Welcome to The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 24 August 2023.
Appointments
Andaria, a digital payment provider and licensed e-money institute, has named Sarah Oliva as its chief operating officer. Prior to her appointment, Oliva served as head of operations at Maltese credit institution AgriBank PLC. Oliva will manage all internal and external stakeholder relationships to drive rapid business growth.
Sonny Patel joins Socotra as chief product and technology officer. She will be responsible for leading the company’s product and engineering teams alongside product architect Matt Hamilton, who leads Socotra’s platform strategy and product design.
Celerway, a provider of business-grade mobile connectivity, has named technology stalwart Marianne Styrman as chief operating officer. Styrman is responsible for Celerway’s operations and management strategy as it continues its growth and innovation across the international market. Styrman was most recently the CEO of Last Mile Solutions.
Pie Insurance, a tech-enabled provider of workers’ compensation insurance to small businesses, makes four new appointments. Carla Woodard is promote to vice president of claims, Jaime Gillam-Swartz joins as vice president of customer services and operations, Arash Sadati as vice president of data science, while Kris Bagchi joins as vice president of reinsurance.
Global assurance partner LRQA unveils Ian Spaulding as its new CEO. Current CEO Paul Butcher, has decided to step down but will support the organisation in an advisory capacity to the board. Butcher says he leaves the company on track to achieve its best-ever sales and revenue results.
More appointments
EBANX, a specialist in payment solutions for rising economies, appoints two vice presidents to lead its technology and governance initiatives. Kalecser Kurtz takes over the position of VP of product and engineering. While Valério Zarro takes on the position of VP of governance, risk and compliance. The appointments also follow the arrival of Fabio Scopeta as chief product technology officer earlier this year.
Mambu, the cloud banking platform, has appointed Fernando Zandona as CEO. After serving as interim CEO since June – having previously held the role of chief product and technology officer at Mambu – Fernando will now spearhead the business as it enters its next phase of growth. Before joining Mambu in 2022, he was general manager of AWS Fargate and Amazon Linux.
Graham Meinke is now chief product and innovation officer of employee benefits technology company Zest. Zest’s employee benefits platform offers flexible benefits services for a wide range of businesses across the world, including Hargreaves Lansdown, Taylor Wimpey, ADP and Travis Perkins.
Meanwhile, F2 Strategy, a wealth management technology services company, has welcomed Laura Korbel as president. F2 has recruited Korbel to propel sustainable expansion and growth following the establishment of F2 Strategy’s new corporate headquarters in the Chicagoland area.
Funding and investments
e& capital has invested in Maxbyte‘s $5million Series A financing round. The funding aims to expedite Maxbyte’s growth by bolstering the sales team, refining the go-to-market strategy and partnerships, as well as scaling projects across new geographies and industries.
British Business Investments announces a new £20millionTier 2 capital facility for Cambridge & Counties Bank Limited. Funds raised from the facility enables Cambridge & Counties Bank to increase its volume of competitive lending to smaller businesses over and above levels it might have otherwise been able to provide.
Craftgate Technology, a ‘one-stop shop’ payment orchestration platform, has bagged $1million investment from D-MARKET Electronic Services & Trading, a Turkish e-commerce platform, as well as D4 Ventures, a UK-based venture capital company. This investment enables Craftgate to embark on further growth as well as marketing opportunities.
Partnerships
Payment solution and infrastructure provider Paynt and SoftPOS technology provider Softpay have announced a strategic partnership to meet the demand for contactless payment acceptance solutions. This collaboration aims to empower independent software vendors and merchants to develop cost-effective and efficient payment acceptance solutions that seamlessly integrate with their existing or newly-built software.
GoCardless, the bank payments company, has renewed its strategic partnership with Xero, the global small business platform, for another five years. The agreement builds on a long-term relationship which started in 2016, focused on helping small businesses get paid faster. For GoCardless this also represents a doubling down in the accountancy space, a key sector for the fintech as it executes on its ambitious growth plans.
UK fintech Zorrz has partnered with Swedish fintech Sileon to integrate new BNPL functionality into its flagship BlueAccess credit card, providing consumers with more payment choice and flexible access to credit when they need it. The partnership launches in Q4 2023.
TradeStation Securities, the self-clearing online brokerage for trading stocks, ETFs, options and futures, has announced its integration with Unusual Whales, an option flow platform and information service. As the first major US multi-asset class broker dealer integrated into the Unusual Whales platform, TradeStation provides users with market access and trading within their suite of tools.
International fintech provider Equiti Group has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Qatari holding company MK Enterprise. Built upon a mutual commitment to increase Qatar’s access to world-class solutions, this partnership is aimed at fostering innovation as well as driving meaningful growth.
More partnerships
Meanwhile, Ebury has forged a four-year FX partnership with Fulham FC. Ebury becomes the preferred service for all Fulham FC and Jacksonville Jaguars UK FX transfers. Ebury becomes the preferred service for all Fulham FC and Jacksonville Jaguars UK FX transfers.
Insurtech Lumera has agreed with Nordic life insurance and pension provider Nordea Liv to deliver a new solution for managing the company’s life and pension insurance portfolio in the Norwegian market. While the Lumera platform is deployed, current legacy systems will be phased out.
True Digital Group has teamed up Ncontracts. The partnership provides banks and credit unions with a ‘more robust and comprehensive vendor management and optimisation solution’. Through this partnership, True Digital and Ncontracts will collaborate closely on their complementary solutions to enhance the structure and organisation of vendor information, benefiting their financial institutions.
BlueVoyant has appointed Jon Leather as head of European supply chain defence advisory. He will assist in its delivery of a managed service that identifies, validates, prioritises and confirms mitigation of cyber threats and vulnerabilities across supplier ecosystems.
Mergers and acquisitions
auxmoney, a digital lending platform for consumer credit in Europe, has completed the acquisition of the majority share in the Dutch consumer credit marketplace Lender & Spender. With this step, auxmoney builds upon its continued organic growth over the past years and expands its international reach as well as its
product range. The parties agreed that valuation details will not be disclosed at this stage.
Claire Woffenden
