Fathom4sight Newsletter: Weekly FinTech news curated by Fathom4sight!

Payments

Affirm's debit card growth sparks more consumer borrowing As Affirm matures, it's widening its focus beyond the online "Pay in 4" installments popularized during the pandemic and is expanding its mix of interest-bearing loans, including those made in-store with its new debit card. | American Banker

Mastercard, Visa step back from Binance card partnerships Visa stopped issuing new co-branded cards with Binance in Europe as of July, a spokesperson for Binance said. Mastercard, meanwhile, will end its card partnership with Binance entirely in September. Mastercard declined to give a reason for the move. Visa didn't respond to requests for comment. | American Banker

Affirm's transactions per active customer gain 30% year over year The company’s earnings supplementals detailed a 25% rise in gross merchandise volume to $5.5B. The average order value declined to $317 from $368 in last year’s fourth quarter. | PYMNTS

Global financial technology platform Intuit, reported significant growth in revenue and earnings for the fourth quarter According to the company’s earnings results released, total revenue for the full fiscal year 2023 increased 13% year over year (YoY) to $14.4B, while small business and self-employed group revenue and online ecosystem revenue grew by 24% and 30%, respectively. | PYMNTS

Nuvei and Mastercard partner to facilitate payouts throughout APAC region Mastercard and Nuvei have announced an integration of Mastercard Send into Nuvei’s payment technology platform, which will now enable faster payouts to its clients, settling funds quickly and securely. No additional development is required. Typically, the processing of withdrawals was time-consuming, often taking days to complete. | PaymentsJournal

Financial?Institutions

BMO launches mobile wallet for virtual cards with Mastercard and Extend BMO Commercial Bank clients in the U.S. and Canada now have access to even greater payment management functionality with the launch of Extend for BMO app. The app features new functionality that will give cardholders the power to create and push virtual cards to their employees' mobile wallets, enabling them to spend wherever contactless payments are accepted. | Newswire.ca

AI in finance attracts younger Canadians, RBC survey shows A Royal Bank of Canada survey finds younger Canadians are more likely to use artificial intelligence to manage their finances than their older counterparts. The poll reported 65 per cent of respondents aged 18 to 34 perceive AI positively for managing personal finances. | BNN Bloomberg

RBC invests in tech, employees in Q3 Royal Bank of Canada’s discretionary and technology-related spending accounted for 23% of the bank’s non-interest expenses in the third quarter. In Q3 2023, the $1.4T bank’s non-interest expenses increased 22% year over year to $5.8 million, which included equipment and amortization costs, professional fees and marketing, travel and training expenses. | Bank Automation News

RBC reports $3.9B profit, says ramping up job cuts ahead of economic slowdown Royal Bank of Canada is ramping up job cuts as it works to reduce costs ahead of an expected economic slowdown. The bank, which reported a rise in third-quarter profits that beat analyst expectations, said it planned to cut 1% to 2% of its full-time equivalent employees next quarter on top of the 1% it trimmed in the last one. | Investment Executive

TD Bank announces intention to repurchase for cancellation up to 90M of its common shares TD Bank announced today that upon the completion of the repurchase for cancellation of 30M of its common shares under its existing normal course issuer bid, it intends to terminate its existing normal course issuer bid and, subject to the approval of the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada (OSFI) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), it intends to launch a new normal course issuer bid to repurchase for cancellation up to 90 million of its common shares, representing approximately 4.9% of the 1,827,456,863 common shares issued and outstanding as at July 31, 2023. TD will file a notice of intention with the TSX in this regard. | TD Stories

TD Bank faces anti-money laundering probes from US regulators “The Bank has been responding to formal and informal inquiries from regulatory authorities and law enforcement concerning its Bank Secrecy Act/anti-money laundering compliance program, both generally and in connection with specific clients, counterparties or incidents in the U.S., including in connection with an investigation by the United States Department of Justice,” TD Bank said in its report to shareholders. | PYMNTS

The bank-branch café is still booming When Capital One began putting its name on full-service cafés with banking services a decade ago, the jury was out on whether the concept would click with consumers who increasingly turn to digital channels over walk-in branches. Several years later it's clear that the Capital One Café is a hit worth reinvestment. | American Banker

How JPMorgan Chase's use of Tap to Pay puts pressure on merchant acquirers JPMorgan Chase has added technology that allows merchants to accept payments with minimal upgrades to their own devices, a move that will accelerate plans for most U.S. payment processors. JPMorgan Chase has added Apple's Tap to Pay at Sephora and is testing the technology with other merchants. | American Banker

Capital Markets

Toronto-based venture capital (VC) fund Gambit Partners aims to de-risk pre-seed investing with the help of its limited partners (LPs) Relay Ventures vice president (VP) Simon Sokol and VTS VP Chris Krzyzanowski launched Gambit in 2021. The pre-seed fund began as a modest means of providing the pair’s friends and former colleagues with access to private market deal flow. Since then, it has grown into a $2-million CAD investment vehicle with 43 LPs from across the tech ecosystem that serves as a “quasi-feeder fund” for Relay.?| Betakit

Calgary-based digital medical-billing platform ResolvMD secures $2M dollar loan from Toronto-based private credit firm PaceZero to pursue strategic acquisitions PaceZero Capital Partners is providing $2 million CAD in growth financing to Calgary healthtech startup ResolvMD. ResolvMD, which sells software that it claims simplifies and streamlines the medical billing process for physicians, plans to use this term loan to fuel its product development plans and pursue growth opportunities across Alberta.?| Betakit

OMERS Ventures didn’t exit Europe because of the market, but it had good reason to At the outset, it may seem as if the lackluster state of the European venture market may have motivated the exit, but it appears that wasn’t the case. Instead, OMERS’ exit was rather due to logistics related to being a solo LP operation, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch+.?| TechCrunch

AI

Ottawa-based AI platform Mindbridge's founder Salon Angel joins an investment and advisory firm Fresh Founders as managing partner Solon has been a volunteer member of Fresh Founders since 2014. Solon told BetaKit that he eased into the managing partner role over the last few years, working with MindBridge during the days and Fresh Founders at night. Now that he has left MindBridge, he is working full-time with Fresh Founders.?| Betakit

OpenAI unveils ChatGPT tool with enterprise-grade security and privacy OpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT Enterprise, an artificial intelligence (AI) tool with a focus on enterprise-grade security and privacy. ChatGPT Enterprise also has a range of enhanced features that aim to elevate productivity and creativity in the workplace. ?| PYMNTS

IBM among tech giants investing $235M in new AI platform Hugging Face Key technology players, including IBM, Amazon, Google, Qualcomm Ventures, and Intel were all apart of the mammoth investment, which now sees New York-based firm’s value rise to $4.5B. The additional funding will further strengthen Hugging Face’s position as the leading open-source and open science artificial intelligence platform.?| FinTech Global

FI Tech & Software

Toronto-based hybrid multi-cloud managed service provider Aptum promotes CloudOps founder to CEO following January acquisition The global provider of managed services and advisory and consulting services called their staffing changes “strategic additions.” The startup said this change is integral to Aptum’s vision of capitalizing on the growing artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demand for multi-cloud solutions in the market.?| Betakit

Plaid appoints Equifax SVP Cecilia Frew as head of open finance “In this role, Cecilia is responsible for overseeing Plaid’s evolving and dynamic relationships with financial institutions as we move into a new era of digital finance,” Plaid said in an announcement. Frew joins the company from Equifax, where she was senior vice president and general manager of the Strategic Financial Services business, according to the announcement.?| PYMNTS

Kitchener-Waterloo-based OpenText acquires Irish data management company Kinematik In this deal, OpenText is acquiring one of its “Solution Extension (SolEx)” partners, which are part of a program the company created in 2020. The initiative extends the capabilities of OpenText products through the creation and reselling of “complementary partner technologies.”?| Betakit

Insurance

Toronto-based insurance player Navacord expands into the real estate sector with the addition of Condominium Insurance Solutions (CIS) “We are excited to join Navacord and collectively strengthen our capabilities in the condominium insurance space,” says Jeff Rodin, CEO, CIS. “Our existing relationship with Navacord, now bolstered by our partnership, solidifies our strategic expansion and the possibilities to grow this program across Canada.”?| Insurance-Canada.ca

Manulife launches Personalized Medicine Program for enhanced health care members to improve health outcomes Manulife is pleased to announce that its Personalized Medicine program (known industry-wide as pharmacogenomics) will now be available for Extended Health Care members with certain qualifying conditions at no additional cost. This simple, one-time genetic test, done via a saliva sample that takes less than a minute, helps predict how effective certain medications may be depending on an individual’s genetic makeup.?| Insurance-Canada.ca

RegTech

Vancouver-based identity verification company Trulioo uses AI and machine learning to accelerate customer verification Trulioo revealed new capabilities for its Workflow Studio, a platform designed to help businesses optimize and automate customer verification and compliance processes, to accelerate person matching.?| Betakit

Toronto-based Ridge Canada Cyber Solutions Inc. expands cyber stamp capacity Ridge Canada Cyber Solutions Inc. is thrilled to announce significant milestones in its growth and strategic partnerships. With a strong commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction, Ridge Canada continues to strengthen its position in the market, providing comprehensive and tailored specialty insurance solutions.?| Insurance-Canada.ca

Lending

APX launches Bitcoin-backed lending platform for consumers, banks At this month’s 2023 Futurist Blockchain Conference in Ontario, APX Lending announced its official launch. APX Lending is a direct-to-consumer, Bitcoin-backed lending platform determined to improve security, compliance, and transparency in the Centralized Finance lending domain.?| Fintech.ca