Latest News from Finextra
Finextra
20 hours ago
- Business
- Finextra
Flexa and Nexus Wallet bid to bring Litecoin spending to the real wold
Flexa, the leading digital payment network, and Nexus, the new decentralized wallet redefining asset management from the Litecoin Foundation, are making spending Litecoin in the real world easier than ever. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. Through a new integration with the Flexa SDK, Nexus Wallet users can now enjoy instant, secure payments at over 41,000 locations across North America, turning their digital assets into seamless purchasing power. By embedding Flexa's advanced payment infrastructure into Nexus Wallet, the partnership delivers a seamless way for Nexus Wallet users to pay with digital currencies. Whether buying groceries, dining out, or shopping for essentials, transactions are processed instantly and securely, eliminating the friction typically associated with digital payments. 'Flexa is pushing relentlessly toward a future in which digital asset payments are a seamless part of everyday life,' said Daniel McCabe, co-founder and CEO of Flexa. 'This new integration with Nexus Wallet empowers users to unlock the true utility of their digital assets—no barriers, no compromises—while giving merchants a trusted solution that just works. Together, we're turning the promise of digital payments into a reality for millions.' This integration allows Nexus Wallet to take full advantage of growing merchant acceptance of digital currencies, bridging the gap between innovative blockchain technology and real-world spending. In turn, merchants who enable Flexa benefit from guaranteed settlement and zero chargebacks, simplifying the process of accepting digital payments and driving the broader adoption of digital assets. 'Our collaboration with Flexa marks a significant milestone in our mission to empower users with seamless and secure digital asset management,' said Loshan T, Lead Developer of Nexus Wallet. 'By integrating the Flexa SDK, we're enabling our users to effortlessly utilize their digital assets for everyday transactions, bridging the gap between digital holdings and real-world spending.' Flexa and Nexus Wallet's collaboration signals a significant step forward in the adoption of digital payments. Together, they are shaping a future where digital currencies are seamlessly integrated into everyday commerce, offering users and merchants a fast, secure, and practical payment solution.
Finextra
a day ago
- Business
- Finextra
Modern Banks Must Adapt to be More 'Phygital'
Describing the evolution of modern banking, Sovan Shatpathy, SVP, Product Management & Development, Oracle Financial Services joined the FinextraTV virtual studio to explain how banks can thrive. As well as contextualising the current landscape and offering insights into the way that banks are now focussing more intently on the customer journey, Shatpathy asserts that all banks cannot be physical or digital, they must be 'phygital'.
Finextra
a day ago
- Business
- Finextra
Win-win banking: Unlocking value through advanced product, pricing, and billing
0 This content has been created by the Finextra editorial team with inputs from subject matter experts at the funding sponsor. In today's fast-moving and hyper-competitive retail banking ecosystem, product and pricing agility is no longer a luxury for financial institutions: it is now a necessity. Innovation-first challengers, evolving customer expectations, and regulatory pressures have forced banks to rethink how they design, price, and deliver products. Advanced product, pricing, and billing capabilities are crucial for modern retail banks to overcome complex product management challenges, rigid pricing, and fragmented billing. Optimised product management, dynamic pricing and centralised billing allows retail banks to rapidly design, price, and deliver innovative and hyper-personalised products at scale. The result is a win-win: banks gain agility, better revenue control, and growth opportunities, while customers receive relevant products at attractive prices, greater transparency, and better rewards. Evolving market demands Today's retail banking market demands agile, customer-centric solutions that prioritise personalisation, transparency, and flexibility. Looking to the future, these demands will intensify as digital-native customers expect seamless experiences, innovative offerings, and value-driven interactions. Hyper-personalisation and value: Today's customers expect financial products aligned with their unique financial goals and lifestyles - from low-fee student accounts to high-yield savings for young professionals. There is a strong demand for convenient, cost-saving bundled offerings such as mortgage and insurance packages or credit cards with travel rewards. Looking ahead, this trend will accelerate into hyper-personalised products, that leverage AI-driven insights to create bespoke solutions at a micro-segment or individual level. This could mean dynamic, usage-based bundles that adjust features or pricing in real-time based on customer behaviour. Dynamic and transparent pricing: Customers are increasingly demanding dynamic and transparent pricing with no hidden fees. They expect benefits like lower interest rates or waived fees that reward their overall relationship and loyalty. This push for relationship-based pricing considers factors such as account types, balances, relationship length, and activity. Looking ahead, AI will increasingly influence or drive pricing models making relationship-based pricing even more sophisticated by analysing predictive behaviours for hyper-personalised offers with real-time adjustments. Streamlined and flexible billing: There is a growing market demand for flexible billing options, including usage-based models and tiered services that reward customer engagement. Looking ahead, the expectation will evolve into seamless and transparent billing systems that integrate across all products, providing a single, real-time view of charges and rewards. Customers today and in the future value being rewarded for their loyalty. Banks are expected to deepen these relationships through effective cross-selling and bundling, tiered programmes offering premium services and attractive pricing, all aimed at encouraging customers to consolidate their financial services for better overall value. Why conventional capabilities fall short Banks today face a critical imperative: adapt to the demands of modern business needs. The reality is banks can no longer ignore critical capabilities that help them manage the intricate web of today's product management, dynamic pricing and offers, and diverse billing structures. The lack of these critical capabilities can create significant roadblocks. They cannot accommodate diverse contract structures and nuanced pricing models that are essential in a highly competitive market. This inflexibility directly impacts a bank's ability to innovate, respond to market shifts, and capitalise on evolving customer expectations. Rigid product management: Complex or hard-coded product definitions for loans or savings with distinct data structures pose significant challenges. Inconsistent product offerings can confuse customers and bank staff, while portfolio bloat from outdated or redundant products increases costs. Additionally, rigid systems with poor interoperability limit innovation by hindering experimentation with new features or integration with third-party partners or ecosystems. Complex or hard-coded product definitions for loans or savings with distinct data structures pose significant challenges. Inconsistent product offerings can confuse customers and bank staff, while portfolio bloat from outdated or redundant products increases costs. Additionally, rigid systems with poor interoperability limit innovation by hindering experimentation with new features or integration with third-party partners or ecosystems. Inflexible pricing structures: Inflexible pricing rules create rigid and inconsistent pricing models, making dynamic or personalised pricing challenging. Banks also struggle to tailor pricing to customer segments, behaviours, or overall lifetime value. Adjusting pricing to respond to market trends or competitor offerings is slow and complex. Inflexible pricing rules create rigid and inconsistent pricing models, making dynamic or personalised pricing challenging. Banks also struggle to tailor pricing to customer segments, behaviours, or overall lifetime value. Adjusting pricing to respond to market trends or competitor offerings is slow and complex. Inefficient and opaque billing processes: Siloed billing or applying inconsistent fee structures, complicated consolidated billing, and transparency. This leads to a negative customer experience or even attrition due to opaque or unexpected fees, eroding trust. Disparate systems also cause revenue leakage through difficulties in tracking and reconciling fees. The lack of a holistic view of customer activity prevents relationship-based billing. Reconciling billing data across systems is labour-intensive, increasing operational costs. Siloed billing or applying inconsistent fee structures, complicated consolidated billing, and transparency. This leads to a negative customer experience or even attrition due to opaque or unexpected fees, eroding trust. Disparate systems also cause revenue leakage through difficulties in tracking and reconciling fees. The lack of a holistic view of customer activity prevents relationship-based billing. Reconciling billing data across systems is labour-intensive, increasing operational costs. Scalability challenges: Traditional systems often lack the scalability to handle high transaction volumes or new product lines, leading to performance issues and downtime. Driving innovation with advanced product, pricing and billing capabilities Advanced product, pricing, and billing capabilities can help power innovation and future-proof a bank. Banks can roll out new and innovative products, promotions, or pricing models more rapidly without the need for extensive and time-consuming overhauls of their existing systems. Banks can create dynamic and compelling bundled offerings, significantly aiding customer acquisition and retention. These bundles can take various forms, including cross-product packages (e.g., mortgage, insurance, and loyalty programme), lifestyle-based bundles tailored to demographics (e.g., student accounts with travel rewards), tiered services for premium customers, and dynamic usage-based bundles that adjust based on customer activity. With the right pricing capabilities, banks can quickly adapt to market changes, customer demands, or regulatory requirements. Dynamic pricing strategies based on various factors like customer segments, behavioural patterns, or lifetime value help offer new value to customers and establish competitive advantages. Relationship pricing can be elevated with tiered programmes, product bundling that incentivises multi-product usage, and personalised offers. Streamlined billing helps banks eliminate revenue leakage. Integration with existing CRM, ERP, and accounting systems, helps provide a unified view of customer data and sales processes. With quote creation, pricing calculations, and offer management being automated, sales teams can dedicate time to close deals and manage customer relationships. This improves customer experiences and allows banks to adapt and scale. The data and AI advantage Key considerations when evaluating solutions with advanced product, pricing and billing capabilities include seamless integration with existing bank systems through robust APIs and data synchronisation. A well-defined data migration strategy for accurate and complete data transfer, supported by strong governance and security is essential. Solutions must also be highly scalable and performant to handle the bank's full transaction volume with low latency, while strictly adhering to all relevant compliance regulations. AI can help banks identify profitable segments, understand customer needs, and predict future behaviour, leading to the creation of more relevant and personalised products. For pricing, AI can facilitate dynamic strategies by analysing demand, competition, and customer willingness to pay. A win-win: What is in it for banks and customers? Faster time-to-market: Banks can roll out new products, promotions, or pricing models more rapidly. Personalisation: Advanced capabilities make it easier to implement dynamic, customer-specific pricing, or tailored billing models, enhancing customer experience and competitiveness. Flexibility and agility: Banks can quickly adapt pricing and billing structures to market changes, customer demands, or regulatory requirements. Improved portfolio analysis: Banks can collect and analyse granular data on pricing, billing, and product performance. Dynamic product adjustments: Banks can experiment with pricing models, bundling strategies, or new product features. Customer-centric optimisation: Banks can better align their product portfolio with customer needs by leveraging data to design personalised or segmented offerings. Streamlined rationalisation: Banks can rationalise and optimise complex product portfolios by reconfiguring or discontinuing products reducing costs and risks. Scalability: Solutions that scale across the banking enterprise can more easily handle increased volumes or new product lines. Innovation enablement: Easier integration can power innovation in product offerings and enable partnerships with fintechs or other third parties. A strategic imperative for the future Advanced product, pricing, and billing capabilities help banks move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach. Granular product definitions, flexible pricing, targeted offer creation, and precise billing help banks tailor offerings to specific customer segments' needs and preferences. In a digital-first world, where expectations are measured in milliseconds and loyalty is won through experience, such capabilities are not just an operational upgrade, it is a strategic imperative. Retail banks that embrace these capabilities are positioning themselves to thrive amid disruption. Those that do not risk being outpaced by nimble competitors who build with agility at their core. As customer expectations rise and the pace of innovation accelerates, banks must rethink what it means to be product-driven. The answer is data and dynamic personalisation. And advanced product, pricing and billing capabilities are how modern retail banks get there.
Finextra
a day ago
- Business
- Finextra
Mena wealth platform Vault opens to the general public
Vault Wealth Limited ('Vault'), MENA's first digital private wealth platform built for the modern affluent, today announced its public launch, alongside an investment round led by Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA), with continued support from Outliers VC. 1 This marks Peak XV Partners' first wealthtech investment in the MENA region and a milestone in Vault's journey to deliver fiduciary-grade, technology driven private wealth solutions to the region's modern affluent. Since securing its ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority license in mid-2023, Vault has focused on building and refining its offering in close collaboration with a select group of HNWIs, ensuring it is purpose-built to meet their sophisticated needs. Having quietly validated product-market fit and laid a strong foundation, Vault is now expanding access to a broader segment of affluent investors across the region, specifically those with over USD 100,000 in liquid assets. The platform has already demonstrated strong momentum, with assets under management (AUM) growing by over 300% in the past 12 months and clients typically tripling their deposits within 90 days of first funding. 'Vault was built with a simple premise: that affluent investors in MENA deserve better—better access, better alignment, and better outcomes,' said Bilal Abou-Diab, Co-Founder and CEO of Vault. 'Vault is what wealth management should look like today: digital-first, fiduciary by design, and built for how people live and invest now. With Peak XV Partners' support, we're entering a new phase of growth, delivering institutional-quality wealth management to a broader base of clients across the region.' 'Vault is bringing a tech-driven, client-centric approach to wealth management for HNWIs in MENA. They're building a platform that resonates with a new generation of affluent investors in a market that's ripe for disruption. We're excited to partner with them on this journey,' said GV Ravishankar, Managing Director, Peak XV. Established Expertise for Modern Wealth Vault combines expert advisory capabilities with advanced technology to deliver a comprehensive wealth management experience. The platform caters to a diverse international client base, including professionals and entrepreneurs from the UAE, GCC, Europe, Asia, and North America. Vault provides expert financial planning and goal-based portfolio management, alongside institutional-grade global market access through Interactive Brokers. Clients benefit from optimized liquidity solutions and gain access to exclusive private market opportunities spanning private equity, venture capital, private credit, and real estate—all through a unified platform. 'Vault provides the sophisticated capabilities that affluent investors deserve, without the legacy constraints of traditional wealth managers,' said Sami Abdul Hadi, Co-Founder and COO, Vault. 'With over 250% year-on-year client growth driven primarily by referrals, our platform clearly empowers clients with both expertise and transparency in a market where both have been in short supply.' 'Vault stood out from our first conversation with Bilal and Sami. The team had clarity of vision and deeply understood the scale of the market gap. As demand for modern wealth management solutions accelerates, our conviction has only grown. Wealth management in MENA is overdue for reinvention, and Vault is building the infrastructure to lead it,' said Sarah AlSaleh, General Partner, Outliers VC. Unlocking Dormant Capital in a USD 3.5 Trillion+ Market The UAE has established itself as a significant wealth hub, with approximately 29% of the population holding over USD 100 million in financial assets. Despite this, at least 41% of investible wealth is held in cash positions—far exceeding levels in mature markets. Across the broader MENA region, the opportunity is even greater. GCC household wealth is projected to surpass USD 3.5 trillion by 2027, yet much remains underutilized due to legacy systems and fragmented offerings. Vault addresses this gap by offering a regulated, transparent alternative that meets the expectations of sophisticated global investors who have chosen MENA as their home. Regulated by ADGM's Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) and recognized as one of the UAE's top innovators by Future 100, Vault is now welcoming new clients.
Finextra
a day ago
- Business
- Finextra
Mastercard launches small business programme
Mastercard today launched Mastercard Small Business Navigator, a program designed to equip U.S. entrepreneurs with the tools, data and education they need to fuel and protect their passion and growth. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent more than 99% of U.S. businesses1 and are the beating heart of local economies. For the people behind them, running a small business is more than a job – it's their passion; 50% of small business owners in North America define prosperity as feeling fulfilled in their career and enjoying their work, while 51% say it means doing what they love every day.2 Mastercard tools and resources are built to simplify and fortify daily operations, so small business owners can focus on opening their doors each day to serve their customers and enrich their communities. Mastercard Small Business Navigator is a new curated offering of education, insights, protection, and planning tools to help entrepreneurs grow and thrive with confidence. 'Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and they deserve more than just encouragement — they need real, actionable support,' said Ginger Siegel, head of Small Business in the U.S. at Mastercard. 'With Small Business Navigator, we're delivering a powerful combination of insights, protection and financial tools that help business owners build toward long-term success.' By uniting data, digital tools and offers3 across three core areas, Small Business Navigator is built to help small businesses work smarter, stay safer, and grow stronger. Knowledge and insights: Business owners get information they need to make smarter decisions, including: An AI-powered chatbot that acts as a mentor by answering questions and guiding small businesses through their most pressing business challenges Access to actionable insights and data from The Mastercard Economics Institute and Mastercard SpendingPulse™ reports with state-level consumer spending trends Educational content from Mastercard and partners such as Square, covering cybersecurity, marketing, and digital tools like tap-on-phone payments Security and protection: Small businesses can stay ahead of threats with simple, practical, powerful cybersecurity tools: Access to My Cyber Risk powered by RiskRecon, providing prioritized guidance to help small businesses strengthen their defenses3 A personalized report with recommendations tailored to each business based on their individual Cybersecurity Assessment Quiz results Financial empowerment and rewards: Entrepreneurs receive the tools and exposure to help grow, including: Access to Biz2Credit's Virtual CFO services, filling an often unmet need of financial planning and cost management support The opportunity to be featured on Mastercard's social media channels as part of our ongoing spotlight on small businesses Rohit Arora, CEO and co-founder at Biz2Credit and Biz2X, said: 'We're proud to support Mastercard's Small Business Navigator initiative. According to data from the Federal Reserve, small businesses report falling short of having their full financial needs met due to limited financial resources, impacting everything from cash flow to long-term planning. Our published research with BCG also shows that many entrepreneurs lack formal financial management systems. With the Biz2Credit Virtual CFO platform, we're helping business owners build financial confidence, make smarter decisions, and grow sustainably.' The launch of Mastercard Small Business Navigator reinforces Mastercard's leadership in delivering tangible, trusted solutions that go beyond payments, supporting small businesses at every stage of their journey. It also aligns with Mastercard's broader mission to build a more inclusive digital economy through innovation, trust and partnership. * Products and offers subject to terms and conditions, and subject to change. [1] See the data behind America's small businesses. | U.S. Chamber of Commerce [2] Mastercard Proprietary Powering Prosperity Entrepreneur Research, 2024 [3] All solutions and offers are subject to terms and conditions, and are subject to change
