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Mastercard Introduces A New Cryptocurrency And Blockchain Program For Startups

Mastercard | July 28, 2021

Mastercard today unveiled a new Start Path global startup engagement programme aimed at assisting fast-growing digital assets, blockchain, and cryptocurrency businesses. As part of Mastercard's digital assets work, seven startups have joined the programme, including GK8, Domain Money, Mintable, SupraOracles, STACS, Taurus, and Uphold, with the goal of expanding and accelerating innovation in digital asset technology and making it safer and easier for people and institutions to buy, spend, and hold cryptocurrencies and digital assets.

Mastercard today unveiled a new Start Path global startup engagement programme aimed at assisting fast-growing digital assets, blockchain, and cryptocurrency businesses. As part of Mastercard's digital assets work, seven startups have joined the programme, including GK8, Domain Money, Mintable, SupraOracles, STACS, Taurus, and Uphold, with the goal of expanding and accelerating innovation in digital asset technology and making it safer and easier for people and institutions to buy, spend, and hold cryptocurrencies and digital assets. This implies that the platform can create, sign, and send secure blockchain transactions without relying on internet input, hence reducing any potential cyberattack vectors. Taurus (Switzerland) offers advanced infrastructure to manage any digital asset, including crypto assets, digital currencies, and tokenized assets, through a single platform that covers issuance, custody, asset servicing, or trading.

Other participating startups and fast-growing digital asset and blockchain enterprises have been chosen to attend the Start Path program's initial track:

• Domain Money (USA) aims to provide a next-generation investment platform for ordinary investors, striking a balance between digital assets and traditional finance.

• SupraOracles (Switzerland) is a strong blockchain oracle that assists organisations in connecting real-world data both to the public and private chains, permitting interoperable smart contracts to automate, simplify, and protect financial markets' future.

• STACS (Singapore) develops a blockchain infrastructure for the financial industry in order to unlock tremendous value and enable effective, long-term financing. Global banks, national stock exchanges, and asset managers are among its clients and partners.

• Uphold (USA) is a cryptocurrency-native, multi-asset digital money platform that provides investing and payment services to consumers and businesses all over the world. Uphold's one-of-a-kind 'Anything-to-Anything' trading experience allows users to trade directly between asset classes with embedded payments, paving the way for a future in which everyone has access to financial services.

The founders of digital asset and blockchain startups participating in the new Start Path initiative hope to address a variety of issues, such as asset tokenization, data accuracy, digital security, and smooth access between the traditional and digital economies. Each startup is focused on tackling a specific industry need and will leverage Mastercard's experience throughout the programme to support the continuous growth and development of their solutions.


Fintech Innovation and Digital Assets
Supporting the startup ecosystem is important to Mastercard's mission, and more than 250 firms have participated in the Start Path programme since its inception in 2014. Mastercard is expanding Start Path to include fast-growing crypto, blockchain, and digital assets entrepreneurs, giving these companies access to the latest tools and solutions to help them scale their ideas and cutting-edge technology. To create new solutions, these entrepreneurs use the programme to interact with our global ecosystem of banks, merchants, partners, and digital actors.

About Mastercard
Mastercard is a payments technology firm with a global presence. By making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible, we hope to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere. Our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and organisations realise their full potential by leveraging secure data and networks, relationships, and enthusiasm. Our decency quotient, or DQ, is at the heart of our culture and all we do both inside and outside of the office. With connections in over 210 countries and territories, we are constructing a sustainable world that unlocks precious opportunities for everybody.

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BitPay’s Accurate Payment Protocol Adopted by Exchange Partners Bitso, Bitstamp and Wallet Partners Edge and Guarda

BitPay | April 25, 2022

BitPay, the world’s largest provider of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services, today announced two new exchanges and two new wallets are adopting its accurate payment protocol including top crypto providers Bitso, Bitstamp, Edge, and Guarda. BitPay’s accurate payment protocol, the BitPay Protocol, enables more reliable blockchain payments by eliminating common payment exceptions including overpayments, underpayments, late payments, unconfirmed payments, and potential double-spend payments. In addition to the new partners, the BitPay Protocol has already been adopted by Blockchain Wallet, the world’s largest self-custody wallet. Many other leading wallets are also payment enabled including Electrum, BRD, Metamask, Ledger and more. Verifone’s 600,000 merchants, with a footprint of 35 million devices, also have BitPay’s Payment Protocol automatically enabled for in-store and online purchases. BitPay first launched its accurate payment specification in 2017 to eliminate payment exceptions in transactions made with cryptocurrency, setting the standard currently adopted by top wallet organizations. Since then, the company has expanded upon the available features and now businesses can accept crypto through BitPay and receive error-free payments from over 200 million crypto users. As a blockchain payment processor, BitPay’s goal is to work with all wallets, and BitPay is the only payment processor who works with more than 100 different wallets to facilitate and optimize consumer to business and business to business payments. The company has processed over $5 billion in payments volume since inception, for tens of thousands of businesses worldwide. Businesses accepting crypto should be able to accept payments from any crypto wallet and payments should post fast and be free of payment expectations. BitPay Protocol delivers on all these benefits and BitPay is pleased that our new and existing wallet and exchange partners have set the industry bar for payment quality, We are developing payment technology solutions to transform how businesses and people send, receive, and store money around the world making payments faster, more secure, and less expensive.” Stephen Pair, CEO of BitPay. Since the founding of Edge, we have always been passionate about people truly using cryptocurrency to buy and sell goods and services, We are happy to support the BitPay Payment Protocol to streamline the user experience at the point of sale for thousands of merchants and further drive adoption of cryptocurrency.” Paul Puey, CEO / Co-founder at Edge. About BitPay Founded in 2011, BitPay is one of the oldest cryptocurrency companies. As a pioneer in blockchain payment processing, the company’s mission is to transform how businesses and people send, receive, and store money. Its business solutions eliminate fraud chargebacks, reduce the cost of payment processing, and enable borderless payments in cryptocurrency, among other services. BitPay offers consumers a complete digital asset management solution that includes the BitPay Wallet and BitPay Prepaid Card, enabling them to turn digital assets into dollars for spending at tens of thousands of businesses. The company has offices in North America, Europe, and South America and has raised more than $70 million in funding from leading investment firms including Founders Fund, Index Ventures, Virgin Group, and Aquiline Technology Growth.

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Stifel to Acquire ACXIT Capital Partners

Stifel | June 08, 2022

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360factors, Inc. | April 11, 2022

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BearingPoint and SIX Launch a Collaboration for Payments and Request-To-Pay

BearingPoint | December 18, 2021

Management and technology consultancy BearingPoint and the Swiss financial market infrastructure operator SIX are partnering to develop a fully integrated invoice-to-payment service. The service will digitalize the entire value-added chain from the issue of the invoice to its payment: invoice issuers will send invoices directly and securely to their customers’ online and mobile banking applications. Customers can verify all the information online and then approve payment of an invoice at the click of a button. This service will also support the SEPA Request-To-Pay (SRTP) functions. The platform is based on the eBill processing infrastructure of SIX, as this is already well established in Switzerland and will be rolled out in Europe with BearingPoint’s industry experience. The goal is to offer banks in Europe a model that has been tested in Switzerland and that enables the receipt of invoices and the release of payments directly through those banks’ electronic banking platforms. A key advantage is the ease of integration into the banks’ environments, thereby enabling fast and cost-effective implementations. The timing for the rollout of the solution depends on the participation of banks and invoice issuers in the respective countries. BearingPoint and SIX are currently planning for the first applications in the European market by 2023. “With eBill, SIX has established a successful solution for digital invoices in the Swiss market. It is used by around 100 financial institutions and already reaches more than half of Swiss households. In our next step, we want to implement this innovative solution across Europe in partnership with BearingPoint,” emphasizes Marco Menotti, Head of Banking Services and Member of the Executive Board of SIX. “The role of the bank account in payment processing is undergoing a fundamental change. Banks need to address how they will position accounts with their customers in the future. Our joint solution offers banks a way to link accounts with additional services that are related to invoice receipts and payments, and creates an overall win-win-win situation for banks, consumers and businesses,” adds Thomas Steiner, Global Leader Banking & Capital Markets at BearingPoint, explaining the motivation for the initiative. With our innovative solution, we can help invoice issuers achieve significant cost savings when processing transfers. It also massively improves the user experience for debtors, as they receive invoices and initiate payments in a single step and within the familiar digital environment of their own bank. For banks, this will result in a strengthening of their customer relationships and – through the reductions in paper invoices – also contribute to environmental protection” Stefan Schütt, head of the RTP initiative at BearingPoint. About SIX SIX operates and develops infrastructure services for the Swiss and Spanish stock exchanges and for securities services, banking services and financial information with the aim of improving efficiency, quality and innovative capacity across the entire value chain of the Swiss and Spanish financial centers. The company is owned by its users (121 banks). With a workforce of around 3,500 employees (full-time equivalents) and a presence in 20 countries, it generated operating income of CHF 1.38 billion and Group net profit of CHF 439.6 million in 2020. About BearingPoint BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy with European roots and a global reach. The company operates in three business units: The first unit covers the advisory business with a clear focus on selected business areas. The second unit provides IP-driven digital assets and managed services beyond SaaS. The third unit is designed to explore innovative business models with clients and partners by driving the financing and development of start-ups and leveraging ecosystems. BearingPoint’s clients include many of the world’s leading companies and organizations. The firm has a global consulting network with more than 10,000 people and supports clients in over 70 countries, engaging with them to achieve measurable and sustainable success.

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BitPay | April 25, 2022

BitPay, the world’s largest provider of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services, today announced two new exchanges and two new wallets are adopting its accurate payment protocol including top crypto providers Bitso, Bitstamp, Edge, and Guarda. BitPay’s accurate payment protocol, the BitPay Protocol, enables more reliable blockchain payments by eliminating common payment exceptions including overpayments, underpayments, late payments, unconfirmed payments, and potential double-spend payments. In addition to the new partners, the BitPay Protocol has already been adopted by Blockchain Wallet, the world’s largest self-custody wallet. Many other leading wallets are also payment enabled including Electrum, BRD, Metamask, Ledger and more. Verifone’s 600,000 merchants, with a footprint of 35 million devices, also have BitPay’s Payment Protocol automatically enabled for in-store and online purchases. BitPay first launched its accurate payment specification in 2017 to eliminate payment exceptions in transactions made with cryptocurrency, setting the standard currently adopted by top wallet organizations. Since then, the company has expanded upon the available features and now businesses can accept crypto through BitPay and receive error-free payments from over 200 million crypto users. As a blockchain payment processor, BitPay’s goal is to work with all wallets, and BitPay is the only payment processor who works with more than 100 different wallets to facilitate and optimize consumer to business and business to business payments. The company has processed over $5 billion in payments volume since inception, for tens of thousands of businesses worldwide. Businesses accepting crypto should be able to accept payments from any crypto wallet and payments should post fast and be free of payment expectations. BitPay Protocol delivers on all these benefits and BitPay is pleased that our new and existing wallet and exchange partners have set the industry bar for payment quality, We are developing payment technology solutions to transform how businesses and people send, receive, and store money around the world making payments faster, more secure, and less expensive.” Stephen Pair, CEO of BitPay. Since the founding of Edge, we have always been passionate about people truly using cryptocurrency to buy and sell goods and services, We are happy to support the BitPay Payment Protocol to streamline the user experience at the point of sale for thousands of merchants and further drive adoption of cryptocurrency.” Paul Puey, CEO / Co-founder at Edge. About BitPay Founded in 2011, BitPay is one of the oldest cryptocurrency companies. As a pioneer in blockchain payment processing, the company’s mission is to transform how businesses and people send, receive, and store money. Its business solutions eliminate fraud chargebacks, reduce the cost of payment processing, and enable borderless payments in cryptocurrency, among other services. BitPay offers consumers a complete digital asset management solution that includes the BitPay Wallet and BitPay Prepaid Card, enabling them to turn digital assets into dollars for spending at tens of thousands of businesses. The company has offices in North America, Europe, and South America and has raised more than $70 million in funding from leading investment firms including Founders Fund, Index Ventures, Virgin Group, and Aquiline Technology Growth.

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Stifel to Acquire ACXIT Capital Partners

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360factors, Inc. | April 11, 2022

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BearingPoint and SIX Launch a Collaboration for Payments and Request-To-Pay

BearingPoint | December 18, 2021

Management and technology consultancy BearingPoint and the Swiss financial market infrastructure operator SIX are partnering to develop a fully integrated invoice-to-payment service. The service will digitalize the entire value-added chain from the issue of the invoice to its payment: invoice issuers will send invoices directly and securely to their customers’ online and mobile banking applications. Customers can verify all the information online and then approve payment of an invoice at the click of a button. This service will also support the SEPA Request-To-Pay (SRTP) functions. The platform is based on the eBill processing infrastructure of SIX, as this is already well established in Switzerland and will be rolled out in Europe with BearingPoint’s industry experience. The goal is to offer banks in Europe a model that has been tested in Switzerland and that enables the receipt of invoices and the release of payments directly through those banks’ electronic banking platforms. A key advantage is the ease of integration into the banks’ environments, thereby enabling fast and cost-effective implementations. The timing for the rollout of the solution depends on the participation of banks and invoice issuers in the respective countries. BearingPoint and SIX are currently planning for the first applications in the European market by 2023. “With eBill, SIX has established a successful solution for digital invoices in the Swiss market. It is used by around 100 financial institutions and already reaches more than half of Swiss households. In our next step, we want to implement this innovative solution across Europe in partnership with BearingPoint,” emphasizes Marco Menotti, Head of Banking Services and Member of the Executive Board of SIX. “The role of the bank account in payment processing is undergoing a fundamental change. Banks need to address how they will position accounts with their customers in the future. Our joint solution offers banks a way to link accounts with additional services that are related to invoice receipts and payments, and creates an overall win-win-win situation for banks, consumers and businesses,” adds Thomas Steiner, Global Leader Banking & Capital Markets at BearingPoint, explaining the motivation for the initiative. With our innovative solution, we can help invoice issuers achieve significant cost savings when processing transfers. It also massively improves the user experience for debtors, as they receive invoices and initiate payments in a single step and within the familiar digital environment of their own bank. For banks, this will result in a strengthening of their customer relationships and – through the reductions in paper invoices – also contribute to environmental protection” Stefan Schütt, head of the RTP initiative at BearingPoint. About SIX SIX operates and develops infrastructure services for the Swiss and Spanish stock exchanges and for securities services, banking services and financial information with the aim of improving efficiency, quality and innovative capacity across the entire value chain of the Swiss and Spanish financial centers. The company is owned by its users (121 banks). With a workforce of around 3,500 employees (full-time equivalents) and a presence in 20 countries, it generated operating income of CHF 1.38 billion and Group net profit of CHF 439.6 million in 2020. About BearingPoint BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy with European roots and a global reach. The company operates in three business units: The first unit covers the advisory business with a clear focus on selected business areas. The second unit provides IP-driven digital assets and managed services beyond SaaS. The third unit is designed to explore innovative business models with clients and partners by driving the financing and development of start-ups and leveraging ecosystems. BearingPoint’s clients include many of the world’s leading companies and organizations. The firm has a global consulting network with more than 10,000 people and supports clients in over 70 countries, engaging with them to achieve measurable and sustainable success.

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CFO Playbook: Change Management

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