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CREDIT SUISSE ON THE DEFENSIVE AFTER DIRTY MONEY DATA LEAK
Credit Suisse was plunged into a dirty money scandal on Monday after media outlets reported the Swiss bank had managed accounts for human rights abusers, fraudsters and businessmen who had been placed under sanctions. One person leaked information on the accounts, which were held in decades ranging from the 1940s to 2010s, to Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung. The German daily then shared it with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and 46 other news organizations including the New York Times, Britain’s Guardian and France’s Le Monde.
‘SWISSLEAKS’ INVESTIGATION TARGETS CREDIT SUISSE BANK
Credit Suisse bank, still reeling from losing billions of dollars last year, faced a fresh challenge Sunday: allegations from an international investigation that it had handled dirty money for decades. A cross-border media investigation broke Sunday claiming that Switzerland’s second-largest bank had held tens of billions of dollars of ill-gotten funds, claims based on an insider’s massive data leak. The investigation, coordinated by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), unites 47 different media outlets worldwide including France’s Le Monde and The Guardian in Britain.
TRACE FINANCE ANNOUNCES $4.3M SEED INVESTMENT TO DISRUPT GLOBAL BANKING
Trace Finance, a Brazilian FinTech startup that enables faster and more streamlined cross-border banking for startups, has announced a $4.3 million seed funding round. The investment was led by HOF Capital (investors in Dapper Labs, Terra, Flutterwave, and SpaceX) with participation from Circle Ventures (the company behind USDC – a leading USD-pegged stablecoin with a $50 billion fully diluted market cap), The Chainsmokers (via their fund Mantis VC), and others. Seed funds will be used to expand the company’s seamless global banking solution for startups, beginning with the US and Brazil.
BILLTRUST ACQUIRES ORDER2CASH, A EUROPEAN B2B FINANCIAL SOFTWARE PROVIDER
Billtrust (NASDAQ: BTRS), a B2B accounts receivable (AR) automation and integrated payments leader, announced today it has acquired Netherlands-based Order2Cash, a leading B2B order-to-cash platform provider. The acquisition follows the October 2021 purchase of iController, broadening the company’s European footprint, global presence and ability to expand its innovative Business Payments Network (BPN).For over 20 years, each company has pursued a similar vision to streamline and accelerate B2B payments for its customers.
WORKLIO SELECTS CLAIR AS PARTNER FOR ON-DEMAND PAY BENEFITS
Clair, a social impact embedded-fintech startup transforming the way that hourly employees get paid, today announced its selection as payroll software leader Worklio’s partner to provide free on-demand pay to its users. Now with the integration of Clair’s intuitive on-demand pay access technology and associated services, Worklio’s employee users go beyond simply viewing their pay stubs or checking their payroll history, and can directly access cash advances for a portion of their earned wages. The advances can be accessed on a daily basis at thousands of ATMs or by using the Clair debit card for purchases, enabling employees to pay bills or cover unexpected expenses without having to wait for payday or use loans.
JUNI LAUNCHES ITS FIRST UK CREDIT CARD MADE FOR MEDIA BUYING
Today Juni, the financial companion for ecommerce entrepreneurs, launched its new VISA credit card in the UK. The first of its kind, Juni’s credit card is designed specifically to help ecommerce companies expand and grow. The launch marks a major step for Juni as the company embarks on its one year milestone, with further updates coming soon. While the roll out of the credit card is in the UK, Juni will expand the offering across Europe later this year.
I2C PARTNERS WITH QATARI FINTECH STARTUP KARTY TO LAUNCH DIGITAL VISA WALLET
i2c Inc., a leading provider of digital payment and banking technology, today announced its partnership with KARTY, a Qatar-based fintech providing tailored digital financial solutions to the MEA region, to launch a digital-first prepaid mobile wallet to the country. Leveraging i2c’s global payments platform, Karty’s mobile wallet will provide Visa-branded digital cards, enabling instant, cashless P2P transactions on the Visa network.
FYNCR, THE FIRST ALL-IN-ONE CREDIT CARD BILL PAYMENTS MOBILE APP LAUNCHES
Remove the pressure of paying multiple credit card bills on different banking platforms with Fyncr, the first all-in-one-card bill payment mobile application in the United States that aims to help people better manage their credit cards, save more and spend intelligently. Fyncr is the only platform that allows every credit card owner to securely store, view, and pay all their credit cards from any bank account and earn reward points called FYX to enjoy unbeatable deals, discounts, and freebies within the app from over 500 brands in the country.
BIT.STORE ADDS ALTERNATIVE PAYMENTS AND PAY-OUTS VIA ALCHEMY PAY
Asia’s leading SocialFi crypto investment platform, Bit.Store (STORE) has deepened its partnership with crypto payment provider Alchemy Pay (ACH). Further to the current credit card and Paypal connections, Alchemy Pay will add popular alternative payment methods to Bit.Store including mobile wallets and domestic instant transfer services.
Furthermore, Alchemy Pay will provide Bit.Store with off-ramp capabilities, meaning their users can convert their crypto funds into over 100 local fiat currencies and have them deposited directly into their bank accounts.
These new capabilities once again highlight Alchemy Pay’s impressive service within the industry and will elevate Bit.Store’s app has already become very popular in Southeast Asia and Europe. In Indonesia, in particular, Bit.Store has become one of the top social cryptocurrency investment platforms for retail investors. The platform was launched in 2021 and has seen rapid growth. The number of users has grown 30% to 700k since the partners’ first collaborated in November 2021.
With its simple and intuitive design, Bit.Store has positioned itself as a beginner-friendly investment service that allows everyday people to access crypto conveniently and securely. The simplicity of design and functionality overcomes the barrier to entry for many and the app outshines the competition by cleverly leveraging social elements and exploring a new ‘SocialFi’ model.
Bit.Store educates inexperienced investors so they can make smarter investment decisions. It embraces the web3.0 era by allowing users to create decentralized communities for the sharing of information alongside experienced and professional investors. The app has multiple groups and forums for trading discussions, as well as up-to-date news and educational items.
“It is a big step forward to offer the flexibility of Alchemy Pay’s easy, secure payments to our users. Acceptance of mobile wallets are crucial, in particular, to our Asian users where so-called alternative payments are now becoming the dominant method. Additionally, the ability to pay-out from our platform via Alchemy Pay puts us way ahead of many of our competitors.”
Bit.Store’s co-founder, Carl Moss.
Alchemy Pay now boasts over 300 fiat payment channels globally and is expected to integrate its crypto ramps on a larger scale in Q3 this year. John Tan, CEO of Alchemy Pay, said, “Our focus right now is on our ramps that are integrated onto crypto and web3 services. The ability to onboard users to platforms directly via global and local fiat payments, and then offer the chance to cash out again makes for a seamless, user-friendly experience. We are expecting to make a huge impact on the web3 movement with these ramps.”
NATWEST LAUNCHES CONFIRMATION OF PAYEE API FOR BUSINESS CUSTOMERS
NatWest has launched an API that lets commercial customers embed Confirmation of Payee into their systems and processes.
Confirmation of Payee was introduced across the UK banking industry in June 2020 to combat scammers and guard against customer errors. The technology allows banking customers to carry out a check on individual payments through their online banking, by ensuring the account details entered by the sender accurately match those of the payee.
The new NatWest API will enable commercial customers to carry out bulk checks against outbound payee details, for payments made using Bacs, Chaps, and Faster Payments.
“Confirmation of Payee has been a game-changing innovation in the battle against fraud and scams in the UK, and today we’re delighted to launch our API that will allow commercial customers to implement this functionality into their systems. Not only will this detect fraudulent and misdirected payments, but CoP is also proven to reduce operating costs and improve the digital journey for customers.”
Gaurav Gaur, head of commercial payments, NatWest Group.
Businesses can apply to use NatWest’s Confirmation of Payee API by visiting www.bankofapis.com to register their interest and will need to have the technical capability and resources within their business to implement the API at their own cost.
KLARNA HITS 500,000 CONSUMER MILESTONE IN IRELAND
Six months on from its launch in Ireland, Klarna has reached the milestone of 500,000 total consumers for its buy now, pay later product.
Klarna has signed up over 800 merchants in Ireland and launched a range of new money management features as well as its open banking business unit Klarna Kosma. To further its growth in the country, the company has introduced self-service onboarding, which allows new merchants to integrate Klarna’s checkout and flexible payment methods in just a few clicks.
“Klarna’s growth in Ireland truly speaks about the evolving consumer trends and increased demand for flexible payments. 500,000 consumers now trust Klarna in Ireland and we will continue to disrupt the retail banking industry and grow our presence in the country.”
Colin Creagh, Klarna’s head of business development in Ireland.
The Irish milestone comes just weeks after Klarna announced that it had reached 150 million active consumers globally and 400,000 merchants.
However, the high-growth business plan has recently hit the skids as price drops in listed tech stocks have spilled over into loss-making privately funded fintech firms. Earlier this month Klarna laid out plans to lay off 10% of its staff amid a valuation crunch that has seen its worth downgraded from a high of $46 billion to the low $30 billion mark.
MASTERCARD LEADS A $40 MILLION ROUND IN SAUDI ARABIA’S HYPERPAY
Mastercard, a technology leader in the global payments industry, has announced a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia-based HyperPay, the fastest growing e-commerce payments services provider in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), to drive the adoption of digital payment solutions across the region.
As part of the partnership, Mastercard will make a strategic investment in HyperPay to continue enhancing the delivery of its proven capabilities and identify new technologies that can be applied to practical use cases. Mastercard’s multi-rail approach is about leading payment innovation across multiple payment rails, adding value and connecting information while enabling people and organizations to transact across any channel and to any endpoint.
The collaboration will offer advanced new technologies so businesses, governments, and SMEs can move from cash-based payments to an improved, frictionless, and seamless ecosystem utilizing the innovative capabilities of both Mastercard and HyperPay.
“Growing the payment ecosystem is crucial for the development of a robust digital economy that is more inclusive for all. We are thrilled to enter this partnership with HyperPay as we work together to offer consumers access to innovative, seamless, and secure payment solutions. With this shared vision, Mastercard and HyperPay have the opportunity to unlock the region’s potential by using technology to pave the way for a streamlined, efficient, and more inclusive future.”
Dimitrios Dosis, President, of Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Mastercard.
“Forging strong partnerships has been part of our mission since day one and we are delighted to announce this collaboration with Mastercard. We are committed to fast-track our expansion beyond payments, to deliver a complete suite of financial products. We have dealt with the challenges businesses face when it comes to accepting digital payments and are building products that meet the evolving needs of our platform customers across all verticals. Ecommerce will continue to grow, as relying more on digital platforms for shopping becomes the optimum way for consumers around the world to shop, and simplified payment solutions will enable the delivery of frictionless consumer experiences.”
Muhannad Ebwini, Founder and CEO of HyperPay.
Mastercard’s Economic Outlook 2022 estimated that 20% of the digital shift in retail would stay put. Furthermore, recent studies from Mastercard showed that 61% of MENA consumers say they would avoid businesses that do not accept electronic payments of any kind.
As a leading technology provider and enabler for digital first-use cases, Mastercard along with its fintech partners is continuing to support the digital payments and virtual banking ecosystems across the region. This is part of Mastercard’s broader multi-rail strategy to support payment innovation in the region across all digital payment rails, enabling people and organizations to send and receive money how, where, and when they choose, across both card and account-to-account payments rails.
SYNAPSE LAUNCHES GLOBAL CASH, A U.S. BASED ACCOUNT SOLUTION FOR INTERNATIONAL FINTECH COMPANIES AND THEIR CUSTOMERS
Synapse, a global banking-as-a-service platform that increases access to financial products, recently announced the launch of Global Cash, a secure cash management account product that enables residents in more than 35 countries to invest and hold U.S. dollars.
Global Cash allows U.S.-based FinTechs to expand their market reach by simplifying the onboarding of international customers through effortless compliance mechanisms. FinTechs abroad can quickly and easily implement a financial solution that grants customers virtually anywhere access to U.S.-based account features.
With more than 1.7 billion underbanked adults worldwide, Global Cash levels the playing field for people such as freelancers, influencers, and gamers who, especially outside of the U.S., often have difficulties getting paid. Global Cash provides popular features, including debit cards, bank-to-bank transfers, virtual account numbers for direct debit and direct credit, bill-pay, ATM access, and domestic and international transfers.
“Global Cash delivers on the promise of truly modern, borderless, and equitable access to financial services for customers without geographic limitations,”
“With so many entrepreneurial global citizens earning their living on the web, we’ve had an overwhelming demand for this product. Before Global Cash there was no easy way to deploy global financial products; a company’s options were to build from scratch or integrate with subpar BaaS providers in each country. Synapse eliminates those roadblocks, helping companies facilitate global account services efficiently and simply through a unified platform.”
Synapse CEO and co-founder Sankaet Pathak.
When Brazilians travel internationally, they face a problem: they can travel with cash and pay foreign exchange fees at high rates or use credit cards that are 4x the cost of U.S. credit cards. Brazilian startup Nomad, powered by Synapse Global Cash, empowers customers to send local currency to a U.S. deposit account from their home bank and access those funds in as little as two business days, along with issuing customers physical and virtual cards to simplify cost-effective transactions.
“Because of the intricacies of cross-border transactions, we needed a partner that was authentically global with the experience to understand the finance, technology, and U.S. compliance systems that make this all possible,”
“Synapse understood our challenges and made life simpler for us. They provided a valuable solution that no one else could.”
Nomad CEO Lucas Vargas.
By empowering people around the globe to open a fully regulated U.S. account, Global Cash can insulate global citizens from monetary concerns in regions experiencing hyperinflation, instability, or negative interest rates, as well as opening the door to a wealth of financial services:
- Receive payments in USD
- Make international purchases
- Invest in global markets
- Participate in foreign exchange and transfers
- Access family financial services across borders
Synapse Global Cash also allows international startups and enterprise-scale financial institutions to easily embed banking products into applications and launch those products in weeks rather than months or years. Fundamental to enabling this speed-to-market is a comprehensive suite of capabilities built into the Synapse platform, including core banking relationships, payment networks, licensing, and identity and risk management, including Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML).
“For many outsides of the U.S., the ability to hold U.S. dollars in a U.S. account and transact through that account establishes a new level of economic freedom. Adequate KYC/AML protections are critically important and can be barriers,”
“By solving for compliance inside and out, Synapse enables us to provide these services at the level and scale of the world’s largest banks at a fraction of the cost. And by keeping that cost down we’re able to provide accessible financial services to a global and more diverse range of customers.”
Stefano Angeli, Founder, and CEO of Utoppia.
TRUSIGHT, JPMORGAN CHASE, AMERICAN EXPRESS, BANK OF AMERICA, BNY MELLON AND WELLS FARGO ANNOUNCE THE COMPLETION OF PILOT DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION PROGRAM
TruSight, the financial industry’s leading provider of validated third-party risk data, today announced the successful completion of the 2021 pilot diversity and inclusion program that provides free cyber-readiness assessments to nominated minority-owned companies seeking to provide products and services to the financial industry. The cyber-readiness program is an initiative of TruSight and five of the world’s leading financial services companies: JPMorgan Chase, American Express, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and BNYM.
The cyber-readiness program aims to break down obstacles for minority-owned vendors by equipping them with comprehensive risk assessments to accelerate their sales cycle and qualify them for more business across the financial services sector. Meeting a financial institution’s requirements as a third-party vendor is, in general, a time-consuming and duplicative process. Before joining the cyber-readiness program, many minority-owned vendors must typically go above and beyond to meet the requirements posed by each financial institution interested in partnering with them as resources for these SMB vendors are often limited – making the process even more challenging.
Third parties participating in the program receive a comprehensive risk assessment conducted by TruSight, which delivers a standardized, current-state view of their risk readiness to provide to the financial industry – cutting down on duplicative assessments and allowing resources to be focused on business growth. Additionally, participating vendors incur no cost for taking part in the program, and their completed assessments are included in TruSight’s catalog, giving them exposure to numerous major financial institutions.
“Completing third-party assessments on time is an important commercial and regulatory activity for financial institutions, but it can be an onerous challenge for vendors,”
“This program is specifically designed to help alleviate that burden for minority-owned businesses, so they can better compete in the marketplace and strengthen relationships with their financial services customers.”
Nathan Rodgers, Executive Director, Supplier Assurance Services at JPMorgan Chase.
The program’s founding banks select the vendors to participate in the program. The recently completed pilot, which launched in 2021, included 25 vendor participants. The goal for the 2022 program is to add 30 more vendors.
“This pilot program has already demonstrated benefits for our suppliers and Bank of America,”
“Participants gain insight into their current cyber-defense readiness – making them a stronger business – and has allowed us to establish relationships with additional diverse-owned businesses that are now cyber-ready.”
Bank of America’s Head of Supplier Diversity, Vonshe Jenkins.
TruSight is an industry-backed data platform developed to facilitate the efficient exchange of standardized and fully validated risk data between service providers and their customers. TruSight’s operating model, in which risk assessments are performed once and shared by many, reduces the time and effort spent by both financial service institutions and their vendors. The universally adopted TruSight methodology enables financial institutions to gain greater visibility into supply chain risk and supports third parties by removing the need to perform multiple assessments.
Vendors enjoy multiple benefits from undergoing a TruSight assessment: they gain visibility into their potential risk gaps; have a completed risk assessment they can readily share with customers, and establish an edge on their competitors by positioning themselves as fully secure and ready.
“The cyber-readiness program has been a valuable exercise for our company,”
“Being assessed by TruSight gave us benchmarks to meet and exceed on our journey to achieve operational excellence. We have been very impressed by the professionalism of the TruSight team and how smoothly the assessment process has gone.”
Amber Kizilbash, COO of Lenox Park Solutions.
“We are thrilled to have an opportunity to participate in this industry program and diversify our catalog of vendors,”
“This cyber-readiness initiative is a win-win for all involved: TruSight can expand its catalog, which gives these vendors wider exposure to key customers and connects our financial service customers to a whole new set of accomplished vendors.”
Patrick Eannotti, TruSight’s director of third-party engagement.
WITH $6.2M, PEBBLE LAUNCHES A FINANCIAL APP BUILT TO REPLACE YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.
Pebble has launched the first financial app that pays you to save, spend, and send your money — all in one balance. With the rollout of the product, Pebble concurrently announced their $6.2M raise to ignite the growth of The Money Revolution.
Pebble’s mission has attracted the support of Y Combinator, Light shed Ventures, Soma Capital, Eniac Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Montage Ventures, East Ventures, Cadenza Capital, The House Fund, Spice Capital, Helium-3 Ventures, and Bluewatch Ventures — as well as NFL superstar Odell Beckham Jr, lead singer of Muse Matthew Bellamy, CEO of Quantstamp Richard Ma, CEO of Nurx Varsha Rao, and CEO of Alt Leore Avidar.
Contrary to the rapid rise of technology, banks seem to disregard keeping up with modern times. Why are we making 1 cent in interest every month? Why don’t we qualify for any substantial cash back unless we pay a fee? The way we interact with our everyday finances still feels extremely archaic.
“Pebble was founded to introduce a new standard to personal finance,”
Sahil Phadnis co-founder and CTO, Pebble.
One of their biggest advantages is that Pebble isn’t a bank. They’re something better. Through Pebble’s digital wallet, users can earn 5% APY rewards on their money and unlimited 5% cashback at their 56 partnered merchants. These include Amazon, Uber, Airbnb, Adidas, Chipotle, and more. If you’re used to getting cheated by banks, you’re probably wondering what’s going on behind the scenes to make these rewards possible?
When you deposit money into Pebble, they convert it into a US dollar-denominated blockchain-based currency called USDC. Then, they lend it out to highly regulated financial institutions. USDC, created by Circle and Coinbase, is asset-backed 1 to 1 — meaning for every USDC there is a dollar equivalent in its reserves. USDC not only has the majority of its reserves managed by Blackrock but has also passed every monthly audit from Granton Thorton. USDC’s technology empowers the fastest and cheapest global transactions, so many of the world’s largest financial institutions are willing to pay more to access them.
Pebble also includes a full suite of features that innovates on your daily financial needs.
“There’s not a single feature in traditional banking that reflects the digital age we’re in. To empower people’s money to truly work for them, we needed to build a brand new foundation from the ground up.”
Aaron Bai Co-founder and CEO, Pebble.
Within the app, you can seamlessly pay, track, and manage your bills just by snapping a picture of it. You will receive a debit card made in collaboration with Mastercard with full budgeting controls. And Pebble supports full and partial payroll connections, so you can watch your paychecks grow in the Pebble ecosystem.
Lastly, you will be rewarded with their unique loyalty points (called Pebbles) for everything you do. While there will not be more information released on Pebbles at this time, they are the key to aligning the incentives of their team, investors, partners, merchants, and you to build the new global economy on top of the blockchain.
“The mantra here is that it pays to be early,”
Aaron Bai Co-founder and CEO, Pebble.
In the coming months, Pebble will be working towards expansion into new markets along with shipping more features on their iOS and Android app.
THE CREDIT THING GOES LIVE WITH TRUELAYER’S RECURRING PAYMENTS API
European open banking platform TrueLayer has partnered with The Credit Thing, implementing the platform’s recurring payments API and making the first consumer Variable Recurring Payments (VRP) transactions in the UK.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has mandated the UK’s nine largest banks to provide VRPs which support the automatic transfer of money between two accounts belonging to the same person, referred to as ‘sweeping’.
TrueLayer claims to be the first open banking provider to offer a single API that enables businesses to connect to select UK banks to take recurring payments as a replacement for direct debit and card-on-file payments.
The Credit Thing aims to help people in the UK who are unable to gain access to credit due to thin credit histories. By using open banking, the firm’s customers can securely link their bank accounts during the application process to prove their creditworthiness.
The Credit Thing will use TrueLayer’s recurring payment API to deliver an improved customer experience for repayments in a process that takes “seconds”.
“Consumers also have far more control, with a single payment approval that removes the need to re-authenticate or re-authorize transactions, through a payment consent that is tied to a bank account and doesn’t expire until it’s revoked by them,” the firm says.
Unlike both direct debit and card-on-file, recurring payments with TrueLayer provide The Credit Thing with instant access to the funds deposited.
The company also claims that it is a “more cost-effective” alternative, removing the fees incurred by card payments and their potential for chargebacks, and the operational overheads of managing direct debits.
“This isn’t innovation for the sake of it. It delivers meaningful benefits – consumers are firmly in control, the service is secure and user friendly, the cost of service is ultra-competitive, and regular payment approval rates are likely to be phenomenal,”
Colin Hollingsbee, The Credit Thing chief information officer (CIO).