The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | July 31st

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

Bilateral relations

Türkiye boosts FinTech collaboration with Gulf countries through signed agreements during visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, aiming to strengthen bilateral relations and establish itself as a fintech hub. Payfix management Board Members with Minister of Finance of Turkiye Mehmet Simsek.

Private sector representatives assessed Gulf countries’ investment and cooperation opportunities. Contacts were also established in the FinTech sector. Erkan Kork, Chairman of PayFix, stated, “Türkiye has a goal of becoming a FinTech hub. Just like in many other sectors, Türkiye can also become a hub for Gulf countries in the FinTech field.”

The most remarkable one was the $50.7 billion agreement signed between Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates during President Erdogan’s meeting with UAE’s President, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

US FinTech Mercury Financial has secured a $200 million debt facility as it looks to expand its credit card business for the middle class.

The new facility, which has been provided by client funds managed by US investment banking company Neuberger Berman, will be used to originate additional credit card accounts and boost the growth of its existing cardmember relationships.

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Mercury Financial utilises over 100 million data points to provide middle-class Americans with access to credit through its credit card and mobile app offerings. It claims to serve more than 1.5 million customers.

“We see a massive opportunity for Mercury to reach our near-prime target market, which so many banks and non-bank lenders ignore,” said Jason Whiting, chief financial officer (CFO) of Mercury Financial. Regulatory limitations have discouraged banks from approaching this segment, while subprime lenders have traditionally relied on high fee products which often results in continued financial stress.”

BNPL offerings

Tabby, a MENA-based shopping and financial services app, has announced that Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has permitted “Tabby” to provide Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) solutions.

The company stated that this license is a testament to the quality of our services and our commitment towards creating financial freedom for our customers. We look forward to continuing to provide innovative solutions to the needs of our community.

With Tabby, five authorised companies now offer BNPL solutions in Saudi Arabia. The BNPL solutions provide finance to customers wishing to buy products and services without incurring financing costs.

SAMA is committed to supporting and enabling the finance and FinTech sectors within the regulatory and supervisory guidelines. SAMA seeks to bring added value to the industry and the economy by attracting new investors and companies. SAMA is actively leveraging technology in financial services to support the broader goals of Vision 2030.

This decision reflects SAMA’s endeavour to support the Finance and FinTech sectors by enhancing operational efficiency and innovative financial solutions to promote financial inclusion in Saudi Arabia.

Recently, SAMA granted permits to Tamara, a BNPL payments platform, to provide better solutions to customers and partner merchants.

The FBI has issued a warning regarding the increased threat from criminal and nation-state hackers who are targeting AI technologies.

The threats are aimed at big tech companies and startups working on AI, particularly those developing language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard. The FBI’s warning highlights a growing risk of intellectual property theft and the compromise of powerful chatbots.

There are distinct threats from China in the AI domain, and FBI officials have warned of a probable rise in targeting US companies, universities, and government research facilities for AI advancements. There is a concern about both legal and illegal technology acquisition methods, including foreign commercial investments.

Additionally, the FBI alerted the public to cybercriminals using AI to amplify traditional crimes, such as fraud and extortion. Threats range from the creation of synthetic content for extortion schemes to the refinement of phishing emails and malware.

What is the buzz

⚙️As part of its continuous efforts to enhance data orchestration within Know Your Customer (KYC) parameters, KYC Portal is launching a new feature designed to provide increased flexibility in the integration with third-party data sources.

This upgrade comes as a response to the industry’s need for more efficient screening procedures for politically exposed persons (PEPs), Sanctions and Adverse Media.

These settings are applied at the third-party level and include the determination of accepted open matches and the categorisation provided by the supplier. Additional configuration components encompass the scheduling of daily monitoring and determining when searches should occur. Furthermore, the system also allows the setting of recurring auto searching intervals based on the number of days.

In an innovative move away from traditional systems, KYC Portal’s solution empowers users to customise how it responds to such screening, contingent upon complex rules or type of entity.