FinTech Focus: Catch latest developments of the week

By Gloria Mathias

FinTechs continue to play a pivotal role in transforming and reshaping the traditional contours of the financial industry. As technology becomes increasingly intertwined with financial services, FinTech innovations are not merely incremental but rather revolutionary, paving the way for enhanced efficiency, accessibility, and novel business models.

This week’s FinTech Focus brings forth a curated selection of the most significant developments that underscore the dynamic nature of this sector.

Let’s look at the top six announcements made by the FinTech bigwigs this week:

• ACI Worldwide 

AFFIN Group announced a partnership with ACI at a signing ceremony, marking a significant stride in the bank’s digital transformation journey. ACI’s Enterprise Payments Platform solution enables Affin Bank to transform high-value and low-value payment processing into a unified hashtag payment platform, positioning the bank at the forefront of real-time payment innovation.

• EBANX

EBANX has announced a partnership with Zuora in 15 countries across Latin America and Africa. The collaboration aims to help digital businesses, especially those in SaaS or with recurring revenue streams, by enhancing local payment methods in these regions. The potential that needs that needs to be addressed is huge. While Latam’s digital services market is set to grow an outstanding 30% YoY, in Africa, SaaS will be the fastest-growing vertical within digital commerce, accelerating at 25% CAGR by 2026.

• Mambu 

Big news from Spain: Outpayce from Amadeus builds a B2B digital wallet on Mambu. Here’s a quick preview of what Outpayce’s Werner Van Ravesteyn has to say about the partnership with Mambu, “Compared to other core banking players we’ve evaluated, Mambu truly stood out to us for its cloud-native approach, the breadth of products it could support, in our case managing multi-currency accounts and supporting electronic fund transfers across a large number of payment schemes and of course its track record when it comes to execution.”

• NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL)

NPCI International Payments Limited and QNB have signed an agreement to enable the acceptance of UPI payments in Qatar. This partnership aims to facilitate Indian travellers’ digital payments using UPI-powered apps across QNB’s merchant network in the country. Once live, Indian tourists and NRIs will be able to transact seamlessly across retail stores, tourist & leisure sites, duty-free shops, and hotels in Qatar. This strategic initiative will ensure a hassle-free payment experience for Indian tourists and empower local merchants with a more efficient payment and collection system.

• Visa 

Visa announced its partnership with Visa solutions Currencycloud & Tink, which helped deliver HSBC’s new international payments app Zing. James Allan, CEO and Founder of Zing, comments, “We shared a clear vision with our partners at Visa that people all across the globe want easy-to-use, secure, and trustworthy financial products that enable them to live their best international lives. Zing delivers on that promise.”

• Vi Business India 

Vi Business India has partnered with PayU to help MSMEs in their digital transformation journey. This collaboration offers advanced tools, innovative payment solutions and special offers to meet their growing needs.