The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | October 20th

By Puja Sharma

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

Mastercard has signed an agreement with Alhulul Almobassatah Financial Company (SiFi) to empower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia with a range of innovative offerings.

The agreement brings Mastercard, a technology company in the global payments sector together with SiFi, a Saudi-based FinTech that simplifies how businesses manage spend to provide greater access to novel financial solutions: offerings designed to overcome challenges in controlling spend, managing expense reports, and accessing analytics to save money.

“Mastercard is a key partner for SiFi. As a reputable player in the payment technology field, Mastercard’s expertise and flexibility helps us adapt to our evolving needs and improve our service to customers. With their support, we can better understand and address our customers’ expectations,” said H.E. Ahmed Alhakbani, Founder and CEO of SiFi.

Deals of the week

• Tribal upsizes debt facility to $150m with Partners for Growth
• HiWi raises $870k in Pre-seed round led by Unicorn India Ventures
• Globacap raises $21m Series B to digitise private capital markets
• Perfios enables employee wealth creation of ESOPS worth $18.5 million
• Tuum and Plumery collaborate on next-gen core banking platform
• Veefin & Fintek to offer tech solutions to lending firms in Vietnam
• LPBank selects Temenos to modernise Retail & Corporate Banking
• Wolters Kluwer brings new upgrades to Enablon Vision Platform
• Tadhamon Bank goes live on Azentio Software’s iMAL
• Venlo relaunches payment platform for freelancers & businesses in India
• Al Fardan Exchange & HUAWEI join forces for seamless mobile transactions
• Citi & Navan unveil travel solution for commercial bank Clients
• UNO Digital Bank & Collabera Digital to deliver seamless integration with GCash

Be on the lookout for

Singapore recently elected a President who advocates for a single regulatory system for both crypto and traditional finance, so it’s little wonder many fintech firms have set up shop in the country. This year’s Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) will focus heavily on the growth and adoption of AI, and how the technology can be used in financial services.

Elsewhere, there are zones for founders, regulation, ESG and talent, with estimates of over 62,000 participants and 850 speakers from 134 countries are expected to attend. Featured speakers set to hold court will include such luminaries as World Bank President Ajay Banga, CFTC Commissioner Caroline D. Pham, and Arbor Ventures Co-founder Melissa Guzy.