FinTech news in United Kingdom category

Narayanan and O’Dowd were used to card alternative payments after living in Singapore, and saw an opportunity to use the U.K. open banking payments stack to build a Visa and Mastercard alternative, Narayanan told us. Atoa co-founder Sid Narayanan told journalist that he and co-founder Cian O’Dowd developed the idea for Atoa after selling their previous startup, expense management platform KlearCard, to Singapore fintech Validus in 2021. Mastercard and Visa payment rails can cost small merchants and their customers net margins of 51%, with card machine fees of about 1.75%, Narayanan said. To incentivize more customers to use Atoa, the startup also plans to add rewards and loyalty benefits, like digital scratch cards that can let them get cash rewards into their existing U.K. bank accounts.

Thus, users in Nigeria and Kenya can receive foreign payments from more than 88 countries using USD, GBP and EUR bank accounts created on the platform, convert them into their local currencies (naira and shilling) and withdraw directly to their mobile money or local bank account. With its Grey Business product, the one-year-old fintech intends to tap into the market and provide a cheaper option to send and receive local currencies within the continent, particularly for micro and small businesses. In the latest development, Grey, a fintech in this category that provides virtual international bank accounts to African freelancers and remote workers, is announcing that it has raised $2 million in seed funding. COO Aghedo said the company privately launched a business-focused product, Grey Business, to complement this consumer-facing growth and extend its product beyond remittances and person-to-person payments.

Penfold, a digital pensions platform, has closed a £7 million ($8.49 million) Series A funding round led by Bridford Group, an investment group. Also participating in the round was Jeremy Coller, chief investment officer and chairman of Coller Capital. Penfold also raised additional funding via a crowdfund amongst its customer base. The cash will be used to expand Penfold workplace pension division.