This Week in Fintech: TFT Bi-Weekly News Roundup 16/04

The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup on Tuesday 15 April 2024 serves up the latest industry movers and partnerships.

Appointments

Stearns Bank, a financial institution committed to innovation and inclusivity, appoints Marlice Johnson as chief brand officer,  while Maggie Rivera assumes the role of vice president of corporate social responsibility and inclusion. Steans says it welcomes their expertise, leadership and commitment to excellence as it looks to meet the evolving needs of its customers and communities.

Brite Payments has welcomed Luke Trayfoot as chief commercial officer, leading the Stockholm-headquartered fintech’s commercial efforts, driving revenue growth and market expansion plans. The appointment of the former PayPal and Mangopay executive signifies a new phase in Brite’s journey as it accelerates its growth in markets across Europe.

Consulting at Davies (formerly known as Sionic), a specialist financial services consultancy, has made three senior hires as part of its international growth. Peter Keaveney joins as a partner and head of the North American asset and wealth management practice, Roshni Patel appointed as principal consultant, while Matt Lonsdale has taken up a position as a director.

Indian fintech BharatPe has promoted Nalin Negi to CEO after held the positions of interim CEO and CFO. Under his leadership, BharatPe recorded 182 per cent increase in revenue from operations in FY23 and clocked October 2023 as the first EBITDA positive month. BharatPe will look to recruit a new CFO.

Additional appointments

FE fundinfo, an investment product information and technology company, has named Joerg Grossmann as its new chief product officer. Grossmann brings more than two decades of experience across a broad range of senior leadership roles at major global financial institutions, tier one strategy consultancies
and financial technology firms.  Most recently, he was chief product officer at Allfunds, a B2B wealthtech platform.

Cloudera, the data company for enterprise AI, appoints Charbel Khalil as Qatar’s new country manager. The move supports Cloudera’s expansion in Qatar and its digital transformation initiatives. Kalil holds a BA in computer science, an MSc in econometrics, and also recently completed a MSc in artificial intelligence.

Funding and investments

Bridgewise, the AI-based analysis platform for global securities, has completed a $21million funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $35million. The round was led by SIX Group with participation also from Group11, L4 Venture Builder, and other global financial institutions. It will use the new funding to accelerate market penetration and growth.

The Code Registry, an AI-powered code intelligence and analysis platform, has closed its seed funding round, incubated at the Mission Capitalist Club in the US and led by private technology investors including Michael M. Carter (founder and CEO, BizEquity), Michael Sanchez (CEO, Savanna Inc and co-founder of Finxact), and former Internet Capital Group MD John Loftus and with participation from other leading private investors within the software and fintech industries..

Partnerships

Ozone API, the global open banking company, has teamed up with Thistle Initiatives, the compliance consultancy. Their strategic partnership aims to help financial institutions get ahead of the upcoming third payment services directive (PSD3) and achieve open banking compliance. They intend to maximise their partnership by also announcing a webinar series in the second quarter.

Adaptive Financial Consulting, the electronic trading technology solution company, has partnered with KCx, Kepler Cheuvreux’s execution division, to create an event-driven trading system based on Aeron® and its own Hydra technology. The long-term collaboration provides KCx with a new equities platform that enables clients to observe and manage KCx’s execution flow through a single interface.

Innovate UK and the British Business Bank have further strengthened their collaboration by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU). As partners dedicated to fostering innovation and growth of UK businesses across the country, this new collaboration will see the two organisations working even more closely together to co-create new opportunities to promote investment and to support UK businesses through better tailored offerings.

Finastra has integrated AI-powered ESG (environmental, social and governance) scoring capabilities into its working capital solution, Trade Innovation. The integration, with CoriolisESG by TradeSun, enables users to book and manage trade and supply chain finance with the added benefit of automated insights into ESG scoring. This results in greater understanding of the sustainability of trade and helps organisations to better monitor and manage their impact.

Snowdrop Solutions, a provider of advanced transaction enrichment solutions, has joined forces with PwC Middle East to bring its Transaction Enrichment API to banks and payment providers in the Middle East. This collaboration offers banks and payment providers an opportunity to leverage Snowdrop’s technology together with PwC’s expertise, to deliver top-notch customer experiences and drive operational efficiencies.

More partnerships

Celeris, a provider of payment orchestration solutions, has unveiled a strategic technical integration with PXP Financial, a payment service provider. This integration empowers merchants leveraging Celeris’ services with access to PXP Financial’s payment methods, which span traditional card payments, Apple Pay and Google Pay, alternative payment methods, and emerging digital wallets. Moreover, the integration introduces advanced security features.

Company updates

Digital bank Zopa has reported its full year of profitability. Zopa Bank swung to a pre-tax profit of £15.8million for the financial year ending 31 December 2023 from a pre-tax loss of £26million for the year ending 31 December 2022. While total operating income for the same period to 31 December 2023 was £222million, up 47.8 per cent year-on-year. Zopa’s customer base also grew to over one million.

Tuum, a next-generation core banking provider, is expanding into the Middle East market and will also create a regional headquarters at ADGM in Abu Dhabi. The move to expand into the Middle East follows Tuum’s recent Series B funding round led by CommerzVentures, with follow-on investment also from Citi Ventures.