The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 25 July 2023 brings news of a new chief risk officer for N26 and funding success for UK SME bank Ampere.
Fintech movers
Steve Suarez has joined the Hoptroff board of directors. He is the former global head of innovation, global functions at HSBC. Suarez will play a pivotal role in exploring new areas for growth and expansion. He will also look to establish strong connections with executive stakeholders and corporate partners.
Digital bank N26 today appoints Carina Kozole as chief risk officer and managing director of N26 AG. She will begin in her new role later this year, and will assume responsibility for risk management. Most recently, she held the position of senior VP and head of credit risk operations (Europe, Americas, Asia) of HypoVereinsbank – UniCredit Bank AG in Germany.
MotoNovo Finance has expanded its senior leadership team with three senior external appointments. Leanne Christmas joins as conduct and business risk director, Alice Sweet becomes product and proposition director, while James Gearey is named interim commercial and performance director.
Finery Markets has appointed Tom Gould as director of strategic partnerships, as part of an ongoing effort in building a new senior leadership team. Gould has more than 25 years’ experience in the financial industry including senior roles at Bank of America, Credit Suisse and ABN Amro.
Fintech Broadridge Financial Solutions has named Karin Yorfido as president of Broadridge Canada. Yorfido succeeds Michael Dignam who becomes vice chairman of Broadridge Canada, taking on an advisory role. Since 2021, Yorfido has held the role of general manager of GTO Canada.
National law firm TLT has appointed Chris Elwell-Sutton as partner in its data, privacy and cybersecurity team in London. He joins from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce where he led the privacy programmes in the Europe and APAC regions. Elwell-Sutton also previously worked for AXA, OSB Group and Deloitte.
More job news
TransUnion has a new chief product officer for the UK – Kelli Fielding. She will focus on product innovation, leveraging TransUnion’s global capabilities and maximising key partnerships. Fielding has worked at the business for more than two decades, most recently in the role of head of consumer interactive internationally.
Tradefeedr, an independent FX data analytics platform, welcomes Georgia Frett as head of client engagement. Frett is responsible for building the community of liquidity providers (LPs), buy-side clients and trading platforms. She joins from The Finance Hive.
Channel has hired Nate Hartley (formerly of Barclays, Crowdz and Advance Global Capital) as its new head of origination for the Americas. Hartley will help source partnerships between the alternative investment fund manager and fintech lenders across the UK.
Investment bank Oppenheimer has welcomed Sean Minnihan to its global technology investment banking team in New York as a managing director and head of financial technology investment banking.
Minnihan has over 25 years of experience within fintech and has advised on M&A, private equity and capital-raising transactions for clients across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America.
Episode Six (E6), a provider of payment processing and ledger infrastructure, appoints Brian Muse-McKenney as chief revenue officer. He will help drive E6’s global growth and expansion of the customer base. Muse-McKenney will also help enhance E6’s digital and marketing strategy.
Swee Lian Teo is stepping down from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) at the end of August. Teo has served on the DFSA’s board for six years. It said she has played a key role in the innovative and progressive regulation the DFSA.
Funding and investments
Ampere, a UK-based neobank for SMEs, has raised £1million in seed funding at a valuation of £17million. The investment comes from a group of five funds and private investors. The company plans to expand its service offerings and partner network. It also plans to enter the European market in July 2023. In addition, the funds will contribute to scaling up customer acquisition efforts and enhancing brand awareness.
Neobank bunq secures an additional €44.5million in growth capital, bringing the total capital injected into bunq this year to nearly €100million. This fresh capital will help the bank further accelerate its international expansion and continue its growth. Current investors Ali Niknam, Pollen Street Capital and Raymond Kasiman joined the round and committed to an investment valuation of €1.65billion.
Cosmic Wire, a Web3 and blockchain solutions company, has completed a series seed round raising $30million. Led by investors Solana Foundation and Polygon, the round will help ‘propel’ its decentralised applications. In addition, Cosmic Wire has been selected as a participant in Google Cloud‘s Web3 startup programme, prior to its official launch.
Kandle.xyz, a crypto fantasy GameFi project from Singapore, announced a $1.7million seed round led by Saama. The funding will be used to develop the platform further and expand its user base. Kandle has established its presence in Indonesia, Vietnam, Nigeria, and India and also plans to expand its footprint across Asia and North America.
Partnerships
DIGISEQ, the wearable payments tech firm, has teamed up with Caged Steel, the UK-based MMA promotion, to bring a multi-purpose wearable contactless fobs. Utilising DIGISEQ’s mobile personalisation service RCOS™, Caged Steel can provide fans with a branded wearable fob linked to an account with UK neobank Curve. Users can access their ticket, purchase future tickets as well as stay up to date with in-app voting, news offers and promotions.
Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange, has partnered with Cointracking, a crypto tax platform. This strategic collaboration aims to revolutionise the way Bitget users manage their cryptocurrency taxes while also expanding their trading opportunities with innovative products like copy trading.
Sabre56, a provider of mining operations services and a digital asset mining consultant, has bagged a five-year agreement with Bootstrap Energy to provide miner operations at the 300MW Saxet Energy Park. Saxet Energy Park has the capacity to host approximately 100,000 ASICs from blue-chip miners.
IDEX Biometrics has announced a partnership with an Azerbaijani bank to bring biometric payment cards to Eastern Europe. The bank operates across Azerbaijan and collaborates with a network of international banks and institutions.
More partnerships
Clausematch has partnered with RiskInk, a New-York boutique risk management consultancy. By forming an introducer partnership, both Clausematch and RiskInk will be able to benefit from the customer referrals of one another, highlighting the expertise and technology where applicable.
Tymit, a player in the instalment credit industry, forges a partnership with Visa. The collaboration aims to expedite the adoption of instalment credit amongst large financial institutions and merchants in the UK and Europe by enabling them to offer co-branded and white-labelled instalment credit programmes powered by Tymit.
There’s also a partnership for e& enterprise and Tap Payments. The partnership utilises Tap’s network of merchants and financial institutions and e& enterprise’s digital payment platforms and technologies to deliver “pioneering solutions that provide numerous advantages for businesses”.
Claire Woffenden
