he Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest fintech stories from around the world on Thursday 20 March 2025.
Collaborations
Epos Now, a global AI-driven point-of-sale provider, forges a strategic partnership with Lloyds Cardnet, one of the UK’s biggest card payment service providers. Epos Now has developed a custom-built integration specifically for Lloyds Cardnet, ensuring seamless end-to-end connectivity between merchants’ POS systems and Lloyds’ payment processing services.
Bank Norwegian has extended its partnership with Tietoevry Banking for another five years, reinforcing a long-standing collaboration that has helped the bank establish itself as the most customer-friendly credit card provider, now serving approximately 1.4 million credit card customers internationally.
WealthKernel, a digital investing infrastructure provider, has unveiled a new partnership with Round Treasury, a banking and treasury platform that aims to simplify and help businesses manage their treasury and cash. Round uses WealthKernel’s custody, brokerage and GIA to bring highly liquid money market funds to its clients and offer competitive yields at low risk.
Adyen, the global financial technology platform, has expanded its partnership with Affirm Holdings, the payment network that empowers consumers and helps merchants drive growth, to the UK. Adyen’s UK merchants looking to provide their customers access to flexible, pay-over-time plans can now seamlessly integrate and offer Affirm at checkout.
More collaborations
dLocal, the cross-border payment platform connecting global merchants to emerging markets, has announced a strategic partnership with Temu, the global e-commerce platform known for affordable products. This collaboration enhances the shopping experience for millions of customers in 14 emerging markets across Africa, Asia, and Latin America by offering seamless and secure payment options tailored to local preferences.
Pleo, the financial platform for businesses, has partnered with Taktile, a decision automation platform. By integrating Taktile’s advanced technology, Pleo is strengthening its anti-money laundering (AML) and fraud detection capabilities. The bespoke tools offered through this partnership are designed to give Pleo the agility to quickly adapt and evolve its fraud detection methods as new.
Taulia, a provider of working capital management solutions and part of the SAP group, and Cornèr Group, have announced a partnership to issue virtual cards to Cornèr Group’s B2B customers in Switzerland and Liechtenstein from within the SAP ecosystem.
Job moves
Paymentology, the global issuer processor, has appointed Minh Ha Truong as head of growth, Asia Pacific. In her new role, Minh Ha will spearhead Paymentology’s growth strategy across the Asia Pacific region, working closely with clients, partners, and governments to drive innovation and relevance in the market. She recently worked at BPC as head of market development.
Digital bank Monzo appoints Andy Smart to the role of chief product officer. Smart joined in 2016 as one of Monzo’s first 20 employees and during his career has served in several significant positions across the technology platform including being appointed Monzo’s first vice president of engineering, and acting as interim CTO. Most recently he was general manager of wealth.
Global digital transformation company GFT has revealed its latest step in its US growth with the appointment of Rishi Chohan as its US CEO. Chohan succeeds former CEO of the Americas Marco Santos, who took over as GFT’s Global CEO in January 2025. He and Chohan will continue scaling GFT’s work in the US as they execute on a five-year strategy to transform GFT from the inside out with AI.
Funding news
Qlarifi, a fintech startup building a BNPL consumer credit database, has completed a pre-seed funding round. The round, backed by a combination of HoneyComb Asset Management, Carthona Capital and a selection of angel investors including Australian rugby player John Eales, raised £1.4 million to accelerate the company’s mission of bringing repayment transparency to the BNPL industry.
Sibstar, the debit card and app for adults who need help managing their everyday money, has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube’s platform, with the aim of securing a total of £350,000. The funds raised will accelerate Sibstar’s mission to expand financial inclusion and enable adults to spend safely. Sibstar has already secured investment from Dragons’ Den investors Sara Davies and Deborah Meaden.
Utila has bagged an $18million Series A round, led by Nyca Partners with participation also from seed investors Wing VC and NFX, as well as funds such as Haymaker Ventures, Gaingels and Cerca Partners. Ita will use the financing to scale global operations to meet the demand for its institutional MPC wallets and expand its R&D efforts. Utila has raised $30million since exiting stealth in March 2024.
NymCard, the embedded finance platform operating across 10+ countries in MENA, has secured $33million in its latest Series B funding round, led by QED Investors. This marks QED Investors’ most significant investment in the region and the first one in the Gulf, underscoring the growing global confidence in MENA’s expanding fintech ecosystem.
Company updates
Trustly, the Pay by Bank solution provider, has become the first third-party provider to support RIX INST-powered instant payouts and will now offer instant payout coverage for all Swedish banks and their customers. Merchants can now instantly refund and pay out to customers of leading Swedish banks, including ICA Banken, Länsförsäkringar and Skandiabanken.
