S&P Global Market Intelligence rounds up financial technology companies' recent product launches, partnership announcements and fundraising activity, as well as regulatory developments in the financial technology space. For more fintech news, click here.
Top news
Hong Kong-based crypto trading firm Amber Group Ltd. has received $100 million in a funding round that valued the startup firm at $1 billion, CNBC reported. Beijing-based investment bank China Renaissance Holdings Ltd. led the round with the participation of New York-based hedge fund Tiger Global Management LLC and existing backer Coinbase Ventures, among others.
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Mountain View, Calif.-based financial technology company Intuit Inc. launched a five-month program called "Prosperity Accelerator: AI" to help artificial intelligence-focused startups unlock new strategies to benefit their end-users, and help consumers and businesses overcome financial challenges in North America.
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Bank of America Corp. rolled out a new digital investment advisory program designed to help retirement plan participants establish and pursue their retirement income goals.
Banking and lending
Burbank, Calif.-based banking technology company Zest AI Inc. obtained $18 million in capital infusion from investors led by Jacksonville, Fla.-based VyStar CU and Nebraska-based First National Bank of Omaha, along with returning investor Northgate Capital.
VyStar Chief Lending Officer Jenny Vipperman will be joining the Zest board of directors.
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Digital lender Upstart Holdings Inc. partnered with NXTSoft LLC, a provider of complete workflow API connectivity that links fintech firms to banks and credit unions, to streamline the delivery of Upstart's artificial intelligence-based lending platform to banks and credit unions.
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Walla Walla, Wash.-based Baker-Boyer National Bank selected financial technology firm Baker Hill Solutions LLC to implement a unified solution to streamline loan origination for commercial lending.
Payments
Sage, a provider of cloud-based business management solutions, entered a new partnership with Cambridge Global Payments, a Canadian subsidiary of FLEETCOR Technologies Inc. and a provider of integrated cross-border payments and currency risk management solutions. The partnership will provide Sage clients with access to an integrated cross-border payment solution.
Data and information management
State Street Corp. will implement a cloud-based, machine learning technology to transform private markets processing and document management. This will be in partnership with Canoe Intelligence, which automates the digitization of PDF reporting documents into actionable data and intelligence for institutional investors, allocators and asset servicing firms.
Trading and investing
Virtu Financial Inc. has joined the Pyth Network, a decentralized market data distribution platform. Virtu Financial will publish market data across equities, foreign exchange, futures and crypto on the Pyth Network for sophisticated asset pricing and consumption by smart contract.
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Blockchain company Securitize Inc. raised $48 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round co-led by private equity firm Blockchain Capital LLC and Morgan Stanley Tactical Value Investing, a team within Morgan Stanley Investment Management Inc. The raise comes before the anticipated launch of Securitize Markets, a marketplace designed for the trading of digital asset securities in a bid to gain liquidity for the private capital markets.
It was Morgan Stanley Tactical Value Investing's first investment in the blockchain industry, Business Insider (India) reported.
Marketing and analytics
Black Knight Inc. directly integrated its mortgage servicing rights platform with broker assumption sets from PHOENIX, an advisory arm for MSR and whole loan trading, mortgage services and analytics. The integration gives advanced secondary marketing and servicing valuation capabilities to Black Knight clients, including real-time, loan-level MSR market valuation for best execution, hedging, capitalization and daily servicing portfolio management.
Insurance and healthcare
Insurance technology provider Cloverleaf Analytics' InsuranceNow integration for business intelligence and analytics is now available on Guidewire Marketplace by Guidewire Software Inc.
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Verisk Analytics Inc. launched its next-generation telematics scoring model to make usage-based insurance market entry and expansion easier with straightforward implementation and a single API.
Read more
Energy-hungry bitcoin poses questions for ESG-conscious institutions
China bans banks, payment firms from providing cryptocurrency services
Spotlight turns to M&A for fintech SPACs
Brazilian banks' demand for AI soars amid COVID-19 pandemic
ESG-focused crypto mining firm TeraWulf to go public via merger with IKONICS
Citi forms digital assets group for crypto trading – Bloomberg
