NatWest Group plc, is a majority state-owned British banking and insurance holding company, based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The group operates a wide variety of banking brands offering personal and business banking, private banking, insurance and corporate finance.

NatWest Group

Mastercard is a payments and technology company that connects consumers, businesses, merchants, and governments. They provide data services and marketing center. Their marketing materials help card portfolios and businesses. They also provide fraud prevention solutions and payment ecosystem security.

Mastercard

Motive Partners is a sector-specialist investment platform with expertise, connectivity, and capabilities to create long-term value in financial technology businesses. It exists as an investment firm focused exclusively on financial technology to back and build the future of financial technology to positively transform markets, models, and society. The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in New York.

Motive Partners

EFM Asset Management is a specialist investment manager with particular expertise in the Financial Services and Technology Sectors; and a focus on quality growth investments.

EFM Asset Management

National Australia Bank provides financial services to individuals and businesses in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It operates through Consumer Banking and Wealth, Business and Private Banking, Corporate and Institutional Banking, and New Zealand Banking segments.  National Australia Bank accepts transaction accounts, savings accounts, term deposits, and deposit accounts; and specialized accounts, such as foreign currency, business interest, statutory trust, community free saver, and farm management accounts. It also provides home loans; personal loans; agribusiness loans; business market and option loans; agribusiness loans; equipment and vehicle loans; debtor, invoice, and trade finance; and documentary trade, as well as business overdrafts and bank guarantees.  Moreover, National Australia Bank offers insurance products consisting of car, home and content, landlord, travel, life, and injury insurance products; and pension, superannuation, self-managed super funds, and financial planning and advisory services. Further, it provides investment products; credit, debit, and business cards; payments and merchant services; travel services; online banking services; small business services; and international and foreign exchange solutions.  National Australian Bank operated through a network of 719 branches and business banking centers, and 2,695 ATMs as of September 30, 2017. It began operation in 1982, with its headquarters in Adelaide in Australia.

National Australia Bank (NAB)

Insight Partners is a global software investor that partners with growth-stage technology and software companies. Insight has a deep focus in Fintech, Cybersecurity, AI/ML, DevOps, and Healthcare sectors. Across their people and their portfolio, they encourage a culture around a core belief growth equals opportunity. As of December 31, 2022, the firm has over $75B in regulatory assets under management. Insight Partners has invested in more than 750 companies worldwide and has seen over 55 portfolio companies achieve an IPO.

Insight Partners

Pollinate

Pollinate is a software business, focused on reinventing merchant acquiring for banks around the world. The business is based in London, UK, and formed of experts and global industry leaders from the financial services, merchant acquiring, loyalty, and technology sectors. Over the past decade, the acquiring industry has grown from strength to strength, due to huge advances in technology, changes to regulation, customer demand, and an increase in disruptive payment companies, challenging retail banks for ownership of their merchant relationships. Pollinate is working with banks and enabling them to compete with these disruptors. Pollinate technology is an innovative cloud-based platform that wraps around a bank’s legacy payment systems.  The platform powers merchant and consumer digital experiences including onboarding, portals, and loyalty programs, without costly and distracting platform migrations. This allows merchants to more effectively manage their businesses with digital tools and data integrations, grow their businesses by connecting with their consumers, and give back to their local communities. For banks, the Pollinate platform helps them to understand and engage with their customers better and build stronger relationships with their merchants and consumers alike. In 2019, Pollinate successfully enabled the Royal Bank of Scotland Group to re-enter merchant acquiring with NatWest Tyl, providing their business customers with a proposition developed with them at the heart.

<div>UK-based Pollinate offers white-label FinTech infrastructure for banks to build cloud based, data-driven, digital solutions to help small and medium enterprise (SME) access a broad range of value-added solutions including managing payments, accessing capital, digital loyalty schemes, and generating customer insights. Pollinate has offered its platform to leading global banks including the NatWest Group and National Australia Bank.     </div>

Democratizing financial technology with a suite of API-based solutions

FinTech Infrastructure

<div>
 
 UK-based Pollinate offers white-label FinTech infrastructure for banks to build cloud based, data-driven, digital solutions to help small and medium enterprise (SME) access a broad range of value-added solutions including managing payments, accessing capital, digital loyalty schemes, and generating customer insights. Pollinate has offered its platform to leading global banks including the NatWest Group and National Australia Bank.     
 
 
 In March 2021, Pollinate raised USD 50 million in a Series C funding round led by Insight Partners, and with participation from Mastercard and the NatWest Group to invest in product development and global expansion—including a move to North America. 
 
 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Cross River Bank provides a white-label banking-as-a-service (BaaS) platform for enterprises, combining banking services, payments, and marketplace lending infrastructure to build fintechs. Its solutions comprise demand deposits, savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and payment clearing services, including automated clearing house (ACH) and real-time payments. The company also provides banking and payment infrastructure for the crypto industry, including risk management services for its crypto clients.
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships 
 
 
 
 
 As of December 2020, the company had over 400 employees, and had entered into more than 30 partnerships. Moreover, as of March 2021, the platform had been used to support over 375,000 small businesses through the paycheck protection program (PPP).
 
 
 
 Cross River Bank teamed up with UK-based BaaS provider 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/421515">
 Railsr
 </a>
 in January 2019 to launch a common API for their platforms to be used globally. As of April 2022, Cross River had over 80 clients including lenders such as Affirm, Best Egg, and Upstart, neobanks such as 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/220119">
 Revolut
 </a>
 , and blockchain-based payment processing platform GreenBox. The platform reportedly originated over USD 24 billion in loans per annum, around 10x the value of loans it originated in 2015.
 
 
 
 
 Cross River Bank has expanded its operations by acquiring Betterfin, a platform offering lending-as-a-service (LaaS) solutions, in November 2021. Through the acquisition, Cross River Bank leveraged Betterfin’s software to digitize parts of the small-business lending process (such as origination and underwriting). 
 
 
 
 The company partnered with 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/1643">
 American Express
 </a>
 (Amex) to enable FinTechs to issue credit cards through Cross River Bank, on the Amex network, while also providing select Amex benefits to the FinTechs. 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 
 The company 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9458">
 raised USD 620 million in funding
 </a>
 co-led by Eldridge and a16z, at a valuation of over USD 3 billion, to invest in product developments, recruitment, international expansion, and boosting strategic partnerships.
 
 
 
</div>

Cross River Bank

Synctera was co-founded in 2020 by Peter Hazlehurst, the former head of Uber Money, who previously led the development of Google Wallet. The company offers an API-based infrastructure platform for community and regional banks to find and partner with FinTechs. This enables FinTechs to leverage the former’s licenses to embed FDIC-insured mobile checking, debit cards, savings accounts, and payment innovations, among other features. The API platform offered to the banks will then be sold to the FinTechs to code on. Although the end customers interact with the FinTechs, they legally belong to the bank.<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8117">Synctera mainly charges the banks </a>based on the interchange fees they earn (half of the interchange fees, as of January 2022) from the services provided. It does not charge them an initial amount to use the platform. Moreover, the platform also embeds fraud-as-a-service and charges FinTechs on a per transaction basis (4 cents per transaction) should they choose to use it. It subsequently shares that revenue 50/50 with the banks.The company launched the “t-minus10” project in January 2022, which offers a live sandbox for FinTechs to build apps, test, and go to market, enhancing their access to banking partners. It subsequently launched a “Smart Charge Card” (APIs to build, launch, and issue charge cards) and “White-label Banking App” (a codebase for developers to build embedded banking products or neobank apps) infrastructure in October 2022.Key customers and partnershipsIn February 2022, Lineage Bank (a community bank in Tennessee) and GoGetr (FinTech aiming to promote health and wealth management) became the first companies to launch a banking solution using the Synctera platform. As of March 2023, the platform was working with around 50 fintechs, of which 14 were live (including Wayapay and Float). Synctera reportedly had over 20 implementations set for launch in the following two months.Synctera announced a new card issuing and management infrastructure offering (Card-as-a-Service), in July 2021, which it developed in partnership with Mastercard and leading card issuing infrastructure disruptor, <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/64287">Marqeta</a>.Funding and financialsIn March 2024, Synctera raised USD 18.6 million in <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/27244">Series A1 extension</a> co-led by Lightspeed and Fin Capital. The company earmarked the funds to support business growth by facilitating more complex use cases across the US and international markets. The company also <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16980?industryIds=53">raised USD 15 million</a> in funding led by NAventures in March 2023, to invest in expanding the platform’s use cases and broadening its geographic footprint beyond the US (including expanding to Canada). Meanwhile, Synctera has also partnered with the National Bank of Canada to enable companies to launch FinTech apps and embedded banking products in Canada.

Synctera

<div>
 
 Based in the UK, Weavr, formerly known as Open Payments Cloud, was spun out of payment provider Ixaris in 2019. Weavr offers the infrastructure for enterprises to embed banking services across various industries, including education, fitness, logistics, etc. Weavr&rsquo;s &ldquo;Meta&rdquo; platform combines multiple banking and payments partners in one platform through application programming interfaces (APIs). Using the APIs, enterprises can embed virtual banking services such as card payments, fund transfers, and international banking accounts.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 Weavr expanded its operations to Singapore in November 2022, as part of its global expansion plans.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 
 
 As of July 2021, Weavr&rsquo;s customers included Finway, Thanks Ben, and MySkillCamp, among others.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 In October 2019, Weavr partnered with payment service providers Global Processing Services (GPS), Paynetics, and iDenfy to enable developers to create and run sophisticated and streamlined payment experiences for their European customers through Weavr.&nbsp;
 
 
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 
 Weavr 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8647?industryIds=53">
 raised USD 40 million
 </a>
 in Series A funding in February 2022, led by Tiger Global, less than a year after 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4166">
 raising GBP 4 million (USD 5.5 million)
 </a>
 in seed funding in July. The funds were earmarked for business development and recruitment to support Weavr&rsquo;s expansion to the US market, while also supporting its continued expansion in the UK and Europe. 
 
</div>

Weavr

<div>
 
 MX offers an open finance portal, data connectivity application programming interface (API), and MX platform API for banks, credit unions, and other financial service providers. The company’s solutions allow its clients to utilize financial data to reduce fraud, approve loans faster, and improve their customer experiences. In addition to APIs and connections, MX also offers a range of capabilities, including data aggregation, analytics, financial feed insights, wealth and investment services, and verification services. 
 
 
 
 
 MX looks to enable banks and financial institutions to launch next-generation services and apps that automate and personalize financial experiences. As of January 2021, the company noted that it worked with more than 2,000 banks, credit unions, and FinTech companies, and its platform reached over 200 million end-users. Moreover, it also powered 43 of the top 50 digital banks as of the same period. 
 
 
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8753?industryIds=53">
 February 2022, MX partnered
 </a>
 with 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/companies/361160">
 Rize
 </a>
 , to enable users to access Rize’s banking infrastructure to build, launch, and scale financial products through a single API, thereby reducing the development time and cost.
 
 
 
 
 In January 2021, MX raised USD 300 million in a Series C funding round led by TPG Capital, at a valuation of USD 1.9 billion. The newly raised funds are to be invested in improving MX’s capabilities, expanding its global presence, and increasing its workforce. In January 2021, MX noted that its headcount tripled over the past two years, reaching 550 staff members. 
 
 
 
 
 The company appointed Shane Evans as interim chief executive officer (CEO) in January 2022, to prepare the company for an IPO or sale (at a valuation of over USD 5 billion) and oversee its growth. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 Synapse offers a banking-as-a-service (BaaS) infrastructure primarily for banking and financial service providers. The infrastructure applies machine learning and automates repetitive back office tasks, covering a breadth of products, including deposit, lending, investment products, and payments platforms, among others. Its white-label infrastructure is available through application programming interfaces (APIs), allowing developers to launch customer-facing FinTech services.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 
 
 The company expanded its platform by launching the &ldquo;Credit Hub&rdquo; offering in August 2021, for financial institutions to help individuals build and access credit, and offer cards, credit building tools, lending accounts, and cashback rewards. Synapse claims its platform enables users to build FinTech solutions in six weeks, compared to the 18 months taken by typical alternatives. The Credit Hub was in private beta until August 2021, and in private beta it had issued around 1 million credit accounts and extended over USD 40 million in credit.&nbsp;
 
 
 In June 2019, the company claimed that its integrations allow developers and apps to reduce the incremental cost of operating financial products to zero, from around USD 130-USD 150.Synapse looks to broaden its global footprint by gradually entering Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. As of June 2019, its operations were limited to the US; however, the company intended to begin its foreign expansion to Canada and Europe by initially launching payment, deposit, and debit card issuances, expanding to lending and investment products thereafter.
 
 
 In October 2023, Synapse 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/22521">
 laid off nearly 40% of its workforce
 </a>
 due to worsening macroeconomic conditions having unfavorable impacts on business circumstances, clients, and platforms. In June 2020, the company laid off nearly half of its workforce across 11 departments owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was largely due to the pandemic having a negative impact on its customers, who primarily comprised early-stage startups.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In January 2022, Synapse 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7574">
 partnered with TrueAccord
 
 </a>
 to offer debt collection service infrastructure for its clients.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In April 2020, the company&rsquo;s annual recurring revenue was estimated at around USD 20 million-USD 30 million and the company reportedly doubled its revenue in 2020 and saw a 150% revenue growth year-to-date July 2021. Notably, as of January 2021, Synapse had more than 7.8 million users and processed over USD 39 billion in transactions.
 
 
 &nbsp; 
 
</div>

Synapse

May specialize in promoting inclusiveness in financial services, primarily in the investment and lending spaces

AI/ML can improve the quality of their offerings, such as using AI/ML to reduce biases

Used for payment completions, accessing banking and transaction data, and providing financial insights, among others

Platforms that allow FinTechs to integrate banking services such as opening and maintaining accounts, facilitating card payments, etc.


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