Author: Fintechnews Nordics

Mitigram, the leading digital platform in global trade financing, today announces it has secured an additional $11m from its latest funding round, bringing the total amount raised to $38m. In 2014, Mitigram launched a digital exchange in global trade financing. Its advanced and interoperable digital platform is designed for corporations and financial institutions to price check and execute risk cover and financing transactions in cross-border trade. Current clients include Louis Dreyfus Company, Bridgestone, Vale, Ericsson, ArcelorMittal, Trafigura, Siemens Healthineers and over 150 banks. The investment will enable Mitigram to move into its next phase of growth, executing its product roadmap,…

Verified, a provider of Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance solutions, announced the acquisition of Pliance, a regtech startup specialising in automated financial crime compliance. Pliance’s platform uses API-led advanced automation to streamline the compliance process, reducing the burden on businesses and increasing their ability to detect and prevent financial crime. By integrating Pliance’s advanced technology and expertise, Verified will be able to offer an even more comprehensive suite of KYC and AML solutions. Verified said that its acquisition of Pliance will significantly strengthen its position in the European market, as it continues to expand and diversify…

Nordea completed the acquisition of Swedish digital pension broker platform Advinans, following receipt of the regulatory approvals. The acquisition strengthens Nordea’s life and pension offering in Sweden and accelerates the bank’s strategic ambitions within savings. The acquisition of Advinans fits well with Nordea’s strategic plan to grow in profitable business segments and extend its digital offering to corporate customers in Sweden. It will also increase Nordea’s exposure to the Swedish pension segment. Going forward, Advinans will be integrated into Nordea and operated under the Nordea brand. “We are very pleased to finalise the acquisition and welcome our new colleagues and…

Swedish regtech company Trapets has acquired Regtech Solutions, a software company offering Know Your Customer (KYC) and screening services solutions to comply with Anti-Money Laundry (AML) regulations. The acquisition will strengthen Trapets’ position in the Nordic regulatory technology market. Combining the two companies’ offerings, customers can benefit from innovative KYC and AML solutions to prevent and detect financial crime activities. The acquisition of Regtech Solution goes hand in hand with Trapet’s strategy to expand outside of its core customer segment, financial services. Regtech Solutions will fully integrate into Trapets’ organisation, operations, and service offerings. “We at Trapets are very excited…

Swedish climate technology startup Doconomy has partnered with cloud banking platform Mambu to support financial institutions globally in taking climate action with accurate, easy-to-understand environmental impact data.  Doconomy, a provider of carbon impact calculations, has developed digital tools, including an API-based engagement service, to assist individuals and corporations in measuring and engaging with their CO₂e footprint data. In collaboration with Mambu, Doconomy will empower joint customers to determine the carbon footprint of their financial transactions with the potential to decrease it too.  According to Mambu, this partnership marks its first climate tech collaboration to be featured on its partner ecosystem. “This…

Swedish open banking startup Kreditz has received funding from Ingka Investments, the VC arm of Ingka Group which operates IKEA retail stores, as well as Creades. The investment is part of Kreditz’s latest funding round with investors contributing to a total of €10 million of equity capital. The latest funding round will be used to accelerate Kreditz’s growth and expansion into new markets. Founded in 2018, Kreditz helps banks and other financial institutions to analyse bank transaction data and get a comprehensive view of applicants’ profiles based on Open Banking and PSD2 data. Peter van der Poel, Managing Director at Ingka…

Stockholm based Intergiro, a Banking as a Service (BaaS) platform, has partnered with Sweden’s financial service provider Incharge to launch a new banking app designed to make financial services easier and more accessible for students in Europe. The Incharge app is free of charge and will offer students the convenience of managing their finances from their smartphones. Students can effortlessly open an account through the app, eliminating the need for paperwork and long wait times — all that is required is a passport or national ID card. The user-friendly mobile banking app delivers a range of financial services, including current…

Norwegian B2B payment solutions provider Two announced that it has secured €18 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funds raised to €28 million. The funding round was led by Shine Capital and Antler with participation from Sequoia Capital, Day One Ventures, Alumni Ventures, LocalGlobe, The Visionaries Club, Alliance VC and more. Merchants can start selling immediately through Two’s portal through two methods. They can either integrate via a simple open API or choose from a selection of off-the-shelf plugins built for e-commerce platforms such as Magento, Optimizely, WooCommerce, Spense, and 24Nettbutikk. Two will also launch with…

Payment giant Mastercard has acquired Swedish cloud-based cybersecurity company Baffin Bay Networks to add to its multi-layered approach to cybersecurity. The acquisition further strengthens Mastercard’s broader services offerings and value beyond the payment transaction. Baffin Bay Networks’ uses the latest in AI technology to automatically filter and counteract malicious internet traffic. Mastercard said the firm has a proven track record of mitigating or preventing costly and potentially catastrophic breach cyber events. Mastercard will integrate its solutions into a single cyber service available to all its customers across the world. Its existing RiskRecon data analytics enables organisations to identify vulnerabilities in…

Zimpler, a Swedish fintech company providing seamless and secure account-to-account payments, announced the appointment of Stefan Andersson as its Chief Product Officer. He will take on the role starting 20 March 2023. In the newly created role, Andersson will lead Zimpler’s product roadmap and will focus on driving the expansion agenda, which includes expanding geographical coverage in Europe and establishing the product in Latin America. He will also further innovation within the company’s product and features to cater for the growing demand for more efficient payments across multiple segments such as financial services and e-commerce. He will become a part…

With 19 insurtech startups, Sweden is the biggest insurtech market in the Nordics, hosting 60% of all of the region’s insurtech companies, a report by Sollers Consulting, an international operational advisory and software integrator, reveals. The Nordic Insurtech Report, released in September, looks at the insurtech landscape in Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark, examining the different startups in the ecosystem, their business models and value propositions. The study identified 31 insurtech startups across the region, with Sweden taking the lion’s share in terms of company country, followed by Finland with five insurtech companies, Denmark with four, and Norway with three.…

Anyfin, the scaleup that enables consumers to refinance existing loans and take control of their financial wellbeing, announced that it has completed a €30 million Series C funding round. The capital will fuel the growth of its business across Europe, as well as helping Anyfin to strengthen its product suite in existing Europe markets. The cost of living crisis has been impacting customers worldwide and is increasing at its fastest rate in 40 years. The macro environment has a massive impact on household budgets, affecting consumers’ financial wellbeing and business’ balance sheets. Since the spiral of costs started, Anyfin’s services…

Mastercard has announced the winners of its Lighthouse 2022 Fall Finale at the “Fintech & Impact: Born For This Moment” side event at Slush in Helsinki. Lighthouse is a collaboration network that fosters symbiotic growth between banks, fintechs and Mastercard. Meanwhile, Lighthouse MASSIV helps social impact and sustainability-focused companies scale through partnerships. Forming part of Mastercard Lighthouse, the two programs represent the core foundations of Mastercard’s wider commitment to empower Baltics and Nordics startups to fulfill their ambitions at scale and speed. A total of 15 fintech companies, 10 from the Nordic region and five from the Baltic region, were…

A.P. Moller – Maersk and IBM announced the decision to withdraw the TradeLens offerings and discontinue the platform. Starting today, the TradeLens team is taking action to withdraw the offerings and discontinue the platform, and the intent is that the platform will go offline by end of quarter one, 2023. During this process all parties involved will ensure that customers are attended to without disruptions to their businesses. Maersk will continue its efforts to digitise the supply chain and increase industry innovation through other solutions to reduce trade friction and promote more global trade. “We are deeply grateful for the…

The Helsinki Fintech Farm has published a list of 20 fintech companies in Finland that have received the most funding as of June 2022, based on funding rounds that have been shared publicly. The list of top funded fintech companies was published alongside Helsinki Fintech Farm’s annual rankings of the top startups, top scaleups and top established companies in Finland. AlphaSense, a market intelligence platform founded by Finnish founders that is now headquartered on Wall Street, tops the list with €442.3 million received so far. Payment processor Enfuce came in second place with a much lower €62 million raised so…

Swedish open banking platform Tink has made four additions to its London-based payments team with hires for variable recurring payments, payment sales, strategic account management, and delivery and solutions architecture. Firstly, Andrew Boyajian joins Tink as Head of Variable Recurring Payments from J.P. Morgan where he led product commercialisation of emerging payments and fintechs for wholesale payments in the US. Secondly, Ian Morrin joins as the new VP of Payment Sales. Morrin previously worked as a Sales Director at a wide range of companies including Bud, Expedite Growth, Phoenix51 and Clarify. Thirdly, Kevin Ward has been appointed VP Strategic Account…

Nordic financial services group SEB has created SEB Embedded, a new business unit to commercialise the banking-as-a-service concept and promoted Christoffer Malmer to head the unit. Malmer’s current role as the head of SEB’s innovation studio SEBx will be taken over by Nicolas Moch, who is currently Chief Information Officer at SEB. Svante Hedin, who is currently deputy head of FICC Markets at SEB, has been appointed the company’s new Chief Information Officer. He has a background in banking and securities trading. These changes within SEB’s tech and innovation organisation will come into effect from January 2023. “We see good…

Swedish payments company Zimpler announced plans to expand to Latin America and that it has established its regional headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s financial center. A recent study conducted by Zimpler showed that nearly half of all online consumers in Brazil have given up on an online purchase due to issues with e-commerce payment processes. This is a gap that Zimpler hopes to fill in Brazil with its account-to-account payments solution that is developed based on the Central Bank of Brazil’s PIX technology. The amalgamation of PIX and Zimpler’s solutions will streamline the transaction chain and enable instant settlement for…

Swedish bank payments platform Atlar has closed a €5 million seed round led by Index Ventures, with the participation of European venture capital firms La Famiglia VC and Cocoa. A number of angel investors also participated in the round, including Revolut’s CFO Mikko Salovaara, former Executive Vice President of Global Sales at Adyen Thijn Lamers, and N26’s CFO Jan Kemper. Atlar is a bank payments platform which enables businesses to automate their payment activities such as initiating transfers, reconciling transactions, handling direct debits, and more. Founded in 2022 by three Tink alumni, the company’s early customers include insurance company Lassie,…

The Helsinki Fintech Farm has published its annual list of the top established fintech companies in Finland, ranked based on the companies’ latest reported revenues. The Finnish fintech industry—consisting some 200 fintech startups, fintech scaleups and established companies—saw revenues growing from €1.2 billion in 2020 to €1.4 billion in 2021. ePassi, an employee benefits mobile payments platform, topped this year’s list as revenues jumped from €111 million in 2020 to €289 million in 2021. The company ranked third on the previous ranking. Digital finance services company Multitude and enterprise finance software company Basware, who topped the previous list, came in second…