The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | Dec 13th

By Gaia Lamperti

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

Cross-border payments updates

🌐 Global provider of financial messaging services SWIFT last week announced its new In-flow Translation service and confirmed that it now offers a complete ISO 20022 customer testing environment for cross-border payments. The service translates rich ISO 20022 messages into the existing MT format for banks that are not processing ISO 20022 yet, ensuring that both formats are delivered and customers always have complete data. The feature allows all the financial institutions in the SWIFT network to continue transactions as usual during the industry’s migration window, from November 2022 to November 2025.
The View: “One of the guiding principles behind our strategy for instant and frictionless payments is to ensure that nobody is left behind and that institutions are able to migrate in a way that suits them and their customers.” – Stephen Lindsay, Business Lead, SWIFT Platform

🦾 The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced it would set up a task force to define common features of cross-border payment service levels and ensure consistency between agreements. The BIS’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) is calling on managers of service level agreements (SLAs) and payment schemes to nominate senior representatives to the newly established task force that will start meeting in  2022 every six to eight weeks.
The View: “Faster, cheaper, more transparent and more inclusive cross-border payments, while ensuring safety and security, would have widespread benefits for citizens and economies worldwide, supporting economic growth, international trade, global development and financial inclusion.” – states BIS.

Strategic partnerships

🪙 Blockchain platform Chainalysis has announced an integrated partnership with online brokerage app Robinhood Crypto offering its data and tools to meet compliance requirements and provide Robinhood customers with the confidence they need to trade cryptocurrency safely. Chainalysis’s comprehensive data set and real-time monitoring and investigative solutions help compliance teams build trust, keep accounts safe, and expand their cryptocurrency offerings. With these tools and a simple API integration, Robinhood Crypto can now access the same blockchain data government agencies use and integrate it into their systems to reduce manual workflows.
The View: “We are thrilled to work with Robinhood Crypto – a company laser-focused on building financial products that work for everyone – to build trust in cryptocurrency and promote more financial freedom with less risk.”  – Jonathan Levin, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at  Chainalysis

💳 FinTech Vitesse has partnered up with Mastercard to deliver Send, an industry-leading solution that provides businesses and their customers with fast, simple and secure ways to send and receive money in real-time, both domestic and internationally. By leveraging near real-time payments to debit and credit cards, insurers can now provide a flexible, seamless and secure claims payment service for their customers. With personal finances still tight from the impact of the pandemic, giving customers peace of mind for their claims is a step in the right direction.
The View: “Through this partnership, insurance customers will benefit from a far simpler and faster claims process, whilst insurers will be able to offer a better customer experience, helping improve customer retention.” – Suren Nawalkar, Senior Vice President, Consumer Applications at Mastercard

Where’s the buzz

Brazil’s largest neobank, Nubank, had a blockbuster IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, closing up 15% on its first day of trading at a nearly $50 billion market cap. Nubank launched in 2013 with a no-fee credit card in Sao Paulo, Brazil and less than 10 years later, it is now officially the most valuable publicly-traded neobank.