Best CASS Solution award for AutoRek
Scottish fintech company, AutoRek just announced it had won the Best CASS Solution’ award at the Systems in the City Financial Technology Awards 2020.
Lyn Canavan, Head of Marketing at AutoRek, commented,
“We are delighted to have been recognised as the provider of the Best CASS Solution’ at the Systems in the City Financial Technology Awards 2020. Achieving this accolade is a testimony to the team’s continued hard work and dedication in consistently striving to offer a superior CASS Solution.”
for the first time in 18 years the ceremony was done remotely via digital conferencing. This award is organised by Goodacre and recognises suppliers of services and systems to the regulated financial services sector. Based on an independent and factual annual accreditation process the selection process is overseen by three independent judges.
AutoRek are delighted to have been recognised at this awards ceremony again this year having previously won Best Reconciliation System’ for the past 5 years.
The Awards provide an important point of reference for user firms assessing the suitability of their operational infrastructure.
New firm bringing fintech to pubs
Edinburgh start-up pour launched with venues across Scotland in August, their aim; to simplify the cluttered order and pay market that Covid-19 helped create.
Amidst the rapid technology adoption in the hospitality industry, consumer’s needs are being ignored. Patrons are expected to download venue specific apps and create accounts for every place that they visit, something they will not tolerate in the long run.
What is Pour?
Founded by Scottish entrepreneurs Ian Martin and Paul Kirkland, Pour is an online app platform that enables venues to upload and edit their menus, and share them directly with their customers across social media, their website, offline channels, and on pour.
Customers can order and pay through one web app, for table service or takeaway collection in any participating venue. No app download, no account required, just the food and drinks they came for.
Says Ian Martin, Co-Founder of pour:
“We started pour to simplify the consumer’s experience with online order & pay, bringing table & takeaway ordering together on to one platform that businesses of all sizes can afford to join. The platform makes the ordering process contact free, but it’s the reduction in administration time, increase in rate of sale, and access to a broad marketing platform where the true value of pour lies.”
Find out More
Find out more about the platform by visiting https://www.pourit.co.uk or drop the team an email hello@pourit.co.uk
Fintech Previse, finalist in Innovator of the Year Awards
Fintech Previse announced today that they have been named a finalist in The Spectator’s Economic Innovator of the Year Awards. The awards recognises the companies that will rewrite the rules and help rebuild the economy in 2020.
This is a very prestigious award and the winners will be announced after digital presentations made today by the various businesses to the judges.
Paul Christensen, CEO of Previse, said:
“Being named a finalist for Economic Innovator of the Year by The Spectator is a testament to the team at Previse, who have been working day-in-day-out during the pandemic to ensure that SMEs get the support that they need. This year, we have been accredited as a CBILS lender, and our £2.5 million grant from the BCR to accelerate growth, along with the partnership with the FSB, has been an exciting new chapter in our story. However, the hardest work is yet to come as the global economy must innovate its way out of a depression unapparelled in modern economic history. What we are building here goes beyond just a great product: we’re creating a movement that ensures that every SME has the option of instant payment whenever they issue an invoice.”
EedenBull now with PSD2 licenses – ready to drive change in commercial payments through Open Banking
The Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority has formally approved EedenBull’s PSD2 extension to their E-Money Institution (EMI) license, and the FinTech is now a fully licensed PIS and AIS provider, enabling the access of data and the initiation of payments from bank accounts throughout Europe.
The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) was introduced in Europe in 2018 and regulates payment services and providers in Europe. PSD2 enables open banking by allowing customers to use the services of third-party providers to access account information or initiate transactions on their behalf. PSD2 gives providers a regulated, open market to compete in, while providing customers more payment options and increased security.
Says Nicki Bisgaard, CEO of EedenBull:
New technologies, new regulations like PSD2 and new players entering the payments space changes forever the way consumers and businesses think about payments. At EedenBull, we’re not only embracing change, but seeking to work with our partner banks to drive change and leverage the opportunities provided. With our E-Money License extended to include the right as an Account Information Service Provider to pull data from our customers’ bank accounts and as a Payment Initiation Service Provider initiate payments directly from bank accounts, we are in a unique position to develop and launch truly unique payment services.’
EedenBull was founded in 2018 and has recently launched it’s Q Business® programme with 65 banks in the Nordics and are now expanding the platform to include full commercial cards issuing capabilities across all segments from small business to large corporates and across all B2B spend categories. EedenBull is a fully licensed and regulated e-money institution under EU/EEA legislation, AISP & PISP licenses and is uniquely also holding principal issuing licenses from Mastercard, Visa and UnionPay. The company is targeting bank partners in select markets around the world and are aiming to launch programmes in multiple regions over the coming 12-24 months.
Further information:
Nicki Bisgaard ”“ nicki@eedenbull.com
Photo: Nicki Bisgaard, CEO EedenBull
Photo by: Debra Hurford Brown
Zumo launches crowdfunding campaign via Seedrs
This article was written by Nick Jones, CEO at Zumo. Fintech Scotland doesn’t give financial advice and only help Scottish fintech firms with relaying their messages. As with all investment your capital is at risk.
Approved by Seedrs.
We’re delighted to announce that we’re working with Seedrs on our crowdfunding campaign.
This is an exciting investment opportunity and we’ve already had a lot of interest from investors from all walks of life. We’d love it if you could join us for this limited opportunity to own a piece of Zumo!
You can access the pre-registration page here.
Here’s a recap of the opportunity:
Our digital wallet has already gained significant recognition in the form of funding, user feedback and extensive press coverage in the UK. Further funding will enable us to expand our marketing efforts to make Zumo available to everyone, everywhere and to start rolling out our B2B offerings – the ZumoKit software development kit and our payments platform, ZumoPay.
Our main source of revenue is our in-app currency exchange. We charge users 0.5% for any exchange transaction, across all currencies available within the Zumo wallet. This makes us one of the most cost-effective as well as secure ways to buy and sell cryptocurrency.
Our convertible debit card, which is planned for launch next month, will allow users to make card payments in both cryptocurrency and GBP. As time goes on, we’ll be adding more traditional and cryptocurrency options.
If you know of anyone else that might be interested, we would appreciate it if you could share the link.
Zumo: Smart Money for Everyone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUuyI40dxDE&feature=youtu.be
Scotcoin announces the launch of its new ERC20 token
Scotcoin’s new token uses the Ethereum blockchain, the second largest distributed ledger network in the world by market capitalisation after Bitcoin. Adoption and use of the Ethereum blockchain assures that Scotcoin remains a bona fide distributed ledger cryptocurrency whose future sustainability is not in the hands of a few.
Temple Melville, CEO of The Scotcoin Project CIC said:
“I am delighted that we have finally reached this milestone in the evolution of Scotcoin. We have worked hard to meet the condition laid down by our stakeholders and funders that the durability and sustainability of the token would never be in the hands of the few. Use of the Ethereum blockchain assures that that objective is met”.
The Scotcoin Project is a not for profit community interest company that seeks to educate and inform the public on digital currencies and blockchain technology. It occupies the ethical space and is developing a program of initiatives designed to help improve the personal and financial prospects of those with the fewest opportunities afforded by the current economic landscape.
Moving to an ERC20 token means that our coin is basically acceptable on any exchange, and in fact we will be having an IEO (Initial Exchange Offer) over the next year. The move will enable us to engage with nearly everyone who has an interest in digital currencies. As an aside, digital currencies are most definitely now an asset class but are also a hedge against the massive quantitative easing that has taken place world-wiide during the Corvid-19 pandemic. We are already seeing inflation creeping into our daily lives in contrast to the mildly deflationary effect of digital and crypto currencies.
For further information please contact Temple Melville on temple@scotcoinproject.com
Why fintech Hubb Insure chose Glasgow
When we set about building our business one of the first questions we look at was the location, what was important to us?
Hubb firstly was a challenger to the commercial insurance space, built on modern management structures and a technology stack, built around flexibility and efficiency, our objectives where simple, cheaper more efficient solutions for our clients, happier more focused staff.
Homeworking was always going to be a major part of the mix, but we still needed a base for a head office and training, so we landed on London, Manchester or Glasgow.
London- The heart of the global insurance market, great public transport and connections all over the city, very expensive everything!
Manchester- Cheaper than London, two hours on the train from London, local public transport not so great.
Glasgow- Great flight links to London, good public transport, Scottish Enterprise are great to deal with.
When we had these discussions, it became clear that Glasgow was the perfect home for Hubb over and above the obvious, we have sourced local partners and found that the skill sets in sales, marketing and flexible office space in Glasgow a real positive.
DirectID Launch Collections & Recoveries Solution
Scotland based FinTech, DirectID just announced the launch of its Collections & Recoveries solution.
DirectID has built a solution to make the collections process easier and faster in collaboration with the UK’s leading banks, lenders and debt collections agencies,
Using Open Banking data, agents will be able to access accurate customer’s financial statement and an assessment on their disposable income, and how much they can afford to repay.
The new solution combines DirectID’s categorisation engine with the categories defined within the Standard Financial Statement.
For individuals who have built up large amounts of debt, it removes a lot of the stress and uncertainty. The use of bank data negates the need for them to supply lots of details around financial commitments with existing creditors.
Currently, collections agents can spend a large volume of time with a customer assessing how much income they have, and what their discretionary and non-discretionary spend looks like. This process is also prone to customer error, downplay spend, or deliberately mislead, in an attempt to keep repayments low.
DirectID’s product circumvents the often unpleasant collections process from a period of weeks to just minutes.
Collections & Recoveries uses an individual’s bank data to help lenders streamline the collections process. This supplies the lender with an up-to-date and accurate view of an individual’s debt commitments and subsequently their capacity to repay debt.
DirectID’s Collections & Recoveries solution identifies income streams; expenditure; insight into a customer’s profile; including discretionary and non-discretionary; and summarises payments to lenders.
James Varga, CEO of DirectID, said:
“I am immensely proud to be today launching our new Collections & Recoveries solution. This is an extremely important proposition which will help both collections agents and their customers, during which can be a difficult process.
“With the launch of this product, and because of the impact of bank data, DirectID now covers the whole customer lifecycle, from onboarding, portfolio management, and now Collections & Recoveries.
The launch of DirectID’s Collections & Recoveries product marks an important step for DirectID, as we not only launch our first product of this year, but the first of several that we have completed, or are near to completion. Now that we can cover the whole product lifecycle with bank data, we are in a position to work with businesses across industry, and differing needs and challenges.”
LendingCrowd approved for accreditation under CBILS
Scottish fintech LendingCrowd, just announced it had been approved for accreditation by the British Business Bank as a new lender under the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).
This accreditation will allow the fintech to distribute UK government-backed loans to SMEs impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. LendingCrowd will provide loan product from £50,001 to £250,000 across either a three or a five-year term to SMEs who are experiencing lost or deferred revenues, leading to cashflow difficulties.
SMEs will have nothing to pay for the first 12 months so they can focus on bringing back their company to a healthier position.
Stuart Lunn, founder and CEO of LendingCrowd, said:
“We appreciate the stress and struggle that SMEs are going through and that time is of the essence in providing support. Our agile and flexible approach means that we can distribute funding responsibly to those who need it quickly. We have already spoken to every existing borrower, implemented repayment holidays for qualifying borrowers and changed repayment dates to better suit their cashflow patterns at no cost. In offering CBILS loans, LendingCrowd can play its part in supporting the survival and resurgence of as many SMEs as possible.”
If you’d like to apply for CBILS funding through LendingCrowd go to https://www.lendingcrowd.com/cbils
LendingCrowd will begin offering CBILS loans imminently and they will be available to new and existing borrowers, subject to eligibility.
EedenBull and Mastercard Asia Pacific partnership
Mastercard and Scottish fintech EedenBull have announced the extension of their strategic partnership from Europe to the Asia Pacific region to support the fintech’s new digital platform launch. The platform will allow banks and businesses to process spending and payments more efficiently.
Building on a partnership in Europe, this relationship will enable Eedenbull to tap into opportunities in the Asia Pacific business-to-business payments market.
For banks and their business customers, the new service provides innovative commercial payments services, including EedenBull’s spend management platform Q Business® that offers a sophisticated yet easy-to-use solution to digitise the slow and costly processing of checks and cash. With Q Business now offered by a network of banks in the Nordics, more than 10,000 registered businesses are benefitting from the process efficiencies and control of spend provided.
Yunsok Chang, Executive Vice President, Market Development, Asia Pacific, Mastercard said:
“Following Europe, Mastercard is delighted to partner with EedenBull in Asia Pacific and to support its unrivalled expertise to leverage the commercial payments space in the region. With Mastercard’s leading advisory experience, sophisticated commercial solutions and wide network of customers and partners, Mastercard will be able to help EedenBull thrive in this market of significant opportunities.”
The extension of the partnership beyond Europe is a testament to Mastercard’s strategy of working with fintech firms to drive innovation and create opportunities for other partners in the Asia Pacific region. As a frontrunner in payments technology, Mastercard is continuously developing new solutions catering to the evolving demands driven by rapid digital transformation.
Nicki Bull Bisgaard, CEO of EedenBull said:
“At EedenBull, we uniquely combine specialist commercial payments expertise with tech-savvy talent, making us the ideal partner to banks. While payment products and services are now more user-friendly, product management is growing more complex and requires access to specialists in marketing, revenue management, IT, legal, regulatory and many other areas. Selecting Mastercard as our preferred partner to support us in creating real value for our partner banks and their customers and to support our expansion in Asia Pacific was easy as we share the same view on what businesses require and how we can best meet those requirements in an ever-changing world.”