Delve feet first into The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 21 November 2023.
Appointments
Zirtue, the relationship-based IOU app with a mission to drive financial inclusion, has appointed Airion Watkins-Clark as chief product officer. Prior to his current role, he was the VP of customer experience and product at Zirtue. His team is working on a facelift for Zirtue’s mobile app to deliver a more visually enticing design and a more positive user experience.
FinCrime Dynamics, the financial crime prevention AI company, has welcomed Joanne Dewar to its board. Dewar is the former CEO of Global Processing Services (GPS), now Thredd. FinCrime Dynamics’ flagship SaaS platform Synthetizor empowers financial institutions to generate financial crime simulations and custom synthetic data to train machine learning.
Intention.ly, the growth engine design consultancy firm for fintech companies, announces Kyle Hiatt as partner and head of sales consulting. Hiatt will oversee the development of a new sales consulting division aimed at helping financial services firms refine their sales efforts and better align with their marketing counterparts. Hiatt previously worked at Orion Advisor Solutions.
Trade fintech provider MonetaGo is adding Robyn Dittrich, David Rutter and Arnau Porto as board members. Porto, founder of Greentrail Capital and CEO of GTAC, is named executive chairman. Dittrich is VP of global operation programmes at BHP. Rutter is CEO of R3. As newly appointed chairman, Porto will help steer the company to achieve its global objectives.
More appointments
Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) names Matthew White as its new CEO. White has over 20 years of global advisory experience, including his current position as a partner at PwC. Incumbent CEO Henson Orser will remain in a consultative role.
SHUAA Capital, an asset management and investment banking platform appoints Wafik Ben Mansour as acting CEO. He will lead the next phase of SHUAA’s capital optimisation process to create a growth platform and capitalise on market opportunities in the UAE and wider region. Mansour joined SHUAA in May 2023 to lead the company’s advisory and capital markets platform, which serves clients across the MENA region.
The FairLife Charity, a charity committed to promoting fair trading in finance, has welcomed Paul Marsden. He previously worked at the Harpenden Building Society and St Albans District Chamber of Commerce. Additionally, he co-founded Shocklogic Global Limited, a software house focused on event management solutions.
Partnerships and collaborations
Fintech DKK Partners has appointed Centropy PR to lead its global communications strategy amid rapid expansion. Founded in 2020, DKK Partners provides high quality FX payments services to SMEs in emerging markets across Africa and the Middle East.
Cardlytics, an advertising platform in banks’ digital channels, has partnered with Monzo to deliver targeted promotions and cashback rewards to customers across the UK. The partnership will enable the digital bank – to deliver cashback rewards for customers with daily targeting based on consumer spending and location, ensuring clear personalisation to drive value for customers and sales for brands.
European paytech Nexi has extended its partnership with Microsoft, first announced in July 2022. The expanded partnership sees Nexi integrate its digital payment solutions (in-store and online) within Microsoft solutions. ISVs can provide SMEs and enterprises with vertical management solutions for integrating omni-channel payment acceptance within purchasing experiences as well as business management tools.
Alba Bank adopts nCino Cloud Banking Platform for SME lending.
Meanwhile, payments platform Paysafe has extended its collaboration with Visa to integrate Visa Network Tokens, as an alternative to primary credit and debit card account numbers. The new valued added Network Tokenisation Service adds an additional layer of protection for cardholders without impeding the user journey, resulting in a “seamless payments experience and higher authorisation rates”.
More partnerships
NowNow, an African fintech, has teamed up with PlanetPlay, the climate-conscious game marketplace, to launch an EcoDonate platform that enables an African audience to seamlessly support PlanetPlay’s African environmental projects aiming to offset carbon emissions through the NowNow app. NowNow users can also receive green coins that can be used in the PlanetPlay marketplace to purchase a variety of items.
BBVA Switzerland has expanded its partnership with Metaco, as the bank seeks to accelerate its digital asset offerings to institutional clients. As part of the extended relationship, BBVA Switzerland successfully migrated its digital assets operations to the latest version of Metaco’s institutional-grade digital asset custody and orchestration platform, Harmonize™, consumed in a software as a service (SaaS) model.
Prepay Nation, a global B2B prepaid products marketplace, has unveiled a strategic partnership with Loyyal, which applies blockchain technologies to boost loyalty and incentive programmes. This partnership offers businesses access to a range of prepaid products and redemption options. It also aims to enhance customer engagement and take loyalty programmes to the ‘next level’.
Meanwhile, Form3, the cloud-native account-to-account platform, is providing Klarna, the AI-powered payments network and shopping assistant, with SEPA connectivity to bolster its customer offering in Europe. The new agreement sees Form3 providing Klarna with direct technical access to STEP2 and RT1 via its cloud-based, single API account-to-account platform. This enables Klarna to process payments directly.
There’s also a partnership for insurtech bolttech and LOTTE HIMART, one of the largest electronic goods retailers in South Korea. Powered by bolttech’s embedded insurance technology, a new home appliance switching service enables LOTTE HIMART customers to replace items purchased online as well as 350 offline stores via a dedicated new digital journey.
Company updates
Morpheus Software Technology (trading as Fuze), a digital assets infrastructure provider in MENA, has has received approval from Dubai’s Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) for a virtual asset service provider (VASP) licence. This VARA licence enables Fuze to offer regulated virtual asset activities for broker-dealer services.
Payment24, the global payments platform provider, has invested in Switzerland-headquartered Inergy 24, a European-based technology service provider. The businesses will collectively provide customers throughout Europe access to the Payment24 platform, such as payment, fleet management, mobile and retail, loyalty, electric vehicle (EV), and Cloud Switch solutions.
