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. Please send tips to Rachel.Stone@spglobal.com. For more fintech news, click here.
Banking and lending
Happy Money Inc. secured $70 million in a series D funding round that was led by CMFG Ventures LLC, CrowdFund Insider reported. The Costa Mesa, Calif.-based lender is expected to help borrowers become "savers" and enable consumers to "break up" with their credit cards.
__________________________________________
Mexico-based Konfio Ltd, which lends unsecured working capital to small and midsize firms, received $100 million from Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bloomberg News reported. The funding is expected to help the company lend about $250 million in the next 12 months.
__________________________________________
Fiserv Inc. launched its interactive branch kiosk that allows customers to conduct transactions within the branch lobby, drive-thru and other physical touch points.
__________________________________________
Wayne, N.J.-based Valley National Bank selected DerivativeEdge to provide services for all its foreign exchange activity. The Valley National Bancorp unit will utilize the firm's cloud-based foreign exchange life cycle management tool and trading and payments platform to carry out trade execution, manage clients, streamline operations, deliver payments and automate compliance of its activity.
__________________________________________
Axis Auto Finance Inc., Westlake Services LLC and Nowcom Corp. formed a strategic partnership that will enable Axis to extend its financing solutions to Canadians across the entire nonprime credit spectrum. Westlake Services and Nowcom look to invest up to $5 million into Axis Auto Finance on a private placement basis.
Insurance
Verisk Analytics Inc. unit PCS collaborated with Asociación Mexicana de Instituciones de Seguros and rolled out PCS Mexico, a new loss aggregation solution for property-catastrophe events. The latest solution is expected to provide full coverage for natural and man-made events throughout Mexico.
Trading and investing
Tradeweb Markets Inc and equities clearing house European Central Counterparty NV joined forces to facilitate central counterparty clearing for European exchange-traded funds. The move is expected to help streamline the settlement process, minimize costs, offer European investors transparency and benefits of the request for quotation process.
__________________________________________
KKR & Co. joined the Artivest Open Network, a digital alternative investment platform for private alternatives. The network will serve as a gateway for providing financial advisers and qualified high-net-worth investors access to the firm's selection of private alternative solutions.
Data and information management
Merck Sharp & Dohme FCU will utilize Fiserv's suite of palm vein authentication solutions.
__________________________________________
Workiva Inc. and BlackLine Inc. teamed up to integrate their platform and help joint customers by streamlining financial closing and reporting processes. The integration is expected to enable users to seamlessly connect and transfer data between the two platforms.
