Wealth8 is an investment platform that aims to tackle the problem of inequality in accessing wealth management opportunities. It targets underserved black and multi-ethnic communities by providing access to investment and wealth management products. The company, based in the UK, has now announced its collaboration with WealthKernel, and will use its financial API which includes features such as opening stock and shares ISAs as well as general investment accounts. “By helping bring more financial businesses like Wealth8 to market, we can bring investment and wealth creation services to underserved communities, while challenging the misconceptions that wealth management should be limited to those with significant amounts of money,” commented Karan Shanmugarajah, CEO of WealthKernel.

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Who wouldn’t love to receive some crypto for free? Worldcoin, a project co-founded by Sam Altman, Alex Blania and Max Novendstern wants to give the company’s cryptocurrency to everyone on the planet by the end of the next year. However, there is a catch. The company has designed a device called Orb, which will scan people’s iris in order to identify them and verify their rights to receive the freebie. The device will be distributed among entrepreneurs who will carry out the scanning, receiving extra coins as a reward. This idea has caused concerns regarding the potential abuse of sensitive data, but the company has assured that “it will never be our business to sell your personal data.” Altman claims that the goal is to create a “fair coin” that would be more democratic than the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, whose 70% supply is currently controlled by the “whales”.

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The digital mortgage lender has announced that it has successfully closed a new funding round led by VentureFriends, Kibo Ventures and existing investors Anthemis, Entrepreneur First, and Amro Partners. Proportunity helps first- and second-time homebuyers overcome the issue of low deposit (only 5% cash upfront is required), and allows them to borrow six times their income, up to a maximum of £150,000. Moreover, the LendTech uses machine learning to identify the best homes for sale in top areas for a reasonable price, therefore making it possible for users to pick the most favourable property for investment.

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Clausematch started its adventure with Barclays in 2014 by taking part in the bank’s accelerator programme. That’s when the two companies started working on the Policy Portal, a tool that gathers Barclays Group policies and standards in one place. Now, the platform developed by Clausematch was rolled out to 90 000 Barclays employees around the globe as a part of the bank’s digitisation goals. According to Barclays, the Policy Portal is expected to bring “25 per cent savings in time and resources when creating, reviewing, approving and publishing policies.”

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XanPool is an omnichannel payments solution based in Singapore that wants to be like Swift, but better fit for the future: integrating cryptocurrencies, fast payments, and e-wallets. The company has closed a $27 million Series A funding round led by Valar Ventures. The funding will be used to further develop XanPool’s C2C network that is open for companies and individuals whose idle capital can be used to settle cross-currency and cryptocurrency transactions. This way, liquidity providers earn up to 2% a month on their capital, while the counterparty risks and transfer costs are significantly reduced.

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