Finextra, Posted October 6, 2022

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has launched an ESG Hub designed to spur collaboration between fintech startups, financial institutions and other stakeholders. The hub will focus on building Singapore’s ESG ecosystem through supporting fintechs in the field; anchoring “enablers” such as investors, knowledge partners and financial institutions; and backing stakeholders to drive “material, quantifiable impacts”.

MAS says it already has 15 ESG fintechs and organisations set up at the hub as it builds up an onsite community that will ultimately boost financial sector access to high quality climate and sustainability data.

The hub will also act as an anchor for sustainability initiatives such as the Point Carbon Zero Programme run by MAS and Google Cloud, and KPMG’s ESG Business Foundry

#Fintech

Fintech Futures, Posted October 5, 2022

Paytech firm Xendit has laid off 5% of its employees in Indonesia and the Philippines, citing uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment.

Xendit’s chief operating officer and co-founder, Tessa Wijaya, says the decision is a difficult one but is “necessary for business sustainability and growth”.

She adds that the affected employees will receive “suitable compensation” alongside additional benefits including extended health insurance, psychological assistance and help in finding a new job.

Xendit currently has more than 900 employees, according to a recent Forbes report. The move comes just a few months after the company raised $300 million in a Series D funding round led by Coatue and Insight Partners, which brought the total capital raised by the start-up to $538 million

#Paytech

Bloomberg, Posted October 6, 2022

China’s mobile payment giant Alipay was removed from a high-tech company list in Shanghai, adding to the woes at billionaire Jack Ma’s fintech operation. 

Alipay.com Co. failed to meet the spending requirement for research and development, according to a government notice on Sept. 8. The removal could revoke certain tax benefits. 

The Shanghai-based payments unit only accounts for a fraction of the R&D expenditure at parent company Ant Group Co., which allocated more than 18.8 billion yuan ($2.6 billion) last year for research, according to a statement from the firm.  It’s the latest setback after Ant’s record initial public offering was torpedoed by the government on the eve of its planned 2020 debut. The firm has been restructuring itself to meet the demands of Beijing, including ramping up its capital base and preparing to apply for a financial holding company license

#Fintech

Europe

Finextra, Posted October 6, 2022

Fintech industry body Innovate Finance is launching a new Startup Academy to help the UK community of early and mid-stage founders and CEOs generate grwoth. The Programme will include a series of face-to-face and online events to provide industry insights, practical knowledge and tangible support on key business areas such as investment, talent, marketing and PR, building the right Board, partnerships and customer acquisition.

It will also support early stage FinTechs in broadening their overall connections across the fintech ecosystem.

Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance, says: “If the UK is to continue as the global leader in fintech, we all must work together to support these early stage founders and provide them with the tools, insight, and connections necessary to thrive, as they will be the high growths and unicorns of the future. These next generation companies will play a key role in shaping the next chapter of financial services.”

#Fintech

Finextra, Posted October 3, 2022

Dublin-headquartered NoFrixion, a business payments startup co-founded by a bitcoin Core developer, has snagged €3.6 million in a funding round led by Delta Partners and Middlegame Ventures.

The funding comes soon after NoFrixion’s public launch of its MoneyMoov API, which bridges legacy and digital infrastructure to future-proof business payments.

Aaron Clauson, co-founder and CTO, explains: “The technical vision behind NoFrixion is to support merchants with today’s payment networks – predominantly cards and bank transfer – while being ready for the networks of the future, which will be based on digital wallets stored on customer’s mobile devices.”

For developers the NoFrixion MoneyMoov API can allow them to incorporate multiple payment options covering cards, open banking – including Sepa and FasterPayments – and Bitcoin Lightning in a single API.

#Payments

Crowdfund Insider, Posted October 5, 2022

ABN AMRO is introducing ID & pay, the app that “replaces cumbersome onboarding and payment processes with a single online identification and payment functionality within the bank’s own secure environment.”

In a pilot partnership, the bank and Swapfiets are “working together to offer new and existing customers a way to sign up and pay for their Swapfiets membership in a matter of seconds, making the onboarding and payment process vastly more efficient.”

ID & pay, developed by ABN AMRO, “allows users to store their ID securely and also make payments in a single app.”

#Payments

Crowdfund Insider, Posted October 5, 2022

With Request to Pay (RTP), invoices may be “displayed at the online bank account and settled directly via an automatically generated payment notification in the future.” DZ BANK relies on PPI AG‘s white-label platform PAYCY  “for the implementation.” DZ BANK and PPI AG are “launching a joint initiative to revolutionize European payments.”

To achieve this, PPI AG is “developing the request-to-pay platform PAYCY for the European financial industry.” It enables “a seamless link between invoicing and payment.”

DZ BANK will “offer the RTP service to its customers and the cooperative banks and will not only be the first users, but will actively participate in the development and pilot it to market maturity.” Payment requests can be “created in real time from an invoice. The process is based on the Europe-wide RTP approach.”

#Fintech

Crowdfund Insider, Posted October 5, 2022

Bank North, a UK hybrid bank that only gained its banking license in late 2021 is calling it quits, according to multiple reports.

Bank North co-founder Richard Baker posted on LinkedIn this past week that the challenger bank “has failed to raise the capital it needed to progress from its ‘AwR’ banking license to become a fully regulated bank.” Baker stated that he left the bank as a manager over a year ago.

Baker said he learned of the decision via a letter from the Board Chair Ron Emerson. At the beginning of 2022, it was reported that Bank North had commenced its lending operations leveraging a unique model of physical pods, aiming to deliver loans up to 10x faster than traditional banking firms. The pods would house lending specialists and decision makers to quickly provide credit to regional economies – a segment of banking management believed was underserved

#Payments

Banks risk losing 89% of SME business to fintech challengers

Finextra, Posted October 5, 2022

MoneyGram has acquired a 12% stake in Jingle Pay as part of a wider partnership with the UAE-based financial superapp targeting the region’s huge expatriate community. The UAE hosts nearly nine million expatriates, constituting approximately 89% of the population, making the country a powerhouse for outbound remittances.

The partnership means that these people can use the Jingle Pay app – powered by MoneyGram’s global payment rails and near real-time capabilities – to send money to over 200 countries and territories around the world.

Alex Holmes, MoneyGram chairman and CEO, has joined the Jingle Pay board as chairman to help guide the firm’s path.

#StartUp

Finextra, Posted October 5, 2022

Mastercard has launched a platform to help card issuers assess the security risks of cyrpto purchases, encompassing a global network of 2,400 exchanges.

Mastercard’s Crypto Secure combines insights and technology from CipherTrace with proprietary information to help card issuers better assess the risk profile of crypto exchanges or other providers and decide which purchases of cryptocurrency to approve.

Rather than considering or employing a one-size-fits-all approach, which could potentially restrict legitimate activity, issuers will be able to identify and turn away transactions with crypto merchants prone to fraud.

Ajay Bhalla, president of Mastercard Cyber and Intelligence, says: “Crypto Secure will provide card issuers with a platform that allows them access to insights which will improve the safety of crypto purchases, increasing consumer confidence and creating the same trust they expect when paying with Mastercard.”

#Mastercard

Mastercard and Visa face UK corporate card interchange class action suit

Finextra, Posted October 5, 2022

Visa and Mastercard are facing a class action lawsuit in the UK seeking compensation for businesses charged Multilateral Interchange Fees (MIFs) for accepting payments using corporate credit cards. Commercial litigation law firm Harcus Parker has brought the claim at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), the UK’s specialist judicial body for hearing competition cases.

The suit claims that Visa and Mastercard have forced banks to agree to a level of MIFs set by the two giants, which are “anti-competitive and unlawful”.

Since 2015, EU law capped MIFs at 0.3% on consumer credit card transactions, and 0.2% for consumer debit cards. However, this cap did not apply to corporate credit and debit cards or for inter-regional transactions

#Fintech

Swift finds role as global hub for CBDCs and tokenised assets

Finextra, Posted October 27, 2022

Financial messaging network Swift has released the results of a trial that allowed digital currencies and assets to flow smoothly alongside, and interact with, their traditional counterparts by bridging between different distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks and existing payment systems

In a milestone pilot test, Swift, in collaboration with Capgemini, achieved CBDC-to-CBDC transactions between different DLT networks based on popular Quorum and Corda technologies, as well as fiat-to-CBDC flows between these networks and a real-time gross settlement system.

Tom Zschach, chief innovation officer at Swift says that the success showed that the blockchain networks could be interlinked for cross-border payments through a single gateway, and that Swift’s new transaction management capabilities could orchestrate all inter-network communication.

#Fintech

US fintech funding round-up: Brightflow AI, Inclined and Remofirst

Fintech Futures, Posted September 30, 2022

Brightflow AI, a fintech platform enabling small businesses to control their cash flows and make data-backed decisions, has raised $19 million in funding.

It consists of a $15 million Series A led by Haymaker Ventures and a previously unannounced $4.2 million seed round led by Bonfire Ventures.

Brightflow has also secured $100 million in debt financing from i80 Group. With the new funds, the company plans to further develop its platform, recruit more staff, and provide more growth opportunities to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Using AI and machine learning, Brightflow’s platform can forecast sales, automate cash flow management, and provide real-time cash flow analysis “at a fraction of the time and cost” for business owners.

#Fintech

The Fintech 250: The most promising fintech companies of 2022

CBI Insight, Posted October 4, 2022

Financial messaging network Swift has released the results of a trial that allowed digital currencies and assets to flow smoothly alongside, and interact with, their traditional counterparts by bridging between different distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks and existing payment systems

In a milestone pilot test, Swift, in collaboration with Capgemini, achieved CBDC-to-CBDC transactions between different DLT networks based on popular Quorum and Corda technologies, as well as fiat-to-CBDC flows between these networks and a real-time gross settlement system.

Tom Zschach, chief innovation officer at Swift says that the success showed that the blockchain networks could be interlinked for cross-border payments through a single gateway, and that Swift’s new transaction management capabilities could orchestrate all inter-network communication.

#Fintech

Finextra, Posted September 30, 2022

Mastercard has joined forces with fintech Inswitch to launch embedded payments and issuing programmes across industries in Latin America. Embedded banking and payments player Inswitch will start issuing cards as a Mastercard principal member in Mexico, with plans to expand to other Latin American markets.

Ronald Alvarenga, CEO, Inswitch, says: “Now our clients can issue branded cards to support different use cases: digital wallets, Buy now pay later, supplier payments, working capital for corporate expenses or cash management necessities; among others.”

In addition to the issuing programme, Inswitch and Mastercard will work together to offer an agnostic platform supporting different types of businesses: Business-to-Consumer, Business-to-Business, Consumer-to-Business

#Payments