The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Thursday 25 January 2024 serves up the latest partnerships, funding updates and appointments.
Funding and investments
Mondu, the B2B payments company, has raised an additional €30million in debt financing from German bank Vereinigte Volksbank Raiffeisenbank (VVRB). Mondu secured €20million from VVRB in October 2022; the increased credit facility provides Mondu with €50million in addition to earlier equity investments. The company has raised more than €115million since launching in October 2021. The capital enables Mondu to continue its growth across Europe and support further expansion plans.
ModernFi has closed an $18.7million Series A funding round to bring its tech-forward platform to community and regional banks to help them grow, retain, and manage their deposits. Led by Canapi Ventures, the Series A also had participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Remarkable Ventures and banks Huntington National Bank, First Horizon and Regions. This round adds to a $4.5million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
HeavyFinance, a climate tech investment marketplace, has financed €50million in agricultural loans across Europe. This significant sum has been allocated across the current markets where HeavyFinance operates, including Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal. The €50million has been distributed across almost 1,700 different projects, fostering connections.
Company updates
Revolut, the global financial super app with more than 35 million customers worldwide, has launched Mobile Wallets, a new option for sending money abroad. Revolut customers in the UK and most European countries can send money to Bangladesh (bKash), and Kenya (M-Pesa) using Mobile Wallets, with other wallets routes expected to be launched soon. Customers can send money abroad using only recipient IDs such as their name alongside their phone number or email addresses.
Partnerships
Spanish fintech ID Finance has closed a strategic partnership with Meeting Pros, a platform for online legal, medical and veterinary advice. Thanks to this alliance, Plazo’s customers will have free access to legal, medical, and veterinary consultations through the app.
Ingenico, a payment acceptance and services company, forges a strategic partnership with Cybersource, Visa’s agnostic global payment and fraud management platform. The partnership will create a global unified commerce solution for use in Asia Pacific first, followed by other regions. The partnership integrates an Android application developed by Ingenico under the AXIUM platform with the Cybersource open payment platform.
Mastercard and The Clearing House (TCH) have extended their multi-year partnership, bringing the companies together to collaborate on innovative capabilities for consumers, businesses and governments to evolve and embrace the digital economy through real-time payments (RTP) adoption on the RTP® network. The partnership continues Mastercard’s role as the exclusive instant payments software provider for TCH’s RTP network.
Appointments
Adam Seale joins Chip, a UK wealth management business, as non-executive chair. He leaves financial adviser firm Schroders Personal Wealth, where he was an independent non-executive director since its founding in 2019. Previously, Seale was also CEO of Interactive Investor for five years.
Bread Financial, a financial services company, names Allegra Driscoll as executive vice president and chief technology officer. Driscoll joins from American Express, where she most recently served as SVP, chief information officer of the global commercial services unit.
Sycurio, a provider of seamless and secure multi-channel payment experiences for contact centres, appoints Denise Parker as its new CEO, replacing outgoing CEO Nick Viney. The company is placing further focus on international success and enhancing customer and partner relationships across North America.
BlueSnap, a provider of global payment solutions, welcomes Sharon Weiss as general manager, Israel and EVP of R&D. Weiss appointment comes as long-standing GM, Israel and EVP of R&D, Meir Gefen, retires from the role following nine years with the company. Most recently Weiss was CTO & GM at Minute Media for eight years.
Fenergo, a provider of digital solutions for KYC, transaction monitoring and client lifecycle management, has appointed Andrew Brandman as chief customer officer (CCO). He will oversee all post-sale functions from client onboarding to software implementation, adoption and customer success while executing on Fenergo’s client-centric strategy. Brandman joins from Salesforce.
Hub71 announces Ahmad Ali Alwan has transitioned from deputy CEO to CEO. Alwan’s appointment comes amid senior leadership moves internally, including the appointments of Basma Ahmed AlBadi AlDhaheri as head of value creation, Hashem Al Kaabi as head of operations and corporate services, Mohammed Alkhoori as head of marketing and communications, as well as Peter Abou Hachem as head of growth and strategy.
More appointments
R3, the enterprise distributed ledger technology (DLT) and services firm, launches new DLT product suite and appoints Kate Karimson as chief commercial officer. Karimson joins R3 following leadership roles at CME Group, BrokerTec and LedgerEdge. The new suite of end-to-end digital solutions helps firms to adopt and drive value from digital assets and digital currencies.
Unicoin Inc., the asset-backed public reporting company that addresses the volatility of the crypto market, appoints Jay Derenthal as strategy advisor to the CEO. As founder of Abzon Labs, a cryptocurrency project management consultancy, Derenthal brings experience as an advisor to multi-billion-dollar cryptocurrency projects and as a deal flow provider to prominent crypto venture capital funds.
DNA Payments Group, an independent, integrated omnichannel payments company, hires former head of unified commerce from Adyen, Jan-Pieter (JP) Lips as its new CEO. Lips is responsible for DNA Payments’ next period of growth as the company continues to develop and provide simple, unified payments into fast growing vertical market sectors such as restaurants and specialist retail.
Kroll, the independent provider of global risk and financial advisory solutions, continues its global strategic growth plans in Europe, the Middle East and Africa with the appointment of Elena Moisei as a managing director within the firm’s Luxembourg portfolio valuation practice. Moisei joins from EY.
Defaqto, a source of financial product and market intelligence, names Sally Boyle as chief sales officer. As CSO, Sally Boyle will help clients leverage Defaqto’s products and services, to deliver customer value and maximise commercial benefits.
Risk and data science consultancy Jaywing welcomes Ben Archer as lead consultant. Prior to joining, Archer spent two years at Provenir. Archer also spent 12 years at FICO, an analytics company. Jawing said it had ‘pursued Archer for years’ because of his extensive knowledge across all aspects of fraud.
