The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | July 8th

By Puja Sharma

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

Shariah-compliant digital service

Africhange, a global remittance services provider, has launched its operations in the UK, offering more efficient and cost-effective solutions for individuals to transfer money internationally. With Africhange, students enrolled in UK universities can get discounted exchange rates on top of the market-leading rates available to the public.

The firm is also planning to introduce its loyalty program (Afripoints), which allows users to earn cash rewards for sending or receiving money through the platform. With Afripoints, users can accumulate points for every transaction, which can be withdrawn as cash or spent as discounts on transactions. This program is already available to users in Canada, Australia, and Nigeria and will soon be launching in the UK.

UK-based financial services company Ethos has partnered with Thought Machine to launch a Shariah-compliant digital service.

Ethos will deploy Thought Machine’s next-generation core banking platform, Vault Core, to offer seamless and real-time Shariah-compliant financial solutions accessible via mobile devices. Initially targeting Muslim communities, Ethos will expand its services to other ethically-minded consumer groups in the UK. The firm will debut with a Shariah-compliant deposit account (Mudaraba structure) and a Home Purchase Plan mortgage (Musharakah and Ijarah structure).

Potential debt collection

Under its latest partnership with Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) provider Riverty, Mollie is enabling its customers to defer payments for up to 30 days. This payment method helps optimise conversion and further simplify the payment process.

Riverty is available for Mollie customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria from today. With its partnership, Mollie is once again expanding its range of BNPL payment methods. In total, the company now offers more than 30 different payment methods.

Riverty’s solution is seamlessly integrated with Mollie, allowing customers to activate it in their Dashboard with just a few clicks. Riverty offers financial security and credibility and prides itself on its ‘merchant brand comes first’ approach. Its end-to-end BNPL service handles every aspect of the payment process—from payment selection to invoice acquisition to payment reminders and potential debt collection.

Simply Asset Finance, the specialist business lending provider, has received an agreement from Bank of America for a new facility that will unlock the potential for £120 million of further funding for businesses across the UK.

The initial facility is £60 million, with an accordion to £120 million. This agreement consolidates Bank of America’s position in UK Asset Finance, and the move will enable Simply Asset Finance to significantly increase its funding to UK borrowers for hire purchases, finance leases and refinancing.

Bank of America identified Simply Asset Finance as a credible and valuable partner due to its highly experienced management team and growth potential. The facility will enable Simply Asset Finance to increase its lending capabilities to UK businesses by 30% and increase its origination by £100 million in the first year.

What is the buzz

The Banque de France (BDF) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) have announced their collaboration regarding wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC).

The BDF and the HKMA have been maintaining a close partnership to promote financial innovation. The latest collaboration is the HKMA’s participation in Wave 2 of the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s)  Eurosystem exploratory work, marking an important milestone as a major central banking institution outside the Eurosystem participating in the initiative.

The two central banking institutions recently agreed, indicating a step forward in bilateral cooperation to foster innovation in the wholesale CBDC and tokenization markets.