A brief look back at week 42 at some of the news that’s not always picked up.
Shanghai International Money Fair
We start with the news that one of China's largest financial fairs will be held in December.
The 17th edition of Shanghai International Money Fair will take place from December 13 to 15, 2019 at Shanghai Exhibition Center.
It is organised by VNU Exhibitions Asia and Shanghai Money Weekly Media, and they expect to attract more than 200 of the world's leading financial institutions and some 97,000 investors.
The Money Fair sets its stall out as being a comprehensive financial exhibition, covering a wide range of topics, including banking, insurance, securities, funds, futures, trusts, overseas investments, fintech, wealth management, and other enterprises in the domestic and international financial sectors.
CreditVidya wins the 2019 Red Herring Top 100 Asia Award
Next it’s over to India to hear that CreditVidya, a leading fintech firm in India, has won the 2019 Red Herring Top 100 Asia award. The award recognises the innovations and technologies of the leading startups from Asia.
Red Herring Top 100 Asia enlists outstanding entrepreneurs and promising companies. It selects the award winners from approximately 1000 privately financed companies each year in Asia.
"At CreditVidya, we always strive to reach our ultimate goal of financial inclusion by providing access to affordable credit to the end consumer and making them a part of the formal financial system," said Abhishek Agarwal, Co-founder and CEO, CreditVidya. "We are honored to be recognized by Red Herring, which is a testament to the entire CreditVidya team for our commitment in redefining the lending ecosystem by bringing in technological innovation."
"In 2019, selecting the top achievers was difficult as always," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "The variety, depth, disruption and traction we saw from the early stage companies to those with significant scale made 2019 a great vintage to judge. The Asia winners are representative of the amazing ecosystem that never ceases to astound, with new and experienced entrepreneurs continuing to push the barriers of innovation."
Fintech EBANX is newest Unicorn in Latin America
In Latin America came news that EBANX, a payments fintech company headquartered in Brazil that connects global businesses to Latin American consumers, has raised a significant follow-on investment from FTV Capital, a US-based growth equity investment firm.
The investment contributed to making the fintech company the newest unicorn of Latin America.
"Becoming a unicorn reflects the unique solutions we have created to meet the demands of some of the world's most recognised brands since we founded EBANX in 2012. From the start, our focus has been on connecting people in Latin America to global companies providing access and a seamless ability to transact. This investment from our partner FTV Capital highlights the continued success we have had in delivering best-in-class platform to our customers, and shines the light on Latin America as a massively attractive region for commerce," said Alphonse Voigt, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of EBANX.
With Latin America's fast-growing market and highly positive forecasts for the region, EBANX consolidates itself as a complete payment solution for global companies looking to expand their businesses in Latin America.
Last month, EBANX announced it had become a payment partner for the new Uber Pay ecosystem to process cash vouchers and bank transfer payments for Uber in Brazil and other countries in Latin America.
And Visa has partnered with EBANX to expand their Cities of the Future programme in the Brazilian state of Paraná to increase the use of electronic payments.
Expertus Technologies joins Finance Montréal's FinTech Station
Still over on that side of the pond, but at the north end, we saw that in Montreal a company called Expertus Technologies, a Software-as-a-Service based payments and cash management financial technology firm, is joining Finance Montréal's FinTech Station in a new, larger office space. The station has a mission to act as a catalyst for the development of fintech solutions in Quebec and Canada.
Expertus Technologies, which celebrated its 18th year in business in 2019, intends to leverage its new office space to accommodate continued business growth and provide expanded services for its clients with new internal operational efficiencies.
Open fintech forum brings together technologists
In the US, we heard that the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organisation enabling mass innovation through open source, has announced the speakers and programme for the Open FinTech Forum which takes place on December 9, 2019 at the Convene Conference Center in New York.
Open FinTech Forum is pitched as the place where financial services IT decision makers come to learn about the open technologies driving digital transformation.
"Open FinTech Forum brings the open source communities that support financial services together with CIOs, IT managers and developers working in the heart of finance," said Angela Brown, General Manager of Events at The Linux Foundation. "We're looking forward to showcasing the industry's emerging and established open technologies fueling this space."
Keynote speakers include:
- Partha Seetala, Chief Technology Officer, Robin.io;
- Camilla Sharpe, WW Multivendor Software Support Business Line Executive, IBM;
- Sid Sijbrandij, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, GitLab;
- Jim Zemlin, Executive Director, The Linux Foundation.
Funding
Not a bad week for funding. Figures from BlackFin Tech show that over €80m was raised across Europe in nine fintech and insurtech deals. Three of these originated in Switzerland and two in the UK.