James Cahill and Yvonne Pichert are the new vice presidents at advisory firm MDOTM. The fintech says the pair’s international expertise in asset management will be key in accelerating and consolidating its global expansion.

Moving jobs

UK challenger bank Tandem has hired Paul Noble as its new chief commercial officer. In addition to developing green mortgages and savings accounts, Noble will help grow Tandem’s green home ending portfolio that it recently acquired from Allium.

interactive investor (ii), the UK’s second-largest direct to consumer investment platform, has hired Becky O’Connor as head of pensions and savings. Becky will lead ii’s educational programme about pensions and savings, as well as its campaign on pensions and savings policy issues.

Jonathan Furse is the new chief technology officer for buy-side analytics provider Substantive Research. In addition to managing the company’s digital product strategy, Furse is tasked with growing its in-house team of developers.

Working together

Brokerage house Britannia Global Markets chooses Broadridge in order to streamline its post-trade processing. The fintech’s SaaS-based solution will smooth out the post-trade operations in Britannia’s cash equities, fixed income and repo businesses.

Yoyo will create a global loyalty brand following its merger with South Africa’s wiGroup. The UK based payments and loyalty app has also raised additional primary funding from SaltPay, supported by existing investors IP Group. The combined operations will service clients in the UK, Europe, Africa and Australasia. These include Caffe Nero, Paul, Burger King, KFC, Dunkin Donuts and Woolworths.

Revenue-based finance provider Uncapped has hooked up with Salt Edge in order to speed up verifying an applicant’s business performance. The collaboration with the open banking solutions provider will also boost Uncapped’s lending decision time ‘from days to a few hours’.

Wealth Dynamix has partnered with Chappuis Halder & Co to deliver enterprise-scale digital transformation. Under the agreement, the companies will embed client lifecycle management within digital transformation initiatives.

Meanwhile, international payments provider ECOMMPAY is integrating with Telegram for in-app purchases. The collaboration will allow Telegram users to select products from their channel bot and click a ‘pay’ button.

Investment app Trading 212 has integrated financial API provider TrueLayer’s open banking-powered technology to its trading platform. Trading 212 has hailed TrueLayer for ensuring its ‘users no longer need to do manual wire transfers and wait a day or more before funds arrive in their account’.

Funding and investments

Insurtech Cover Genius has raised A$15million as it expands its product suite and partner network globally. The funding news coincides with the launch of new product and parcel insurance products on ecommerce platform Shopee Thailand.

e-Bate, the UK rebate management platform, has raised £950,000 in a second funding round. It says the funding will be used to create five new jobs, as well as increase global sales. The latest funding is the second investment by the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF).

While, passwordless authentication company Secret Double Octopus has secured a strategic investment from Standard Chartered’s venture arm, SC Ventures. The Israeli-based startup helps organisations manage their cybersecurity risks, while streamlining employee workflows with authentication technology. The parties did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

Industry announcements

OakNorth Bank has dished out more than £1billion in new loans and receives additional CBILS/CLBILS allocation from the British Business Bank. From June to August, OakNorth Bank experienced twice the lending volume going to credit committee compared to last year, and in the last month, has seen four times the volume.

Mojo Mortgages, Moneybox, Plum and Wagestream have come up trumps in the Open Up 2020 Challenge. Run by Nesta Challenges, in partnership with the Open Banking Implementation Entity, the challenge aimed to inspire innovative open banking-enabled solutions to help people across the UK better manage their money. During the challenge, the four winners have tripled their open banking users and will pick up an additional £150,000 in prize money.

Global gold marketplace Goldex has adopted new best-practice trading principles from the World Gold Council. The Retail Gold Investment Principles (RGIP) were launched in order to raise the bar for product providers across the global gold market. Gold prices are soaring – increasing more than 600 per cent over the last 20 years.

A glut of renowned fintech experts have been unveiled as speakers at the upcoming Seamless: The Future of Fintech event. More than 4,000 people are expected to attend the virtual event co-hosted by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority and the G20 Saudi Secretariat on 19-20 October. Speakers will include Brett King, Anna Maj, Jim Marous, Adrienne A. Harris, as well as Jo Ann Barefoot and Abdulaziz Al-Helaissi.

Pezesha is to operate its debt-based crowdfunding platform in the Kenyan capital markets, after a successful one-year testing period in a regulatory sandbox. The Capital Markets Authority has granted a ‘no objection’ to Pezesha leaving the sandbox, subject to maintenance of existing compliance requirements.