The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | June 24th

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.

Transforming embedded financing

Gynger, the embedded financing platform for technology purchases, has raised $20 million in Series A funding, led by PayPal Ventures, with participation from Gradient Ventures, Velvet Sea Ventures, BAG Ventures and Deciens Capital.

Gynger will use the funding to scale its team and operations and accelerate its vision of transforming its embedded financing platform into a full-scale payment solution for buying and selling technology.

In addition, Gynger secured a debt facility from CIM (Community Investment Management) with an agreement to fund up to $100 million. The new facility will enable Gynger to scale its technology financing to meet increasing customer demand.

“Over the last year, we have experienced tremendous growth and demand,” said Mark Ghermezian, Gynger’s CEO and Founder. “We are revolutionizing how companies buy and sell technology by providing a payment solution that addresses the needs of both vendors and their customers. We are building the future of flexible financing for all technologies. We are thrilled to welcome PayPal Ventures as an investor to help push our growth to a whole new level.”

Verituity, a provider of intelligent, verified payout solutions, has announced the close of an $18.8 million funding round led by Sandbox Industries and Forgepoint Capital, with Ardent Venture Partners and MTech Capital participating.

Chris Zock, Managing Partner and Co-CEO of Sandbox Industries, will join Verituity’s board of directors.

This latest infusion of capital will accelerate the company’s growth in banking and insurance and Verituity’s expansion into new markets, including mortgage servicing and energy. The investment enables Verituity’s further innovation of its advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence models, which are the backbone of the company’s Zero Trust Payout Verification and intelligent payments.

Goodbye tedious button-pushing

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has collaborated with Nova Credit to leverage Credit Passport to deliver a real-time standardized credit history translation for RBC’s Global Credit Connect.

Financial products can help give some newcomers more financial breathing room while they find and furnish a place to live, secure work opportunities, and adapt to life in a new country. Historically, Canada’s new-to-country individuals have had no way to carry over their credit history, resulting in challenges with accessing financial services that often require credit checks, such as credit cards, auto loans, or cell phone plans.

Vipps has partnered with MobilePay to launch a new P2P payment solution for customers between Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Starting today, Vipps and MobilePay users in the Nordic countries can easily send money to each other, only using a phone number.

“Our users have for a long time asked us to simplify sending money across the Nordics. Now, we have the solution ready. That means goodbye to long IBANs and tedious button-pushing.  This is the first of many steps we are taking to bring the Nordics even closer together,” said Rune Garborg, CEO of Vipps MobilePay.

A transfer will cost 4 percent of the transaction’s amount, and the fee will be stated in the app when users send money. In addition, the user’s bank will have an exchange fee. It costs nothing to receive the money, and it will still be free of charge to send money to friends and family within each country and in the same currency.

What is the buzz

Singapore has released findings from its updated Money Laundering (ML) National Risk Assessment (NRA), demonstrating its commitment to strengthening its anti-money laundering (AML) framework in response to global threats. This thorough review, led by Singapore’s Financial Intelligence Unit – the Suspicious Transaction Reporting Office (STRO), compiles insights from various supervisory bodies, law enforcement agencies, and feedback from international partners and private sector entities.

Since the last assessment in 2014, Singapore has consistently monitored ML risks, particularly focusing on the misuse of legal entities, the rise of virtual assets, and the laundering of proceeds from environmental crimes. These efforts aim to promptly identify emerging threats and implement targeted strategies to mitigate risks effectively across all stakeholders.

The report highlights Singapore’s major ML threats, which primarily originate from both foreign and domestic cyber-enabled fraud, often orchestrated by overseas criminal syndicates. Other significant threats include corruption, organised crime, tax crimes, and trade-based money laundering. Common methods of laundering illicit funds involve the use of bank accounts, shell companies, and the acquisition of high-value assets like real estate and precious metals.

The banking sector, especially wealth management services, is noted for having the highest exposure to ML risks due to its handling of large transaction volumes and clients from high-risk jurisdictions. The report also identifies specific vulnerabilities within Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions (DNFBPs), with corporate service providers and sectors involving real estate, casinos, and precious stones and metals facing substantial risks.