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Allica Bank enlists ClearBank to boost business banking for UK SMEs
ClearBank, a company that provides integrated banking services and real-time clearing for financial institutions, today announced a partnership with Allica Bank, a fintech bank dedicated to supporting small businesses. Small and medium enterprises based in the UK.
Allica Bank was established to serve established UK SMEs (companies with 10-250 employees) and to provide them with on-demand, human support. powered by the latest banking technology, which has left SMEs struggling to get from the big banks. It offers business-appropriate checking and lending products, powered by state-of-the-art lending technology, such as instant, automated decision-making for business mortgages. business. It aims to be the right bank for established businesses over the next decade and after significant growth in 2022, including revenue growth of 534%, reaching £1.35 billion in loans and With a staff growth of 76%, it is well positioned to meet this ambition.
ClearBank is a key driver of Allica’s ambitious growth. ClearBank provides Allica Bank with customer accounts and access to UK payment systems, including Faster Payments (FPS), CHAPS and Bacs, powered by cloud-native API technology .
Allica launched a business checking account for established businesses late last year, offering cashback, no monthly fees, and relationship manager support, as well as an access savings market leading integrated instant 3R. It can also provide fast and secure transactions using FPS, Bacs and CHAPS. Allica believes it is important to partner with a supplier that closely aligns with its values and growth goals to help the company scale rapidly.
ClearBank works with 15 of the UK’s newest banks. Instead of competing with its own customers, it is a stable and profitable “bank for banks”.
“By offering a relationship-backed service, powered by modern technology, Allica is building the future of banking for established businesses. It is vital that we work with industry-leading partners that can grow with us as we scale. ClearBank is a leader in its field and is an obvious partner for us—we are on the same path both in growth trajectory, and in our values.”
Keith Middlemass, Chief Operating Officer, Allica Bank.
“With its focus on SMEs, Allica Bank is supporting the backbone of our economy—and we’re committed to helping them boost business banking in the UK. We’re providing the speed, flexibility, and security Allica Bank needs to provide the very best services to UK SMEs.”
Charles McManus, Chief Executive Officer, ClearBank.
The two banks have been working together since July 2021. Around this time both announced that they were profitable – Allica was one of the UK’s fintech companies to hit the mark. the fastest profits – amid a slowing overall fintech sector.
BNP Paribas and NatWest Go Live with CobaltFX’s ‘Dynamic Credit’ for FX Credit Management
BNP Paribas and NatWest have partnered with fintech CobaltFX to simplify and streamline the allocation of credit for foreign exchange (FX) trades between banks.
The implementation of CobaltFX’s ‘Dynamic Credit’ solution marks a step forward in enhancing market access and control while optimizing credit disbursement.
CobaltFX, part of United Fintech, has been a longstanding partner of BNP Paribas and NatWest. This latest collaboration aims to manage credit exposures, addressing manual processes as well as improving market access and control.
Joe Nash, digital COO for foreign exchange, rates, and commodities at BNP Paribas, emphasized the industry-wide trend of adopting innovative techniques to manage credit exposures and maintain market stability through digitalization.
“By providing a standardized and digitized approach, and aggregating IT infrastructure across multiple venues, ‘Dynamic Credit’ gives banks unprecedented control to navigate fast-moving FX markets and proactively manage credit exposure,”
“This is a very important step in delivering a solution for credit providers, taking full advantage of new technical advancements.”
Joe Nash, digital COO for foreign exchange, rates, and commodities at BNP Paribas.
Since its acquisition by United Fintech in late 2022 and subsequent relaunch in early 2023, CobaltFX has gained notable traction.
“It as a prime example of United Fintech and partner companies collaborating to drive innovation in big banks’ digital transition. This aligns with the growing trend of banks and financial institutions seeking engagements with broader technology vendors to address compliance and security concerns effectively.”
Marc Levin, CEO of CobaltFX.
“Leading financial institutions are aiming to decrease the number of third-party vendors and work with broader technology vendors to challenge legacy providers.”
“Our prediction is that we will see many more banks and fintechs follow suit and join each other’s journeys on our digital platform.”
Christian Frahm, founder and CEO of United Fintech.
Fiserv and Central Payments Deliver Modern Issuing Capabilities to Fintechs and Financial Institutions
Fiserv, Inc., a leading global provider of payment and financial services technology solutions, and Central Payments L.L.C., a banking as a service (BaaS) provider, enabling fintechs, businesses Businesses and payment facilitators bring financial products and services to market with greater speed and growth potential.
The combination of the Fiserv technology stack, including real-time core, card processing and issuance, with Central Payments’ award-winning Open*CP Fintech API Marketplace®, including program management and compliance, enabling fintech and almost any other business to create valuable products and services that more comprehensively meet the growing expectations of consumers and small businesses. For those with an established card program, this provides more comprehensive and regulated access to basic banking and payment services.
As fintech services grow stronger, so does the need for consumers to access their money through digital experiences outside of traditional banking channels. In many cases, this means allowing unlicensed fintechs and other businesses to provide financial services, such as debit cards, secured credit, stored value cards. , unsecured credit, etc. Fiserv and Central Payments bring together a BaaS platform, products and services, and access to a network of funding banks to support a wide range of innovative retail and business use cases.
“As fintech and financial institutions work together to create compelling financial offerings, speed to market, a robust and flexible tech stack and streamlined operations are essential,”
“Together, Fiserv and Central Payments can deliver these requirements without compromising compliance and risk controls needed to safeguard all parties.”
Sunil Sachdev, head of Fintech and Growth at Fiserv.
Fiserv and Central Payments provide everything a fintech or other business needs to connect with a funding bank, launch and manage unique payment products and services. Customers of Fiserv financial institutions pursuing fintech partnerships can also engage with Fiserv and Central Payments for assistance in administering the go-to-market program.
“This combination of technology, services, program management and bank partners will help any business become a fintech without the need to add the staff or expertise to manage the program in-house,”
“Those that may want to manage their program in-house eventually can also use our services as a lower risk model to get to market quickly with a proof-of-concept.”
Eric Cotton, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Central Payments.
Apex Group acquires Efficient Group companies in South Africa
Apex Group Ltd., a global financial services provider, today announced its proposal to acquire Efficient Group (Pty) Ltd.
Efficient is the parent company of Boutique Collective Investments (RF) (Pty) Ltd (“BCI”) and Boutique Investment Partners (Pty) Ltd (“BIP”) and upon completion of the acquisition, Efficient Group (Pty) Ltd will rename the Apex Corporation banner. The acquisition will not affect Efficient Wealth, Risk and Investment clients.
Founded in 2013, BCI offers a wide range of management company services with its core business focusing on third-party branded portfolios (“ManCo services”).
BIP is an independent investment management and consulting firm dedicated to providing versatile management and advisory services to a large number of South Africa’s leading independent financial advisors, as well as clients. organization and their retail. This strategic acquisition adds an additional $19 billion AuA to the Apex Group platform.
Apex Group is one of the largest asset management service providers in the world, providing a one-stop, single-source solution of the complete value chain to its customers, including bank accounts. and digital accounts, custody services, custody, super ManCo, service businesses (including HR and payroll services), and pioneering environmental and social assessment and consulting solutions and governance (“ESG”). Effective clients will now benefit from access to the Group’s local hedge fund solutions, offshore fund solutions, Fintech, data solutions and technology services, in addition to an open team covering more than 12,000 people worldwide.
44 productive employees will join the Group’s growing African footprint following the recent Sanne and Maitland acquisitions, further reinforcing the Group’s commitment to the region and its intention to open up. expanding its local operations to about 1,000 people this year.
“The strategic addition of the unit trust management company adds greater product depth and expanded reach, particularly for our ManCo services offering, and further reinforces our commitment to South Africa, a key hub for our global business. We look forward to welcoming our new colleagues from Efficient who are aligned with our commitment to delivering an exceptional client experience with local service delivery.”
Peter Hughes, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Apex Group.
“Efficient has always followed a very successful growth strategy in the Wealth, Risk, and Investments segment of the financial services market, ensuring that the company has expanded into a leader in the financial services industry. This transaction allows the company to continue expanding the business by focusing on partners that align with the overall expansion of the retail client base strategy and value proposition.”
Heiko Weidhase, Chief Executive Officer of the Efficient Group.
The acquisition is still subject to the approval of the Competition Commission.
Macquarie Capital acted as financial advisor to Apex and Efficient’s management team, advised by Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr Inc and facilitated the acquisition on behalf of Efficient’s shareholders.
Efficient’s Wealth, Risk and Investment cluster will retain the Efficient brand and maintain the status quo under the control of existing shareholders throughout the transaction. This cluster includes the following business segments; Effective enrichment, effective insurance consulting services; Effective individual clients; Effective benefit consulting; Effective management board; Efficient selection; Naviga Solutions; Select Manager and Dinamika Fund Manager.
PWC UK Picks Ai Quality Leader TruEra To Collaborate On Ai Risk Management
TruEra, a leading provider of AI quality management solutions for testing, interpreting, debugging, and monitoring machine learning (ML) models, today announced that it has been selected by PwC to integrate AI risk management in the UK and Ireland.
Key elements of the collaboration include:
• Using TruEra’s software to validate AI/ML models (e.g., analyzing robustness and performance, explainability, and bias and fairness) as part of PWC’s AI risk methodologies
• Enabling PwC’s clients to adapt the PwC AI Risk methodologies through hands-on, iterative experimentation
• Providing PwC’s clients the option to operationalize their AI risk methodologies using TruEra’s software
“As companies make the transition from AI exploration to adoption at scale, managing the risks associated with this transition becomes increasingly important. PwC is ideally suited to support clients in this journey, with the breadth of perspectives brought by our diverse teams, skills and market-leading experience in AI risk management,”
“We believe that this collaboration with TruEra will result in the right combination of human expertise and tech to allow our clients to embed AI risk considerations as an integral part of their model lifecycle.”
Leigh Bates, Partner, Financial Services Technology and Data and Analytics Leader at PwC UK.
“Model quality and governance are vexing issues for any company leveraging AI,”
“Automated testing and monitoring are essential for ensuring that models are high performing and functioning as intended, and that bias is minimised and adequately managed, even when market conditions change. We’re incredibly excited to be collaborating with PwC to help clients navigate the AI quality challenge.”
Shameek Kundu, Chief Strategy Officer of TruEra.
PwC UK provides professional services including auditing, tax and legal advice, trading and risk advisory and consulting in the UK, the Middle East and the Channel Islands. PwC AI experts assist clients in the areas of natural language processing, machine learning, deep learning, data engineering, automated ML, digital twin, representational AI, responsible AI, etc. PwC helps clients align their AI strategies with their business strategies, build enterprise-wide AI capabilities, and establish appropriate governance for security and risk reduction.
TruEra has been selected as the preferred supplier by several Fortune 1000 companies. In March 2022, the company was named to Fast Company’s World Change Ideas list for the second year in a row. In June 2021, TruEra was analyzed by Gartner, Inc. honored as a “Great Vendor” in the “Excellent Provider in Responsible AI and AI Governance” report. Members of the firm have also served on the AI risk advisory board for the Bank of England and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, among other government agencies.
HSBC buys Silicon Valley Bank UK
The collapse of the US bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) HSBC has bought its UK subsidiary, SVB UK, for £1. Customers and businesses who have deposited funds into SVB UK will have normal access. Taxes were irrelevant.
“Continue to bank as usual, safe in the knowledge that their deposits are backed by the strength, safety and security of HSBC”.
HSBC CEO Noel Quinn,
Besides HSBC, potential buyers of SVB UK included JP Morgan, Lloyd’s, digital financier Oaknorth Bank, two-year-old Bank of London and ADQ, a fund backed by the Abu Dhabi government.
The US government ensures that SVB US customers have access to cash on Monday morning.
Apparently, SVB’s U.S. parent invested $80 billion of customer cash in mortgage-backed securities, which averaged 1.56% yield, but fell in value when the Fed hiked interest rates, making government bonds more attractive. has become an investment target.
Customers are said to have started withdrawing funds and closing SVB accounts in December last year, and from April 2022 to January 2023, SVB, which had no chief risk officer, was forced to sell securities at a loss to meet its obligations. When the bank realized it had to sell the securities, the value of the securities fell below its obligation and the bank was technically insolvent.
Things took a turn for the better when the VC instructed the portfolio company to switch bank accounts from his SVB to a larger bank.
“This morning, the Government and the Bank of England facilitated a private sale of Silicon Valley Bank UK to HSBC Deposits will be protected, with no taxpayer support I said yesterday that we would look after our tech sector, and we have worked urgently to deliver that promise,”
“There is a serious risk to our technology and life sciences sectors,”
“happens to look after the money of some of our most promising and exciting businesses and so I want to reassure people.”
‘We are working at pace on a solution. We will bring forward very soon plans to make sure people are able to meet their cashflow requirements, pay their staff,”
“but obviously what we want to do is to find a longer-term solution that minimises or even avoids completely losses to some of our most promising companies.”
UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
Partnership Between Carrefour Italia And Nexi: Postal Payment Slips And Pagopa Notices Payable At The Checkout
Carrefour Italia and Nexi have announced a partnership to enable citizens to pay postal payment slips and PagoPA notifications at the cashiers of over 190 stores in Italy, including Carrefour Hypermarkets and Carrefour Supermarkets. Developed in collaboration with Poste Italiane, the service allows payment in any way.
The solution, based on the Nexi technology platform, is the only one of its kind in Italy and ensures that Carrefour can manage the interface of the POS system with the PagoPA node and his Poste Italiane system with his single integration. increase. This allows you to collect postal transfer slips and PagoPA messages at the same time.
Available 24 hours a day during store hours, the service enables barcode scanning of payment slips and QR code scanning of PagoPA messages, allowing bills, utility bills, taxes, fines, school benefits, and other payments to government agencies. It enables payments to be paid and guarantees simple and reliable payments. A secure payment experience.
“Our customers are always the focus of our strategy, and thanks to the partnership with Nexi, we will be able to meet their needs further, improving their shopping experience in our stores,”
“In fact, in addition to postal payment slips, it will be possible to make payments to Public Administration bodies at the checkout, in a simple, fast and secure manner.”
Alessandra Grendele, Director of E-Commerce, Marketing, Data and Digital Transformation at Carrefour Italia.
“This agreement with Carrefour Italia allows us to continue to support the modernization of the country, contributing to the further spread of digital payments, specifically towards Public Administration,”
“This partnership also allows us to take another step in the digitalization of points of sale, while guaranteeing large-scale retail trade the opportunity to expand the range of services they offer their customers without increasing complexity at the checkout. We are the only player in Italy, in fact, that offers the integrated management of both postal payment slips and PagoPA payment notices.”
Andrea Pennacchia, Head of Banking & PA Solutions at Nexi.
Weavr acquires Comma to combine embedded and open banking
Weavr, the London-based startup that allows businesses to integrate banking and payments into their mobile apps or SaaS platforms, has acquired open banking B2B platform, Comma Payments.
With Comma, Weavr claims to have become the first integrated finance provider to combine Banking as a Service (BaaS) and Open Banking in one integrated payments solution for B2B applications, from payroll, accounts payable and other major forms of payment.
“Open Banking and BaaS represent the two most innovative trends in finance right now, and it’s exciting to finally bring them together into one powerful solution. As a company committed to breaking new ground in this field, we’re delighted to be the first to offer a solution of this kind and feel confident that our customers will immediately benefit from greater functionality and a more seamless onboarding process.”
Alex Mifsud, co-founder and CEO of Weavr.
He says the combination will allow customers to seamlessly transfer payments through their own existing bank accounts to do so through Weavr-powered accounts, providing Richer payment options and controls.
The deal follows Weavr’s $40 million Series A deal last February. Since then, the company has tripled its user base and seen a 340% increase in the number of transactions through its platform.
The largely equity-based acquisition will allow Weavr to retain much of Comma’s current workforce, including the company’s CEO and founder, Tom Beckenham, and chief technical officer Gianluca pengo.
TerraPay partners with Safaricom to enhance cross-border payments
TerraPay, a global payments infrastructure company, has partnered with Safaricom, a financial services, IT and telecommunications provider based in Kenya.
TerraPay Group company Mobex (Kenya), a remittance service provider, will enable over 30 million M-PESA mobile wallet owners in Kenya to send real-time payments through TerraPay’s interoperable network to all wallets in Bangladesh and Pakistan, with plans to roll out to India and Nepal in the next few months.
Through this partnership, the two companies aim to create a financially inclusive payments ecosystem while promoting empowerment and financial independence.
“We believe this breakthrough collaboration with Safaricom will usher a world of new possibilities for mobile financial service operators to directly scale globally and provide customers with the choice to send payments in a secure, transparent, and swift manner. Our partnership with Safaricom will further boost our capabilities in providing an inclusive global financial ecosystem with excellent technical solutions.”
Ambar Sur, Founder & CEO, TerraPay.
TerraPay is a global partner of banks, mobile wallets, remittance operators, merchants and financial institutions, creating a larger and more inclusive international financial ecosystem.
“We are thrilled to partner with TerraPay as it comes at a time when a growing number of customers are embracing digital payments to send money to their loved ones. TerraPay’s interoperable technology platform will enable our customers to execute secured & low-cost payments across key regions, further encouraging the adoption of digital payments in the region. We look forward to a successful collaboration.”
Peter Ndegwa, CEO Safaricom.
FNZ launches FNZ Yield Plus cash alternative solution for investors
FNZ, the global wealth management platform, has launched FNZ Yield Plus Notes to offer professional investors such as corporates, pension funds, banks, insurers, asset managers and other institutional investors a low-risk cash alternative and strengthens its global proposition.
The FNZ Yield Plus bond offers investors a higher yield than an equivalent rated government bond of the same maturities. Yield Plus Notes can provide an improved risk profile compared to bank deposits, with enhanced collateral security and regular cash coupon payments committed on a periodic. Tickets are available in USD, EUR and GBP and can be customized for other currencies.
The notes reinforce FNZ’s global client proposition to professional investors by adding a simple yet sophisticated investment product to its existing comprehensive wealth management platform. Investing in FNZ Yield Plus Bonds is as easy as purchasing any other bond security available through the existing Investor Depository. Yield Plus Notes can also be personalized, white-labelled, and curated for distributors. They are currently available to professional investors.
FNZ Yield Plus allows professional investors to benefit from recent rate hikes with low risk. As a result, investors have access to innovative solutions and improved returns over alternatives without incurring unwarranted risks to the bank, no asymmetry. liquidity, maturity or market risk and does not affect credit quality.
“FNZ Yield Plus is an important milestone in our mission to open up wealth and make investing as innovative, transparent, and efficient as possible. For the first time, through our structured investment team, we have delivered an outsourced manufacturing note to investors. We are excited to bring this unique cash alternative solution to our professional clients and continue to invest in the breadth of personalized solutions the market increasingly demands.”
Adam Green, FNZ’s CEO of Global Asset Management Solutions.
“The FNZ Yield Plus solution solves a complex cash management problem for professional investors. When we first discussed the FNZ Yield Plus solutions with the structured investment team, we realised it would also be the perfect solution for our own strategic cash and decided to allocate some of our own cash to the same Yield Plus notes as those available to our clients.”
Kristopher Love, Group CFO FNZ.
Yield Plus is part of FNZ’s wealth management solutions that enable investment managers to deliver personalized investment plans and portfolios at scale. By connecting integrated tools with real-time data and analytics, FNZ wealth management solutions enable complex optimizations and deliver remarkable insights.
Global Payments Leader, Convera Chooses Temenos to Modernize Payments in the Cloud
Temenos announced that Convera, the largest non-bank global B2B payments provider, has selected Temenos Payments Hub running in the Temenos Cloud to modernize its payments infrastructure.
The move to Temenos Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will help Convera to drive efficiency in payment processing from inbound funding to outbound disbursements and massively scale with the aim to double its payments volumes in the next five years and expand its payment rails. Temenos SaaS will help enable Convera to compete in the highly dynamic payments market.
Convera will overhaul its payments engine by progressively replacing legacy systems with Temenos’ robust, scalable platform to standardize its international commercial payments on a single platform. Temenos’ platform capability to intelligently route payments over Convera’s global partner bank network will allow for greater efficiencies and improved customer service. Convera will also use Temenos’ data hub capabilities for real-time data management. Temenos’ composable platform can easily integrate with Convera’s existing infrastructure which includes integrated compliance systems and payment gateways, increasing automation and time to value.
Temenos’ highly scalable platform with proven localization and ongoing investment in US and global compliance will enable Convera to process payments in a highly efficient and standardized manner. Temenos’ cloud-native platform will offer real-time payments and resilience giving Convera the business agility required to benefit from new market initiatives such as instant payments and ISO 20022. With Temenos payments platform, Convera will also continue to enhance its straight through processing (STP) rates through advanced exception handling.
Convera – which was previously part of Western Union – is the largest non-bank fintech in global B2B payments and makes cross-border money transfers simple by allowing its customers to transact globally with ease. Convera offers services ranging from currency exchange to hedging solutions and has capabilities in 140+ currencies across 200+ countries and territories. The company serves more than 30,000 customers, which range from small business owners and enterprise treasurers to educational institutions, financial institutions, law firms and NGOs.
Convera selected Temenos after a competitive process including US incumbent vendors and specialized payment vendors. Temenos offers a single platform across all banking verticals, fintechs, and associated business segments including payments and core banking, and as a result it benefits from higher investment in R&D.
“Temenos payments platform will underpin Convera’s growth strategy as it transforms into a modern, technology-led, global B2B payments organization, focused on innovation, value, and exceptional customer service. After extensive assessment, we selected Temenos both for its superior cloud technology capabilities and the trust in the team and its local operations. Temenos is the platform of choice for massive scale; we have a clear path for global expansion and look forward to partnering with Temenos with its global expertise to support us along the way.”
Patrick Gauthier, Chief Executive Officer, Convera.
“We are excited to be selected by Convera, one of the largest fintechs, to modernize its payments infrastructure. We see tremendous growth opportunities in the payments space, and we continue to heavily invest in our single code base across core banking and payments making our offering the most compelling in the market. With Temenos Payments Hub running on Temenos SaaS, Convera will have a modern payments platform which can scale massively and propel its expansion plans. With our SaaS solution, Convera will stay agile and at the forefront of innovation and deliver fast, reliable, and transparent payment services to its corporate customers. Temenos offers a proven SaaS model together with robust US pre-configured capabilities, which is compelling for financial institutions of all sizes to move to Temenos.”
Philip Barnett, President Americas, Temenos.
Temenos Payments is ranked #1 best-selling payments system in the IBS Sales League Table 2022.
Marqeta announces expansion into Brazil with Fitbank partnership
Marqueta, a global card issuance platform, has announced an expansion into Brazil. The company cooperates with Latin American banking platform Fitbank and certifies the network with Visa
As part of Marqeta’s partnership with Fitbank, the company will be a Marqeta customer, use it as a payment processor, and will act as a BIN sponsor for Marqeta customers who want to get started in the area.
“We have followed Marqeta’s growth and global expansion for some time now, and given we are also expanding globally, there couldn’t be a more natural card issuing partner for Fitbank in Brazil,”
“Through our partnership, I believe we can enable global companies and local innovators to bring amazing payment products to market, amplifying the strengths of each of our companies.”
Otávio Farah, co-founder and CEO at Fitbank.
Fitbank provides a complete and personalized cloud banking and credit infrastructure to thousands of customers, and is one of the state-of-the-art platforms licensed and integrated by the Central Bank. Direct integration with PIX, Brazil’s real-time payment system.
They are currently a key member of Visa with plans to expand the network. Marqeta will serve as Fitbank’s technology platform to support payment processing and local card issuance in Brazil. It will also use Marqeta’s real-time decision engine to enhance its fraud management capabilities. Fitbank will also act as the local BIN sponsor and banking service provider of Marqeta.
“We are thrilled to be announcing our launch in Brazil to bring the Marqeta platform to one of the most exciting FinTech markets in the world,”
“Our new partnership with Fitbank puts us on a great footing in Brazil. The two companies have great DNA fit. Fitbank is a tech-forward platform interested in building innovative payment solutions.”
Todd Pollak, Chief Revenue Officer at Marqeta.
Citi Commercial Bank launches new digital client platform, CitiDirect Commercial Banking
Citi has announced the launch of a new platform, CitiDirect® Commercial Banking, specifically to address the needs of Citi Commercial Bank (CCB) clients. This is part of Citi’s significant strategic investment plan to meet the growing global needs of these clients by delivering a single-entry point digital platform.
CitiDirect® Commercial Banking brings together Citi’s global products and services into a single digital platform, providing clients with a 360° consolidated view of their Citi banking relationship across Cash, Loans, Trade, FX, Servicing and Onboarding.
The platform is currently live in the U.S., with over two thirds of our U.S. client base actively using the platform, and CCB plans to pilot it in the second half of 2023 across Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and the U.K.
The CitiDirect® Commercial Banking platform has been created in close collaboration with CCB clients, and as a result offers an intuitive and seamless digital experience. Key features include access to data driven insights necessary to help inform decision making, efficient management of day-to-day banking interactions with Citi in one place. Clients can also digitally open accounts and request new products and services, extending our self-service features, which significantly enhances the experience for clients as they grow, and their needs evolve.
“This is an important milestone in delivering on our commitments set out during Citi’s 2022 Investor Day. At the time, we spoke about our intention to deliver on a differentiated client experience through a single digital platform, that will empower clients and save them time, while offering them complete visibility and control. We anticipate that CitiDirect® Commercial Banking will continue to evolve to support our clients as they grow their businesses globally.”
Tasnim Ghiawadwala, Global Head of CCB.
“Our new banking platform has been designed and built with a client-centric focus. The outcome is an innovative platform that responds to our clients’ complex needs and their expectations of a simple and intuitive digital banking experience. We are delighted with the response from clients and continue to invest whilst targeting key market roll outs throughout 2023 and beyond.”
Mark Sugden, Head of CitiDirect Commercial Banking & Digital Transformation.
“The launch of CitiDirect Commercial Banking demonstrates how our Institutional Clients Group ecosystem works together to deliver excellence for our clients. We are very pleased that our partnership with our colleagues in Commercial Banking has resulted in this new and differentiated service.”
Shahmir Khaliq, Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions.
Francisco Partners Acquires Macrobond from Nordic Capital; Focuses on Growing its Global Presence
Francisco Partners, a leading global investment firm specializing in partnerships with technology companies, today announced the acquisition of Macrobond, a leading financial data and technology innovation company, from Nordic Capital, one of Europe’s leading private equity investors. Macrobond founder Tomas Liljeborg will continue as chief executive officer and remain an important shareholder of the company.
Since 2008, Macrobond has transformed the workflow of economists, analysts and strategists worldwide, increasing productivity, fostering deeper collaboration, and enabling them to analyze and forecast financial and macroeconomic data more efficiently. Macrobond partnered with Nordic Capital in 2018 and has experienced significant growth since then, with 230 employees operating from offices in Europe, Asia and the US.
Today, Macrobond provides the world’s largest macroeconomic and financial database, providing nearly 300 million time series, as well as tools and technologies to rapidly analyze, visualize, and analyze Share information from an intuitive integrated workflow platform. Macrobond serves more than 800 institutions worldwide, including some of the world’s largest banks and asset managers, as well as hedge funds, central banks and research firms.
“When I founded Macrobond in 2008, our goal was to deliver the world’s most comprehensive source of economic and financial intelligence for financial professionals that helps them quickly comprehend relevant data. Now in 2023, we are focused on further expanding our presence and customer personas across the globe, as well as accelerating technological innovation and growth across new datasets,”
“Partnering with Francisco Partners will help Macrobond increase our growth and innovation across our market-leading product suite.”
Tomas Liljeborg, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Macrobond.
“Customers attest that the Macrobond platform, through its highly reliable, current and comprehensive data as well as its easy-to-use search, visualization, and analytics engine, helps them do their jobs better. Tomas and the team have grown the business by continuously improving the value they deliver to these customers, and we are delighted to back Macrobond to further improve its growth and impact,”
Mario Razzini and Ashley Evans, Partners at Francisco Partners, and Quentin Lathuille, Principal at Francisco Partners.
“We’re delighted to have been on this journey with Macrobond and are proud of their tireless devotion during this period. Together with Tomas and the rest of the management team, Nordic Capital has focused on expanding the company’s offering to support its focus on becoming the platform of choice for people working in financial and economic research worldwide. We are proud of Macrobond’s achievements and remain convinced that they will continue to deliver outstanding services to customers around the world and see this transaction as a start of an exciting next phase for Macrobond,”
Emil Anderson, Partner, Nordic Capital Advisors. The investment is subject to customary closing conditions.
Moelis & Company served as financial advisor and Paul Hastings served as legal counsel for Francisco Partners. Arma Partners, PWC and White & Case act as advisors to Nordic Capital and Macrobond.
Alfii secures $2.5m pre-seed funding to launch FinTech-powered HR Platform
Dubai-based technology startup Alfii has announced an upfront funding of $2.5 million to expand its team and further expand its FinTech-based HR automation platform.
The round was led by Preface Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on US-based infrastructure companies. Kayan Ventures, UAE-based Aditum Ventures and Wayfinders, and a number of local and regional angel investors participated in the round.
Alfii will use this funding to further develop and enhance its FinTech-based software platform. In the short term, a revolutionary payroll that gives customers a smarter and faster way to manage payroll and payroll, greatly simplifying what would otherwise be a tedious and time-consuming process for HR leaders. We will continue to focus on building out our feature suite.
“We are looking to build the next generation of this product class, and we are building it entirely in-house, which means we need to bring on world-class talent to grow our business and better serve our customers,”
Yousef Albarqawi, alfii’s CEO and Co-founder.
Alfii’s advances are part of a larger trend in the SaaS world, adapting tools originally offered to the enterprise, making them accessible and suitable for small businesses and start-ups. However, especially when it comes to HR software, there are many weaknesses to be overcome by existing solutions in the MENA region.
“Data interoperability is an industry-wide challenge in the HR stack, but in developing regions like MENA, those challenges are further exacerbated by local and regulatory infrastructure,”
“With alfii’s all-in-one software suite, companies will be able to understand better and manage their human capital resources while improving the user experience for employees with features like digital-to-cash remittances, benefits selection, and more.”
Farooq Abbasi, General Partner of Preface Ventures.
Resistant AI extends Series A to $27.6m with new funding
Resistant AI, a RiskTech company specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, has expanded its Series A funding to $27.6 million, after raising an additional $11 million in investment la from Notion Capital. This is in addition to existing funding from investors such as GV, Index Ventures, Credo Ventures and Seedcamp.
The new investment builds on Resistant AI’s product expansion, team, and geographic presence to help financial institutions protect their trading and referral systems from malicious attacks.
Resilient AI machine learning techniques protect financial services firms against growing threats, deter criminals from using AI, and adapt as their methods evolve. The company’s solutions scan for anomalies in documents, transactions, and behavior to provide a 360-degree view of every customer, which can double the number of threats detected. The company’s solutions have protected a number of banks and fintech companies throughout the customer lifecycle. Clients include Dun & Bradstreet, Payoneer, Habito, Planet42 and ComplyAdvantage; and Resistant AI currently have more than 80 team members working in offices in Prague, London, Brussels and New York.
“With this investment from Notion Capital we are able to bring our solution to more institutions in the face of these increasingly pernicious threats. We are excited to be working with Notion Capital, particularly because of their expertise and track record in successfully growing computer security companies.”
Martin Rehak, CEO and Founder of Resistant AI.
“Security and FinTech are two of the largest areas of focus for Notion and we love how the Resistant AI proposition ties them together. Synthetic identity fraud has been named the fastest-growing financial crime in the US, with $6 billion in total losses to the banking sector in 2021 alone, and the Resistant AI product is the only comprehensive solution out there that moves as fast as the fraudsters do. We’re excited to be working with them so they can meet the growing demand for their solution.”
Kamil Mieczakowski, Principal at Notion Capital.