Top 10 FinTech deals of April 2021 (UK & Europe version)

By Megha Bhattacharya

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of digitalisation for the financial services industry. Amidst the unprecedented market volatility, the industry’s appetite for digital technology has been on the rise. The new year saw some significant deals being undertaken by FinTech companies.

Check out the top 10 FinTech deals that took place in April 2021 (UK & Europe) :

• Thought Machine & Wise 

Core banking technology company Thought Machine recently announced that it has teamed up with international payments technology company Wise, formerly known as TransferWise, by integrating Wise Platform into Thought Machine’s core banking engine, Vault. The partnership is expected to allow banks, FinTech companies or financial institutions using Vault to enable Wise’s international transfers service.

Vacuumlabs, the global provider of full-stack FinTech solutions, also announced a global partnership with Thought Machine, following the two firms’ successful cooperation in Asia. Thought Machine’s technology and Vacuumlabs’ expertise provided this new bank with security, scalability, flexibility and availability. The Vacuumlabs team of engineers worked both remotely and on-site throughout the build to lead the installation. This successful collaboration evolved into forging a global strategic partnership.

• Curve & Credit Kudos 

Challenger credit reference agency Credit Kudos has been selected as the Open Banking provider for the FinTech Curve for its Curve Credit product. Curve Credit is a new lending and loan offering from Curve. It allows customers to pay for purchases in instalments, allowing customers to spread payments over three, six or nine-month periods, offering credit on more transparent and fairer terms.

According to the FinTech, the solution will enable customers to split the instalments at the point of purchase or after they’ve paid for an item. The ‘Go Back in Time’ feature also offers people the chance to change their minds on which card they want to use to make a transaction, up to 90 days later. The partnership enables Curve to better assess an applicant’s affordability and creditworthiness. Credit Kudos’ Affordability Insights solution will offer insights into an applicant’s affordability at speed through their intuitive dashboard, Atlas, or quick API, for a seamless assessment process.

• Tandem Bank & Mambu 

Mambu, this month, announced that Tandem Bank has gone live on its SaaS banking platform with an aim to fully rebuild Tandem’s platform. The Bank will be able to benefit from full control on all its product services and improve their understanding of customer behaviour. According to Tandem, the collaboration with the FinTech will enable it to provide the digital-only bank’s demographic a more curated customer experience and create more agile operations when launching new products.

Recently, challenger Tandem Bank announced the launch of a new banking platform along with enhanced banking services for its customers. Tandem and intive have collaborated for the development of a scalable banking platform that aggregates services and simplifies financial products’ optimization.

• Santander International & Temenos 

Temenos, in April, announced that Santander International has selected the FinTech’s SaaS platform, implemented by Syncordis, to boost its core banking platform transformation. Syncordis will help Santander International to transform its banking, savings and mortgage products IT infrastructure from an on-premise solution to a cloud-native Temenos SaaS. This will enable Santander International to benefit from the security, resilience and elastic scalability of the Microsoft Azure cloud.

Syncordis has been selected as the system integrator and implementation partner to lead the core banking implementation and modernization project with a new digital banking ecosystem. The bank will be able to build and launch products faster and deliver enhanced digital experiences with streamlined customer journeys.

• Credit Karma & Bud

Consumer technology platform Credit Karma has teamed up with FinTech Bud in a bid to provide open banking access and better services to members in the UK. The collaboration will see Credit Karma implement Bud’s Open Banking data aggregation and transaction intelligence platform for enabling members to optimise credit through access to better financial products and manage their bills efficiently with in-app switching services.

Bud enables members to share their data through Open Banking. The platform then analyses and enriches that data, creating insights that power new personalised services for customers.

• Finastra & HUBX

Finastra recently announced that it has teamed up with HUBX with an aim to help corporate lenders during the loan syndication process by reducing manual processes. The development will see the integration of Finastra’s back-office loan software Fusion Loan IQ with HUBX’s digital front-office platform HUBX Arranger. This integration is carried out via FinTech company Finastra’s open development platform, FusionFabric.cloud and is expected to develop an enhanced end-to-end offering that boosts efficiency and harnesses data insights and automation to ultimately improve customer experience.

HUBX Arranger offers a completely digitized book-running process. It brings lenders and investors together to support all stages of the syndication book-build process in a single solution, allowing banks and financial institutions to retain full control of their proprietary data and branding.

• Sopra Banking Software & IBM Cloud 

Sopra Banking Software recently announced that it will join the IBM Cloud for Financial Services Ecosystem. The ecosystem is designed to help financial institutions transact with technology vendors, such as Sopra Banking Software, who have met the platform’s security and compliance requirements.

According to Sopra, the development will allow it to use IBM Cloud for Financial Services on Red Hat OpenShift to power its banking and financing platform, two properties that help financial institutions engage with their customers while processing deposits, savings, payments, lending, collection, risk calculations and regulatory reporting in any cloud environment.

• Ikano Bank & TruNarrative

Ikano Bank, established by IKEA founders, has selected UK-based RegTech TruNarrative in a bid to integrate the latter’s platform with Ikano’s technology architecture to facilitate Europe wide fraud prevention strategy. The TruNarrative solution is expected to bring together the financial crime strategies for multiple jurisdictions with central visibility and reporting. Ikano Bank will be able to expand into new markets, detect & prevent fraudulent applications, deliver risk scoring and intuitive case management.

The TruNarrative platform will integrate with Ikano Bank’s tech stack, including their core architecture, front end website and native Apps.

• Banking Circle & Safenetpay 

Business payment solution provider Safenetpay has teamed up with payments specialist Banking Circle to enhance its cross border payment offering. Safenetpay will utilise FinTech Banking Circle’s multi-currency accounts, SEPA and SWIFT transactions solutions and foreign exchange (FX) capabilities. The partnership will enable customers to access additional currencies, competitive FX rates and quick, reliable transactions within SEPA.

The partnership is expected to serve a wider range of customers, whilst providing additional support to existing customers looking to expand into new markets. Safenetpay is an Electronic Money Institution, authorised by the UK FCA, which provides a one-stop solution for business payment needs. Safenetpay provides its customers, mainly UK SMEs, with a single platform that offers multi-currency accounts, competitive FX rates, card payment processing and merchant accounts.

• Bankhaus von der Heydt & Appian

Appian announced that Bankhaus von der Heydt will be leveraging the former’s solutions for automating back-office operations and expanding its banking business with new FinTech offerings. Appian’s Low-code Automation Platform enables banks to launch and manage new financial products and services faster, and accelerate their new institutional client onboarding time.

According to the FinTech Appian, Von der Heydt’s new FinTech Portal connects with the bank’s legacy core banking, brokerage, and crypto custody systems to provide secure data visibility to employees. The Bankhaus team can create customized client offerings within one day, allowing them to meet fast-changing requirements and scale their business without increasing their headcount. The solution also provides better visibility of products and projects across von der Heydt systems for better operational reporting and simplified compliance and risk management.