Coinbase has acquired Israel-based cryptographic security technology company Unbound Security. The deal is expected to close in the next few months subject to customary conditions. Financials of the deals were not disclosed. The acquisition is part of Coinbase’s strategy to rope in global talent from engineering hubs such as India, Singapore and Brazil. According to an announcement by the company, the acquisition will enable Coinbase to set up an advanced tech research facility in Israel. It will also boost Coinbase’s product and security roadmap. Unbound Security’s multi-party computation (MPC) capabilities will help to boost the security of customer assets held…

The sudden surge in e-commerce activities has brought with it a rapid rise of card-not-present (CNP) fraud, costing e-commerce merchants an estimated US$35.54 billion globally in 2020, a new report by Forrester says. According to the “How to balance risk in an ever-changing retail landscape” report, this massive jump in CNP shows that merchants are overwhelmed with the massive increase in new customers and activities, and calls for greater use of fraud management efficiency metrics. CNP is a category of fraud where the cardholder does not or cannot physically present the card for a merchant’s visual examination at the time…

India-based payments and API banking solutions company Cashfree has picked up a majority stake in UAE and Saudi Arabia-based payment service provider (PSP) Telr for US$15 million. The strategic investment will enable Cashfree to launch its offerings across the MENA region through Telr’s presence and payment infrastructure. The two companies also have plans to build a unified cross-border payments platform. The platform will allow Indian merchants to accept payments from MENA-based customers and vice-versa through a single integration. Cashfree products are currently used in eight other countries outside India, including the UAE. “We are excited about this new investment into…

Abu Dhabi Global Market guides the virtual asset industry with the world’s first fully comprehensive regulatory framework, ushering in a period of dramatic economic growth and unlocking endless opportunities for innovation. Traditional finance and the virtual asset economy have become increasingly intertwined this year. From the development of crypto-first ecommerce to the proliferation of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), it was a year of unrestrained tech adoption, innovation, integration and – in some circumstances -even resistance. By some definitions, a virtual asset may well take the form of any digitised token of value that could be traded, transferred or used for payment.…

Banking solutions that go beyond traditional services are going to be an “important battlefield” for banking in the UAE. A new report by Arthur D. Little and M2P analysed responses from about 2,000 UAE retail bank customers to determine how consumer forces are changing banking in the UAE. The report suggested that UAE banks are now going “beyond banking,” tapping into growth territories beyond financial services. It found that 61% of banking customers were willing to use a beyond banking proposition by their primary bank. The most attractive opportunities in this space included entertainment, education, retail, and food. Meanwhile, developments…

Nigeria’s startup funding reached approximately US$417.5 million in nine months, and a lion’s share of this came from fintech (Punch). The funding total already beats the US$300 million these companies raised last year (fintech companies dominated Nigeria’s startup funding in 2020 as well). About 91% of this near-half-billion capital pool came from fintech companies. Edtech, healthtech and communications companies contributed the remaining 9%. From the current vantage point, fintech investments alone are expected to surpass US$400 million this year, while revenues are expected to grow to US$543 million in 2022. Some of the biggest African fintech startups have already contributed…

The National Bank of Kuwait has launched Weyay, Kuwait’s first fully digital bank for youth, according to a statement. The app is currently in beta testing and has been launched at the pre-registration stage. It will be opened on an invite-basis soon, the statement said. The app will feature a fully digital account opening process, a user-friendly interface, and the latest security standards (including biometrics), the statement also noted. It will feature solutions designed by NBK youth cadres. In the course of developing Weyay, the NBK researched banking preferences among the youth segment, between the ages of 15 and 24 years.…

Technology has transformed the financial industry, and regulators need to buy in. That’s the message from the Abu Dhabi Global Market’s (ADGM) latest report on regtech in the emirate. The report, titled “Powering the Future of Regulation,” noted that the emergence of cloud infrastructure, AI and machine learning, API integrations and data science have completely pivoted the financial industry towards a digital-first model. Noting that regtech adoption was fairly nascent amongst firms in the ADGM, the report highlighted key measures that the financial jurisdiction has taken to promote the adoption of regtech. One of these was the application of regtech…

US-Israeli supply chain fintech company 8fig has closed a US$50 million Series A round, the company said in a statement.  The round was raised from returning investors Battery Ventures and LocalGlobe, as well as serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Nested and GoCardless Matt Robinson. Silicon Valley Bank will be providing debt to the company as part of the fundraise. Funding will be used to drive growth and scale its lending solution to more ecommerce businesses, the statement said.  With offices in Tel Aviv and Austin, Texas, 8fig provides capital and supply chain management tools for ecommerce sellers. 8fig was founded…

Venture capital firm OurCrowd has become the first Israeli venture firm to have gained approval and licensing by the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) in the UAE, according to a statement. The firm has incorporated its wholly owned subsidiary OurCrowd Arabia in the ADGM. OurCrowd Arabia will be regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) at the ADGM. Dr. Sabah al-Binali has been appointed Senior Executive Officer and Executive Chairperson of OurCrowd Arabia, the statement said. The venture firm will be initially focusing its attention on the agritech, fintech and medtech sectors, al-Binali noted. Further, the firm will be…

In a tech solutions crossover last week, Enel X and Mastercard have launched a ‘FinSec Innovation Lab’ — a lab that focuses on cybersecurity capabilities for Israeli fintech companies — in Israel. The FinSec Innovation Lab will create state-of-the-art environments to simulate real world situations based on actual data, so Israeli fintech and cybersecurity-related startups can test new products along with the support of both Israeli and international mentors, a statement said. It is also aimed at integrating startup solutions in the Enel X Financial Services business portfolio, CEO Francesco Venturini said. Enel X is the smart energy services arm…

GCC-based early stage venture capital firm VentureSouq has officially launched a US$50 million MENA FinTech Fund I. The MENA FinTech Fund I is the first sector-specific fintech fund to be launched across the MENA-Pakistan region, a statement from the firm said. The MENA FinTech Fund I is backed by the Saudi Arabia’s Jada Fund of Funds and Saudi Venture Capital Company, Bahrain’s Al Waha Fund of Funds, ADQ’s venture platform DisruptAD and Mubadala Investment Company in the UAE, and OFC, the Middle East investment arm of The Olayan Group. The Fund will focus on making early stage investments in fintech…

Last month marked 13 years since Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin white paper was first released. In these 13 years, concerns around crypto have persisted — over its volatility, decentralisation and legitimacy. However, through crashes and bull runs, these unregulated currencies have found their place as an asset class to be seriously considered, as trading volumes at crypto exchanges show. Meanwhile, retail trading has also picked pace, especially after the COVID 19 pandemic. Amateur home-based investors took to financial markets in a wave, on the back of tech-enabled trading platforms directly accessible from their personal devices. And alongside the usual mutual funds,…

Over 80% of consumers in the UAE and Saudi Arabia reported that they would be willing to use crypto and buy now pay later (BNPL) services, according to Visa’s CEMEA COVID-19 Impact Tracker. This interest in what are relatively new fintech trends in the Middle East comes amidst the backdrop of rising online spending in the region. According to the report, 64% of respondents in UAE highlighted an increase in online spending, while 87% said that they would continue shopping online beyond the pandemic. Similarly in Saudi Arabia, 61% saw their online spending increase, while 90% would continue to shop…

Rasan, an insurtech startup based in Saudi Arabia, has secured SAR 90 million (US$24 million) in a growth stage deal, according to a statement. The round was led by Saudi Arabia-based venture capital and private equity firm Impact46, the statement said. Funding will be used to bolster the company’s technology and products, and to diversify Rasan’s insurtech portfolio, including its Tameeni Motor, Tameeni SME Health and Treza offerings. It will also enable the company to scale its business, and “unlock the value of whitespaces” in the insurtech sector, the statement said. The funding will help to strengthen the company’s “capabilities…

Israeli fintech unicorns (those based in Israel as well as US-Israeli companies) have made a splash this year amidst soaring valuations, record-breaking fundraises and a number of SPAC listings as well. This comes in the backdrop of Israel’s emergence as a fintech nation, with Tel Aviv becoming the fifth most popular city for fintech in the world. Israeli-founded fintech companies raised US$2.3 billion in venture capital and private equity just in H1 this year. Of this, over US$800 million was raised by six Israeli fintech unicorns. The total funding represents a growth of 3x over the same period last year.…

Nomod, a UK-based payments fintech company with a focus on the MENA region, has raised US$3.4 million in seed funding. The funding takes Nomod’s valuation to US$50 million, according to a report by TechCrunch. The investment was raised from Global Founders Capital, Kingsway Capital, Goodwater Capital, and some angel investors as well. The latter included one of the founders of Careem, a Dropbox employee, a partner from DST Global, and other global angels, the company said in a blog. Nomod provides merchant clients with a suite of payments services “minus the headache of dealing with clunky hardware,” its website says.…

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and Abu Dhabi’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) have completed a first-of-its-kind digital cross-border trade finance document transfer (Fintech Futures). This makes the initiative the world’s first cross-border digital trade financing pilot, a statement said. A ‘TradeTrust’ framework developed by Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in Singapore facilitated the pilot transfer between MAS and Abu Dhabi Global Market’s (ADGM) regulatory body FSRA. DBS Bank, Emirates NBD and Standard Chartered also worked on the project as commercial partners. Legally, the pilot was backed by a UN affiliate-developed Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR). Both…

Financial inclusion is on the developmental agenda in Egypt, and fintech startups in Egypt are one of the key driving forces to achieve this kind of adoption. Digital payments is expected to be the most benefited vertical within the fintech segment, and is forecast to reach US$19.4 billion by 2025. Neobanking and digital investments are further behind, but still in the billion-dollar territory. There are a handful of encouraging from the regulatory perspective that fintech startups in Egypt can also look forward to. For instance, a new law was introduced in March this year to allow the country’s central bank…

Bahrain-headquartered crypto trading platform CoinMENA has fetched US$9.5 million in seed funding, according to a statement. This is the first seed round to have been raised by the company. It is also one of the largest seed rounds to have been raised this year by a Middle East fintech company, alongside Ziina, Tamara and Tarabut Gateway. Investors BECO Capital, Kenetic, Arab Bank Switzerland, Bunat Ventures, Alameda Research, Rua Growth Fund and Girnas Capital pitched in, alongside global angel investors, for the round, the statement said. BECO Capital is known for its investments in Swvl, Kitopi, and Careem. The crypto exchange,…