The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 20 February 2024 brings you the latest updates from the global fintech industry.
Industry movers
Fintech and social purpose lender Salad Money has appointed Bernard de Barbeyrac to the role of chief data officer. He joins after nearly eight years with Funding Circle UK where he was global head of decision science. Salad Money hopes he will play a key role in its ability to make fair, accurate and rapid lending decisions.
Airtime Rewards, a marketing technology and customer loyalty platform, hires Annika Fuchs as head of international expansion. Reflecting the business’ commitment to overseas growth the role will initially focus on building strategic relationships across Europe, building upon Fuchs’ eight years of experience in partnerships, performance marketing, and loyalty programmes.
Mashreq, one of the leading financial institutions in the MENA region, has named Alsalt Mohammed Al Kharusi as its country head of Oman. In his new role, Al Kharusi will lead Mashreq Bank’s strategy and operations in Oman, optimising the bank’s performance, and ensuring compliance with local and international standards.
Jumio, a provider of automated, end-to-end identity verification, risk assessment and compliance solutions, names Igor Beckerman as chief financial officer. He was most recently the CFO at Newsela, and also held senior leadership roles at Precise Software Solutions and Symantec.
Encompass Corporation, a global provider of real-time digital know your customer profiles, has appointed Job den Hamer, former CEO of CoorpID, as head of business development to bolster its mission to revolutionise KYC with corporate digital identity. Most recently, he conceptualised and grew CoorpID within ING’s innovation network before its acquisition by Encompass last month.
Personetics, the AI-based personalised engagement solutions company, welcomes Udi Ziv as CEO. Ziv succeeds company co-founder David Sosna, who is stepping down after leading Personetics through 13 years of global growth. His background spans both entrepreneurial ventures and overseeing large-scale operations such as SAP, NICE and Earnix.
More appointments
RedCompass Labs, a payments modernisation company, has appointed Trevor LaFleche as head of product and Kellie Johnson as SVP for the Americas. LaFleche, formerly of SWIFT, Temenos and Fiserv, offers strategic insights into market dynamics. Johnson previously had stints at Payments Canada, Citi, Finastra and National Bank of Canada and advocates for creating value and exceptional client experiences in the payments space.
Sylvera, a carbon data provider, has named Adrienne Gormley as its new chief operating officer. Gormley leads Sylvera’s operational teams and strategic initiatives. She has previously worked at global technology companies, including Dropbox and Google. Most recently, she was the CEO and co-founder of Setforth, an acquisition and growth SaaS company and was also the COO of N26.
Ruben Salazar Genovez, recently the global head of Visa Direct, is named president of TerraPay, a global money movement company. At TerraPay, Salazar Genovez is responsible for defining the company’s strategic vision for global expansion as well as the development of its payments infrastructure and non-card network capabilities.
Pepper Advantage, a global credit intelligence company, appoints Aaron Milburn as UK MD. Aaron will lead Pepper Advantage’s UK business, which manages a portfolio of £20billion in assets under management, effective immediately. He takes over from Gerry McHugh, who is retiring following a transitional period.
Crystal, a blockchain intelligence firm focused on compliance and risk monitoring for cryptocurrencies, appoints Navin Gupta as its new CEO. Gupta, who joins from Ripple, takes over from Marina Khaustova, who moves into the new position of chief operations officer. Under Gupta’s guidance, Crystal will look to significantly expand its presence in the UAE and Asia, while building out an office presence.
Funding and investments
Embea has completed its seed funding round, raising a total of €4million. The round was led by Atlantic Labs and astorya.vc. Other notable investors include Jamie Hale, founder and CEO of Ladder, Daniel Khachab, founder of Choco, as well as Michael Cassau, founder of Grover. Embea will use the proceeds to expand its pan-European Embedded Life Insurance platform and add new insurance products to its portfolio.
Juniper, a new reproductive healthcare insurance provider, has raised £1.5million. The pre-seed funding was led by Insurtech Gateway and also supported by 2100 Ventures, Exceptional Ventures, and Heartfelt. The investment will fuel Juniper’s growth by facilitating product development as well as team expansion, supporting its pilot phase with customers before its official launch.
Pulsate, a provider of mobile-first engagement solutions, has bagged $7.75million in Series A funding, led by TruStage Ventures and Curql Collective. The company plans to use this round of funding to further accelerate this growth trajectory, as well as support expansion of staff and resources.
API-first fintech Monite has secured a $6million top-up round, bringing its total seed funding to $16million. The round was co-led by Valar Ventures and Third Prime, with continued support also from existing investors. The company intends to use the funds to consolidate its position as a European embedded finance leader and to expand its footprint in the US.
Partnerships
Nottingham Building Society has partnered with MQube to incorporate MQube’s AI-driven mortgage origination platform into its existing infrastructure. MQube is a mortgage technology company that owns lender MPowered Mortgages. The platform called Origo is focused on speeding up the underwriting process and delivering speedier and stress free mortgages to borrowers using the power of AI.
Global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) has formed a strategic alliance with Pactio, a platform that provides the digital architecture for private capital. A&M will utilise Pactio’s secure platform architecture to help clients mitigate transaction risk, drive productivity, as well as improve data retention.
Floki, the cryptocurrency, has unveiled a strategic partnership with the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals Busan 2024. This collaboration will witness the Floki and TokenFi names resonate through the hallowed halls of table tennis history as they partner with the oldest and most prestigious table tennis tournament in the world.
Canadian investment aggregation platform Wealthica has joined the NayaOne Tech Marketplace. With a network of over 150 financial institutions, Wealthica offers Canada’s largest banking, brokerage, and investment aggregator. Wealthica is known for its investment tracker with over 50,000 users as well as $33billion in aggregated assets.
Adyen, the financial technology platform, and Billie, the B2B payments innovator, have joined forces to let Adyen’s customers enable B2B BNPL payments services. By partnering up with Billie, Adyen helps merchants and their business customers tackle everyday hurdles in B2B commerce.
Ecospend, a Trustly Company, has teamed up with ITV Win to launch an open banking-only competition on itv.com/win. The competition gives ITV viewers the opportunity to win £10,000 and will be one of the first times people in the UK can only pay to enter a competition via Pay by Bank. Free postal entry is also available.
