Visa’s Fintech Fast Track programme is designed to enable the next generation of fintechs to join Visa’s network and build innovative digital commerce experiences for consumers and merchants
Fast Track programme grows 360% year-over-year, and supports the creation of payment innovations like digital wallets, Business to Business (B2B) and digital currency payment.
See full article here: https://www.visa.co.uk/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.3051987.html
The British Red Cross has transformed its approach to cash assistance in the event of emergencies following a new partnership with banking-as-a-service provider Bankable and specialised payments platform Paysafe.
Cash assistance is the means by which British Red Cross delivers financial aid during emergencies to make sure that recipients are able to access the goods and services they really need.
Emergencies – whether localised such as a house fire, or national or international such as a health pandemic – can have a large economic impact on communities. If homes are damaged and people aren’t able to work, communities that may already be in vulnerable situations are under increasing financial strain to make ends meet and the British Red Cross is there to help. The charity is now able to give families and individuals in need access to prepaid Visa cards via on-the-ground support workers, instead of relying on cash.
Following the COVID-19 outbreak, some media reports suggesting that cash may aid the spread of the disease have resulted in a shift in its usage and some retailers no longer accepting it as a form of payment, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. According to Paysafe research undertaken in April 2020, 53% of Brits are worried about handling cash following the COVID-19 outbreak, with 51% saying they planned to reduce their long term use of cash due to health and safety concerns.
The British Red Cross’ new Bankable-branded prepaid Visa cards are issued by Paysafe and can be used by recipients at any point of sale or ATM, that accepts Visa. The cards are pre-loaded with an amount defined by the charity and have a unique identification number.
The British Red Cross strives to provide scalable and timely cash assistance within hours after any UK emergency. Its mission is to support individuals and communities in preparing for, dealing with and recovering from a crisis, whoever and wherever they are. The charity responds to an emergency on average every four hours, ranging from domestic fires or utility outages to floods or terror attacks.
Jon Pewtner, UK Operations Cash Manager at the British Red Cross, comments: “By allowing families and individuals to use prepaid cards in the event of an emergency we are able to provide a safe, discrete and empowering way to distribute money to those in crisis. We now operate our Cash Assistance programme with a 24-hour support team. Working with Bankable, Paysafe and Visa we’ve been able to transform our approach to cash assistance and the way we provide funds to those in need in emergency situations. With this programme in place, we have been able to respond with agility and action throughout our COVID-19 response.”
Eric Mouilleron, Founder & CEO of Bankable said: “We’re proud to be supporting the British Red Cross in transforming their financial services and the provision of real-time funds to those in need. This is just one great example of the amazing work they do in supporting the nation in the event of a crisis.”
Lorenzo Pellegrino, CEO of Skrill, NETELLER and Income Access at Paysafe – responsible for the company’s Card Issuing division – added: “We’re seeing many innovative and specialised uses of prepaid cards, but this example is particularly powerful. We’re delighted to play a role in the British Red Cross’ transformation of its Cash Assistance programme.”
New York, USA – February 4th, 2020 – Bankable, the global architect of “Banking as a Service” solutions, today announced a strategic collaboration with Visa in the United States. Bankable aims to provide Visa’s U.S. clients, including corporate and financial institutions, access to its real-time and modular banking solutions, enabling them to deploy digital banking and faster payment services. To accommodate ongoing work in the U.S., Bankable is opening an office in New York, which is Bankable’s fourth office after London, Brussels and Dubai.
The new premises will become Bankable’s U.S. hub, allowing the company to accelerate strategic initiatives across corporations, banks and fintechs headquartered in the country. The company is planning to make strategic hires in the next few months as the NY team will shoulder London and Dubai operations.
“Our strategic partnership with Visa represents a great opportunity to further accelerate digital payments innovation in the region. Our commercial team will initially focus on B2B payments,” said Eric Mouilleron, CEO and founder of Bankable. “As we already serve American clients, we see huge opportunities to digitally transform corporates headquartered in the U.S. as well as leading regional, community and selected global banks organized to support fintechs. We anticipate more than 50% of our revenues to come from the U.S. by 2024.”
“The financial ecosystem is evolving at rapid pace, and Bankable’s model helps financial institutions, corporates and fintechs be increasingly nimble to remain competitive,” said Terry Angelos, SVP and Global Head of Fintech, Visa. “Building on what we’ve done with Bankable in other regions, including CEMEA and Europe, we’re excited to now extend the partnership into the US.”
Notes to Editors:
For further information, please contact:
Sara Malinowsky at Bankable
sara@bnkbl.com / +44 20 3948 6034
About Bankable:
www.bnkbl.com
Bankable is a global digital banking and payments platform. We help financial institutions, corporates and FinTechs deploy, orchestrate and operate highly differentiated payment solutions with quick time-to-market.
We provide an exhaustive range of digital banking and payment solutions under a “Banking as a Service” model. Our core digital banking platform is available in white-label or via APIs, enabling our clients to quickly deploy banking solutions – including digital banking solutions, virtual account solution, payment processing services, card programmes and mobile wallet services. Our client base includes both regulated financial institutions (Banks, Electronic Money Issuers, Payment Institutions, Insurance companies…) and non-regulated global corporates and FinTechs who use our platform and Partner’s Ecosystem to deploy digital banking and payment services and generate new revenue opportunities.
Our motto: “quick time-to-market”
Bankable’s rapid implementation approach enables clients to generate revenues faster, increasing their valuation and attractiveness. By promoting pilot-based-experimentation, Bankable allows its customers to quickly launch, test and validate a new service before moving towards a seamless deployment.
[1] New York office is solely operated by Bankable
New York, USA & London, UK – January 14th, 2020 – Today, Bankable, the global architect of “Banking as a Service” solutions, announced a strategic global partnership with Plaid, a data network powering the fintech apps that millions of people rely on to improve their financial lives. The partnership will allow Bankable’s customers the ability to use Plaid’s technology to connect with their users’ bank accounts worldwide. In addition, Plaid customers will gain access to Bankable’s cloud-based banking and payment platform. Bankable designs and seamlessly orchestrates global payment and digital banking services with its extensive integrated partners’ ecosystem. By leveraging Plaid’s API technology, Bankable will further enable quick time to market for its clients. Plaid provides connectivity to 15,000 banks in the US and Europe.
“Like Bankable, Plaid is a fintech enabler providing an infrastructure as a service to power various business cases in lending, personal / business finance, consumer payments. Plaid and Bankable are both focused, since inception, on democratising financial services through technology,” said Eric Mouilleron, CEO and Founder of Bankable “This reciprocal global partnership will help us to provide more services to our respective banking and fintech clients.”
“The infrastructure of financial services was not built for the digital demands of the industry today. Fintech companies and new digital-first banks offer consumers the tools and services they demand, but much of the existing bank technology core infrastructure hasn’t evolved along with these new customer needs,” said Lowell Putnam, Head of Partnerships at Plaid. “Providers like Bankable offer both fintech companies and financial institutions a platform to bring new products to market and meet shifting consumer demands, much more quickly than the legacy infrastructure allows.”
-ends-
Notes to Editors:
For further information, please contact:
Sara Malinowsky at Bankable
sara@bnkbl.com / 020 3948 6034
About Bankable:
www.bnkbl.com
Bankable is a global digital core banking platform and Banking as a Service provider. We help financial institutions, corporates and FinTechs deploy, orchestrate and operate highly differentiated payment solutions with quick time to market.