Allica Bank’s Financial Performance: Allica Bank, a UK challenger bank lending to SMEs since 2020, reported its first full year of profitability. Revenues increased by 141% to £191 million in the 12 months up to 31 December. Customer deposits surged by 75% to £2.6 billion, with SME lending rising by 47% to £2 billion. Achievement of Profitability: Allica Bank achieved £16.1 million in pre-tax profit, marking the first time it has been profitable since its launch in 2017. CEO Richard Davies attributes the financial success to significant growth in revenue, lending, and deposits, indicatin ..read more

To give AI-focused women academics and others their well-deserved — and overdue — time in the spotlight, TechCrunch has been publishing a series of interviews focused on remarkable women who’ve contributed to the AI revolution. We’re publishing these pieces throughout the year as the AI boom continues, highlighting key work that often goes unrecognized. Read more profiles here. In the spotlight today: Anna Korhonen is a professor of natural language processing (NLP) at the University of Cambridge. She’s also a senior research fellow at Churchill College, a fellow at the Association for Comput ..read more

Internal Restructuring: Monese, a UK-based fintech and banking services provider, is undergoing internal restructuring, with plans to split its business into two separate entities. The restructuring will result in its consumer-facing money app and business-facing Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) unit XYB operating as two distinct companies. XYB Platform: Monese launched the XYB platform last year, focusing on providing coreless banking solutions and a partner ecosystem to extend services to banks. The XYB solution was integrated into HSBC’s international payments app Zing, which launched in ..read more

Appointment of Alexandra Johnson: Alexandra Johnson has been appointed as the first Chief Payments Officer (CPO) at B2B payments platform Nium. In her role, she will lead the platform’s global banking and payment operations teams, overseeing strategy, routine operations, and expansion of the payments network. Experience and Background: Johnson brings extensive executive experience from her previous roles, including Head of New Product Development and Innovation at Bank of America. She also served as an Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase, where she oversaw global FX product go-to-marke ..read more

Partnership Announcement: The Central Bank of Mauritania (Banque Centrale de Mauritanie) has announced a joint project with German security technology group Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) to explore the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) named ‘Ouguiya’. Project Objectives: The project aims to assess the potential benefits of introducing a digital Mauritanian Ouguiya as part of the nation’s digital transformation strategy, with a focus on promoting financial inclusion in Mauritania. G+D’s Role: G+D, part of Mastercard’s CBDC Partner Programme, will assist in outlining the ..read more

Partnership Overview: Bird, a communications platform based in Amsterdam, has selected Airwallex to power its global payments operations. Bird’s Profile: Founded in 2011 as MessageBird, Bird offers API-driven CRM solutions for marketing, sales, and payments, facilitating over 5 trillion annual messages across various channels like e-mail, SMS, and WhatsApp. Reason for Partnership: Bird partnered with Airwallex due to challenges with legacy systems managing multiple currencies across its operating entities, resulting in a fragmented operating system. Collaboration Objectives: The pa ..read more

Acquisition Overview: JTC, headquartered in Jersey, is set to acquire First Republic Trust Company of Delaware (FRTC-DE) from JP Morgan Chase in an all-cash deal valued at $21 million. Complementary Acquisition: JTC describes FRTC-DE as “highly complementary” to its previous acquisitions of South Dakota Trust Company (SDTC) and New York Private Trust Company (NYPTC). Deal Impact: The proposed acquisition will see FRTC-DE and its $9 billion worth of assets under administration absorbed into JTC’s private client services division. It provides opportunities for JTC to increase its share ..read more

Firefly, Adobe’s family of generative AI models, doesn’t have the best reputation among creatives. The Firefly image-generation model in particular has been derided as underwhelming and flawed compared to Midjourney, OpenAI’s DALL-E 3, and other rivals, with a tendency to distort limbs and landscapes and miss the nuances in prompts. But Adobe is trying to right the ship with its third-generation model, Firefly Image 3, releasing this week during the company’s Max London conference. The model, now available in Photoshop (beta) and Adobe’s Firefly web app, produces more “realistic” imagery than ..read more

Deal Overview: Goldman Sachs is selling its digital investment advisory unit, Marcus Invest, to robo-advisor Betterment. The agreement involves transferring the unit’s digital investment accounts and assets under management to Betterment, with completion expected around 29 June. Background of Marcus: Marcus was launched in October 2016 as Goldman Sachs’ digital consumer banking and lending platform, offering services such as deposits, credit cards, and savings accounts. Since 2022, Marcus has operated under Goldman Sachs’ asset and wealth management division as part of the bank’s strateg ..read more

Acquisition Details: Thunes, a B2B payments infrastructure firm, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tilia. Tilia, founded in 2019, offers acceptance and pay-out services for various sectors, including in-app purchases, creator economies, online games, and virtual worlds. Strategic Expansion into US Gaming Market: The acquisition of Tilia aims to fuel Thunes’ expansion into the US online gaming market. Thunes plans to leverage Tilia’s technology to offer acceptance services for major card networks such as American Express, JCB, MasterCard, UnionPay, and Visa to its customers ..read more