Oraseya Capital, Flyer One Ventures, Access Bridge Ventures, A15 and Swiss Founders Fund.
Yuno, the global payments orchestration platform, has secured $25million from a consortium of prominent investors, including DST Global Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Tiger Global, Kaszek Ventures and Monashees. Funds raised in this Series A round will help further strengthen Yuno’s operations in North and South America and enter new markets in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Partnerships
Zeta, a provider of next-gen card processing solutions to banks and credit unions, has forged a partnership with Sparrow Financial to power the most modern credit card programme in existence for non-prime customers. Sparrow went from concept to launch in under eight months by leveraging Zeta’s pre-integrated credit card stack.
Intention.ly, the growth engine design consultancy firm for finserv and fintech companies, has teamed up with Nitrogen, a provider of integrated risk tolerance, proposal generation and portfolio analytics software for wealth management firms. This marks Nitrogen’s selection of Intention.ly as an official marketing partner, affording joint customers exclusive pricing on Intention.ly’s marketing services and empowering Nitrogen’s financial professionals to reach a broader audience.
ZILO, the UK-based fintech specialising in global asset and wealth management software, has signed an agreement with Fidelity International, a global investment and retirement savings business, to deliver ZILO’s cloud-based transfer agency platform as part of its private assets business operating model. This follows Fidelity International’s venture capital team investment in ZILO as part of its £25million Series A funding round.
Appointments
PPRO, the local payments platform, has announced the appointment of three new senior leaders across legal and compliance: Selene Brett as chief legal, risk and compliance officer, Marc Kuzak as legal director, and Massimiliano Conte as compliance director. PPRO says their collective expertise will be invaluable as it expands its global footprint and drives innovation through its strategic partnerships.
First Internet Bank has strengthened its small business administration (SBA) lending team with the appointment of Craig Simon as VP and senior business development officer. He joins First Internet Bank from Pilot Bank and Lake Michigan Credit Union, where he supported the banks’ SBA lending and commercial relationship management operations.
Optty, a global payments technology company headquartered in Singapore, has expanded its executive team and board. Marie-Elise Droga, a global payments and customer data analytics expert, joins the board, while Steve Ritchie is named EVP and chief product and information officer.
Finastra appoints Mike Stawchansky to the role of senior vice president, chief technology innovation officer. Working in the office of the CEO, he is responsible for Finastra’s customer technology and innovation initiatives. He joins Finastra from Collibra, a privately held data intelligence platform.
Socure, a provider of artificial intelligence for digital identity verification, sanction screening and fraud prevention, has welcomed Christian Woodward as its new chief revenue officer. Woodward will lead Socure’s worldwide go-to-market efforts, growth, solution consulting, technical account management and customer success teams. He was previously senior vice president and general manager at Chainalysis.
New products and services
Cashfree Payments, an Indian payments and API banking company, has introduced ‘Embedded Payments’, a platform centric payment solution for software platforms. This solution equips software platforms with the tools to facilitate seamless payment experiences for businesses. Cashfree Payments recently became one of the first online payment providers to receive the Payment Aggregator licence by the RBI.
TomoCredit, a fintech startup expanding credit accessibility for millions of Americans, today announced that it is offering TomoScore to businesses – a cash flow-based credit score that provides lenders a risk-free way to identify high-quality borrowers with limited or no credit history.
Nuvei, the Canadian fintech company, has unveiled enhancements to its payment platform, an advanced network tokenisation solution that enables its partners to benefit from smoother, more efficient, and more secure transactions in their online checkouts.
