The Fintech Times Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest fintech stories from around the world on Saturday 10 May 2025.
Appointments
The FCA has appointed David Geale as permanent executive director for payments and digital finance, and managing director of the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR). Geale is responsible for helping to deliver the National Payments Vision and driving the FCA’s work on open banking and digital finance. He is also responsible for supervising payments and cryptoasset firms. Geale has been acting as the managing director of the PSR since June 2024.
Trust Payments, a provider of commerce and payment solutions, appoints Luke Flomo as chief revenue officer. Flomo joins the business from blockchain payments business Orbital and has experience of running
commercial teams across multiple financial services businesses including Trustly and Klarna.
BILL, a financial operations platform for SMBs, has welcomed Mike Cieri as EVP, GM of software solutions. Cieri will lead and drive software strategy across the BILL platform, reporting directly to CEO and founder, René Lacerte. Previously at Gusto, he served as the company’s chief product officer and was responsible for scaling Gusto’s product platform for payroll, benefits and HR.
Lucanet, the global provider of end-to-end CFO software solutions, appoints Alistair Gurney as its chief financial officer. He has held several senior finance positions at public and private equity-backed software firms, including Unit4, IRIS Software Group and Dotdigital, where he served most recently as group CFO.
Darren Bentley joins UK saving platform Flagstone as the company’s first chief growth officer. He most recently worked at LumonPay, the currency exchange, and also previously worked at Cazoo and MoneySupermarket. At Flagstone, Darren will oversee how the company increases the speed at which billions of pounds are added to the platform by savers every year.
More appointments
PayFuture, the payments platform connecting global businesses with emerging markets, has appointed Sanda Laicena as group chief legal officer. She will leverage her extensive experience in the regulatory and operational aspects of fintech to help guide the group’s legal strategy, develop the group’s legal function, and drive growth across the group’s expanding international footprint.
Anant Patel is named CEO of UK payments company Judopay, the brand which operates under Alternative Payments Ltd. Patel will spearhead the company’s next stage of growth and development, with a particular focus on strengthening synergies with Fabrick, an international open finance company. As part of its European expansion strategy, Fabrick acquired Alternative Payments Ltd in May 2023 to drive the development of new open payment solutions.
Fintilect, the AI-powered hyper-personalised digital banking provider for financial providers across the globe, has appointed Lindsay Soergel as CEO. Soergel takes over from interim CEO, Rami Cassis, who will become chairman of Fintilect. She joins Fintilect having recently served as a specialist fintech go-to-market executive consultant.
Funding news
Fintech alternative lending platform for digital founders Juice has raised £25million in funding to support its aim to democratise finance by providing SME founders with capital and confidence to achieve growth ambitions. These investments came from family offices Aern Capital and Falco Capital, underpinned by a credit line from Paragon Bank.
Savea, a fintech company focused on creating regulated investment products based on tokenised high-value, real-world assets, announces $2.5million in pre-seed funding from angel investors and venture studio EmergentX. The funding will support Savea’s mission to launch new investment opportunities that leverage blockchain technology to increase access, liquidity and scalability for physically-scarce assets like fine wine, classic cars or watches.
Circula, the German expense management company, has bagged €15million in funding. This round was led by existing investors Alstin Capital, Capnamic Ventures, Peak Capital, Wenvest Capital and Storm Ventures, as well as CIBC Innovation Banking. The funding will be invested in expanding the finance operations solution and support the transition to autonomous expense processing.
OX Security has raised $60million in new funding, increasing its total raise to $94million, led by DTCP with participation from IBM Ventures, Microsoft, Swisscom Ventures, Evolution Equity Partners and Team8. The application security platform and cybersecurity company says it will use the funding to ‘ lead the charge in redefining software supply chain security’.
Digital financial platform FINOM has secured a growth investment of €92.3million ($105million) from General Catalyst‘s Customer Value Fund (CVF). With this non-dilutive growth investment, its total capital raised approaches €190million ($200million), providing FINOM with the resources needed to ‘accelerate its mission across Europe’ while ‘preserving its cap table’.
Partnerships
SeedLegals, the one stop platform for all startups’ legal needs has teamed up with Penfold, the digital pension provider, to offer all its customers workplace auto-enrolment pensions. Through its new partnership with Penfold, SeedLegals now enables companies to set up their first workplace auto-enrolment pension in under two minutes. Businesses can also switch from an existing pension provider within the SeedLegals platform.
Northern Tool + Equipment selects TreviPay, the B2B payments and invoicing network, to power pay by invoice program. The partnership powers the new Northern Tool Commercial Account program designed exclusively for businesses to provide greater flexibility and convenience in managing payments. The net terms program enables businesses net 30 payment terms and flexible invoicing options to meet the payment preferences of B2B buyers across America.
FloQast, an accounting transformation platform, has unveiled a strategic partnership with PwC Belgium focused on ‘revolutionising’ accounting close automation solutions. This collaboration seeks to combine FloQast’s AI-powered workflows with PwC Belgium’s expertise in closing processes to boost efficiency, increase accuracy and provide deeper insights for businesses in various industries.
eToro, the trading and investing platform, has partnered with Google to launch one of the first TV and YouTube advertising campaigns fully created using Veo 2, the advanced video generation technology from Google DeepMind. They say the collaboration marks a significant milestone in the use of generative AI for large-scale brand storytelling.
Bitget, the cryptocurrency exchange and Web3 company, has unveiled a strategic partnership with SWEAT, the movement economy ecosystem, lowering entry barriers for Web2 audiences while seamlessly connecting them to Web3. The alliance was unveiled at Dubai Esports Festival 2025 (DEF), where attendees experienced the future first-hand through interactive activities that turn physical activity into crypto rewards.
Company updates
Hedera has unveiled a rebrand and strategic restructuring designed to propel its growth and strengthen its position within the digital economy. The HBAR Foundation is now Hedera Foundation and the Hedera Governing Council is now Hedera Council. Hedera Foundation, led by CEO Charles Adkins, will focus on community-driven innovation and institutional adoption, including efforts in decentralised finance, AI, tokenisation, and digital identity. Meanwhile, Hedera Council will be led by Tom Sylvester as president.
Corlytics, the global regtech backed by Verdane, has become the first regtech firm to achieve the ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification for its business-wide AI management system. This establishes Corlytics’ commitment to AI governance. The process involved an independent two stage audit by leading cybersecurity compliance firm A-LIGN which found zero non-conformities.
