The Fintech Times Bi-Weekly News Roundup takes a look at the latest fintech stories from around the world on Thursday 24 April 2025.
Appointments
TrustLinq, a Swiss-regulated crypto-to-fiat financial intermediary, welcomes Sharon Gal Franko as its new CEO. Franko brings over 25 years of experience in the fintech industry, having held executive leadership roles at the likes of Nium, Nuvei, dLocal, and EMS.
Commvault, a cyber resilience and data protection firm, has appointed Havier Haddad as its new channel and distribution lead, EMEA’s emerging markets. Haddad joins from Dell Technologies, where he spent 16 years leading teams across the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa. In his new role, he will focus on scaling Commvault’s channel ecosystem and supporting partners in EMEA’s emerging markets to address escalating cyber threats and cloud adoption challenges.
The Zebra, an insurance comparison site, appoints former NerdWallet and Priceline executive, John Caine, as its chief operating officer. In this role, Caine will look to unite product, engineering, design and data teams to fast-track innovation, elevate the user experience and further simplify how consumers shop for insurance.
EquityZen, a marketplace for buying and selling private company equity, has promoted Brian Griffith to chief business officer and Sudesh Kulkarni to chief product officer. These appointments come as EquityZen continues to expand its platform and reach in the private market.
Versapay, an Accounts Receivable (AR) platform, has appointed Elizabeth Bramlage as chief marketing officer. With over 15 years of experience leading marketing for high-growth fintech and payments companies, Bramlage most recently served as CMO at ComplyAdvantage, a global provider of financial crime compliance technology.
Product launches
Thunes, the cross-border payment infrastructure provider, has launched a new ‘Business Payments’ offering, a new solution designed to transform cross-border payment experiences for its members. The new API will look to offer members a streamlined and cost-efficient way to process international business payments, bypassing the complexities of legacy systems.
Episode Six, a global provider of modern ledger and card infrastructure, has been selected by Singapore-based fintech Aspire to introduce a new multi-currency corporate card offering tailored to SMBs in Hong Kong and Singapore. This solution will enable businesses to expand globally while reducing operational costs and streamlining financial processes.
ValidiFI, a bank account and payment intelligence firm, has expanded its vAccount+ suite to include new capabilities for authoritative bank account verification. It says this move will equip organisations with a multi-layered approach to account verification, increasing coverage and accuracy.
Trading and investing platform eToro has added 29 new cryptoassets, including 17 ‘experimental’ cryptoassets, a category on eToro including memecoins, initial coin offerings and token sales, innovative products and decentralised finance (DeFi) strategies.
Funding and investments
Embedded finance player Froda has secured a €20million investment to fuel its European expansion and provide more SMEs with seamless, data-driven financing. The Series B round was led by Incore Invest, with strong continued backing from the majority of existing investors.
Climate-success platform, 51toCarbonZero, which ensures effective corporate transition to net zero while boosting clients’ business performance, has secured a £3million investment led by Fuel Ventures. This additional funding will enable 51toCarbonZero to extend its climate-success platform to a greater number of businesses and sectors across the UK, Europe, and the US.
Pan-European digital trade credit provider Hokodo has announced a new €10million equity fundraising round co-led by Korelya Capital and Opera Tech Ventures, the corporate venture fund of global bank BNP Paribas. This cash injection will enable Hokodo to continue developing digital trade credit solutions, onboard new merchants and leverage AI to further digitise the credit management value chain.
Mongolia-based digital lending fintech, LendMN, has today announced a $20million debt financing from Lendable, a debt finance provider. WIth the funding, LendMN plans to enhance its services to improve financial accessibility and inclusion for the underbanked.
Partnerships
Identity platform Trulioo is partnering with PingPong, a cross-border embedded payment solution provider, to enable the cross-border firm to expand its global footprint while meeting rigorous Know Your Business (KYB) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance standards by automating verification processes.
Family Law Cafe, a legal services platform specialising in divorce, finances and child custody, has selected open banking payment solution, Atoa, to send payment links to all clients via SMS, alongside credit card and bank transfer options. It says it hopes the decision will help drive frictionless payments in the legal sector.
BrightStar Credit Union (BSCU) is teaming up with fintech firm Jack Henry to leverage its Symitar platform and complementary products to support BSCU’s growth and deliver better member experiences. Through the partnership, the credit union is shifting to a private cloud environment.
Embedded lending platform for point-of-sale financing, ChargeAfter, has also partnered with Foundation Finance to expand financing options available to home improvement contractors and their customers.
Fiserv, the global provider of payments and financial services technology, is partnering with specialist bank Vanquis to support its technology transformation. Vanquis will leverage Fiserv’s processing platform, Vision NextTM, an end-to-end solution that delivers global processing economies of scale plus integrated adjacent services that span the issuing lifecycle.
More partnerships
RiseUp, the AI-driven financial insights tool, has partnered with European open banking infrastructure provider Yapily to help RiseUp customers turn insights into action by enabling fast and seamless payments between accounts.
Visa has extended its partnership with Nationwide to deliver Debit and Credit card products to its current account and credit card customers, who form part of the building society’s 16 million members. The new agreement will help drive growth in current account and credit card issuing, to bring the value of Nationwide to a greater number of consumers across the UK.
Open banking payment and account initiation solution provider fumopay has forged a partnership with Cashflows to enhance its integrated checkout experience. By selecting Cashflows as its acquiring partner, fumopay will offer card processing services alongside its account-to-account open banking payments, aiming to deliver increased flexibility and choice to merchants and consumers.
Global analytics software leader FICO is partnering with dacadoo, a customer engagement company, to enhance how insurance companies assess and manage risk, and promote health/wellness. dacadoo will integrate FICO’s AI, analytics and decision management capabilities with its health risk quantification risk engine, giving insurers more personalised risk assessments for applicants.
Other news
Capgemini has fully acquired the share capital of Delta Capita BV and its fully owned Netherlands-based subsidiary Delta Capita Academy BV, which specialises in Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) services. This represents Capgemini’s second acquisition in the FCC space in 18 months, as it aims to position itself as the global partner of choice for KYC and FCC transformation.
Revolut, the global fintech, has removed additional weekend currency exchange fees for customers on its Premium, Metal and Ultra plans. Following the move, these customers will now be able to travel across the globe without additional currency exchange fees, seven days a week.
CleverTap, an all-in-one engagement and retention platform, has acquired rehook.ai, a Y Combinator-backed startup. The move sees CleverTap strengthen its complete suite for customer retention, merging analytics, engagement, and promotions into a single unified offering.
Durham-based Anglo Scottish Asset Finance is strategically expanding into the Irish market, with the establishment of a new division, AS Finance Ireland, which is set to cater specifically to the unique financial needs of businesses in Ireland.
MultiSafepay (MSP), an Amsterdam-based payment service provider, has reported strong growth since its strategic integration with Ant International’s Antom in July 2024. Since announcing its acquisition, MSP has expanded its merchant base across Europe to over 20,000, an 11 per cent increase, while transaction volumes surged by 44 per cent year-on-year.
GB Bank, one of the UK’s fastest-growing challenger banks, has revealed that its balance sheet has now surpassed £2billion. The news comes after it received its most recent tranche of £90million in growth capital since May 2024, before hitting profitability just a few months later in October.
