Аsia
Indonesian POS startup bags $12m in Intudo-led series B round
Tech in Asia, Posted January 26, 2023
iSeller, a point-of-sale (POS) startup based in Indonesia, has raised US$12 million in a series B funding round led by Intudo Ventures, with participation from KVision, Mandiri Capital Indonesia, and Openspace Ventures.
With the deal, iSeller also completed its acquisition of local payment gateway Yukk.
Founded by Jimmy Petrus in 2016, iSeller offers various services to help business owners manage sales and operations. They include POS systems, digital payments support, and inventory management, as well as integration with online marketplaces and food delivery platforms.
The company said its platform connects clients with Indonesia’s top four marketplaces: Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada, and Blibli.
#POS
Strike Expands “Send Globally” to the Philippines, Providing Lightning-Fast Money Transfers
Business Wire, Posted January 31, 2023
Strike, which claims to be the world’s “leading” digital payments platform built on Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, announced the expansion of its “Send Globally” product to the Philippines.
Send Globally now “enables fast, secure, and low-cost money transfers between the U.S. and the Philippines, revolutionizing traditional cross-border payment services.”
The Philippines is “one of the world’s largest remittance markets and its people and economy rely on more than $35 billion annually in money sent from abroad, including more than $12 billion from the U.S. alone.”
Strike has partnered with Pouch.ph in the Philippines, “enabling transfers from U.S. dollars that are received as Philippine pesos in a recipient’s bank or mobile money account in the Philippines.”
Jack Mallers, Founder and CEO of Strike, said:
“Remittances are a broken system and Strike delivers an incredibly empowering experience for people to send money around the world in nearly an instant. We’re excited to partner with Pouch.ph to advance financial inclusion and bring fast, low-cost cross-border payments via the Lightning Network to the Philippines. Our technology allows us to both improve on the existing cross-border experience and include those that have previously been excluded by legacy payment rails”
Strike uses the Lightning Network “to make digital payments faster, cheaper, and more accessible for people globally, particularly in countries with a high number of unbanked individuals.”
#Fintech
Singapore’s Trust Bank taps FIS for real-time payments
Fintech Futures, Posted February 1, 2023
Singapore’s first digitally native bank, Trust Bank, has selected US paytech giant FIS to enable real-time payments for its customers.
Trust Bank will make use of FIS’ Open Payments Framework offering to facilitate all its payment transactions, including traditional and real-time payments.
FIS says its cloud-native solution will make payments “safer and faster” for Trust Bank’s customers, as well as allow the bank to scale its payment volumes as it grows its business.
Tarun Punjabi, product lead at Trust Bank, says: “The FIS solution will help us to process payments in a way that is scalable and creates a seamless digital experience for our customers’ everyday banking activities.”
#Payments
BNPL: India’s BharatX, Snitch to Offer “SnitchPay”, Consumers Empowered with a Buy Now Pay Later Option
Crowdfund Insider, Posted January 31, 2023
BharatX, an emerging white labelled credit enabler for e-commerce merchants, has announced its partnership with Snitch – an online men’s clothing brand to offer buy now pay later services.
Through the “SnitchPay” feature powered by BharatX, customers will be able “to pay for their purchases in three instalments, instead of paying the entire amount at once, with no extra added cost or interest, bringing affordability and convenience to the customers.”
Snitch was founded in 2019 as “a B2B men’s apparel brand, which later ventured into the D2C and e-commerce fashion industry with 30 products in June 2020.”
It offers over 2,500 styles of fast-fashion apparel, “featuring formal wear, party wear, leisure wear among others.”
Snitch is “one of BharatX’s partners enabling BharatX’s white-labelled BNPL option on its checkout.”
BharatX will offer Pay-In-3 feature to Snitch buyers “via a Shopify plug-in.”
The customers will only need “to pay one-third of the total billing amount at the time of payment; the remaining amount can be paid over two months.”
#Payments
Europe
JPMorgan Plots Germany Consumer Bank in Next International Foray
BNN Bloomberg, Posted February 1, 2023
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is planning to launch a digital bank in Germany as its second international consumer outpost, a move that will create a launchpad for the biggest US bank to further expand in Europe.
The launch is slated for late next year or early 2025, and the firm expects to target other EU countries after that, according to people familiar with the plans. JPMorgan has been hiring in Berlin as part of the effort, and intends for the German capital to be its base for EU consumer operations, the people said, asking not to be identified as the plans aren’t public.
New York-based JPMorgan made its first consumer foray beyond US borders in late 2021 with a digital-only retail bank in the UK offering checking accounts. The firm plans to introduce credit cards to that platform as soon as this year, followed by personal loans, the people said. A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment on its international consumer expansion plans.
#Digital Bank
UK Fintech Paysend Remains Focused on Making Financial Services an Enabler to Business Growth
Crowdfund Insider, Posted January 31, 2023
Alexander Budyakov, Enterprise Business Executive, Paysend, notes that the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic continues “to disrupt markets and supply chains whilst inflationary pressures and fluctuating currency markets are complicating cross-border trade.”
As a result, the need “for clear, consistent, and effective financial services systems has never been more imperative in enabling larger businesses to operate effectively in today’s globalized world,” Alexander added. He also mentioned that the ability “to make payments quickly, affordably, and easily is the foundation on which these businesses depend.”
Despite this, traditional business financial services “continue to provide barriers to large enterprises looking to trade and expand globally,” Alexander noted while noting that scaling financial services effectively “alongside business growth, having the financial ability to enter new markets and the speed and cost of making payments continue to provide significant challenges for larger businesses.”
#Paytech
UK to roll out more shared banking hubs
Finextra, Posted January 30, 2023Finextra, Posted Posted February 9, 2023
Nine new shared banking hubs are to be opened across the UK as the country’s high street lenders push ahead with further branch closure programmes. Each Hub provides basic banking services including counter services run for the major banks by the Post Office, and dedicated rooms where customers can see community bankers from their own bank. Community bankers at the hubs work on rotation, with a different banking provider available on each day of the week.
The UK’s top banks clubbed together in December to incorporate an independent non-profit company, Cash Access UK, to fund the development of the Hubs, against a political outcry over the disappearance of physical sites in rural communities.
There are currently four Hubs up and running in Brixham (Devon), Cambuslang (South Lanarkshire), Cottingham (East Riding of Yorkshire) and Rochford (Essex)
#BankHub
Barclays replaces branches with semi-permanent banking pods
Finextra, Posted January 31, 2023
Barclays is adapting its physical footprint in response to declining customer branch usage, opening semi-permanant banking pods in locations with high footfall, including shopping centres and retail parks.
Barclays already has the largest network of alternative branch formats – Barclays Local – with 200 opened by the end of 2022. The bank says it will open an additional 70 in the first half of 2023.
Under this model, the bank works with local councils and communities to arrange a presence in places such as town halls and libraries, offering in-person banking support. Barclays Local staff provide face-to-face assistance, alongside free digital skills workshops and fraud and scams awareness events for the community.
Currently, the format offers a way of remaining in places where there is no longer enough demand to support a traditional branch. The model will now be expanded and introduced into areas without an existing Barclays presence.
#Banking Pods
TransUnion Announces Investment in Bud to Drive Innovation in Open Banking
IBS Intelligence, Posted February 1, 2023
TransUnion has announced a strategic investment in Bud Financial Limited, a key player focused on Open Banking and data intelligence.
This dynamic partnership will “help drive innovation and growth in the personal finance market and support better outcomes for consumers, with greater financial inclusion.”
Open Banking plays “an increasingly key role in facilitating innovation in the world of personal finance and automated income verification.” It allows finance providers “to better verify the income of applicants, including those who may not have a detailed credit history, or have had trouble accessing credit previously, and offers an alternative to manual, often resource-intensive processes.”
Satrajit “Satty” Saha, CEO of TransUnion in the UK, said:
“TransUnion is committed to increasing financial inclusion by continuing to expand the information available to create an accurate and reliable picture of each consumer. This strategic investment marks the start of an exciting new partnership with Bud, combining our global infrastructure and insights expertise with Bud’s end-to-end Open Banking platform. This will allow us to grow our Open Banking offering and jointly develop the next generation of credit, affordability and fraud solutions.” Headquartered in the UK, Bud helps its clients “to turn complicated financial data into services that accelerate growth.”
#Open Banking
USA
Embedded banking player Treasury Prime raises $40m
Finextra, Posted February 1, 2023
Embedded banking platform Treasury Prime has raised $40 million a Series C funding round led by BAM Elevate.
The Banc Funds Company, Invicta and existing investors Deciens, QED and SaaStr joined the round.
Treasury Prime’s API suite and embedded banking products is used by firms to connect to a network of 16 banks, enabling them to offer a range of financial services.
The firm will use the new funding to build out its bank network, launch a marketplace offering and broaden its market presence.
Chris Dean, CEO, Treasury Prime, says: “Embedded banking is remaking and modernising the financial services industry.
“It provides banks lower-cost deposits, enhances product offerings and expands their footprint while enterprise clients benefit from increased satisfaction, higher retention and lower cost of capital.”
#Banking platform
Credit Cards Expected to Account for Nearly $10 Trillion in Spend Globally by 2027: Report
Crowdfund Insider, Posted January 30, 2023
Juniper Research defines credit cards as a payment instrument which allows consumers as well as cardholders “to borrow money to pay for products and services, and make deferred payments for their purchases in exchange of monthly interest based on the amount owed.”
As noted in a report by Juniper Research, “the premise of credit cards is simple; most commonly, it entails a revolving credit, which enables cardholders to access to a limit set by the card issuer instantly and allows them to carry their balance forward month-to-month in exchange of a small fee.”
Others, such as secured and cash line credit cards, “let users borrow money against the cash deposits they made, which serve as their card limits and on one-time cash basis upon an agreed pre-set limit respectively.”
#Credit cards
Fintech Firm ViewTrade Reports Steady Growth, Anticipates Continued Momentum in 2023
Crowdfund Insider, Posted February 1, 2023
ViewTrade, the force that powers fintech, announced extensive client growth over the course of 2022 as the firm continues to expand, “now serving financial services firms in 26 countries.”
Culminating in the launch of a carrying broker services offering in December, 2022 was a year of tremendous growth for ViewTrade as its client base “increased by more than 35% and total accounts powered by ViewTrade technology increased more than 200% from October 2021 to October 2022.”
Tony Petrilli, CEO of ViewTrade, said:“While ViewTrade started out more than 20 years ago as a provider of brokerage services to retail-focused, international financial firms, as the industry evolved, so did we – embracing fintech to incorporate into our offerings. Today, we offer a fully integrated suite of solutions that include cost-effective technology, support and brokerage services. Our growth in 2022 is a testament to the dedication of our team and the partnerships we have formed with our clients. And it’s only the beginning as we look ahead to even greater things in 2023.”
#Fintech
LatAm
Binance, Mastercard Introduce Prepaid Crypto Card in Brazil
Crowdfund Insider, Posted January 31, 2023
Binance and Mastercard are excited to announce the launch of Binance Card in Brazil.
Brazil is among “the top ten markets for Binance globally and becomes the second country in Latin America to have the product, following its release last year in Argentina.”
The prepaid card is “part of the ongoing efforts toward evolving the bridge between existing financial services and the growing crypto ecosystem.” The card is “in its beta launch phase and will be widely available in the coming weeks.”
The Binance Card issued by Dock will “allow all new and existing Binance users in Brazil with a valid national ID to make purchases and pay bills with cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and BNB, at over 90 million Mastercard merchants worldwide, both in-store and online.”
Users can “enjoy a seamless transaction in which their cryptocurrencies are converted to fiat currency in real-time at the point of purchase.” One of the perks “includes up to 8% cashback in crypto on eligible purchases and zero fees on ATM withdrawals (although please note that third-party services and network fees may apply) .” Binance cardholders will be “able to manage their cards through the card dashboard on the Binance App and website.” Users will also be “able to view their transaction history and access customer support via the card dashboard.”
#Mastercard
