Happy Tuesday, Fintech Fans!
Explore how travelling gets 'Fin'tastic; payment partnerships peak and Europe's fintech fires up! And this is just the froth on top - the real tea is brewing inside! ☕
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What’s on the fintech menu today?
📖 Today’s Must Read: Visa Tokens Spark $2B Boom for Asia Pacific
🌟 Fintech Fiesta: The Week's Hot 10!
🌐 ‘Byte’ Buzz: Fintech highlights, sorted by segment!
🔗 Link Up: Your gateway to resourceful links!
Fin-teresting Stories in Fintech 📰
Visa Tokens Spark $2B Boom for Asia Pacific
Visa has announced that the adoption of Visa Token Service (VTS) in Asia Pacific resulted in an uplift of over $2B in the region's digital economy in 2023. This milestone highlights the significant value that tokens bring to digital commerce, both online and in-store.
VTS replaces the traditional 16-digit debit or credit card number with a unique token that enhances security and enables the transfer of enhanced data, leading to improved payment success rates and reduced fraud rates. Merchants who have embraced VTS for their digital payments have experienced a higher payment success rate and a significant reduction in payment fraud. Furthermore, tokens offer a seamless payment experience as consumers no longer need to manually enter their card details when making online purchases. They have the ability to improve payment processing by enabling greater control and enriching data exchange for each transaction.
In 2023, various payment service providers provided a comprehensive array of features for card issuance, processing, and management, encompassing functionalities related to personalisation, tokenisation, authentication, compliance, and more.
Discover more on how payment processors are driving innovation to provide a comprehensive array of features for businesses in the fintech industry in our “2023 Roundup: The Surge of Card Issuing Innovations by Payment Processors” blog via the link below 👇
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Edition #112 is a treasure trove of all things fintech, waiting to be uncovered >>>
The Week's Hot 10! ♨️🔟
Fighting fraud with innovation
↳ Visa launched 3 AI-powered fraud prevention solutions. The new products are developed to reduce fraud and threads across immediate A2A and card-not-present payments (CNP), as well as transactions that are taken both on and off Visa’s network.
↳ At the same time, anti-fraud platform Feedzai teamed up with A2A platform Form3. Feedzai will power the new authorised push payment fraud (APP fraud) prevention solution from Form3, which takes advantage of collaborative intelligence to determine the risk of a payment in real time by understanding the behaviour of both the sender and the recipient.
Milestone moments
↳ Nubank reached 4 million business customers in Nubank PJ. The digital bank announced that it will start offering a loan solution called ‘Working Capital’ to legal entities.
↳ Concurrently, The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted ChargeAfter a patent for its embedded lending technology. The patent underscores ChargeAfter’s position as a leader in point-of-sale financing solutions.
Fresh offerings flood the DeFi world
↳ Laser Digital launched the institutional-focused Laser Digital Polygon Adoption Fund, in partnership with TruFin, enabling institutional investors to access the staking yields of the native MATIC token of the Polygon proof of stake blockchain.
↳ Also, HSBC’s Gold Token went live for retail investors in Hong Kong. The Gold Token is minted on the bank’s Orion digital assets platform.
Powerful partnerships to power payments
↳ Fintech Riverty partnered with Adyen and integrated its 14-day buy now, pay later (BNPL) payment method into Adyen’s platform.
↳ Not just that, checkout network Simpl expanded its partnership with food ordering and delivery platform Zomato, to integrate its one-tap checkout with Zomato Gold, Intercity Legends, and Zomato Everyday.
Delighting a Diverse Demographic
↳ Equifax UK teamed with free-to-use platform Homely to help first-time buyers become mortgage-ready by providing data, credit insights and much more.
↳ Meanwhile, ANEXT Bank secured $148M from Ant Group with a focus on cross-border digital banking and transactions for SMEs.
Now, for the ‘byte’-sized fintech buzz –
In the realm of Embedded Finance, alliances soar to new heights, weaving seamless experiences for travellers and cardholders alike.
Belgium-based insurtech Qover partnered with UK-based credit card fintech Yonder to improve travel insurance experiences for members. The collaboration ensures that customers using their Yonder cards for travel and accommodation expenses can gain access to comprehensive insurance coverage.
Mastercard and Singapore Airlines (SIA) announced a five-year strategic alliance, with Mastercard being designated as the preferred partner for SIA's forthcoming co-branded card initiatives throughout Southeast Asia. Supported by Mastercard, SIA will launch co-branded credit and debit card programs across Southeast Asia, providing a range of attractive benefits to cardholders.
In the burgeoning landscape of Open Finance, collaborations and authorisations paved the way for innovative payment solutions.
International payment processor and payment aggregator Payop partnered with payment services platform Tink to implement Pay by Bank in Europe. Payop and Tink are striving to promote and expand the adoption of this payment method across Europe.
B2B payment company Accesstage received authorisation from the Central Bank of Brazil to operate as a payment institution (IP). This allows the company to initiate payments outside the banking environment, with the user's prior consent.
Witness the transformative aura of Digital Finance, driving innovation and sustainability in the financial ecosystem.
Embedded finance provider Paynetics acquired Novus, the UK ‘impact-neobank’, as part of its commitment to advancing ESG initiatives in financial services. It hopes to enhance to neobank’s offerings further while expanding the ESG ecosystem across Europe by empowering clients to push forward initiatives through the corporate embedded finance service for a more sustainable future.
Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) launched the Himyan Debit Card - a national initiative by the Qatar Central Bank, designed to foster a cashless society and facilitate seamless and secure local transactions.
Amidst the Fintech Infrastructure evolution, collaborations forge pathways to efficiency and inclusion, empowering individuals and institutions alike.
Epic River, a lending-as-a-service platform provider, integrated with Finastra’s LaserPro loan documentation system. The partnership significantly streamlines the loan closing documentation process and supports consumer, commercial and real estate loan types.
SingleKey, a provider of residential leasing solutions, teamed with Nova Credit, a credit infrastructure and analytics company. Together, they aim to shatter housing barriers for new-to-country individuals by empowering them with exclusive access to their international credit history.
In the DeFi realm, strategic partnerships ignite innovation, democratising access to tokenisation and unlocking a new era of financial inclusion for millions worldwide.
Turkey’s Misyon Bank partnered with Swiss firm Taurus to leverage its digital asset custody and tokenisation technology. The collaboration enables Misyon Bank to offer digital custody services to a diverse range of institutions, including banks, portfolio management companies, brokerage firms, fintechs, family offices, and central banks.
Brazilian investment firm Acura Capital joined forces with Patex to build a real-world asset tokenisation bank. The alliance will allow over 670 million users to access the tokenisation market.
The Green Finance arena witnessed an exciting surge towards eco-friendly solutions and the welcoming of diverse consumers, all rallying together towards a brighter, greener future.
Retail giant Tesco partnered with NatWest to launch a new discounted finance scheme for its farmers, providing them with preferential rates on finance to help them switch to sustainable farming methods.
Climate Management & Accounting Platform (CMAP) provider Persefoni released Persefoni Pro, a new free, tool aimed at enabling businesses to measure and disclose their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
And that's a wrap 👋
We hope you enjoyed this edition of the Weekly Fintech Brew!
As a reward for making it all the way here, enjoy a curated list of awesome fintech resources to keep your curiosity cup full to the brim. Cheers to continuous learning!
🔗 Link Up! –
Consumer Sentiment About Open Banking Payments Report - PYMNTS Intelligence X Trustly
Banking apps: The case study for a digital finance standard Report - Consumer Reports
Open Banking Outlook: March Key Regulatory Updates and Policies Blog - Yapily
The Good, Bad, and Opportunities in How Financial Institutions Leverage Consumer Financial Data Blog - MX
Revolutionary Open Banking Use Cases in North America Blog - WhiteSight
The State of Banking-as-a-Service in the UK & Europe Report - Toqio X WhiteSight
Hungry for more fintech insights? Check out some of our other work at WhiteSight.
If you're someone who likes to read think pieces, you will likely love our monthly blog, Fintersections, where our team members analyse the convergence of fintech with the world.
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