CORE BANKING, FINTECH
Wirex and Novatti | March 15, 2023
Wirex, a major crypto payments platform, announced on March 14, 2023, that it has teamed up with Novatti, a card issuer, to issue cards directly to Australians. This partnership could enable more than 20 million individuals to use their groundbreaking multicurrency card daily.
Wirex's pioneering crypto-enabled debit card allows around 5 million users to seamlessly buy, hold, exchange, and sell over 12 traditional and 130 cryptocurrencies at 80 million locations. Recently, Wirex added the TAUD (True AUD) stablecoin to its app as part of its most significant token release.
Wirex's partnership with Novatti will allow direct card issuance to Australian users. The collaboration brings advantages such as higher spending limits, up to 8% instant rewards, no FX or maintenance fees, international ATM withdrawals, fiat-to-fiat exchanges, affordable top-ups, and exclusive merchant offers. Strict KYC checks and AML requirements will be in place for all transactions and processes.
After experiencing significant success in the UK and EEA, Wirex expanded to APAC in 2019 and has since become their most rapidly growing region. With one of the world's highest levels of crypto adoption, Australia has become an important market for Wirex. The partnership with Novatti will be a bridge between the traditional economy and the digital economy. This will allow Wirex to take advantage of this growing market.
Svyatoslav Garal, Managing Director of APAC at Wirex, remarked, "As we grow our operations in Australia, we've strategically chosen to partner with a trusted Australian-headquartered company, Novatti, to issue cards. Being able to expand our product offerings will enable more users to continue taking advantage of the benefits of forward-thinking payments."
(Source – Cision PR Newswire)
This comes after a recent announcement that Wirex would be able to try out new blockchain projects, bring in cutting-edge solutions, and improve the customer experience.
About Wirex
Wirex is a regulated digital payment platform that has revolutionized the digital payments industry by developing the world's first crypto-enabled payment card in 2015. Co-founded by Pavel Matveev and Dmitry Lazarichev in 2014, the company aims to make the digital economy accessible to all. With more than 5 million customers and the ability to grow into new areas, including the US, Wirex can use innovative solutions to get people to move toward a cashless society. In 2021, it expanded its offering into the CeFi and DeFi sectors to keep up with the growth of the metaverse.
About Novatti
Novatti is an award-winning Australian fintech with over 20 years of experience and partnerships across 58 countries. As an end-to-end payments provider, the company offers a range of solutions, including omnichannel payment acceptance, subscription billing, banking via International Bank of Australia Pty Ltd., Visa prepaid/debit/gift cards, digital wallets, cross-border payments, and alternate payments such as Flexepin vouchers and wallets, Novatti BillPay, AUDD (Australian dollar stablecoin), and other payment innovations.
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FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT, FINTECH
PRnewswire | March 21, 2023
Bitstamp, the world's longest-running crypto exchange, announces today that it is expanding its white-label service to institutions in selected APAC markets. Banks, payments and fintech companies, or investment firms looking to fast-track their digital assets offerings to customers can choose from one of three plug-and-play service tiers. The offering covers a range of needs, such as order matching, liquidity for a wide range of crypto markets, regulatory-compliant AML/ (Know-your-customer), account reporting and more.
Known as Bitstamp as a Service, the solution enables financial institutions to rapidly develop a retail offering without needing to build out technology or compliance infrastructure or acquire specific licenses. One of Bitstamp's first partners for this service was Revolut back in 2017.
Flexible Design for Rapid Deployment
Bitstamp as a Service provides clients with three tiers: Exchange, Exchange Plus, and Exchange Complete. Each tier provides a number of core building blocks with the Exchange Complete tier designed as an end-to-end solution that adds KYC/AML operations for customer onboarding and access to Bitstamp's global license network. For institutions that are prioritizing speed to market and lower fixed costs, this solution will save them the time and resources needed to build this capability in-house.
Bitstamp as a Service gives clients — whether they are an early-stage fintech startup or an established banking institution — the ability to integrate this infrastructure with their existing customer apps. This enables clients to continue to grow their customer relationships and control the user experience with the fastest path to market.
"Bitstamp as a Service is a complete end-to-end solution that allows clients to rapidly turn on their crypto offering. Clients trust in our ability to deliver a safe and secure solution because our success as an infrastructure provider has been tested over multiple cycles. As the market matures, we are seeing greater demand for more integration options and third-party risk management," says Leonard Hoh, APAC GM of Bitstamp. "For added flexibility Bitstamp's infrastructure stack also gives clients a choice of 15 banking partners to match their operational needs. "
A Trusted Solution for Institutions in Current Market Cycle
In a survey carried out by Bitstamp in 2022, over 75 per cent of retail and institutional investors worldwide believe that crypto will become mainstream in the next 10 years. Of all the institutional investors polled, 81 per cent believe digital assets should be part of a portfolio. However, one of the top barriers to entry cited by retail investors were "not sure which platform to trust or is secure''.
"Recent events in the industry have placed new emphasis on good business practices and compliance credentials that necessitate a package of operational controls. There is a need for institutions to find a trusted partner to deliver a quality experience in the digital assets ecosystem to serve the next wave of mainstream adoption ," says Leonard Hoh.
Bitstamp currently holds more than 50 licenses and registrations globally. It was the only crypto exchange among more than 130 CEXes (centralized exchanges) to receive an AA rating in CryptoCompare's Exchange Benchmark Report in October 2022 — a testament to Bitstamp's commitment to making crypto investing secure for all.
About Bitstamp
Bitstamp is the world's original and longest-running cryptocurrency exchange, supporting investors, traders and leading financial institutions since 2011. With a proven track record, cutting-edge market infrastructure and dedication to personal service with a human touch, Bitstamp's secure and reliable trading venue is trusted by over four million customers worldwide. Whether it's through its intuitive web platform and mobile app or industry-leading APIs, Bitstamp is where crypto enters finance. For more information, visit www.bitstamp.net
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CORE BANKING, FINTECH
Businesswire | March 17, 2023
Noda, an open banking fintech, and ThetaRay, a leading provider of AI-powered transaction monitoring technology, today announced they will collaborate to enhance payment monitoring and compliance capabilities on Noda’s growing platform that is supporting the new digital economy in Europe.
Headquartered in the UK, Noda is helping online merchants in Europe receive direct bank payments from eCustomers via a secure and instant one-stop open banking payment solution, as an alternative to cards, providing direct integration with banks in most European countries.
Through the agreement, Noda will implement ThetaRay’s sophisticated AI-powered SaaS SONAR solution for AML that detects known and unknown financial crime threats and the earliest indications of schemes. The system will enable Noda to stay up to date with the complex and constantly evolving regulatory landscape, as well as manage the compliance challenges involved with monitoring transactions in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) across multiple channels and jurisdictions.
"With ThetaRay's advanced transaction monitoring system and our expertise in payment services and compliance, we are poised to take our business to the next level and provide even more value to our customers,” said Lasma Gavarane, Chief Compliance Officer/MLRO at Noda. “Together, we will be able to detect and prevent financial crimes, comply with evolving regulatory requirements, and therefore enhance the overall security and reliability of our fast and convenient payment services to customers.”
While SEPA simplifies bank transfers of euro to member countries, financial institutions handling transactions don’t have full visibility into the profiles and activities of customers. By providing deep, AI-generated insights, the ThetaRay system can identify anomalous behavior indicating financial crime.
“Noda is an innovation leader in the European payments market as it transforms into a more competitive and more efficient network that is enabling the digital economy. The adoption of sophisticated AI technology to fight financial crime brings the trust to a payments ecosystem that serves as a fintech growth engine,” said Mark Gazit, CEO of ThetaRay. “We are looking forward to a successful partnership with Noda to develop and grow European fintech.”
ThetaRay’s award-winning SONAR solution is based on a proprietary form of AI, artificial intelligence intuition, that replaces human bias, giving the system the power to recognize anomalies and find unknowns outside of normal behavior, including completely new typologies. It enables fintechs and banks to implement a risk-based approach to effectively identify truly suspicious activity and create a full picture of customer identities, including across complex, cross-border transaction paths. This allows the rapid discovery of both known and unknown money laundering threats, and up to 99 percent reduction in false positives compared to rules-based solutions.
About Noda
Headquartered in the UK, with offices in Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, and Cyprus, Noda has advanced its instant payment solution (the Noda Pay button) outpacing others in the Open Banking sphere. Noda enables merchants to receive direct bank payments from eCustomers via Open Banking as an alternative to cards. Merchants can implement Open Banking payments quickly via Noda API, making use of their intuitive UX and lower fees. Noda’s service ensures an easy, instant, and secure one-stop Open Banking payment solution, providing direct integration with banks in most European countries, including Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, and the UK. Integration is currently available for over 300 banks.
About ThetaRay
ThetaRay's AI-powered SONAR transaction monitoring solution, based on “artificial intelligence intuition,” allows banks and fintechs to expand their business opportunities through safe and reliable cross-border payments. The groundbreaking solution also improves customer satisfaction, reduces compliance costs, and increases risk coverage. Financial organizations that rely on highly heterogeneous and complex ecosystems benefit greatly from ThetaRay's unmatchable low false positive and high detection rates.
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