FinTech Futures: Top five stories of the week – 1 September 2023
Here’s our pick of five of the top news stories from the world of finance and tech this week.
India’s Yes Bank draws on Zaggle to launch credit cards with spend management capabilities
Yes Bank and Zaggle launch corporate credit card
Yes Bank, a full-service commercial bank based in Mumbai, India, is launching a corporate credit card with spend management features in partnership with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) fintech Zaggle.
The offering is linked with the fintech’s real-time spend analytics platform, Zaggle ZatiX, which enables businesses to complete transactions and manage expenditure with the ability to set spending limits and apply merchant category restrictions.
Providing insights into commercial overheads, the integration seeks to enable account holders to “uncover potential cost-saving opportunities, improve budgeting accuracy and optimally manage working capital”.
The launch marks the latest development in the digitisation of Yes Bank’s corporate services, after it formed a similar partnership with IBSFintech to instigate paperless communication channels last year.
Metro Bank founder launches acceleration partner for early-stage fintechs
Anthony Thomson, the founder and former chair of Metro Bank and Atom Bank, is teaming up with Steve Brennen, a former PayPal and Uber director, to launch Archie, a new acceleration partner for early-stage fintechs.
The venture is seeking to connect a “select portfolio of early-stage fintechs” with the intellectual capital and growth expertise required to develop them from start-ups to fully fledged high-growth businesses.
This support will be specifically targeted at Series A and B firms “at the most critical stage of their go-to-market strategy” within Australia, the UK and the Middle East.
Backed by two decades of industry experience founding and scaling notable brands and fintechs, the company’s leadership team, including Thomson as chair and Brennen as CEO, will collaborate “side-by-side” with fintech founders to “help supercharge partners’ growth, de-risk go-to-market strategies and maximise their chances of success”.
Archie is set for a phased launch, starting in Dubai on 12 September.
Payments giant Mastercard to end crypto card partnership with Binance
Mastercard to end crypto card partnership with Binance
Payments giant Mastercard is set to end its co-branded crypto card partnership with Binance, with four pilot programmes in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Bahrain due to end on 22 September, a Mastercard spokesperson confirmed to FinTech Futures.
The spokesperson adds that this timeline provides cardholders with a “wind-down period” to convert holdings in their Binance wallets, and that there is “no impact” on any other crypto programme.
Binance’s customer support team wrote on X last week: “The product, like most debit cards, has been utilised by Binance’s users to pay for basic daily expenses but in this case, the cards are funded with crypto assets.
“Only a tiny portion of our users (less than 1% of users in the markets mentioned) are impacted by this. Users of this product will have until September 21, 2023, when the card will no longer be available for use.”
Goldman Sachs to wave goodbye to GreenSky as proposed sale enters final stages
Goldman Sachs’ proposed sale of fintech lender GreenSky is reportedly entering its final stages, with bidders asked to place their best and final offers.
According to Bloomberg citing undisclosed sources, the US private equity company Apollo Global Management, investment firm Sixth Street and the AI fintech Pagaya Technologies are all actively engaged in the bidding process.
Bloomberg says Apollo has formed a bidding group with Blackstone, while Pagaya is said to have private equity investor General Atlantic as a bidding partner and is reportedly willing to pay up to $800 million for the Atlanta-based fintech.
Goldman Sachs’ journey with GreenSky began back in September 2021, when it acquired the fintech in an all-stock transaction valued at $2.24 billion – a far cry from the bids being put forward now.
The bank also confirmed the sale of its personal financial management (PFM) business to the Kansas-based wealth management firm Creative Planning this week, after it acquired the business formerly known as United Capital Partners in a $750 million deal in May 2019.
LHV Bank to enter personal savings market through Raisin UK partnership
LHV Bank and Raisin UK partner up
LHV Bank, which landed a UK banking licence in May, has partnered with the online savings platform Raisin UK to venture into the personal savings space.
The offering includes 12-month fixed term, 95 day notice and easy access savings accounts, and forms part of LHV Bank’s planned launch of a direct-to-consumer savings product next year.
With customer deposits, which are protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to a limit of £85,000, LHV Bank aims to “directly support” small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending by providing business owners with financing.
In October last year, LHV Bank acquired the SME lending business of Bank North, which offers commercial real estate investment loans and trading loans between £500,000 and £5 million to UK SMEs.
