Payoneer announced that it plans to go public by merging with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp. (FTOC), a special purpose acquisition company in a US$ 3.3 billion deal. Payoneer has been backed by investments from TCV, Susquehanna Growth Equity (SGE), Viola Ventures, Wellington Management, Nyca Partners, Temasek and more. The company will be renamed as Payoneer Global Inc. and the combined company will operate as Payoneer, a U.S. publicly listed entity. Payoneer’s management team will continue to lead the company. Over the past 15 years, Payoneer’s secure, regulated platform offers a global, multi-currency account to businesses of any size around the world.…

Visa has announced a partnership with First Boulevard, a digitally native neobank focused on building generational wealth for the black community, to pilot Visa’s new suite of crypto APIs that is anticipated to launch later this year. As part of the initial pilot programme, Visa plans to enable First Boulevard to connect to infrastructure provided by Visa’s partner, Anchorage, a federally chartered digital asset bank, to allow their customers to buy and sell Bitcoin. The pilot will serve as a key first step in supporting API capabilities that help additional Visa clients access and integrate crypto features into their product…

Die Kreditfabrik der Glarner Kantonalbank (GLKB) und die Mobiliar bauen ihre Kooperation im Business-to-Business-Geschäft (B2B) substanziell aus. Die GLKB übernimmt die Verwaltung des bestehenden Hypothekenportfolios der Mobiliar. Die Mobiliar wird die Verwaltung ihres eigenen Hypothekenbestandes von insgesamt rund 1,4 Milliarden Franken ab dem 1. Juni 2021 schrittweise an die Kreditfabrik der Glarner Kantonalbank übergeben. Die Intensivierung der Zusammenarbeit mit der ältesten privaten Versicherungsgesellschaft der Schweiz stellt für die GLKB Kreditfabrik einen weiteren, grossen Erfolg in ihrem B2B-Geschäft dar. Sie arbeitet bereits seit 2018 indirekt mit der Mobiliar zusammen. Damals konnte die GLKB Kreditfabrik die Bewirtschaftung des Hypothekenportfolios für die digitale…

Swiss-based digital asset bank Sygnum Bank and Fine Wine Capital, a privately held specialist trading company with a focus on the fine wine market, have successfully tokenised a range of premium investible wines, creating the first asset tokens issued under the new Swiss DLT law, which has come into effect. Fine Wines Capital was one of a strong cohort of issuers that took part in the recent launch of Sygnum’s bank-grade tokenisation solution, including Gruppo Azimut (mid-cap vertical), Bak Motors (venture capital vertical) and ImmoZins and CROWDLITOKEN (real estate vertical). This fully integrated, institutional-grade solution is comprised of Desygnate, a…

SEBA Bank, a digital assets firm with a Swiss banking license from FINMA, announced that it is issuing its Series B equity to shareholders as security tokens using blockchain. In December, SEBA Bank announced it would tokenise its shares of the Series B fundraising when the blockchain law came into force in Switzerland where the firm did not disclose the amount of capital raised. The SEBA Bank equity tokens are fully secured by the DLT Law, and shall be issued and held within its banking-grade digital custody in a FINMA regulated environment. The SEBA Bank equity tokens are fully compliant…

Crypto Broker AG which is the Crypto Finance Group’s brokerage, has been granted a license as a securities house with a bilateral trading facility by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) Once the license comes into effect, it could potentially bring in new business as the possibility to trade security tokens will bring continued growth for financial service clients with specific products and complete core banking solutions. This license also serves to establish further trust in Crypto Broker AG as one of the crypto brokers worldwide fulfilling the licensing requirements that securities firms active in the established financial markets…

Mit dem Digital Onboarding für die Obwaldner Kantonalbank lancierte ti&m zusammen mit Finnova Anfang Jahr einen neuen Service für die Finnova-Community: In weniger als fünf Minuten gelangen Neukunden jetzt zu ihrem Bankkonto, und das rund um die Uhr. Das Digital Onboarding von ti&m ist ein vollautomatisierter End-to-End-Prozess. Es ist Teil der ti&m channel suite – dem Digitalisierungs-Baukasten von ti&m für Banken. Benutzerfreundlich und unkompliziert können Neukunden 24 Stunden am Tag ein neues Konto eröffnen und sofort nutzen. Dank der engen Zusammenarbeit zwischen ti&m und Finnova fügt sich die Lösung nahtlos in das bestehende Kernbankensystem von Finnova ein und führt den…

PPRO, a London-based payments infrastructure provider has partnered with financial infrastructure provider Banking Circle to enhance the former’s service offering by supporting payment service providers (PSPs) working with cross border e-commerce merchants. With this partnership, PPRO is capitalising on the benefits of Banking Circle’s real-time payments proposition for PSPs. PPRO will leverage on Banking Circle’s accounts in multiple currencies to gain access to various local clearing methods in just one solution. This helps PPRO to not only simplify internal processes, but also allows it to receive and make payments faster and cheaper. PPRO counts the likes of Citi, Elavon, Mastercard…

Banking software company Temenos announced that Schroders Wealth Management in Switzerland has selected its solution to automate and enhance its advisory business. Schroders Wealth Management will deploy the Temenos Wealth Front Office which is a portfolio management system on its existing Temenos Transact core banking platform to enhance the capabilities of relationship managers, advisers and portfolio managers. With Temenos Wealth Front Office, Schroders Wealth Management will have standardised advisory processes. The solution includes dashboards for relationship managers and portfolio managers, client and investment profiling, investment proposal process, advanced order generation, comprehensive pre- and post-trade compliance checks, flexible benchmarking and performance…

Die Berner Kantonalbankhat die Open Banking API Plattform zur Anbindung von Partnern und Drittfirmen integriert. Über die neue Plattform kann sich die BEKB einfach und effizient mit anderen Instituten verbinden. Für Kundinnen und Kunden heisst das: neue und innovative Lösungen. Als erste Lösung bietet die BEKB ab Sommer 2021 multibankfähige Finanzassistenten für Geschäfts- und Privatkunden des Fintech Contovista an. «Wir verfolgen mit dieser Plattform die klare Strategie, unsere Innovationskraft zu fördern und uns mit externen Partnern in neuen Ökosystemen besser zu vernetzen. So können wir unseren Kundinnen und Kunden einen attraktiven Mehrwert mit individuellen Lösungen anbieten», erklärt CEO Armin Brun.…

Sygnum Bank, a Swiss-based digital asset bank, announced that it has launched OTC options covering BTC/USD and ETH/USD trading pairs. Sygnum’s regulated digital asset options offering will include; European OTC call and put options on BTC/USD and ETH/USD, fully customisable strike and expiry date with an attractive minimum trade size, long and short positioning as well as cash settlement. These offerings provides a trusted venue for investors to implement similarly sophisticated investment and trading strategies for their digital asset portfolios as they already have for their traditional asset portfolios. The options offering is said to be highly flexible and can…

Crypto Finance Group, a Swiss-based blockchain financial services provider in crypto asset management, brokerage and storage solutions, has implemented its brokerage solution for crypto assets for Avaloq’s banking clients. Crypto Finance said that financial institutions and their clients can now initiate crypto asset trading, settlement, and storage with automated, real-time reconciliation directly from their core banking system. Crypto Finance and Avaloq have partnered to offer financial institutions a seamless digital experience for retail banking, wealth management, and more. Crypto Finance will support Avaloq with the implementation of fully integrated crypto asset solutions for its banking clients. Both entities have integrate crypto…

Der anerkannte Fintech- und Banking-Experte Johannes Höhener ist neuer Verwaltungsrat von ti&m. Mit Wirkung zum 01.01.2021 trat er sein Amt an. Bereits seit Anfang 2018 berät Höhener ti&m als Beirat in Fragen der Finanztechnologie. Insgesamt verfügt er über mehr als 40 Jahre Erfahrung in der Finanzindustrie und ist äusserst gut vernetzt. In den letzten Jahren hat er sich vor allem im Bereich Fintech einen Namen gemacht, zuletzt leitete er bei der Swisscom das FinTech Team im Geschäftsbereich Digital Business. Aktuell ist er bei Swisscom Digital Business als FinTech Experte noch beratend in den Themen Digital Assets und Trust Services tätig.…

Der internationale Informationsdienstleister Experian baut seine Präsenz in der DACH-Region aus. Das Unternehmen verfügt jetzt über eine Niederlassung in der Schweiz. Die Experian Switzerland AG hat ihren Sitz in Opfikon bei Zürich. Für Experian ist dies ein wichtiger Schritt in der Umsetzung seiner Wachstumsstrategie für die Region. Kunden werden von einer direkteren Kommunikation und Beratung vor Ort profitieren. Darüber hinaus steht ihnen jetzt das gesamte Lösungs-Portfolio von Experian DACH zur Verfügung. „Für uns ist die Gründung der Experian Switzerland AG ein Bekenntnis zu einem wichtigen Markt“, kommentiert Kai Kalchthaler, CEO von Experian DACH. „Besonders in der Finanz- und Versicherungsbranche sehen…

European real estate company Vonovia has issued a €20 million digital bond on the Stellar blockchain in partnership with firstwire, a web-based marketplace for debt financing, and Bitbond, Germany’s tokenisation and digital asset custody technology provider. Vonovia said that the digital bond with a three year term was part of its strategy to digitise its finance division. Vonovia had already used the platform, which brings issuers and investors together directly and in real time, to place a promissory note of € 50 million in September 2019. The real estate firm said that security tokens following the strictest security standards were…

Curve, a London-based banking platform which allows customers to consolidate multiple cards into one smart card and app, announced it has secured $95 million as part of a successful Series C funding round. This fresh funding brings the total investment in Curve to almost $175 million. The funding round was led by IDC Ventures, Fuel Venture Capital and Vulcan Capital (the investment arm of the estate of Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen), with participation from OneMain Financial, a US personal finance company, and Novum Capital. Counting IDC Ventures, Curve also attracted many of its investors for a second…

Checkout.com, a London-based payments solutions provider, announced that it closed a $450 million Series C fundraising round giving it a post-money valuation of $15 billion. The Series C was led by Tiger Global Management, LLC, a New York-based technology investor. Greenoaks Capital also joined the round along with participation from existing investors Insight Partners, DST Global, Coatue Management, Blossom Capital, Endeavor Catalyst, and Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund GIC. While Checkout.com’s profits from current operations will continue to be reinvested to power future growth, the new funding will be used to further grow its balance sheet and drive new innovative opportunities.…

FRIDAY, a Berlin-based insurtech which is a Baloise subsidiary, has strengthened its management team by hiring Nate Glissmeyer as its Chief Platform Officer and Robin Latz to head the management of its German office. The two new hires are expected to generate further growth and improve profitability of the digital insurance platform. Nate Glissmeyer previously performed a variety of managerial roles at Amazon Inc. in Seattle from 2004 and successfully managed technology and product teams within the e-commerce giant’s organisation. As Director of Product Management, he oversaw the market launch of a variety of innovations that are still being used…

Erstmals beteiligt sich mit der Ostschweizer Abacus Research eine führende ERP-Herstellerin an einem Challenger im Finanzumfeld. Sie investiert mehrere Millionen Franken in das Zürcher Fintech-Unternehmen YAPEAL. Abacus Research geht eine strategische Partnerschaft mit YAPEAL ein. Die ERP-Herstellerin investiert einen Betrag in Millionenhöhe in die junge Fintech-Firma. Diese ist dank der Fintech-Lizenz von der Eidgenössischen Finanzmarktaufsicht (Finma) und ihrer ‘digital Wallet App’ in der Lage, basierend auf Schweizer YAPEAL Kundenkonten umfassende Zahlungsverkehrsdienstleistungen in Echtzeit anzubieten – d.h. der User bekommt ein auf sein Namen lautendes YAPEAL Konto  und das Geld liegt vollumfänglich bei der Schweizer Nationalbank. Mit dem Investment allein wird…

Die Inventx AG verstärkt ihre Geschäftsleitung. Auf die neu geschaffene Stelle eines Chief Operating Officers wird der 41-jährige Pascal Specht-Keller berufen, der von Google zu Inventx stösst. Damit baut Inventx ihre Cloud-Kompetenz und ihr Open-Finance-Knowhow weiter aus und schafft optimale Strukturen für das anhaltend starke Wachstum. Die neu geschaffene Stelle eines Chief Operating Officers (COO) der Inventx wird mit Pascal Specht-Keller besetzt, der zuletzt die DACH-Region der G Suite Cloud bei Google leitete. Der 41-jährige ETH-Absolvent in Informatik war Bereichsleiter beim Schweizer Technologieberatungsunternehmen AWK Group und absolvierte anschliessend ein Full Time MBA-Studium. Nach seiner Rückkehr in die Schweiz stiess er zu…