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Professionals, entrepreneurs, investors and property owners in Malaysia often have legitimate financial ties to the UK. You may receive payments from British clients, manage UK property, earn income in GBP or need to move money between Malaysia and the UK.
However, accessing UK financial services can be difficult when you do not live in the country. Here is what Malaysia residents should know about getting UK account details as a non-resident.
Many people living in Kuala Lumpur, Johor Bahru and elsewhere in Malaysia regularly deal in GBP. This may include:
Without UK account details, payments may need to be handled through international transfers or intermediary providers. This can involve additional fees, currency conversion costs and longer processing times.
Having a UK sort code and account number allows you to receive GBP payments directly into an account designed to support UK payments.
Technically, it may be possible, but opening a traditional UK bank account as a non-resident can be difficult.
Most UK high-street banks ask applicants for information such as:
Requirements vary between providers. However, people who have never lived in the UK, or who no longer have a UK address, may find that they are not eligible for a standard retail bank account.
Some banks offer international or non-resident accounts. These products can come with minimum balance requirements, additional paperwork or eligibility criteria aimed primarily at private banking and wealth-management customers.
For many Malaysia residents, a more practical option may be an e-money account that provides a UK sort code and account number.
An e-money account is provided by an authorised Electronic Money Institution, rather than a bank. It can provide payment services such as:
However, the way customer money is protected is different. Eligible bank deposits may be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. E-money is not covered by the FSCS.
Instead, customer money held by an Electronic Money Institution is protected through safeguarding. This requires customer funds to be kept separate from the institution’s own money in accordance with applicable regulation.
For Malaysia residents who primarily need to receive GBP, hold supported currencies or make cross-border payments, an e-money account may provide the infrastructure they need without requiring them to live in the UK.
| Feature | Traditional UK bank account | Algbra Borderless Account |
|---|---|---|
| Provider type | Bank | E-money account provided by an authorised Electronic Money Institution |
| UK address | Commonly required for standard retail accounts | No UK residential address required to apply |
| UK credit history | May form part of the application process | Not required for access to the account |
| UK payment details | UK sort code and account number | UK sort code and account number |
| Multi-currency support | Varies by provider | Supports GBP, USD, EUR and other major currencies |
| Lending and overdrafts | May be available | Not provided |
| Sharia oversight | Varies by provider | Reviewed and approved by a dedicated Sharia board |
| Application process | May involve additional documentation or branch access | Completed through the Algbra app |
| Protection of funds | Eligible deposits may be covered by the FSCS | E-money is safeguarded and is not covered by the FSCS |
| Monthly fee | Varies by provider | £10 per month |
The exact features, requirements and protections vary between providers, so it is important to review the terms of any account before applying.
The Algbra Borderless Account is a Sharia-compliant e-money account designed for people who need access to UK payment services while living outside the UK.
For £10 a month, you get:
Fees are shown before you confirm a transaction.
Algbra is an FCA-authorised Electronic Money Institution. Customer funds are held in segregated, safeguarded accounts in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. The Borderless Account is not a bank account, and e-money balances are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
The application is completed through the Algbra app. You will need:
No branch visit or UK residential address is required.
Availability and eligibility vary by country and individual circumstances, so check the Algbra app to confirm whether the Borderless Account is available to you.
Yes. Algbra’s products and operations are reviewed and approved by a dedicated Sharia board, and Algbra is a full member of the Islamic Financial Services Board.
Malaysia is one of the world’s leading Islamic finance hubs and is home to the Islamic Financial Services Board in Kuala Lumpur, of which Algbra is a full member.
The account is structured to be interest-free, with no interest charged or paid. Its Sharia compliance is based on formal oversight rather than general ethical positioning alone.
Provide eligible UK clients or employers with a UK sort code and account number so they can send GBP directly.
Receive and manage GBP payments, hold supported currencies and make eligible international transfers through one app-based account.
Receive rental income in GBP, manage relevant UK expenses and keep a clearer view of your UK finances while living abroad.
Access UK payment details through an interest-free account with formal Sharia oversight.
Hold supported currencies, exchange funds when needed and manage cross-border payments without relying on several separate providers.
The Borderless Account may not be suitable for people who need:
An e-money account is designed primarily for holding electronic money and accessing payment services, rather than borrowing.
Eligible Malaysia residents may be able to apply for an e-money account that provides a UK sort code and account number. Availability and eligibility depend on the provider, the applicant’s circumstances and the countries supported.
Some authorised Electronic Money Institutions provide UK account details to eligible non-UK residents. A UK residential address may not be required, although identity and address verification will still apply.
No. It is an e-money account provided by Algbra, an authorised Electronic Money Institution.
No. E-money accounts are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Customer funds are instead protected through safeguarding in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011.
The Borderless Account provides a UK sort code and account number that can be used to receive eligible GBP payments directly.
The account supports GBP, USD, EUR and other major currencies. The currencies available may vary, so check the app for the latest supported options.
Availability can vary by jurisdiction and individual eligibility. Check the Algbra app to confirm whether you can apply from your location.
Yes. Algbra’s products and operations are reviewed and approved by a dedicated Sharia board.
You do not necessarily need to live in the UK to access a UK sort code and account number. The Algbra Borderless Account combines UK payment details, multi-currency functionality and formal Sharia compliance in one app-based e-money account.
Download the Algbra app to check your eligibility and apply.
This page is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as marketing or solicitation in jurisdictions where we are not licensed or authorised to operate. The Borderless Account is an e-money account provided by Algbra, an authorised Electronic Money Institution, not a bank. E-money accounts are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Your money is safeguarded in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Algbra FS UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as an electronic money institution, Firm Reference Number 952360.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":true,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1454","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.jpg","ext":".jpg","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f86808","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/1bd63/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp","srcSet":"/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/b3ba1/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 750w,\n/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/aabaf/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 1080w,\n/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/d0f53/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 1366w,\n/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/1bd63/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"322","slug":"how-to-get-a-uk-account-from-qatar","title":"How to Get a UK Account from Qatar","date":"2026-09-08T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Professionals, entrepreneurs, investors and property owners in Qatar often have legitimate financial ties to the UK. You may receive payments from British clients, manage UK property, earn income in GBP or need to move money between Qatar and the UK.
However, accessing UK financial services can be difficult when you do not live in the country. Here is what Qatar residents should know about getting UK account details as a non-resident.
Many people living in Doha, Al Rayyan and elsewhere in Qatar regularly deal in GBP. This may include:
Without UK account details, payments may need to be handled through international transfers or intermediary providers. This can involve additional fees, currency conversion costs and longer processing times.
Having a UK sort code and account number allows you to receive GBP payments directly into an account designed to support UK payments.
Technically, it may be possible, but opening a traditional UK bank account as a non-resident can be difficult.
Most UK high-street banks ask applicants for information such as:
Requirements vary between providers. However, people who have never lived in the UK, or who no longer have a UK address, may find that they are not eligible for a standard retail bank account.
Some banks offer international or non-resident accounts. These products can come with minimum balance requirements, additional paperwork or eligibility criteria aimed primarily at private banking and wealth-management customers.
For many Qatar residents, a more practical option may be an e-money account that provides a UK sort code and account number.
An e-money account is provided by an authorised Electronic Money Institution, rather than a bank. It can provide payment services such as:
However, the way customer money is protected is different. Eligible bank deposits may be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. E-money is not covered by the FSCS.
Instead, customer money held by an Electronic Money Institution is protected through safeguarding. This requires customer funds to be kept separate from the institution’s own money in accordance with applicable regulation.
For Qatar residents who primarily need to receive GBP, hold supported currencies or make cross-border payments, an e-money account may provide the infrastructure they need without requiring them to live in the UK.
| Feature | Traditional UK bank account | Algbra Borderless Account |
|---|---|---|
| Provider type | Bank | E-money account provided by an authorised Electronic Money Institution |
| UK address | Commonly required for standard retail accounts | No UK residential address required to apply |
| UK credit history | May form part of the application process | Not required for access to the account |
| UK payment details | UK sort code and account number | UK sort code and account number |
| Multi-currency support | Varies by provider | Supports GBP, USD, EUR and other major currencies |
| Lending and overdrafts | May be available | Not provided |
| Sharia oversight | Varies by provider | Reviewed and approved by a dedicated Sharia board |
| Application process | May involve additional documentation or branch access | Completed through the Algbra app |
| Protection of funds | Eligible deposits may be covered by the FSCS | E-money is safeguarded and is not covered by the FSCS |
| Monthly fee | Varies by provider | £10 per month |
The exact features, requirements and protections vary between providers, so it is important to review the terms of any account before applying.
The Algbra Borderless Account is a Sharia-compliant e-money account designed for people who need access to UK payment services while living outside the UK.
For £10 a month, you get:
Fees are shown before you confirm a transaction.
Algbra is an FCA-authorised Electronic Money Institution. Customer funds are held in segregated, safeguarded accounts in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. The Borderless Account is not a bank account, and e-money balances are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
The application is completed through the Algbra app. You will need:
No branch visit or UK residential address is required.
Availability and eligibility vary by country and individual circumstances, so check the Algbra app to confirm whether the Borderless Account is available to you.
Yes. Algbra’s products and operations are reviewed and approved by a dedicated Sharia board, and Algbra is a full member of the Islamic Financial Services Board.
The account is structured to be interest-free, with no interest charged or paid. Its Sharia compliance is based on formal oversight rather than general ethical positioning alone.
Provide eligible UK clients or employers with a UK sort code and account number so they can send GBP directly.
Receive and manage GBP payments, hold supported currencies and make eligible international transfers through one app-based account.
Receive rental income in GBP, manage relevant UK expenses and keep a clearer view of your UK finances while living abroad.
Access UK payment details through an interest-free account with formal Sharia oversight.
Hold supported currencies, exchange funds when needed and manage cross-border payments without relying on several separate providers.
The Borderless Account may not be suitable for people who need:
An e-money account is designed primarily for holding electronic money and accessing payment services, rather than borrowing.
Eligible Qatar residents may be able to apply for an e-money account that provides a UK sort code and account number. Availability and eligibility depend on the provider, the applicant’s circumstances and the countries supported.
Some authorised Electronic Money Institutions provide UK account details to eligible non-UK residents. A UK residential address may not be required, although identity and address verification will still apply.
No. It is an e-money account provided by Algbra, an authorised Electronic Money Institution.
No. E-money accounts are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Customer funds are instead protected through safeguarding in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011.
The Borderless Account provides a UK sort code and account number that can be used to receive eligible GBP payments directly.
The account supports GBP, USD, EUR and other major currencies. The currencies available may vary, so check the app for the latest supported options.
Availability can vary by jurisdiction and individual eligibility. Check the Algbra app to confirm whether you can apply from your location.
Yes. Algbra’s products and operations are reviewed and approved by a dedicated Sharia board.
You do not necessarily need to live in the UK to access a UK sort code and account number. The Algbra Borderless Account combines UK payment details, multi-currency functionality and formal Sharia compliance in one app-based e-money account.
Download the Algbra app to check your eligibility and apply.
This page is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as marketing or solicitation in jurisdictions where we are not licensed or authorised to operate. The Borderless Account is an e-money account provided by Algbra, an authorised Electronic Money Institution, not a bank. E-money accounts are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Your money is safeguarded in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Algbra FS UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as an electronic money institution, Firm Reference Number 952360.
If you earn money in GBP, work with UK clients, or own property in the UK - but don’t actually live there, you probably know how awkward accessing UK financial services can be. Add a need for your finances to be ethical and interest-free into the mix, and the list of real options gets even shorter. Here’s what you need to know about getting a UK account as a non-UK resident.
Most UK banks are built around the assumption that you live in the UK. When you create an account, they want a UK address, a UK mobile number, and a credit history built on British soil. Tick those boxes and the process is straightforward. Miss even one, and plenty of banks will turn you away, regardless of how genuine your ties to the country actually are.
That rules out a lot of people with perfectly legitimate reasons to need GBP:
The need is real. A traditional UK bank account, for most of these people, simply isn't.
Technically, yes. In practice, it's tough. Most high street banks ask for proof of a UK address and run credit checks against UK databases. If you've never lived in the UK, or left years ago, you're unlikely to tick those boxes.
A handful of banks do offer international or non-resident accounts, but they tend to come with high minimum balances, limited features, and paperwork built for a private banking relationship, not for someone who just needs to receive GBP payments or manage a flat in Manchester from Dubai.
For most people, the more workable route is an e-money account with genuine UK account details: a product built for exactly this kind of cross-border financial life.
Worth understanding properly, because it changes how your money is treated.
An e-money account comes from an authorised Electronic Money Institution (EMI), not a bank. It won't lend you money, but it does give you real payment infrastructure: a UK sort code and account number, card payments, international transfers. Your funds are protected through safeguarding, a regulatory requirement that keeps customer money in accounts kept separate from the institution's own. Unlike bank deposits, e-money is not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). Safeguarding is the protection that applies instead.
For many non-residents, that's everything they actually need. Receiving payments, exchanging currencies, sending transfers, all without the residency requirements that shut the door on traditional banking.
Not every non-resident account is built the same. A few things are worth checking before you commit to one:
A real UK sort code and account number. Non-negotiable if you want to receive GBP payments directly. Without one, you're stuck using intermediary accounts or eating conversion costs on every payment in.
Multi-currency support. If your money crosses borders, you'll want to hold more than one currency in the same place. Look for an account that handles GBP, USD and EUR, ideally more, without forcing you into separate accounts for each.
Transparent exchange rates. Hidden mark-ups on currency conversion are one of the most common ways people lose money on international finance. A good account tells you exactly what you're paying: a flat, disclosed fee, not a number buried inside the rate.
International payments that actually work. Check how many countries are covered and what the fees really look like. Some providers charge flat fees, some charge a percentage, many charge both.
An account you can actually run from your phone. If you're living abroad, in-branch requirements or customer support only available during UK office hours can be dealbreakers.
Sharia compliance, if it matters to you. For Muslim professionals and investors, whether a product is genuinely interest-free and ethically structured isn't just a nice-to-have. Look for formal Sharia certification from a recognised supervisory board, not just \"ethical\" branding with nothing behind it.
The Borderless Account is built around exactly this problem: people who struggle to get UK financial access because they don't live in the UK.
For £10 a month, you get:
To apply, you'll need a smartphone, a mobile number, a valid ID document, and proof of address. The whole thing happens in-app: no branch visits, no UK address required. Availability does vary by country, so it's worth checking the Algbra app to confirm it's available where you live.
Algbra is an authorised Electronic Money Institution, and your money sits in segregated, safeguarded accounts in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011.
Yes. And for Muslim professionals, entrepreneurs and investors who need UK financial access, that matters. All of Algbra’s operations and products are reviewed and approved by a dedicated Sharia board, and Algbra is a full member of the Islamic Financial Services Board.
Algbra was built on the idea that financial products should be transparent, fair, and ethically grounded from the start. The Sharia certification isn't something bolted on afterwards. It's built into how the product works.
For people managing UK finances, that combination is rare: a real UK sort code and account number, multi-currency access, and formal Sharia certification, all in one app-based account.
Freelancers and remote workers paid in GBP. If your clients are UK-based, you can now give them a UK sort code and account number instead of an international transfer that takes days and costs you a cut.
Entrepreneurs with UK business relationships. Manage GBP coming in and going out from one account, without needing a UK business address or an existing UK banking relationship to get started.
Overseas property owners. Take rental income in GBP, pay UK property expenses, and keep a clear picture of your UK finances, all without keeping a UK address open purely to satisfy a bank.
GCC residents and Muslim professionals. If you're in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain or Oman and want a UK account that's genuinely Sharia-compliant, not just labelled \"ethical\", this combines real UK payments infrastructure with formal Sharia certification.
Anyone juggling more than one currency. Hold what you earn, convert when it makes sense, and move money across borders without stitching together multiple accounts and providers to do it.
If your financial life crosses a border, whether that's clients, property, business, or just earning in one currency and spending in another, the Borderless Account gives you the infrastructure to handle it properly. And if that also needs to be Sharia-compliant and interest-free, it does that too.
Download the Algbra app and apply today.
This page is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as marketing or solicitation in jurisdictions where we are not licensed or authorised to operate. The Borderless Account is an e-money account provided by Algbra, an authorised Electronic Money Institution, not a bank. E-money accounts are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).Your money is safeguarded in line with the Electronic Money Regulations 2011. Algbra FS UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority as an electronic money institution (Firm Reference Number 952360).
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1454","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.jpg","ext":".jpg","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f86808","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/1bd63/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp","srcSet":"/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/b3ba1/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 750w,\n/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/aabaf/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 1080w,\n/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/d0f53/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 1366w,\n/static/d35542996b3ac4c901340dc3532c7fda/1bd63/algbra_borderless_778fb5fc1c.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"319","slug":"algbra-labs-joins-clearbank-tech-alliance-expanding-strategic-partnership","title":"Algbra Labs Joins Clearbank Tech Alliance, Expanding Strategic Partnership","date":"2026-02-06T06:00:00.000Z","content":"London, UK – Algbra today announces that Algbra Labs, the technology division of Algbra, has been certified as a Tech Alliance Partner by ClearBank, the enabler of real-time clearing and embedded banking. This new partnership builds on Algbra’s existing Channel Partnership with ClearBank and marks an important evolution in the collaboration between the two organisations.
The Tech Alliance Partner programme brings together best-in-class technology providers that enable ClearBank’s licensed financial institution clients to integrate, launch and scale banking and payments services quickly, cost-effectively and with reduced operational complexity. As a certified Tech Alliance Partner, Algbra Labs is now approved to activate and support the technology required for ClearBank-enabled financial services.
This Tech Alliance Partnership is distinct from Algbra’s existing Channel Partnership with ClearBank. Under the Channel Partner model, Algbra operates as a licensed and regulated financial institution, delivering its Fintech as a Service (FaaS) platform and embedding ClearBank’s banking infrastructure while acting as the regulated and responsible party for the services delivered.
The addition of Algbra Labs to the Tech Alliance Partner ecosystem means Algbra can combine certified technology enablement with regulated financial services delivered under its FCA authorisation and scheme memberships.
Through this approach, Algbra is now able to support ClearBank’s licensed clients with both technology and regulated service capabilities, including card issuance and BIN sponsorship programmes, digital account issuance, customer support operations, cross-border payments and multi-currency account services — all delivered through Algbra’s Fintech as a Service (FaaS) platform.
This in turn enables ClearBank clients to reduce complexity, significantly accelerate time to market and improve cost efficiency, while accessing a broader range of capabilities through a single strategic partner.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1374","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_clearbank_tech_alliance_ead5ddca05.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/38aff67b40bf99241013abb70e60c4e4/445d2/algbra_clearbank_tech_alliance_ead5ddca05.webp","srcSet":"/static/38aff67b40bf99241013abb70e60c4e4/b3ba1/algbra_clearbank_tech_alliance_ead5ddca05.webp 750w,\n/static/38aff67b40bf99241013abb70e60c4e4/445d2/algbra_clearbank_tech_alliance_ead5ddca05.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"317","slug":"algbra-labs-and-moka-united-the-fintech-subsidiary-of-isbank-announce-strategic-partnership-to-launch-ruut-in-the-uk","title":"Algbra Labs and Moka United, the Fintech Subsidiary of İşbank, Announce Strategic Partnership to Launch RUUT in the UK","date":"2025-08-21T09:00:00.000Z","content":"London, 21 August 2025 - Algbra Labs, the leading UK-based Fintech-as-a-Service (FaaS) provider, has announced a strategic partnership with Moka United, the fintech subsidiary of İşbank - Türkiye’s largest private bank. The collaboration supports the UK launch of RUUT, a next-generation digital banking brand developed by Moka United as part of İşbank’s global fintech strategy.
This partnership represents a key step in Moka United’s international expansion and İşbank’s broader vision to deliver inclusive, technology-driven financial services across borders. Powered by Algbra Labs’ full-stack FaaS platform, RUUT will offer a seamless, secure, and scalable digital banking experience to customers in the United Kingdom.
The collaboration is a powerful signal of Algbra’s leadership in using our Fintech-as-a- Service (FaaS) capabilities to enable diaspora-focused digital banking across the globe. Every Algbra partnership is a catalyst for innovation and a reaffirmation that the company Is commited to not just building platforms, but rather redefining what inclusive modern banking looks like.
The multi-phased agreement includes:
The partnership aims to deliver a fully operational platform within six months. In the medium term, both parties plan to further develop the UK-Türkiye financial corridor, which currently facilitates over £28 billion in annual trade and remittance flows. Türkiye continues to be a significant trading partner for the UK, with bilateral trade in goods and services surpassing £26 billion in 2024, while the UK is among Türkiye’s top five export markets. In addition, the UK is home to a growing Turkish diaspora of close to one million people, whose economic, social, and cultural ties further strengthen the corridor. Expanding digital financial infrastructure between the two countries will unlock new opportunities for trade, remittances, and investment.
Zeiad Idris, CEO of Algbra, said:
“We are proud to partner with Moka United, the fintech arm of Türkiye’s most established bank. RUUT is an exciting digital banking initiative, and we are delighted to provide the platform infrastructure to support its UK launch. This collaboration reflects the growing demand for values-led, high-compliance, and scalable financial technology.”
Halim Memiş, CEO of Moka United and RUUT, said:
“This partnership with Algbra Labs is a strategic milestone in our journey to expand globally. Through RUUT, we aim to deliver inclusive, user-friendly, and trusted digital banking experiences — beginning in the UK. Algbra’s technological excellence and shared ethical approach make them the ideal long-term partner.”
The collaboration further reinforces Algbra Labs’ position as a premier Fintech-as-a-Service provider, enabling banks and fintechs to launch and scale digital offerings without compromising on compliance, speed, or innovation.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1366","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_ruut_96fb63d68c.jpeg","ext":".jpeg","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#080808","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/df428a39f1066bed31d9c3c04201847a/1bd63/algbra_ruut_96fb63d68c.webp","srcSet":"/static/df428a39f1066bed31d9c3c04201847a/b3ba1/algbra_ruut_96fb63d68c.webp 750w,\n/static/df428a39f1066bed31d9c3c04201847a/aabaf/algbra_ruut_96fb63d68c.webp 1080w,\n/static/df428a39f1066bed31d9c3c04201847a/d0f53/algbra_ruut_96fb63d68c.webp 1366w,\n/static/df428a39f1066bed31d9c3c04201847a/1bd63/algbra_ruut_96fb63d68c.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"316","slug":"algbra-expands-fintech-as-a-service-platform-through-new-partnership-with-clearbank","title":"Algbra expands Fintech-as-a-Service platform through new partnership with ClearBank","date":"2025-08-12T09:00:00.000Z","content":"12 August 2025, London - Algbra, the ethical fintech and technology company, today announced the expansion of its Algbra Labs Fintech-as-a-Service (FaaS) platform through a strategic channel partnership with ClearBank, the enabler of real-time clearing and embedded banking.
This collaboration enables Algbra to offer best-in-class agency banking, embedded banking, faster payment services, and virtual accounts to its clients - from financial institutions and corporates to fintech innovators - without them needing to build complex backend infrastructure. Integrated seamlessly into Algbra Labs’ API-driven ecosystem, the new services provide customers with fully regulated accounts, secure and instant payments, and the ability to scale faster in the UK’s fast-growing £213.6bn revenue-generating fintech sector, with future European expansion plans that are SEPA- aligned.
Delivering more for our clients
Through the partnership, ClearBank’s trusted, cloud-native banking and payments technology is now part of Algbra’s end-to-end service offering. This means that customers using the Algbra Labs platform can access regulated accounts and real-time payments alongside Algbra’s full suite of infrastructure, compliance, and product development tools – all from one platform.
The move marks ClearBank’s first-ever channel partnership under its new model, selecting Algbra as a strategically aligned partner to extend its services to new audiences. For Algbra, the agreement is another milestone in building a truly global infrastructure platform, capable of delivering embedded financial services with speed, security, and flexibility.
Tom Mason, Chief Business Officer at Algbra Group, said: \"We consider ClearBank an extension of our team. Our channel partnership means that we are equipped to offer our B2B and B2C clients best-in-class banking services including fully regulated business and customer accounts, and safe, secure real time payments giving them a competitive edge in the UK’s £213.6bn revenue-generating fintech ecosystem. We get all the benefits of being a major bank without the administration or overheads”.
The new solution is available immediately via the Algbra Labs platform, with both companies committed to deepening the collaboration to offer further integrated services and jointly support customer growth across the UK and Europe.
Nick Ford, Head of Channels & Alliances at ClearBank, said: “Our first channel partnership is an exciting step in the expansion of our services, providing extra ways for us to unlock our clients’ potential. From start to finish, we have found our values have closely aligned with Algbra’s, with our shared technology-first approach and desire to bring world-class financial services to all. We hope that this is the first of many channel partnerships that will help us to support more non-competitive fintech providers across the UK and Europe.”
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1365","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_clearbank_40b2f020c5.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#080808","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/5e187c7787436ae980da4b6b23e9b432/1bd63/algbra_clearbank_40b2f020c5.webp","srcSet":"/static/5e187c7787436ae980da4b6b23e9b432/b3ba1/algbra_clearbank_40b2f020c5.webp 750w,\n/static/5e187c7787436ae980da4b6b23e9b432/aabaf/algbra_clearbank_40b2f020c5.webp 1080w,\n/static/5e187c7787436ae980da4b6b23e9b432/d0f53/algbra_clearbank_40b2f020c5.webp 1366w,\n/static/5e187c7787436ae980da4b6b23e9b432/1bd63/algbra_clearbank_40b2f020c5.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"315","slug":"algbra-activates-principal-issuer-licence-with-mastercard","title":"Algbra activates Principal Issuer Licence with Mastercard","date":"2025-05-21T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Algbra FS UK Limited, a UK financial technology company regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), has activated its principal member status with Mastercard that now enables the company to directly issue cards on the Mastercard network.
Algbra currently offers its full-stack proprietary technology internationally - including core banking - through its Algbra Labs division as a B2B Fintech as a Service (‘FaaS’) solution, helping financial institutions and corporations build digital banking propositions from scratch. Algbra’s UK platform is a live example of their enabling technology.
Algbra Labs also recently built the Shoal sustainable savings platform as part of a broader strategic partnership with Standard Chartered that sees Algbra partnering to support the SCB sustainable finance book. From concept to going live, the process took four months and is now live across Apple and Google Stores with a future plan to explore issuing cards.
Algbra’s status as a Principal Member of Mastercard enables the company to expand its services and to provide clients with a wider range of financial solutions, leveraging Mastercard’s trust, scalable and secure payments network to enable Algbra customers to use cards at over 150 million in-store and online locations worldwide.
“This is another exciting milestone in Algbra’s journey; Mastercard has been a great supporter of ours since inception, and we are thrilled to be able to take that partnership to a new level” said Zeiad Idris, CEO of Algbra. “Being a Principal Member with Mastercard further demonstrates our commitment to the highest levels of security and compliance, both for our UK customers and our international B2B clients”.
“We are thrilled to welcome Algbra as a Mastercard Principal Member. This is a reflection of our continued partnership, and we look forward to seeing how the business engages with the benefits and opportunities the programme offers, including comprehensive tools for enhancing transaction security and fraud detection”, said Darren Deal, Mastercard Senior Vice President - Fintech, Government and Digital Partnership for UK & Ireland.
Tom Mason, Co-Founder of Shoal added: “We partnered with Algbra to build and launch Shoal, a proposition that helps people to grow their money without compromising their values. Algbra’s partnership with Mastercard and their Principal Issuer enables us to take that vision further, faster. It opens up a host of possibilities and is a fantastic validation of the quality we knew was there.”
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1358","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_mastercard_91b6d7b0fa.jpg","ext":".jpg","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/bc4a6819446b1a54076154dc4012ce85/1bd63/algbra_mastercard_91b6d7b0fa.webp","srcSet":"/static/bc4a6819446b1a54076154dc4012ce85/b3ba1/algbra_mastercard_91b6d7b0fa.webp 750w,\n/static/bc4a6819446b1a54076154dc4012ce85/aabaf/algbra_mastercard_91b6d7b0fa.webp 1080w,\n/static/bc4a6819446b1a54076154dc4012ce85/d0f53/algbra_mastercard_91b6d7b0fa.webp 1366w,\n/static/bc4a6819446b1a54076154dc4012ce85/1bd63/algbra_mastercard_91b6d7b0fa.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"313","slug":"the-bright-side-of-dark-mode","title":"The Bright Side of Dark Mode","date":"2025-04-29T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Ever thought that one simple change could make a huge difference? Switching to dark mode on your phone could be that game-changer.
We’re introducing dark mode within the Algbra app, and it’s not just about looking cool (if we do say so ourselves), it’s about saving time, money, your health and even the planet.
By switching to dark mode, you’re reducing the number of times you need to charge your phone. Fewer charges mean your battery stays healthier for longer. And with battery issues being the top complaint among smartphone users, anything that helps your battery last longer is a win. Plus, longer battery life means less dead batteries polluting the planet with harmful chemicals. In 2022 alone, it’s estimated that 5.3 billion of the 16 billion phones worldwide were thrown away. Let’s cut down on that waste.
Did you know that using dark mode can save up to 47% battery power? That’s nearly doubling your phone’s battery life and cutting your energy usage in half. This is especially true for phones with OLED screens, which now make up almost half the market, but other screen types see benefits too.
Not only can switching to dark mode reduce the strain on your battery life, energy bills and the planet, but it can also reduce the strain on your eyes too, especially in low-light conditions. It also reduces blue light emissions, which can mess with your melatonin levels, and disrupt your much needed sleep. Better sleep equals better health.
So what’s stopping you.. Join the dark side with Algbra’s newly introduced dark mode. Your eyes, wallet and the planet will thank you.
Download Algbra and make the switch today!
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1356","url":"/s3-storage/dark_mode_69752b39a9.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#080808","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/c8fa275a529e09357024e012dafefdb9/445d2/dark_mode_69752b39a9.webp","srcSet":"/static/c8fa275a529e09357024e012dafefdb9/b3ba1/dark_mode_69752b39a9.webp 750w,\n/static/c8fa275a529e09357024e012dafefdb9/445d2/dark_mode_69752b39a9.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"247","slug":"sc-ventures-makes-strategic-investment-in-algbra-establishes-partnership-with-its-uk-sustainable-finance-platform-shoal","title":"SC Ventures makes strategic investment in Algbra, establishes partnership with its UK sustainable finance platform Shoal","date":"2024-04-15T09:00:00.000Z","content":"SC Ventures, Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm, has announced a strategic investment in Algbra, an ethical finance focused and sharia-compliant UK-based fintech. As part of the agreement, Shoal, SC Ventures’ sustainable finance platform, will partner with Algbra.
Demand for sustainable and ethical finance continues to grow, with consumers seeking offerings to align their money with their personal ethics and values. According to research (1) , 74% of retail finance customers want their savings to have a positive impact on the planet and 52% would switch providers if they could see how their money is being invested. An Islamic Finance Council UK survey conducted in 2023, found that for 90% of respondents it was important that their bank provided products that aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. “SC Ventures and Standard Chartered are committed to sustainable financing. We build ventures with our clients in mind, which resulted in Shoal. Combining the proposition with Algbra will enhance the customer proposition in the UK and our investment will accelerate the delivery of Algbra’s Fintech as a Service (FaaS) solution globally,” said Gurdeep Singh Kohli, SC Ventures lead for Europe and Americas.
Algbra, founded by Zeiad Idris and Fizel Nejabat, is the first sharia-compliant and B-Corp certified fintech to be authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as an Electronic Money Institution. Algbra offers its full-stack proprietary technology internationally as a turnkey digital banking solution. Algbra’s UK B2C proposition was named the Best ESG Initiative in Payments at the Pay360 Awards. The award recognised Algbra’s impact solutions, such as carbon tracking and offsetting, financial wellbeing tools and its donations platform.
“I am thrilled for Algbra to be partnering with SC Ventures and Shoal. What is most exciting about this is the deep purpose-alignment of our companies to do good, and our commitment to go beyond the UK to serve communities in Asia, Africa and the Middle East,” said Zeiad Idris, CEO, Algbra. “I look forward to what more we can achieve together in our common quest to drive commerce and prosperity.”
There are strong synergies in the Shoal and Algbra offerings and across target markets. Incubated by SC Ventures, Shoal is a B-Corp certified sustainable finance platform that allows retail customers to reach their financial goals, while supporting sustainable development and the fight against climate change. Shoal will leverage Algbra’s technology capabilities to distribute its products to UK retail customers whilst Algbra will incorporate Shoal as part of its ESG-centric B2B solutions globally.
Joan Medland and Tom Mason, Co-Founders of Shoal, added: “We founded Shoal with a simple goal, to enable people to grow their money in a manner that benefited the world without compromising their values. We are very excited for the impact of this partnership with Algbra given our shared vision.”
(1) 2023 research carried out by Ecology Building Society (74% of Savers Want Positive Impact - Ecology Building Society)
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1157","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_scv_6f79b366db.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/e16dd830b82e3e0ad180df6dff3ea04e/1bd63/algbra_scv_6f79b366db.webp","srcSet":"/static/e16dd830b82e3e0ad180df6dff3ea04e/b3ba1/algbra_scv_6f79b366db.webp 750w,\n/static/e16dd830b82e3e0ad180df6dff3ea04e/aabaf/algbra_scv_6f79b366db.webp 1080w,\n/static/e16dd830b82e3e0ad180df6dff3ea04e/d0f53/algbra_scv_6f79b366db.webp 1366w,\n/static/e16dd830b82e3e0ad180df6dff3ea04e/1bd63/algbra_scv_6f79b366db.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"214","slug":"introducing-cubes","title":"Introducing Cubes, the smart money management tool from Algbra","date":"2023-12-04T09:00:00.000Z","content":"At Algbra, we’re dedicated to empowering you on your financial journey, and so we’re excited to unveil one of our most anticipated features - Cubes! Whether you’re saving for a dream holiday, a new car or simply putting money away for a rainy day, Cubes is here to transform the way you manage your money.
Gone are the days of complicated financial planning. With Cubes, budgeting becomes a breeze. Simply create a Cube, give it a name that relates to your financial goal, and start adding money from your account balance whenever it suits you. It’s that easy! Cubes is designed to seamlessly integrate into your financial routine, making the process of saving both easy and enjoyable.
Life is dynamic, and your savings strategy can be too. Cubes not only simplifies the process of putting money aside, but also offers you easy control over your financial path. Need quick access to your funds? Withdraw money to your main account balance effortlessly with just a couple of taps. Want to add an extra layer of discipline to your savings? Lock your Cube until a specific date, preventing withdrawals and ensuring your financial goals stay intact. And the best part? You hold the key - unlock your Cube at any time, putting control firmly in your hands. With Cubes, your financial journey is as dynamic as you are.
Want to learn more about Cubes? We’ve created a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and you can find that article right here. Still have questions? No worries! Reach out to us anytime via the in-app chat, and our dedicated support team will be happy to help.
Cubes isn’t just a money management tool, it’s the key to unlocking your financial freedom. It’s time to take control of your money, set ambitious goals and watch your dreams turn into reality. Welcome to smart money management with Cubes 🚀
Visit our product page to learn more about Cubes and start using today.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"1099","url":"/s3-storage/cubes_blog_1e326b278e.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#d8e8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/268fb0923f58659bd1222598149c5cf0/1bd63/cubes_blog_1e326b278e.webp","srcSet":"/static/268fb0923f58659bd1222598149c5cf0/b3ba1/cubes_blog_1e326b278e.webp 750w,\n/static/268fb0923f58659bd1222598149c5cf0/aabaf/cubes_blog_1e326b278e.webp 1080w,\n/static/268fb0923f58659bd1222598149c5cf0/d0f53/cubes_blog_1e326b278e.webp 1366w,\n/static/268fb0923f58659bd1222598149c5cf0/1bd63/cubes_blog_1e326b278e.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"181","slug":"algbra-gets-certified-as-a-b-corp","title":"Algbra gets certified as a B Corp!","date":"2023-08-30T09:00:00.000Z","content":"It’s official, Algbra is a B Corp!
Algbra, the global ethical and sharia compliant technology platform with its UK finance app, has been certified as a B Corp after demonstrating its credentials of the highest ESG standards.
This makes Algbra one of the few financial institutions in the UK to achieve this status, including being the first FCA authorised payments firm, and the first ethical, sustainable, and Sharia-compliant fintech globally to have done so.
Algbra successfully undertook a rigorous certification process conducted by B Lab, a nonprofit organisation, which evaluated Algbra's performance across key metrics relating to social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. This included amending the company’s Articles of Association to embed a commitment to consider the impact of decisions on all stakeholders and signing the B Corp Agreement and Declaration of Interdependence. Requiring a minimum score of 80 points, Algbra achieved a score of 121.6, significantly higher than the average.
Certified B Corporations, or B Corps, are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.
To achieve and maintain certification, Algbra and all other B Corps, have:
They also publicly list their impact score on the B Lab Directory and recertify every 3 years.
Algbra wears the B Corp logo with pride. It is an important signal from Algbra about its purpose-led mission to, through ethical finance, help bring about a more equitable and sustainable world.
Algbra’s newly acquired B Corp status is further recognition of its mission to create a more equitable and sustainable society through high-quality, impact-driven financial technology. Algbra does this by delivering the infrastructure and technologies required to democratise financial services across the world.
Core to Algbra’s mission are the 1.7 billion people across the world who are currently financially excluded. Algbra’s proprietary technology, built-in-house by its team of engineers, is designed to be used by banks across the emerging world to make mobile digital banking accessible to all.
With Algbra, customers do not need to compromise between their ethics, sustainability and quality of service.
Algbra comes equipped with all that you would expect from a finance app, and more. In addition to staples like analytics, Apple/Google Pay, and transfers, Algbra offers market-leading 1.5% cashback on all card spending.
On top of that, Algbra includes impact solutions, like carbon tracking and offsetting, financial wellbeing tools, investments, lending and a donations platform. All of this is powered on carbon neutral cloud computing. Algbra also makes sure that none of its customers’ funds are invested in any environmentally or socially damaging industries.
As part of Algbra’s social mission, Algbra has committed to donate 10% of its profits through its charitable foundation, Algbra X, to empowering overlooked communities. Algbra is also an accredited living wage employer.
Algbra’s incredible customer experience is made possible by its proprietary tech infrastructure. The Algbra app has the agility to flex, localise and scale to suit any market or customer segment.
Algbra have now made their solution available globally to banks that want to provide a cutting-edge mobile digital service to customers. Algbra’s B2B proposition allows banks across the world to access its technology and expertise. For financial institutions that are seeking to digitise or increase their impact, Algbra Labs is able to assist on their journey through its industry-leading full-suite fintech-as-a-service (FaaS) platform.
Traditional BaaS solutions seldom include key fintech functions, like customer UX/UI, customer service, KYC/AML and regulatory reporting. Algbra solves for this by offering Fintech-as-a-Service (FaaS) covering all the main components needed for a digital banking offering.
While traditional BaaS providers typically have a rigid tech-stack due to vendor lock-in, which makes it more difficult to amend the product to meet local customer and regulatory requirements, Algbra is globally scalable and locally tailorable.
Algbra fixes these problems by offering Fintech-as-a-Service (FaaS). This incorporates the three key ingredients a digital banking proposition:
⭐️ Customer facing channels like mobile and web apps.
⭐️ Core architecture to process data, payments and products including lending
⭐️ A back-office dashboard for full customer lifecycle management.
It's now time for a new generation of banking technology which is globally scalable and locally deployable, like Algbra.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"926","url":"/s3-storage/algbra_b_corp_c5a540cdcf.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#080818","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/03715eedab731937b4f4e48503bae09c/445d2/algbra_b_corp_c5a540cdcf.webp","srcSet":"/static/03715eedab731937b4f4e48503bae09c/b3ba1/algbra_b_corp_c5a540cdcf.webp 750w,\n/static/03715eedab731937b4f4e48503bae09c/445d2/algbra_b_corp_c5a540cdcf.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"152","slug":"what-is-green-banking-and-why-does-it-matter","title":"What is green banking and why does it matter?","date":"2023-06-26T09:00:00.000Z","content":"While you’ve probably heard of green energy, you might not know about green banking. Here’s what you need to know.
To live more sustainably, lots of us are switching to eco-friendly options wherever possible. According to PWC, 76% of us are ready to ditch companies that “treat the environment, employees, or the community” poorly.
We often miss one of the most impactful changes – making our money sustainable. That’s an issue green banking looks to solve.
Green banking is a new, sustainable way to bank, that focuses on lowering environmental risks and creating a positive planetary impact, while handling day-to-day banking needs. Green banking does this by investing in renewable energy instead of environmentally harmful industries, providing green loans and reducing carbon footprints. And it’s getting more popular.
Environmental and social objectives go hand in hand, so some green banks tackle both climate and social issues (like providing low-income communities with services). By addressing both, green banks can have a much bigger impact.
At the minute, we’re all in the same storm, but sailing in different boats. Climate change disproportionately impacts marginalised communities at every level – from prevention to aftermath relief – despite them contributing the least to it. That’s why green banks look at the environmental and social crises as one issue, not two.
If they don’t, existing inequalities will widen, and could even undo the developmental progress we’ve made. Because low incomes or gross domestic product (GDP) per person means low ability to adapt to shocks like climate change.
Like many sustainable alternatives, green banking is important because it tries to combat the environmental and social challenges we’re facing.
From food to fashion, more of us are facing up to the damage our consumption causes. And the realisation that money is at the heart of it all is sinking in. That’s a massive win for the global sustainability sector, climate and natural environment – because greener finance could be key to creating a more sustainable society and future.
If we’re going to meet our climate goals, “financial cooperation” is essential, because money makes the world go round. How we spend it has a major impact on the climate. A staggering 72% of global greenhouse gas (that’s GHG) emissions are caused by household consumption.
And finance has an even bigger part to play. It’s not only what we spend money on, or invest in. Where we bank also makes a big difference.
You might not know the money in your bank account doesn’t sit there idly, waiting for you to spend it. High street banks actively invest your money. And you don’t get a say in what they invest it into.
Your bank could be using your money to fund industries that directly oppose your values, like gambling, tobacco and arms. They could even be using it to profit from environmentally unfriendly practices.
Since signing the Paris Agreement on climate change back in 2015, the 60 largest banks alone have invested over $5.5 trillion dollars in unsustainable energy. This flies in the face of tackling climate change – despite many banks claiming they want to be “net zero”.
To be fair, this issue isn’t exclusive to banking. It’s a worryingly common trend seen across industries. After taking a data sample from different business sectors, the European Commission estimates 42% of sustainability claims are exaggerated, false or even deceptive. Some could even be considered unfair commercial practices under EU rules.
While these numbers sound alarming, they contextualise research by Make My Money Matter. It revealed it’s 21x times more impactful to “green” your pension than to go veggie, stop flying and switch to renewable energy, combined.
![](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/green-banking/04.png\")
To keep global temperatures below the 1.5 degrees tipping point, we need to speed and scale up the green transition. The approach many high street banks are taking won’t help us achieve the most pressing issue humanity’s ever faced.
To create a fair, empowered and sustainable future for society, banking has to become more ethical. It needs to start placing people and the planet before maximising profits.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Many banks are getting the message and are taking steps to become more green. They’re investing more in sectors like sustainable infrastructure and renewable energy, offering loans to environmentally conscious businesses and reducing their carbon footprints. More banks are even providing their customers with carbon tracking and offsetting tools to help them minimise the impact of their spending.
Green banks know time is key to preventing catastrophe. They’re not just increasing the scale of their green strategies, they’re doing it as quickly as possible to limit environmental and social damage and trying not to make things any worse, while capitalising on the opportunities that a green transition creates.
![](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/green-banking/01.png\")
Without a green transition, the World Bank believes climate change could push 100 million people back into poverty by 2030. That’s only 7 years away. It could drive 216 million people to migrate within their own country by 2050, and create hotspots of internal migration as soon as 2030. Things will only get worse from there.
Over 1.3 billion people (mostly in developing countries) are trapped on agricultural land that’s degrading. This increases their vulnerability to slow-onset disasters, like drought, desertification, food insecurity and famine. Scary, when you consider 70% of the world’s poorest depend on natural resources for all (or part) of their livelihoods. Climate change impacts could cause 600 million more people to face food insecurity and malnutrition as agricultural systems collapse.
As if the human cost wasn’t enough, the monetary impact of climate change is staggering. Global natural disaster losses in 2022 alone totalled $270 billion. If banks continue their business as usual approach and ignore the implications of their investments, it’ll end up costing the world’s economy $178 trillion by 2070. By 2100, global GDP could be 37% lower than it would be without the impact of global warming (when accounting for the effects of climate change on economic growth).
Choosing not to reduce GHG emissions will cost more than tackling the impacts of climate change. The economic damage continued warming creates by far outweighs the cost of preventing the emissions right now.
A Just Transition is sustainable and equitable But achieving it isn’t easy. According to Doughnut Economic metrics, no country has achieved an equitable and empowered society without overshooting on planetary boundaries.
To achieve our climate goals, it will cost $7 trillion a year. With almost 75% of the current climate funds coming from the private sector, the scaling and speeding up of further finance from the private sector will prove essential.
Investing in green banking isn’t burning money, it’s good business. The Global Alliance for Banking on Values found that banks prioritising environmental and social sustainability have outperformed those that don't over the past decade.
Pivoting to a greener future opens up an estimated $12 trillion in market opportunities. A $1 investment in a green economy returns, on average, $4 in benefits. Put simply; green banking pays back in more ways than one.
![](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/green-banking/02.png\")
Green banking is growing. It’ll play a crucial role in addressing society’s biggest environmental and social challenges. Living sustainably is not to be downplayed (it comes with its challenges, but the rewards are more than worth it) but greening your finances is the easiest and most impactful thing you can do today that makes an actual difference.
If you’re looking to kickstart your green banking journey, head over to bank.green to uncover sustainable, fossil-free banking alternatives. You might even spot a familiar name there.
Algbra’s the most rewarding green money app that can help you make your finances more eco-friendly. And it pays off, in more ways than one. Open an account in minutes to protect your money from unethical industries, access carbon offsetting tools and start earning cashback on your everyday spending.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":"Marten Möller","newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"864","url":"/s3-storage/Green_Bank_Sub_1_e394401d24.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#e8d8c8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/e6b0498fb51684eb452d94fff72db8ff/445d2/Green_Bank_Sub_1_e394401d24.webp","srcSet":"/static/e6b0498fb51684eb452d94fff72db8ff/b3ba1/Green_Bank_Sub_1_e394401d24.webp 750w,\n/static/e6b0498fb51684eb452d94fff72db8ff/445d2/Green_Bank_Sub_1_e394401d24.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"151","slug":"algbra-card-exchange-rates-explained","title":"Travelling with your Algbra card: fees and exchange rates explained.","date":"2023-05-16T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Summer’s almost here. That means it’s time to start thinking about sun, sand and sun lotion. And converting currency. Unless you have Algbra, that is. Here’s why.
The best bit of a holiday has to be stepping off the plane in a new country. The worst? Sorting your money. Figuring out what exchange rates and transaction fees you’re going to pay is a headache no one needs. But getting it wrong could cost you. Luckily, you have an Algbra card. So you know you're getting a great deal.
Your biodegradable Algbra card’s powered by Mastercard. This means you can use it anywhere in the world Mastercard is accepted.
It also means you'll get a good exchange rate. Some banks apply a mark-up to the exchange rate. This stops you from getting the best deal. Not us, though.
Whenever you use your Algbra card to pay in the local currency overseas, you benefit from the Mastercard Exchange rate. This offers great exchange rates.
It’s really simple to get your head around, too. Every time you use your Algbra card to pay or withdraw cash on your holiday, Mastercard automatically exchanges your home currency (Great British Pounds) into the local currency. This means you don’t have to think about the exchange rate at the time of purchase. And neither Algbra or Mastercard will charge you any extra fees for foreign currency transactions.
You already know you’re getting a great exchange rate with your Algbra card – there are a couple of ways to get more bang for your buck.
Before checking out, quickly check out the current exchange rate for your local currency. This’ll give you an idea of how much you’re paying in GBP. Then you can compare it to other rates on the market. You might be able to get a deal paying with cash. But don’t forget, some ATMs add transaction fees to withdrawals.
Remember, we always use the Mastercard Exchange rate (at the time the funds leave your account). You can check the exchange rate for all currencies here.
![\"Travelling](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/travel-card/travel-card-2.png\")
Sometimes on your hols, you’ll be given the choice whether to be charged in the local currency or in GBP. Always choose to pay in the local currency. This way you'll get a good exchange rate, and avoid any hidden fees or markups that get added when converting into sterling.
Dynamic currency conversion is a service some providers and ATMs offer, that lets you pay in your home currency rather than the local one. While it sounds great, it costs more than paying in the local currency. The upside to dynamic currency is you'll know exactly how much you're paying in GBP.
To get a better deal, decline the conversion and stick with paying in the local currency.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on your Algbra app when you’re abroad. You can check each transaction to make sure it has been converted to the local currency at the rate you were expecting to pay.
Head into the app, tap on a transaction and check the “Amount we converted”.
If something looks wrong, contact us. We might be able to help you raise a chargeback.
When it comes to currency exchange rates, not all cards are made equal. So make sure your Algbra card’s the first thing you pack when you’re getting ready to go on holiday. Haven’t got one yet? Then sign up here. You can get a virtual card that you can start using straight away.
None whatsoever. Whenever you use your Algbra card abroad to pay in the local currency, we’ll charge you the Mastercard Exchange rate. And that’s it. There are no hidden fees and we don’t sneak a commission in on top, either.
Just use it. You don’t have to worry about letting us know you’re going away. Your card will work, wherever, whenever.
Getting the Mastercard Exchange rate’s good. Earning cashback at the same time is even better. Take your Algbra card with you to keep on earning cashback on your everyday spending – even when you’re on holiday.
![\"Travelling](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/travel-card/travel-card-1.png\")
Holiday in style with the coolest card around. And get a great exchange rate. Download Algbra today to make your holiday even more rewarding.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"836","url":"/s3-storage/travel_card_main_d7a8c5c5f8.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/cb1ec28e330853b365c3a5114ca7efd4/445d2/travel_card_main_d7a8c5c5f8.webp","srcSet":"/static/cb1ec28e330853b365c3a5114ca7efd4/b3ba1/travel_card_main_d7a8c5c5f8.webp 750w,\n/static/cb1ec28e330853b365c3a5114ca7efd4/445d2/travel_card_main_d7a8c5c5f8.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"150","slug":"algbra-and-reset-connect","title":"Money makes the world go round – event recap.","date":"2023-05-10T09:00:00.000Z","content":"On Wednesday 3 May, a full house joined us and Reset Connect to learn how money makes the world go round. Here’s how the night unfolded.
How we manage our money today determines the society of tomorrow. We need a better financial system to solve the climate and social issues we’re facing. But building that system will take cooperation. Cooperation from cross-sector industries, and public/private sector cooperation, too.
That’s why we partnered with Reset Connect again. On Wednesday, 3 May 2023, we welcomed a full house to our second event – Money makes the world go round: the importance of sustainable and values-led finance.
On the night, we were joined by a diverse panel of experts, each with a unique perspective:
Leading the discussion was Algbra’s very own CSO, Nizam Uddin, OBE.
Before diving into a conversation laced with insight into the importance of sustainable and values-led finance, we kicked things off in style. The Hidden Relationship, a two-minute (viral) video produced by Make My Money Matter, stars Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie of Games of Thrones. The thought-provoking piece highlights the complexity between finance and the environment – a perfect conversation starter for our evening.
Then our panel got down to business. We’ve broken down the evening’s main talking points below.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/reset-connect/reset-connect-sub-2.png\")
We kicked-off by discussing how to start, accelerate or scale an ESG journey. And the big takeaway was clear.
The best way to start is, simply, to start. Because in the climate change battle, every second counts. And so does every good action. So get going, no matter how small your efforts may seem.
For organisations looking to start their journey, our panel reminded us that although ESG strategies can feel overwhelming, it’s easier than you think to get the ball rolling. And even if you’re not required to have an ESG strategy yet, pressure and regulations (like Sustainability Disclosure Requirements [SDRs]) are already knocking at your door.
A great, free way to begin is with your B-Corp Impact Assessment. It gives you a good idea of where you are and, more importantly, provides steps you could take to improve your governance and impact.
Our panel revealed ESG is going mainstream. It’s now normal to consider environmental and social risks during the investment process. But we need more. We need to move toward investments that make a positive societal impact, not just minimise negative effects.
Our panel agreed that corporations and financial service providers all talk a good game. But it’s time for governments to step in and do more of the hard stuff. Because there’s a difference between talking a good game and playing one.
After all, consumers are increasingly consuming in line with their values. With that in mind, corporations must start taking people pressure more seriously.
But for words to turn into action, regulation is key. We also need to see ratings tools converging – to stop cherry-picking and provide more comparability. While there may be differences between internal and external business stakeholders and their agendas, there are enough similarities to make collaboration effective.
The panel highlighted that marginalised communities are disproportionately affected by climate change. As we move to a green economy, we must prioritise their needs to ensure that transition is equitable as well as sustainable.
Without a Just Transition, we won’t have a transition at all. We can’t axe industries and jobs within communities without offering alternatives. The green transition is an opportunity for both the economy and society (a point missed by the UK’s Levelling Up Agenda).
On the international stage, it’s essential to consider the question of how can a green transition ensure economic growth and job opportunities for everyone. The need for a green economy cannot come at the expense of socio-economic development. Financing must be provided to help leapfrog the typical development trajectories and provide large-scale investment in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/reset-connect/reset-connect-sub-1.png\")
Money really does make the world go round. To create a more equitable and sustainable society, we must consider how we spend, save and invest. Greening your banking and pension (and telling your company to do the same) is one of, if not the most, impactful things you can do.
We want to take the opportunity to say thank you one last time to all our panellists. Not only for their insights but for the work they do in their daily lives, too. Each of them is working towards creating a balanced, thriving society and net-zero society.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"832","url":"/s3-storage/reset_connect_main_ff2efe3f67.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#e8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/252fb55a9ac64b21ab2cf70aae3977ce/445d2/reset_connect_main_ff2efe3f67.webp","srcSet":"/static/252fb55a9ac64b21ab2cf70aae3977ce/b3ba1/reset_connect_main_ff2efe3f67.webp 750w,\n/static/252fb55a9ac64b21ab2cf70aae3977ce/445d2/reset_connect_main_ff2efe3f67.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"149","slug":"what-are-virtual-cards-and-how-do-they-work","title":"What are virtual cards and how do they work?","date":"2023-04-18T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Think of a virtual card as a debit card you can’t touch. “But why would I want one of those?” we hear you cry. Here’s the skinny.
When your entire life’s on your phone, having a physical card in your wallet can feel a bit extra. That’s if you even have an actual wallet at all. Virtual cards are the digital native’s answer to a 20th-century issue; the plastic problem.
A virtual card is exactly like a physical debit card. Except it’s not physical…
The easiest way to get your head around a virtual card is to imagine it as a card that lives in your phone. And is even safer than the retro one that’s in your wallet.
We’ll get into exactly how they’re safer in a bit, but for now, it’s good to know virtual cards have their own:
And you don’t have to worry about memorising any of it, or your details falling into the wrong hands. Because all that info’s always on hand, secured in your banking app.
Before we get into “how they work”, it’s good to know that there are three types of electronic card available right now; virtual, digital and disposable. And they each work in a slightly different way. Here’s the TL;DR on what you need to know.
Virtual cards are debit cards that live in your phone. You can use them to pay online or make contactless payments in-store (by adding them to your phone’s wallet app). They have their own unique card details (like card number and expiration date), too.
Digital cards are exact copies of your physical card that are stored in your phone. They use the same card details as the one that lives in your wallet.
Disposable cards are single-use virtual cards. After you’ve used one to check out online, it gets “destroyed”. This means you can’t use that disposable card again. Ever. But you can generate a new, single-use disposable card.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/virtual-card/virtual-card-1.png\")
Almost anywhere. You can use them to check out online (just like you would with a physical card) and in stores, too. You can even use them to spend in apps.
To use them IRL, you have to add your virtual card to your phone’s wallet app, and turn on NFC (that’s tech talk. It means near-field communication). Then you just tap your phone to pay.
Your phone will ask for your biometrics (or passcode) to make sure it’s really you paying. This helps to keep your money safe. It also means you can spend more than the £100 contactless limit – because your account provider knows that it’s definitely you checking out.
Virtual cards are just as easy to use as physical debit cards.
If you want to buy something online, all you have to do is fill in your virtual card’s details, like you would with a physical card.
Checking out in person’s easy, too. Add your card to your phone’s wallet app and then tap to pay. There’s no rummaging through your bag, looking for your wallet any more.
Virtual cards are quick, safe and environmentally friendly, too.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/virtual-card/virtual-card-2.png\")
Virtual cards are just as safe as regular debit cards. They might be even safer. Because they can’t be stolen or “skimmed” (this is a type of financial scam where fraudsters use a card reader to get ahold of your debit card information). And you can’t lose a virtual card, either. Because it lives in your money app. So you don’t have to worry about leaving it behind anywhere.
No. And yes.
Some virtual cards are “disposable”. This means they can only be used once. Disposable cards are great for shopping through a website you haven’t used before, or if you want to sign up for a service without fully committing.
But other virtual debit cards work in the same way as your physical ones. They have an expiration date and can be used until then. And when you reach that date, all you have to do is generate a new one.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/virtual-card/virtual-card-3.png\")
As they don’t require any physical materials to make, virtual cards are much more environmentally friendly than old-school debit cards. They don’t need any plastics, metals or other resources to produce, so straight away they make your money a bit more green.
Let’s be real – it’s a rare occasion when we leave the house without our phone these days. A wallet’s just an extra thing to carry and keep track of. If your debit card’s digital, you can leave your wallet at home and use your phone to pay for everything you need.
Imagine someone, somehow has managed to get your virtual card details. With Algbra, you don’t have to worry. Because you can use the app to instantly freeze your card to stop them from using it. Without contacting us. (TBF, you can freeze your physical Algbra card too. Just sayin’.)
Can’t wait for the postman to deliver the hottest biodegradable card around? With a virtual card, that’s not an issue. You can start using your Algbra account instantly – and start earning cashback on your everyday spending. And offsetting your carbon footprint, too.
Algbra’s 100% biodegradable cards are hot property. But our virtual cards are even more eco-friendly. And they’re so easy to get started with.
When you’re opening your Algbra account, you can choose whether you want a physical card or a virtual one that lives in your phone. You can get one later too. To order a virtual Algbra card:
It’s that easy to get an Algbra virtual card.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/virtual-card/virtual-card-4.png\")
Ready to make your money a little greener? Then sign up to Algbra. Download the app to see and offset your spending’s carbon footprint. And earn up to 1.5% cashback on your everyday spending. Get started with a virtual card today.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"821","url":"/s3-storage/virtual_card_main_81a3669c4e.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/9ce0714307eb7dfcca1e0c02a5ca58f3/445d2/virtual_card_main_81a3669c4e.webp","srcSet":"/static/9ce0714307eb7dfcca1e0c02a5ca58f3/b3ba1/virtual_card_main_81a3669c4e.webp 750w,\n/static/9ce0714307eb7dfcca1e0c02a5ca58f3/445d2/virtual_card_main_81a3669c4e.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"148","slug":"seven-principles-for-implementing-the-consumer-duty","title":"7 principles for implementing the Consumer Duty","date":"2023-03-16T09:00:00.000Z","content":"The Financial Conduct Authority’s new Consumer Duty is all about delivering good outcomes for customers. Here’s how Algbra’s implementing it.
Here at Algbra, we’re obsessed with providing exceptional customer service and experience. So the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Consumer Duty is another opportunity for us to double down on what we do best.
The Consumer Duty is a new FCA requirement that’s coming in on 31 July 2023. It means FCA-regulated firms (like us) need to deliver ‘good outcomes’ for our customers. We already aim to do that – but the FCA has also set out lots of rules on what companies should do to comply with its Consumer Duty. This is a great chance for us to look at how we do things and how we can improve even more.
We have 7 principles for how to apply the Consumer Duty.
The Consumer Duty is a big change in the FCA’s approach to regulation. It’s an opportunity for us to do what we do best, but even better.
World Wildlife Day is a celebration of our planet’s entire ecosystem. But it’s also a warning; it’s a reminder that our species' survival is intertwined with our wildlife. Here’s the scoop.
Growing up, we were taught elephants were being hunted for ivory, pandas were endangered and polar bears were on the brink of extinction. But it was a passing conversation. It had a “once they’re gone, they’re gone” vibe to it, which didn’t press home the ramifications of truly losing these animals. And the plights of less picturesque species were ignored altogether.
World Wildlife Day aims to start those conversations properly.
World Wildlife Day is held on 3 March annually to celebrate the day the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was signed in 1973. What is it, though? It’s a celebration of our planet’s wildlife. Its goal is to raise awareness of the importance of conserving wildlife and their habitats and to promote global efforts to protect endangered species.
While it can feel like there’s an “International Day” for just about everything, World Wildlife Day is relatively overlooked when it should be one of the most important.
At its heart, World Wildlife Day is all about highlighting the importance of biodiversity to our continued survival.
Right now, over 42,100 species are threatened with extinction. That’s 28% of all the species assessed. And today’s rate of extinction is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it should be naturally. And all of that is down to human activity.
While losing “one” species may not sound that bad, we’re at real risk of causing an “extinction domino effect”. The impacts of that would be much larger than just losing a greetings-card-worthy animal.
It could lead to an uninhabitable planet. That’s why World Wildlife Day matters.
World Wildlife Day 2023’s theme is \"Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet\". This year, the focus is on the critical role of forests in sustaining the livelihoods of millions of people around the world and the role they play in maintaining the planet's ecological balance. There will be lots of events happening across the world, which you can join in with.
Social and environmental sustainability is core to the Algbra movement. Any funds you have in your Algbra account will never be used to harm people or the planet. And with Algbra, you can offset your carbon footprint into projects that help reverse the loss of biodiversity and prevent the destruction of ecosystems. Doing this can have a significant, positive impact on the long-term sustainability of our planet.
World Wildlife Day is a vital event on the global calendar. It brings the importance of biodiversity and ecosystems to the public consciousness. These problems aren’t solved in a single day – but by championing them, we help raise awareness, and can make a difference. One person at a time.
Download Algbra today, join the movement and start making a more sustainable world.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"695","url":"/s3-storage/world_wildlife_day_banner_079afb455f.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/9326e99bf60c1dd0935a92cd64339174/1bd63/world_wildlife_day_banner_079afb455f.webp","srcSet":"/static/9326e99bf60c1dd0935a92cd64339174/b3ba1/world_wildlife_day_banner_079afb455f.webp 750w,\n/static/9326e99bf60c1dd0935a92cd64339174/aabaf/world_wildlife_day_banner_079afb455f.webp 1080w,\n/static/9326e99bf60c1dd0935a92cd64339174/d0f53/world_wildlife_day_banner_079afb455f.webp 1366w,\n/static/9326e99bf60c1dd0935a92cd64339174/1bd63/world_wildlife_day_banner_079afb455f.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"120","slug":"the-pros-and-cons-of-a-cashless-society","title":"The pros and cons of a cashless society","date":"2023-02-14T13:00:00.000Z","content":"As we move towards a cashless society, there’s less money in our wallets. Is that a bad thing?
A cashless society is one where physical coins and banknotes aren’t used in financial transactions. Many wallets only contain payment cards these days. Because all around the world, people, businesses and entire countries are going cashless. They’re not ditching money, though. They’re ushering in a new era of emoney by waving bye-bye to notes and coins. Will they get their money’s worth? Here are the pros and cons of a cashless society…
Ever had to break into a tenner because you were a couple of pence short? Or found your wallet bursting at the seams from too much loose change? Worst of all, been stuck behind that guy who holds everyone up as he pays for everything with change…?
A cashless world could solve all your problems. With digital payments, you always have the right amount to hand, so there’s no more digging for coins and no more waiting. You can check out with a tap and don’t even need your wallet, because your cards are on your phone.
Budgeting can be easier with physical cash. You can lay it out and sort it into pots to keep you from overspending.
It’s easier to overdo it when you can check out with a tap. But with physical cash, you can only spend the money you have on you. Unless you borrow or withdraw more, of course…
There’s a reason bad guys in films get paid in cash-stuffed briefcases... Because cash makes crime easier. Bank robberies, burglaries, extortion and corruption plummet when physical cash is harder to come by (according to Swift Money).
When cash is stolen from your wallet, it’s gone. But if your card’s missing, you can block it from your mobile banking app. With Algbra, you can log into the app and freeze your card immediately, wherever you are.
Criminals like cash, because it’s untraceable (thanks, Access to Cash Review). But digital payments leave a trail, which can make fraudsters think twice.
In 2016, the ECB announced it would stop producing €500 banknotes to limit fraud and money laundering. Cashless payments help prevent money laundering, as they remove the opportunity for circulating fake notes.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/cashless-society/algbra-physical-card.png\")
When money’s involved, crooks are never too far behind. Cybercriminals are smooth operators, with cunning ploys like:
These schemes can come in all shapes and sizes, and change all the time. As our money becomes increasingly digital, their window of opportunity widens. Looking to stay safe online? Check out the National Crime Agency website.
The move towards a cashless society can increase financial inclusion because mobile money accounts are so easy to open, unlike traditional bank accounts.
They aren’t just simple to set up – they make people's lives easier, especially in developing countries. In Bangladesh, for example, mobile money accounts enabled almost 50% of adults to send or receive a digital payment in 2021.
In the UK, digital finance apps have also brought more people into the financial system. According to the World Bank, 99% of UK adults made or received a digital payment in 2021.
This is because of how easy it is to open an account. Take Algbra – all you need to open an account in minutes is a UK mobile number and a valid ID document.
A cashless society is all well and good – until your internet drops out. Digital payments could leave some people behind, like those in areas where the internet is less accessible, or people who aren’t as tech-savvy as the Gen Zers out there.
If there was to be a widespread blackout, accessing your money would become a real problem.
As a society, we’re becoming increasingly reliant on technology. And as we edge toward a cashless future, financial literacy is more important than ever. That’s why Algbra created Chai Mama – an open space for women to talk about finance and learn from financial professionals.
Going cashless is better for the planet (and we’re all about creating a sustainable future). Each debit card transaction contributes just 0.00378 kgCO2e to climate change. That means cashless transactions have a minor impact on the planet. Cash? It has a colossal carbon footprint, given the:
Cashless isn’t without its issues, though. Some payment cards are made from PVC – which produces tonnes of GHG emissions and doesn’t biodegrade.
Thankfully, Algbra’s physical cards are fully biodegradable and the virtual ones are, well, virtual.
![\"Algbra](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/cashless-society/algbra-freeze-card.png\")
Ever wanted to give a few coins to a charity collection box, but didn’t have any change? At these times, physical cash is handy, because you can easily donate whatever you can spare. Recently, we’ve seen charity fundraisers carrying a contactless card reader alongside the more traditional collection box. A glimpse of the future?
Sorting out your finances can be a nightmare when you’re trying to find an ATM or bureau de change abroad. Things only get worse when you realise they’ve ripped you off. Payment cards (like Algbra) make your trip easier because they use Mastercard, which is globally accepted.
With exchange rates, not all payment cards are born equal. When you buy something abroad (or online) in a foreign currency, some banks add a mark-up to the exchange rate.
With your Algbra card, you’ll always receive the Mastercard Exchange rate – without any extra fees or charges. These great exchange rates could add up to an extra meal on your next holiday. Tasty.
Weird as this sounds, cash looks cool. Dollars, euros or rupees make a great keepsake from a trip. Banknotes can feature beautiful designs that tell you more about a country’s culture.
It’s still big news when a new note is launched (think back to when the Bank of England added Alan Turing to the £50 note).
And was there a better feeling than finding a cheeky fiver from Nan in your birthday card? Creating those memories will be a lot harder in a cashless future.
Whether you’re already cashless or clinging firmly to your coin collection, money is changing. You can stay ahead of the curve by downloading Algbra today.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":"Algbra","newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"664","url":"/s3-storage/Cashless_Cover_2c2629b74f.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#080808","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/1683c4346dde1fcd2fe4a31de68715d4/1bd63/Cashless_Cover_2c2629b74f.webp","srcSet":"/static/1683c4346dde1fcd2fe4a31de68715d4/b3ba1/Cashless_Cover_2c2629b74f.webp 750w,\n/static/1683c4346dde1fcd2fe4a31de68715d4/aabaf/Cashless_Cover_2c2629b74f.webp 1080w,\n/static/1683c4346dde1fcd2fe4a31de68715d4/d0f53/Cashless_Cover_2c2629b74f.webp 1366w,\n/static/1683c4346dde1fcd2fe4a31de68715d4/1bd63/Cashless_Cover_2c2629b74f.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"119","slug":"five-tips-for-a-sustainable-valentine-s-day","title":"5 tips for a sustainable Valentine’s Day","date":"2023-02-08T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Love is strawberries, roses and romance. It’s red. But Valentine’s Day isn’t the greenest day imaginable. How do you have a sustainable Valentine’s Day and show your feelings without it costing the earth?
It won’t come as any surprise that unrecycled paper, shrink-wrapped chocolates and imported flowers aren’t the most environmentally friendly things you could treat your partner to on Valentine’s Day. But that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate each other on 14/2.
We’ve pulled together 5 eco-friendly ideas on how to have a sustainable Valentine’s Day. So why not give them a go this year to show your partner how much you love them (and the planet too).
![\"How](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/valentines-day/valenties-day-subimage.png\")
Is there anything more romantic than receiving a beautiful bouquet? But when most of those are grown overseas, they come with a thorn in their side. And while you could surprise your sweetheart with locally grown cut flowers this year, you have to remember they’re going to die sooner rather than later (unlike your love).
So, get them something that’ll last the distance, like a succulent, houseplant or, even better, a tree. It’ll help capture carbon – and remind them of you every time they water it.
Unlike a sweat-shop teddy bear, memories last forever. So spend the day doing something you wouldn’t normally. If they fancy themselves a culinary whizz, book a cookery class. If they think they’re hilarious, get them to put their funny where their mouth is at an improv session.
Whatever you land on, it’ll be a chance for you to bond, chat and maybe even learn something new. Like who the funny one actually is.
While they may love that French bistro in town, what they’ll love even more is you going to the effort of making them their very favourite meal. From scratch. With local ingredients. Which you may or may not feel the need to drop into the conversation every five minutes.
Spend the evening cooking together, talking and laughing after you sauté something that should have been seared… (Pro tip: consider having the local takeaway’s menu to hand)
If you buy a gift, it’s hard to avoid packaging. So why not show your love by making a donation to their favourite charity, contributing to a carbon offsetting programme or supporting a biodiversity project?
All in their name, of course.
If you think it wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without hearts, cupids and kisses, you can still treat your partner to the staples without it being grounds for environmental divorce. As long as you do some research before splashing out.
If you care about the impact your money has, it’ll be love at first sight with Algbra. Our app helps you put your money where your values are. Download it today to start making your money green, and help limit your impact on the earth.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":"Algbra","newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"662","url":"/s3-storage/Valentine_day_8afff858c7.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8e8e8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/d6b7c1553ea1482defe304343e34cb5c/1bd63/Valentine_day_8afff858c7.webp","srcSet":"/static/d6b7c1553ea1482defe304343e34cb5c/b3ba1/Valentine_day_8afff858c7.webp 750w,\n/static/d6b7c1553ea1482defe304343e34cb5c/aabaf/Valentine_day_8afff858c7.webp 1080w,\n/static/d6b7c1553ea1482defe304343e34cb5c/d0f53/Valentine_day_8afff858c7.webp 1366w,\n/static/d6b7c1553ea1482defe304343e34cb5c/1bd63/Valentine_day_8afff858c7.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"115","slug":"an-intro-to-carbon-offsetting","title":"An intro to carbon offsetting","date":"2023-01-30T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Climate change and action is desperately needed. But with so much jargon flying around, it can be hard to know what things mean. Here’s a quick guide to carbon offsetting.
Human activity is heating the earth up. Quickly. While that might sound great for long, balmy summers, it’s less than ideal for fostering an inhabitable planet… In 2022, the UK recorded its hottest year ever. And, according to NASA brainboxes, the last nine years have been the warmest yet. We’re fast approaching the point of no return for climate action.
While it’s not the solution to the climate crisis, carbon offsetting could help get us back on track. But what is it, how does it work and how can it help in the fight against climate change?
Carbon offsetting looks to avoid, reduce or remove the impact of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions you can’t avoid producing. How? Through verified environmental conservation, energy efficiency or renewable energy projects, like reforestation initiatives.
Imagine you have to fly for work. Unless you can sprout wings, you’re going to take a plane. And planes are notoriously bad for the environment – with aviation contributing about 4% of human-created global warming.
Your journey will create CO2e emissions – but you can buy a “carbon credit” to offset those somewhere else. So, in theory, your flight’s now carbon neutral. Possibly even carbon negative.
Essentially, carbon offsetting projects can be split into two categories:
And these can be subdivided into technology-based or nature-based approaches.
There’s a level of nuance to all this, so let’s break it down.
Avoidance offsets involve projects that, shockingly, avoid releasing GHGs.
Pretend you run a solar farm that doesn’t create any CO2e emissions. You can create a “carbon credit” to sell to another company that does release GHGs. It can use that credit to offset its emissions and become carbon neutral.
No. And yes.
Avoidance projects can be tricky. Say your company avoids emitting 1,000 tonnes of GHGs, and sells a credit to a company that produces 1,000 tonnes of CO2e and is making no attempt to alter its practices. Then yep – greenwashing.
Ideally, avoidance projects shouldn’t be taken in isolation. But something is better than nothing. Had your project not existed, then even more GHG would have been released.
These carbon offsetting projects look to lower the amount of CO2e in our atmosphere. They work by actively capturing existing carbon and permanently storing it outside the atmosphere.
Technology-based offsetting projects innovate and improve infrastructure to lower GHG emissions, prevent methane leakage (which is crucial, as methane is about 30x more potent than CO2), and provide clean energy to homes.
Some solutions, like “bioenergy with carbon capture and storage” (BECCS), capture and store CO2 permanently to generate renewable energy. And CO2 stored through direct air capture projects can be resold for use in food and beverage production, creating a sustainable man-made carbon cycle..
Direct investments in new solar projects or wind farms also use technological advancements to offset carbon dioxide emissions.
![\"\"](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/intro-carbon-offsetting/carbon-offsetting-1.png\")
Nature-based projects use plants, trees, soil or the ocean to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Tree planting (or reforestation) is an excellent way to protect biodiversity and reduce emissions.
Biodiversity loss is a key environmental issue, and nature-based offsetting projects look to protect existing ecosystems as well as reduce emissions.
Nature-based solutions could be key to balancing the equation, as deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for about 15% of all GHG emissions. These contribute to global warming, changing weather patterns and the increased frequency of climate catastrophes.
There are lots of high-quality, certified carbon offsetting projects in the UK, like a reforestation project in Northern Scotland. It expects to remove 29,000 tonnes of CO2e over its lifetime by planting a mix of native broadleaf trees and conifer that are well-suited to the local climate. These local tree species also enhance the biodiversity of plants and wildlife in the area – which has previously suffered from overgrazing.
Carbon offsetting projects in the UK are often more expensive than those in developing countries. With Algbra, you can support this project and other important initiatives across the globe.
It’s looking increasingly likely that the average global temperature will reach the pivotal level of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels in the next five years. Carbon offsetting can help us reduce emissions and avert catastrophe.
It also combats key issues, like deforestation and biodiversity loss. Around 67% of mangrove, 35% of saltmarshes and 29% of seagrass meadows have already been lost globally, while the UN estimates that around one billion acres of forest have been lost since 1990.
We urgently need to protect these natural habitats which are so vital to carbon reduction.
While it's not a fix-all solution to the climate crisis (as we need to produce fewer emissions altogether), it is a crucial way of compensating for the emissions we cannot avoid.
Carbon offsetting projects vary in quality and price. The Gold Standard is a voluntary carbon offset scheme focused on progressing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) and ensuring that projects benefit local communities.
Low-quality carbon offsetting projects are cheaper, but unverified. They often fail to provide measurable evidence of carbon removal or emissions avoidance. As such, they have little positive impact, and purchasing these carbon credits is (justifiably) seen as greenwashing.
Quality carbon credits are purchased in voluntary carbon markets, usually by organisations, for voluntary objectives rather than to comply with legally-binding reduction targets.
Voluntary carbon markets are growing fast, driven by increased demand for carbon offsetting. But not all carbon credits are high quality, and the Climate Change Committee – the UK’s independent statutory body which advises the government on climate change – has warned that stronger guidance, regulation and standards are needed if the voluntary carbon market is to ensure transparency, and compatibility with carbon neutrality objectives.
![\"\"](\"https://app-static.algbra.com/blogs/intro-carbon-offsetting/carbon-offsetting-2.png\")
Algbra’s carbon tracking feature helps you measure your carbon footprint against the CO2e that you have offset. To calculate your emissions, we use a cloud-based impact service based on the Aland Index for CO2e and H₂O calculations for all digital financial transactions.
We combine a detailed algorithm with data from the transaction, merchant and business category that most closely aligns with your purchase. This gives you the best possible picture for each transaction, helping you to understand your general carbon footprint and make better informed financial decisions.
One of the easiest ways to have a global-positive impact is to track and offset your carbon footprint. Algbra offers a diverse portfolio of projects to cover all our users’ identities, values and financial capacities.
We prioritise projects in developing countries because they are disproportionately affected by climate-change related disasters, despite contributing the least to them. By doing so, Algbra is contributing towards a Just Transition in which no community is left behind.
We’re looking to make finances fair and ethical. Download the Algbra app on Android and iOS to tackle climate change today.
How much carbon does a tree offset?
Ecotree estimates that a tree absorbs approximately 25kg of CO2 per year, but can absorb anywhere between 10kg and 40kg per year depending on the tree’s growth and size.
Does planting trees offset carbon?
Yes. With Algbra you can support reforestation projects across the globe.
Is carbon offsetting greenwashing?
Low-quality carbon offsetting projects are cheaper, but unverified. They often don’t provide measurable evidence of carbon removal or emissions avoidance. As such, they have little positive impact, and purchasing these carbon credits is justifiably seen as greenwashing.
But Algbra only uses high-quality, certified projects, so you can be sure you’re making an actual difference when you offset through our app.
Are carbon offsets tax deductible?
It’s complicated, and legal positions vary between jurisdictions. It’s best to ask an expert to get a definitive answer for your personal circumstances.
Can you carbon offset a flight?
You sure can. With Algbra, you can measure the carbon footprint of every transaction, including flights, before offsetting it.
Did you use your Algbra card to buy presents over the Holidays and some of them never arrived or you’ve been sent the wrong item? We can help by raising a chargeback for you!
The first step, of course, is to contact the shop or merchant to ask for a refund. If you have tried that but have been unsuccessful, you can reach out to one of our experts who will raise a chargeback for you so we can try to help you to get your money back.
In very simple terms, a chargeback is the process performed by your card issuer, after a customer disputes the transaction made on their card for goods or service. The card issuer will reach out to the merchant with evidence provided by the customer so that the payment amount is returned to a debit or credit card.
A chargeback can be raised to dispute a transaction if you find yourself in any of these situations (and in many others).
The more evidence and documentation the better! If you have been unsuccessful obtaining a refund from the merchant, we will request specific documentation in line with Mastercard’s Rules and Regulations
In order for us to help you most effectively and for your claim to be successful, we need as much information as you can provide. This can include:
Our Dispute experts will help you every step of the way and will advise on exactly which documentation is needed.
If you don’t have all of the information required, don’t worry - still reach out to us with a Chargeback claim and we will see how we can assist.
As the dust begins to settle on COP27, leaders in government, business and civil society must now deliver on well-publicised promises. The conference underlined the urgent need to address the social and environmental issues that impede the transition to a more equitable, empowered and sustainable world. A Just Transition – the process by which a balanced, thriving and net-zero society is achieved without increasing existing socio-economic inequalities – should be our collective goal. But is it achievable?
It’s 2022 and the key environmental metrics of our planet make sobering reading. We have just reached the milestone of a global population of 8 billion, and yet global inequality is rising, pushing wealth disparities back to early 20th Century levels. Currently, the richest 10% of people own 76% of total wealth, while the poorest half of the population owns just 2% of this overall share. Concurrently, it is increasingly likely that global temperature will reach the pivotal level of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels in the next five years, while wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69% in the past 50 years.
Business impact strategies often overlook the fact that climate change disproportionately affects marginalised communities – the very people who make the smallest contribution to the problem. If these groups are not prioritised in the transition towards net-zero, we risk exacerbating existing inequalities.
On the eve of COP27, UN Secretary General António Guterres explained the stark reality that we all face today:
“Humanity has a choice: cooperate, or perish.”
The problem of greenwashing has shown us all that actions speak louder than words. The increasing focus on ESG in business indicates some level of progress, but further cooperation and holistic thinking is needed. Fundamentally, we must realise that social issues are interconnected to the climate and ecological crises, and that the creation of a more sustainable society could – and should – create a more empowered and equitable society for everyone.
In recognition of the key role business can play in achieving a Just Transition, Algbra and Reset Connect – the UK’s leading sustainability and net-zero event – joined forces to bring together a panel of industry leaders for a progressive, pragmatic and lively discussion on this important topic. Some of the evening’s key themes are explored below.
Erinch Sahan of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) emphasised the need to transform our business structures if we are to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. He introduced the recently-released Doughnut Design for Business tool – a pragmatic guide that shows businesses how they can become regenerative and distributive in their strategies, operations and impacts. Such tools can help us to overcome the ‘take, make, use, lose’ model, which captures the essence of the degenerative yet enduring system of fossil fuel extraction.
The role of finance was at the heart of the event’s discussions and was described as pivotal in facilitating the Just Transition. While investment into renewable energy is growing, fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks reached USD $4.6 trillion in the five years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement (2016-2022). This reveals that much of the global finance community is still some way from recognising the urgent need for decarbonisation, and highlights the need for them to support the sustainable development of global communities through distributive and regenerative projects.
David Krivanek of the Impact Investing Institute highlighted the key role played by investors, suggesting that the largest investment institutions should be held to account over their ESG impact. Crucially, David is observing positive trends of investors and governments being increasingly focused on their social and environmental impact, and predicts that this will continue.
Cansu Deniz Bayrak, Partner at Europe’s leading early stage impact-driven VC, Bethnal Green Ventures, and Jocelyn Tasker of Octopus Electric Vehicles both firmly believe that businesses do not need to compromise their ethics and impact in order to be successful. Jocelyn also underlined the commercial importance of ethical alignment, emphasising how Octopus Electric Vehicles matches its values with those of its clients, driving us toward a cleaner, greener, and more affordable future.
Whilst businesses clearly have more work to do, individuals can also make a crucial, tangible difference. Notably, Cansu pointed out that the largest carbon footprint of most individuals comes from their pension investments. We feel that this should catalyse a call to action: each of us has agency in achieving a Just Transition, so let’s make investment choices that align with our values and goals, on both a professional and personal level.
To achieve a Just Transition, businesses must see social and environmental goals as inextricably intertwined. We will also need societal collaboration between businesses, NGOs, governments and individuals. At the heart of this transition lies the pharmakon that is finance – this will either be the poison or the cure depending on what values it is built on. Money makes the world go round – how we choose to manage our money today will determine our tomorrow. To ensure that finance creates a more balanced and sustainable world, we must create impact-driven alternatives that do not require consumers and organisations to compromise on quality or price. This will ensure that they are internationally competitive, and can be adopted at a scale that would generate meaningful, structural change. At Algbra, our goal is to create the world’s most ethical financial institution.
Join us in contributing to a Just Transition by downloading the Algbra app on Android and iOS today.
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We recognise the intersectionality of those local and global communities that, despite contributing the least to climate change, are often most affected by it. Such communities are also disproportionately benefiting the least from their financial services. It’s why, with a focus on underserved communities, we are leading a new movement of values and lifestyle-based banking that is defining the next evolution of financial services.
We are committed to undertaking a systemic approach to tackle issues that prevent the full economic and social progress of underserved communities, via our community partnerships focusing on the themes of arts, culture and sports. Such partnerships – fuelled by a commitment of 10% of all profits going to community efforts - have been prioritised in response to a historical lack of investment in these spaces, and to outline the importance of nurturing representation and excellence across society. It is also why we invest in youth leadership opportunities, to enable a new generation to go and create future enabling environments for change.
Algbra Values
What makes our policy unique, is its compliance with both Environmental, Social and Governance standards, social impact best practices as well as Shariah standards. These standards reflect our mission of building an inclusive financial system that emphasises fairness, social welfare, and shared prosperity. We are taking a ‘whole-organisation’ approach meaning this policy will cover not only our Governance but also our employees and workplace as well as our entire supply chain and partners.
The full policy will be available on our website in the coming weeks.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"544","url":"/s3-storage/values_525959e19c.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/bd05484af578b1116dbd7a19da964c7c/1bd63/values_525959e19c.webp","srcSet":"/static/bd05484af578b1116dbd7a19da964c7c/b3ba1/values_525959e19c.webp 750w,\n/static/bd05484af578b1116dbd7a19da964c7c/aabaf/values_525959e19c.webp 1080w,\n/static/bd05484af578b1116dbd7a19da964c7c/d0f53/values_525959e19c.webp 1366w,\n/static/bd05484af578b1116dbd7a19da964c7c/1bd63/values_525959e19c.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"87","slug":"climate-catastrophes-at-our-doorstep","title":"Climate catastrophes: at our doorstep","date":"2022-09-22T09:00:00.000Z","content":"We are not as far removed from Pakistan’s floods as we may think
Flood risks currently affect 1.81 billion people, with 70% of people exposed living in South and East Asia. Around sixteen football pitches of trees per minute were lost to forest fires in 2021, with the fires becoming twice as frequent and severe as they had been twenty years ago. Rising global temperature is diminishing agricultural productivity, with land in Spain, Italy, Greece, the Sahel, and western North America being at high risk of desertification. Extreme weather is thought to cause the loss of 167 million homes globally by 2040. This summer, the world saw concurrent heatwaves that claimed thousands of lives, with 40.3°C reached in the UK for the first time ever.
These are just some of the effects of climate catastrophes experienced within the last year, and that we can continue to anticipate.
The recent floods in Pakistan have impacted 33 million people and submerged a third of the country. Think half the entire population of the UK and the entire island (and then some) under water, and this is only the most recent addition in a growing list of ‘natural’ disasters.
But the floods, fires, hurricanes, and heatwaves we once called natural, and could previously dismiss as being ‘way over there’ are now neither of those things. Recent events such as record breaking temperatures and a drought so severe that dead grass and dried up rivers could be seen from space show the direct impact climate change is having on the UK. The droughts alone had a knock on effect on farming and agriculture, and subsequently, food prices and quality in the midst of an already challenging cost of living crisis. While studies indicate that not only are these catastrophic events caused by human behaviour, they are also disproportionately contributed to by ‘developed’ nations, while ‘developing’ nations foot the very physical, life-threatening, and almost irreversible bill.
Top climate contributors include: the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Russia, and Germany - all countries with some of the most influential global decision makers with the power to address the issue of climate change on an international scale, as well as having the greatest responsibility to hold themselves accountable.
While these nations, amongst others, congregate regularly at summits and conferences, to speak of the need for ‘meaningful and effective actions’ on climate change they have been criticised as lacking ambition. Take the Paris Agreement, drawn up in 2015 with the central aim to limit global temperature rise well below two degrees. Yet seven years later, fossil fuel financing by the world’s 60 major banks has reached $4.6 trillion, with $742 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2021 alone. World leaders have reached a consensus on the aim of reaching ‘net zero’ by mid-century but climate scientists have stressed that this reduces the urgency to act. While we can limit some of the worst effects of climate change through major action, reversing global warming seems to be out of the question.
There’s no longer a question of whether or not extreme weather is just a part of the natural order of things and something we can barely understand let alone control. Our actions, as nations and individuals, are having a measurable and palpable impact. Limiting the looming disastrous effects of climate change requires an entire rehaul of how we behave: how we extract energy, how we consume (both food and material goods), how we travel, and how we manage our money.
Introducing sustainable alternatives into our lifestyles can sometimes feel disruptive, inconvenient, and becomes off putting. Switching to a sustainable account however, is as easy as going from single use to reusable water bottles. At the core of Algbra’s inception is to be green without compromising the quality of the product being offered. We offer a guarantee to customers that their money will never be invested in fossil fuels, amongst other unethical industries like arms, tobacco, or gambling.
On a personal level, we may wonder how much responsibility we have individually, and while this debate may rage on, the Algbra App allows customers to quantify the carbon footprint of each purchase, and to offset it by supporting a project in some of the countries worst affected by climate change: developing communities through hydropower in Vietnam, supporting sustainable infrastructure in Bangladesh, and generating renewable energy in Indonesia.
While we may be more motivated to act now that we’re feeling the direct effects of climate change - and these will only become more disruptive as the years progress - nations such as Afghanistan, Chad, and Kenya have felt them for decades as a result of the actions of industrialised nations. Beyond being shocked by the images coming out of Pakistan, and Bangladesh only a few months prior, we should feel responsible and spurred on to change our behaviours.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":"","author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"543","url":"/s3-storage/Climate3_954c39b6e7.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#080818","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/e716a3c4405957fb75fd03fd0948d0fb/1bd63/Climate3_954c39b6e7.webp","srcSet":"/static/e716a3c4405957fb75fd03fd0948d0fb/b3ba1/Climate3_954c39b6e7.webp 750w,\n/static/e716a3c4405957fb75fd03fd0948d0fb/aabaf/Climate3_954c39b6e7.webp 1080w,\n/static/e716a3c4405957fb75fd03fd0948d0fb/d0f53/Climate3_954c39b6e7.webp 1366w,\n/static/e716a3c4405957fb75fd03fd0948d0fb/1bd63/Climate3_954c39b6e7.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"86","slug":"money-and-mental-health-5-free-mood-boosters","title":"Money and mental health: 5 free mood boosters","date":"2022-09-06T09:00:00.000Z","content":"The link between money and mental health is often overlooked. A common cause of mental health struggles is financial pressures, and vice versa. A cause of financial struggles can often be poor mental health, and the consequent inability to prioritise keeping good money habits or bill payments.
Almost half of people in problem debt also have a mental health problem, and 4 in 10 people with a mental health problem reported that it had a detrimental impact on their financial situation.
The solution should be simple: we address one of the issues, mental health or finances, and see an overall improval in our quality of life and health. The issue, however, is that the usual suggestions to someone who is struggling - go to therapy! go to the gym! - can cause further financial strain, and are not accessible to all.
All hope is not lost though - there are free things we can do to improve our mental health, and they involve addressing some of our fundamental needs as human beings. As always, the best solution is often the simplest!
This isn’t a hydration reminder - studies have shown that people living near water generally report better mental health and wellbeing. (the same applies to green spaces too)
“The mere sight and sound of water can induce a flood of neurochemicals that promote wellness, increase blood flow to the brain and heart and induce relaxation.”
Green spaces are also known to improve mental health.
Now we’ve probably all heard this a thousand times before but let’s not underestimate the benefits of putting thoughts on paper (or notes app ) which include a reduction in stress and an improvement in emotional functions and immune system to name a few.
When there are thoughts, worries, or fears rushing at us, the first best step is to organise them before we can start dissecting them and working towards solutions.
Go out of our way to watch or read something positive. Better yet, writing down something we’re grateful for - small or big, it doesn’t matter!
We’re exposed to more information than ever before - personal tragedies, wars, climate-related disasters, etc. fill our consciousness. Constantly consuming negative information - doom-scrolling on Twitter anyone? - can unknowingly put us in bad mental states or lead to spiralling depressive thoughts.
After a year of being in lockdown we’re sure you don’t need us to tell you how integral human connection is to feeling whole.
It may seem daunting at first but there are a number of ways to connect with people in your community, and nurture relationships - new and old!
You can start by enquiring about the groups that hire space at your local sports centre, or searching the activity you’re interested in doing with people and your local area on Instagram or Facebook. Volunteering is also a great way to tap into your local community, and an opportunity to meet people from a range of different backgrounds.
AlgbraX supports a number of welcoming initiatives such as Cycle Sisters, with branches across London; CWSA ladies football in Wembley; and Chai Mama, tea mornings to financially empower mums and women in general.
Always much easier said than done - a good night’s sleep has wondrous effects on both our emotional stability and cognition functions, e.g. how we respond to stress, and our decision-making skills.
Research shows that sleep and mental health are intertwined. Sleep disturbances can exacerbate mental health issues, while mental health issues can also contribute to poor sleep.
Struggling to get to sleep? Meditation videos, classical music, or white noise can be helpful.
We know being strapped for cash can also mean being strapped for time, and though these activities may be free - they require time and energy.
At times it helps to see our mental health as an investment, i.e. taking the time to engage in these activities might feel time consuming in the short run, but in the long term it means being healthier and happier for longer, and is a more sustainable way to live and be present for the people we love.
Some resources on mental health you may find useful:
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":null,"author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"Blog","slug":"blog","id":"3"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"536","url":"/s3-storage/Money_Mental_3_d29c864cb1.jpg","ext":".jpg","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#f8f8f8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/b86e112c55d78a2b8733c8d0880bfbba/445d2/Money_Mental_3_d29c864cb1.webp","srcSet":"/static/b86e112c55d78a2b8733c8d0880bfbba/b3ba1/Money_Mental_3_d29c864cb1.webp 750w,\n/static/b86e112c55d78a2b8733c8d0880bfbba/445d2/Money_Mental_3_d29c864cb1.webp 970w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5670103092783505}}}}},{"id":"84","slug":"a-green-break-how-to-holiday-sustainably","title":"A Green Break: how to holiday sustainably","date":"2022-07-01T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Though it may not feel like it with the UK’s temperamental weather - summer is now in full swing! As we witness increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather around the world - with temperatures reaching above thirty-two degrees celsius in Suffolk earlier this month; 5 million people being displaced by floods in Sylhet, Bangladesh; and a wildfire that covered 5000 acres in New Mexico, California - the question on many of our minds is ‘how can we enjoy our breaks while contributing as little as possible to global climate disasters?’
We’ve got you covered! It’s difficult to travel in a completely ‘green’ way, but making more conscious decisions can allow us to enjoy memorable and much-deserved resets while circumventing some of their negative effects.
Staying local doesn’t mean having to sacrifice on good views or a good time. In the UK, there are gorgeous sights to see on our doorstep: take a roadtrip or train ride to Durdle Door in Dorset, the Mediterranean-inspired village of Portmeirion in Wales, or see the Harry Potter bridge (also known as Glenfinnan Viaduct) in the Scottish Highlands. If you hail from beyond our great island, try researching the overlooked gems a few cities away, or holiday destinations within a train ride from home.
Even taking short haul flights over longer journeys means a much smaller production of carbon emissions. For instance, a return trip to Marrakech from London Heathrow Airport produces 371.4kg of CO2, while a return trip to Dubai from the same airport produces 685.kg of CO2.
There are a number of online tools available to help you calculate your carbon footprint including ICAO, the tool officially endorsed by the UN.
If you do decide to visit more tropical destinations, doing some research into environmentally friendly places to stay can go a long way.
Hotel developments can often be huge disruptors to the local ecosystem - but some go to great lengths to minimise the disruption, or even build back natural areas.
Nayara Springs in Costa Rica avoided cutting down a single tree during construction, and since opening in 2017, Wilderness Safaris has planted 20,000 trees at Bisate Lodge in Rwanda.
In Brazil, Pousada Literária de Paraty replenished so much greenery, it attracted enough birdlife to create the country’s first-ever private bird reserve.
Plastic often ends up in nature, poisoning the environment and even directly killing wildlife, and of all plastic waste, single-use bottles may be the most harmful. Fortunately there’s an abundance of options of reusable water bottles, for every kind of traveller!
The World Tourism Organisation reports that of each one hundred dollars spent on a trip, only five dollars contributes to local economies.
By shopping at markets abroad you can ensure you’re supporting independent business owners who source ingredients more locally.
With growing concerns around climate change and the environment, there are an increasing number of organisations offering the offsetting of carbon emissions in an effort to help reduce carbon footprints, including Carbon Neutral Britain, Clime Works, and Carbon Footprint.
You can also track the carbon footprint of your purchases through the Algbra app and contribute towards offsetting the emissions produced. You can sign up for early access to the app here.
Author: Maria Zitout
Source: The Payments Association
A new whitepaper issued by The Payments Association, (previously the Emerging Payments Association or EPA), aims to become a how-to guide to ethical and sustainable growth (ESG) for the FinTech industry.
As Sustainability Superheroes: a how-to guide to ESG for FinTechs highlights, the rules of business are changing. While in previous decades the single goal of business leaders has been to maximise shareholder returns, new paradigms such as ESG and stakeholder capitalism mean that a balance must be struck between profits and other concerns that fall under the rubric of ‘sustainability’.
Rather than simply admonishing companies to become more sustainable, the report offers advice, inspiration and real-world best practices from leading ‘sustainability superheroes’, including Charlie Bronks, SVP, Head of ESG at Crown Agents Bank, Irene Perez, Head Of Marketing at Gain The Lead and Jim Colvine, Senior Vice President, Priceless Planet at Mastercard. Case studies from major companies like Mastercard, FIS and Algbra demonstrate how varied companies have addressed sustainability in their business.
The project is anchored in data from The Payment Association’s members on their own ESG priorities, and this data shows that the industry is making significant progress towards embracing sustainable practices and ethical goals:
• Over 90% of companies measure progress towards gender equity
• 80% consider the social justice impacts of their products and services
• 60% seek to reduce waste from their supply chain
• 60% have identified their ESG stakeholders and prioritised them
Of course, the definition of sustainability varies widely and ethical goals hard to pin down (maximising shareholder returns is arguably an ethical commitment, for example), but the results show that the FinTech industry is making major strides toward integrating these ideas into its day-to-day operations.
Tony Craddock, Director General at The Payments Association, comments: “We are extremely proud to be releasing this report at a time when the industry at large is fully embracing ESG goals. Now more than ever before, people want to make more environmentally sustainable decisions and that extends to the brands they do business with. We’re pleased our report not only outlines the ways in which companies can become more ethical and sustainable, but also that it shows that the majority of companies have already started down that path.”
Jim Colvine, Senior Vice President, Priceless Planet at Mastercard, says: ‘Increasingly, people are recognising that the things we produce, buy, and consume matters to our planets’ environment. COVID-19 only heightened these concerns, and now more than ever people want to make a positive, sustainable impact on the world.”
He adds: “It’s extremely encouraging to see the fintech industry recognise this. With most companies already showing that they’re on a path towards being more environmentally and ethically focused, it’s clear that progress is being made. At Mastercard, we’re making headway by having a robust portfolio of environmentally friendly solutions, including our Carbon Calculator, developed with Swedish fintech Doconomy, which makes it easy for consumers to understand their carbon footprint, and our Sustainability Innovation Lab brings together innovators and customers to design climate-conscious digital solutions. It's our responsibility as an industry to meet the expectations of our consumers and ensure sustainable goals are being set and met, for the planet’s sake.”
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Now, it appears the metaphorical student has become the master - the Silicon Roundabout experiment has worked wonders. Fintech is one of the fastest-growing global industries, and in 2020 fintech investments worldwide exceeded $44 billion. The US market still unsurprisingly holds the majority at $22 billion, but the UK market has expanded to the point that it now accounts for the second-largest share of the global fintech industry.
The UK has established itself as a forward-thinking force to be reckoned with in the fintech sphere. Rishi Sunak has called on the Royal Mint to produce an NFT, and the Bank of England has announced plans to roll out a national digital currency. This would consist of 'stablecoins', which would differ from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin in that they would be joined to the national currency. Stablecoins would therefore only increase and decrease in price in accordance with the sterling's own fluctuations. By contrast, the US has been slower to act in this market. It is only in the early stages of introducing similar innovations, with President Biden recently ordering government agencies to explore this crypto-avenue and determine if a US digital currency would be a wise move.
Numerous policy-makers and business leaders in the US are beginning to look to the UK in order to anticipate the direction in which the fintech industry is heading.
At the forefront of the UK's fintech revolution is Algbra, a purpose-driven digital banking proposition. It is emerging as an ethically-minded alternative to traditional banking systems, providing users with various ways of supporting charitable organisations through the Algbra app. A key aspect of the UK's vision for the future is sustainability, as was highlighted in the government's multitude of pledges at COP26. If fintech is set to be a core ingredient of that future (as well as recent moves to create a net-zero future) then it is vital that the technology remains inclusive and environmentally-conscious. Algbra is helping to ensure this is the case. Via the app, users can keep track of their water and carbon footprints, and Algbra has also taken steps to introduce a sustainable card. Integral to this pursuit is Algbra's partnership with Mastercard, having joined the multinational payment company's Priceless Planet Coalition.
The announcement of this trans-atlantic partnership points towards the emergence of the UK as a pivotal player in the global fintech space. The US can certainly learn from the UK's digital banking blueprint, which involves open-banking and boosted cyber-security through an emphasis on the cloud. The UK's open-banking system forces the UK's nine biggest banks to share their data with licensed start-ups; this facilitates significantly faster expansion for these smaller companies. This has been singled out by Karen Mills, the administrator of the US Small Business Administration for President Obama, who stresses that open data and open banking are the foundations for financial and technological innovation.
Zeiad Idris, Algbra's Chief Executive Officer, underlines the importance of this trans-Atlantic relationship for global fintech progression, \"The UK fintech space is a hugely exciting industry to be in at the moment. As a nation, we continue to show ourselves to be ahead of the curve. We can also learn a lot from the US market, and that's why Algbra is helping to build this fintech bridge across the continents.\"
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This is a particularly important issue for the fintech industry, due to the seemingly boundless possibilities presented by innovative technology. A good example of this is the role of cryptocurrencies and their underlying technology to provide cheaper and faster alternative to exorbitant Money Transfer Operator costs. This can help migrant workers that need to send remittances home to help struggling friends and family, a large portion of which is taken away in exchange rate fees.
These payments are often sent to countries that are suffering from national emergencies, where families need the financial aid to survive in war-torn cities or areas ravaged by natural disasters. The importance of remittances extends far beyond individual households, as a number of developing economies depend heavily on this funding from overseas. Jamaica, for instance, relies on remittances to constitute 24% of its entire GDP. Equally, over one tenth of the yearly GDP of emerging nations is made up of remittances.
In order for fintech companies to connect with the members of diaspora communities that regularly send remittances, they need to improve their diversity. At the moment, too few members of these communities are aware of the potential opportunities offered by fintechs such as blockchain payments. It has been repeatedly highlighted that companies with greater diversity attract significantly better diaspora engagement. Only 3% of people working in the fintech industry are black, which provides an obstacle for fintech companies trying to reach these communities.
Algbra, a purpose-driven fintech, aims to improve fintech diversity. It has partnered with Mastercard in an attempt to better inform minority groups that have been overlooked by fintech companies. 1.7 billion people across the globe remain ‘unbanked’, meaning they cannot access a bank account or a mobile money provider. Education is crucial in order to make fintech more inclusive, and Algbra outlines its goal to enhance financial literacy amongst diverse groups. This involves offering current accounts, cards, investments and loan products, as well as producing content that “celebrates and empowers diverse identities and cultures”.
This is just one wing of Algbra’s mission to make fintech more socially conscious. Algbra acknowledges the interdependence of diversity and sustainability, with a focus on “globally overlooked and minority groups” that are disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change. Algbra is working hard to provide users with tools to facilitate ethically-minded banking. Aside from offering a sustainable card, through the Algbra app users can keep an eye on their carbon and water footprints and easily donate to a variety of charities. The company also pledges to not invest in industries that it deems to be unethical, such as gambling, tobacco and arms.
Nizam Uddin OBE, Chief Strategy Officer of Algbra, emphasises the company’s ambition to drive social change, “We need to recognise the interconnected nature of climate change and diversity - we cannot tackle one without the other. Through Algbra and our collaborations, we are working hard to ensure our financial system is the most inclusive and environmentally-conscious network of its kind.” In doing so, they are demonstrating that there is no need to view profitability and the responsibility to be socially conscious as being opposed: Algbra strives to accomplish both in tandem.
--
#FeatureByAlgbra.
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Algbra Guest Blog: Abdul-Kader Thomas
Imam Al Ghazali ranked wealth as the lowest of his five objectives, maqasid al Shariah. The importance of wealth spans its benefits, its tests, and its stewardship. Ramadan has arrived bringing us that great sustained moment of mindfulness, and the wealth that we have been given in trust plays a role in our remembrance of the real Sustainer (Al Qayyum).
Fasting brings us that moment when those of us living in comfort briefly encounter the pangs of hunger of our brethren, whether they are in conflict zones or simply amongst the poor from whom we averted eyes. Allah, most High, encourages us in Surat Al Baqara 274 to reflect on the rewards for “Those who spend their wealth by night and by day, secretly and openly…”.
During this beloved month of Ramadan, we find our ways back to God consciousness. We renew our intentions to do good. We increase our raka’at and dhikr. Some of us time our annual zakat to fall in Ramadan. All of us who are able, will pay zakat al fitr before Eid. We will increase our charitable efforts. We will see those whom we avoided, and we will help.
The test of Ramadan, with each fasting day longer than the previous, lets us contemplate all of life’s tests. Money is one. How can we improve our relationship with money so that it thickens the book in our right hands on the day of judgement, increases our spiritual sustenance, and betters the material condition of people around you.
We wish to be mindful about our money. We make du’a before giving our obligatory charity (zakat). We try our best to ensure that our earnings, from our work, from our savings and investment are untainted by the forbidden. Some of us emphasise giving to charity in person. Others, we give, far and wide online. We try to consume exclusively halal products. We wonder if we can put aside enough money for pilgrimage (umrah or hajj). These things are foundational to being intentional, or having God-consciousness (taqwa) in your consumption and spending.
Our relationship with money goes beyond the obvious. In the Qur’an, particularly in the chapter Al Nahl, Allah often mentions ‘halal and tayyab’ together when delineating what Muslims can consume – that’s ‘permissible and wholesome. So are we mindful when we consume? What can we learn from the creatures that we consume and the way we treat them? Can we reduce and eliminate our plastic waste? The month of reflection is not just about purification of our wealth or our souls. It addresses how we use it.
We don’t invest in the gambling or alcohol industries, but do we avoid investing in companies with track-records of exploitation, whether of their employees, their customers, or our shared environment?
Of course it’s much easier to not give consideration to anything beyond the bare minimum. That is how we lived, before Ramadan came to awaken us. No matter how many improvements to our hearts we wish to carry out during this Month of Mercy, we allow the demands on our time to erode
our best intentions. And, yet, we can still fortify ourselves during this beloved month, pushing back all the things that draw our attention to the shiniest app, coolest device,…
Centring ourselves on God, we can make permanent adaptations to our behaviours. These can be quite mundane. Instead of yet more plastic bottles, we might buy a reusable filter jug so we can limit some of our individual impact on the environment with which Allah has entrusted us. The smallest thing is often a means to gain favour with our Lord.
A step further is thinking about the money we’re not spending, the money sitting in our bank accounts. Beyond accounting for the interest accruing on our savings, are we aware of the industries our funds are being exposed to – tobacco, arms, gambling, etc? Would we be comfortable directly supporting those industries? Would we avoid them if we could?
Who is there to help us manage these decisions? Alhamdullilah, society seeks more transparency, more ethicality,… And, technology can be harnessed to support our conscious decisions to be wiser with our wealth, to be ethical, to be God-conscious in our financial choices. Using our wealth, however little or much, to increase our spiritual sustenance is becoming more easy.
Let’s use this dear month of Ramadan to take that step to being intentional and God-conscious, aware of how we give, spend and save. And, let’s make it easier to carry it forward into the months leading to the next Ramadan.
Abdul-Kader Thomas
Algbra Values and Ethics Advisor
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Fintech is heavily focused on money… so can it be a force for good?
This was just one of the topics discussed at last week’s roundtable, produced in partnership with Mastercard.
Sifted senior reporter Isabel Woodford interviewed a panel of founders and executives on everything from how fintechs can create products tailored to underserved groups and why partnerships are essential when it comes to scaling. Joining us were:
Here’s what we learned.
Fintechs often design services for an underserved audience, in order to capture market share. But what sets apart a fintech for good company?
Jones said in the past, payday loan companies provided their customers with a service that they needed, but one that wasn’t necessarily in their best interests. Fintechs for good need to operate with external accountability, with the customer always in mind.
Sibley, for example, created Sibstar out of personal necessity to help her parents, who both live with dementia, to manage their money. When building Sibstar, she did a lot of research with potential users to make sure the product met their needs.
“I think focusing on your end-user and bringing them into the development process is an important feature for fintech for good. We need to have a financially sustainable business, but equally important is having that positive social impact on the families we are here to serve. For us, those two things have equal standing” — Jayne Sibley, Sibstar
Traditional high street banks are designed to serve a very general population, and Oldham said users with specific needs — whether that be a disability or unique requirements based on financial background — may face the “computer says no” problem as some banks were not designed with them in mind.
He clarified that it’s not because banks are mean spirited — it just comes down to regulatory and commercial restrictions. They have cost pressures like branches to maintain and shareholders to answer to.
Uddin said many communities had lost faith in traditional banks after the 2008 recession, making it difficult to engage underserved customers.
“If you look at the structure of a lot of those banks, it’s impossible for them to turn around and be nimble and agile in a niche. There has also been a move towards automation with legacy systems, which makes it very difficult for an individual to make an individual choice about a particular customer with an unorthodox need” — Matt Oldham, Unizest
Oldham said banks still have a crucial part to play in the financial ecosystem. He noted that many are household names with a physical presence on the high street which makes them really accessible to a large number of people.
He added that incumbents have upped their game since challenger banks came along — banking apps, for example, might not exist without the pressure from neobanks. Stiff competition is forcing them to evolve to the customer’s needs.
Jones said that when it comes to “social good” many of the people running the banks are keen to find more ethical ways of doing business.
“The more we succeed in focusing on a values-based way of doing things, the more the traditional banks want to be involved… They would very much like to do good things and make people’s lives better and I think we will find them more open to collaboration” — David Jones, Mastercard
As well as collaborating with high street banks, startups should think about working together with other groups. Algbra, for example, has partnerships with community-based organisations, such as a women’s football team. Uddin said investing in projects like this, in the long run, allows startups to connect with their customers.
And it’s not just community groups — partnerships between big tech and fintechs can be a major catalyst to scaling, giving them reach, knowledge and access to networks. For example, Sibley did not come from a banking background when she set up Sibstar, and finding partners who understood finance was essential. She said working with Mastercard, for example, opened many doors and was a key element in attracting customers.
“Collaboration for us is critical…our business is driven by our own absolute personal drive to make it easier for families like mine and that is a real distinction between us and other fintechs” — Sibley, Sibstar
Making a difference in the world is a noble endeavour — but it’s pretty hard to do if you’re unable to make a profit or attract investment to keep yourself running.
Oldham mentioned Unizest has VC backing, but that ESG investment is a big growth area for all types of investors. Large pension funds, for example, need a certain proportion of their holdings to fall under the ESG category.
Sibstar is at the very early stage of raising capital and is mostly funded by grants. Sibley said it can be challenging to be profitable with a purpose. She added startups like hers can be mistaken for a charity, but don’t have the same methods of funding as a charity does.
“A purpose-driven fintech focused on underserved communities absolutely can become a unicorn. We don’t see a tension between purpose and profit. Increasingly we are seeing a whole swathe of money — venture capital, private equity, sovereign wealth funds — all really focused on this space” — Nizam Uddin, Algbra
To find out more about the Mastercard Developers portfolio and how Mastercard is providing the tools and resources for every fintech company to turn their bold ideas into reality, visit their website here.
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Plus, a bad day for ‘buy now, pay later’ and a Q&A with co-founder of the open-banking app Banked
Greetings, FintechFT readers, and happy Valentine’s Day!
2022 is going to be a busy year for “buy now, pay later”. Today, the UK Financial Conduct Authority said it had forced four BNPL firms to redraft their terms of service, which had previously allowed them to terminate accounts without notice.
The FCA’s action reflects growing concerns around the market and the potential impact on consumer wellbeing. A paper released earlier this month, which studied BNPL spending on credit cards, is likely to add fuel to the fire. Its authors estimated that between 40 and 50 per cent of UK BNPL is on credit cards, which would cancel out the payment programme’s interest-free appeal.
It also found young consumers and those living in the most deprived areas were most likely to use credit cards for BNPL.
In today’s newsletter I dive into diversity in the industry and our Quickfire Q&A features account-to-account payments platform Banked.
As ever, reach out to Imani (imani.moise@ft.com) or me (sid.v@ft.com) with your thoughts. Happy reading!
Environmental, social and governance themes are cropping up in nearly every sector — and fintech is no different.
Anecdotally, it’s the environmental aspect which gets mentioned the most in conversations I’ve had since starting my position as the FT’s banking and fintech correspondent; it’s also common to find fintechs that say they’re supporting social causes such as debt relief.
One discussion which has made less of an appearance, however, is gender and racial diversity within the sector.
Research by government-backed entrepreneur network Tech Nation released last October paints a picture that is, in some ways, quite rosy. Black, Asian and other under-represented ethnic groups made up 20 per cent of the workforce in 2021, according to Tech Nation.
That’s slightly higher than the 17.5 per cent of the entire banking and finance sector that identifies as Bame, according to Office for National Statistics data, and close to double that of the UK labour market.
But the reality is more nuanced. The proportion of black people working in fintech is still just over 3 per cent, with a far bigger gain made by Asians and other minority ethnic groups. And the higher up the food chain you go, the proportion of ethnic minority employees drops — 90 per cent of employees with more than 15 years of experience are white.
The problem is also intersectional. The Tech Nation report found that men outnumber women in UK fintechs by a ratio of at least two to one, regardless of their ethnicity.
Ahmed Badr, chief legal and risk officer at recurring payments company GoCardless, pointed to a 2021 report by executive search company Erevena that found 34 per cent of start-up boards had no women.
To serve a wide range of consumers, prioritising diversity must come from the top down. “I suspect that the limited diversity of founders means that we are not seeing fintechs that provide for the needs of all subsets of the population,” Badr said.
When done correctly — this approach works, said Zeiad Idris, co-founder and chief executive of ethical finance app Algbra: “There is clear evidence that shows companies with greater gender and ethnic diversity produce products that cater to more diverse audiences.” Algbra itself has staked its brand on “inclusivity, ethics and sustainability”.
But information on the scale of the problem is also limited, said Badr. “A lot of companies are not actively collecting diversity data. It’s hard to drive change — and also to champion outcomes of change — when you don’t have the base data to drive the action and connect to the outcomes.”
Improving diversity requires a number of steps, said Idris, including fostering support networks for communities and targeted fund growth which helps to overcome issues such as nepotism, as well as improving training for the media to understand the nuances of diversity.
Badr recommends changes from the bottom up, when it comes to education and recruitment, and the top down — including diversity among venture capitalists who provide vital funding to fintechs. Deloitte’s 2021 VC Human Capital survey found that in the US, only 4 per cent of venture capital firm employees were black and 4 per cent were Latino.
Idris and Badr both emphasised the importance of better data reporting, and the potential role which regulators and policymakers can play.
“At the bare minimum, there should be a requirement for transparency of data around staffing and board representation and the salaries that accompany them,” said Idris. “This data will ensure future workforces and consumers have good data before deciding whether these are institutions they want to work for, or engage with.”
(Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan)
Click here to read original article.
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The Atomico office in central London is an eco-warrior’s dream. The building is carbon-neutral, the in-house chef limits meat consumption and food waste, its giant annual report is printed on recycled paper and partners have guidelines to make working from home greener.
But the firm now wants its portfolio companies to get into shape too, hiring Soline Kauffmann-Tourkestansky as its inaugural ESG (environmental, social and governance) and sustainability director.
Atomico is the first European firm of its size to adopt the role — and it could prompt others to follow. The move comes after 245 VCs vowed to incorporate ESG frameworks into their investments, attempting to keep up with the wave of ESG-focused, impact firms.
While specialist VCs have social and environmental experts aplenty, it’s notable that profit-first firms are following suit.
“We’re in a new world where there’s a paradigm shift… If a [consumer] company is not ESG friendly, and does uphold best business standards, it won’t grow,” says Kauffmann-Tourkestansky.
Data seems to support that shift. For instance, research by “ethical fintech” Algbra shows that 69% of people would be willing to open a new bank account that offers ethical banking.
Having joined last month, Kauffmann-Tourkestansky quipped it was too soon to name which Atomico portfolio had most work to do on their ESG adherence. However, she did note that early-stage companies tend to struggle the most — especially with the sustainability aspect of ESG.
Kauffmann-Tourkestansky, who previously spent three years in a similar role at small French fund, will concentrate on helping Atomico’s founders hit “ESG-friendly” milestones and targets.
Notably, she will sit inside Atomico’s growth team, which works with founding teams post investment with experts in areas such as design, product, recruitment and communications (including newcomer Abigail Daniels, who previously fronted PR at Wise).
Kauffman-Tourkestansky may also draw on inspiration from specialist impact VCs like Five Seasons Ventures, who hired a head of impact in Micol Chiesa.
Chiesa built the firm’s sustainability strategy, including a three-stage process for portfolio companies. They first must appoint a head of sustainability, they then have 100 days to write a life cycle assessment in order to give the fund environmental data, and third they must write their own sustainability strategy. That makes Chiesa an “internal consultant” of sorts, as well as an auditor post-investment.
Europe’s VCs are working together to crack the ESG conundrum
Norway’s state-owned, climate-focused VC Nysno also has a sustainability manager: Lene Hodge. She helps assess the credibility of potential investments (both companies and other funds) from a sustainability angle.
When screening companies, she typically asks questions like “what is your approach to ESG?”, “who’s responsible for this?” and “what are your key risks?”. When interviewing firms, Hodge requests information on their ESG framework, such as whether it was built from an existing framework, such as the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) or their own.
Startups have beaten VCs when it comes to implementing ESG values, introducing roles like head of sustainability and chief impact officer.
So why has it taken VCs so long?
“If you look generally across the VC world, ESG wasn’t something that people were thinking about, let alone assigning responsibility to the firm,” says Hannah Leach, cofounder of the ESG community for VCs VentureESG.
While 73% of European VCs say they apply ESG principles to their investment processes, according to the European Investment Fund, only half actually have policies in place and just a quarter actively monitor ESG performance.
Leach argues having an ESG lead isn’t the only way to show how serious a fund is about the future, but it doesn’t hurt to have one: “If you look at the way ESG should be embedded, and how internal capacity should be built, it’s about embedding it across the fund.”
ESG’s level of impact will also rely on internal buy-in, and whether firms have gotten to grips with the concept themselves.
“It really depends on how that person has been built into the team and what sense of ownership they have,” Leach argues.
Click here to read original article.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":"https://sifted.eu/articles/atomico-esg-head-vc-impact/","author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"335","url":"/s3-storage/sifted_5660d515ea.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#080838","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/e4e52a21af323042add4f8c90e326d49/1bd63/sifted_5660d515ea.webp","srcSet":"/static/e4e52a21af323042add4f8c90e326d49/b3ba1/sifted_5660d515ea.webp 750w,\n/static/e4e52a21af323042add4f8c90e326d49/aabaf/sifted_5660d515ea.webp 1080w,\n/static/e4e52a21af323042add4f8c90e326d49/d0f53/sifted_5660d515ea.webp 1366w,\n/static/e4e52a21af323042add4f8c90e326d49/1bd63/sifted_5660d515ea.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"50","slug":"algbra-unveils-its-comprehensive-values-focused-and-climate-impact-fintech-with-strategic-mastercard-partnership","title":"Algbra unveils its comprehensive values-focused and climate-impact fintech with strategic Mastercard partnership","date":"2022-02-03T09:00:00.000Z","content":"LONDON, 3 February 2022; Algbra, a comprehensive values-focused and climate-impact FinTech, announced a milestone partnership with Mastercard yesterday evening, including joining the payment network’s Priceless Planet Coalition. Algbra’s ground-breaking proposition has inclusivity, ethics and sustainability at its heart and requires all partners to sign up to its ethical standards, including clarity on where consumers’ money is held and spent. In partnership with Mastercard and Doconomy, Algbra’s offering includes a sustainable card; the ability to make direct charitable donations to UK-registered charities; carbon and water tracking to review the impact of purchases; and the option to offset customers’ carbon footprint with ease.
The announcements were made at Algbra: Decoded, an exclusive event hosted at the Design Museum that unveiled the work of the FinTech over the past year and featured Lord Philip Hammond, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Kelly Devine, President of UK and Ireland at Mastercard.
The wide-ranging Mastercard partnership includes support to grow Algbra’s card business and, in due course, global marketing projects. Algbra has agreed to join the established community of worldwide financial institutions that are part of Mastercards’ network, as a direct participant, and will also join the Priceless Planet Coalition – Mastercard’s global move to unite the efforts of merchants, banks, cities and consumers to make meaningful investments in preserving the environment.
The two companies are aligned in their global quest to connect diverse communities to the banking system and have an already established history of working together. Algbra recently partnered with Mastercard to author “Helping the Financially Overlooked: Lifestyle and Values Banking”, a report that highlighted the growing demand from consumers to bank in accordance with their principles, values and lifestyles, an increasingly important demographic in the context of achieving global financial wellness and connectivity.
Zeiad Idris, CEO of Algbra, said: “Algbra is building a category-defining business that places communities and impact at its core, and we are delighted to have shared this vision with the world at Algbra: Decoded. It’s made all the easier by having a partner like Mastercard that has such a clear joint mission to reach and positively impact communities around the world, whilst also understanding, believing in, and investing in our vision”.
Kelly Devine, President, UK and Ireland at Mastercard, said: “With the UK at the centre of global Fintech innovation, this is a truly exciting time and I welcome our new partnership with Algbra. Our missions are very much aligned. Algbra are using technology to innovate and deliver enhanced customer experience, but also focusing on people’s own values, and enshrining ethics and sustainability at the heart of their proposition. Together we can make a really positive difference to customers both here in the UK, and all over the world”.
Lord Philip Hammond, said: “This evening marks a historic moment not just for Algbra, but for the future of a values-driven financial services sector. Consumers and communities are demanding that their financial products do more, particularly on issues relating to ESG, inclusion and sustainability. Algbra, with its grounding in communities and exceptional technological capabilities, is very well positioned to fast become a sector leader in this space”.
Click here to read original article.
Earlier this year, the very first Algbra x CWSA Cup was hosted, bringing women from across London to compete in a full day tournament. We sat down with the CWSA co-founder Sara Najim to talk about how this all came about, the power of inclusion, and why football is the world’s greatest sport.
What do you get when you gather a group of women to kick around a football every week? Radical inclusion, powerful community, and inspiring social change. And that’s what the Collaborative Women’s Sports Association (CWSA) is all about.
Many women grow up watching their brothers and fathers gather with their friends every week to play sports. As a boy or man, that type of access is almost a given. Meanwhile, girls and women are far less likely to find a casual, yet competitive and supportive environment to do that outside of school.
Sara Najim and Riham Rabee, sisters-in-law and best friends, certainly felt that way. Back in January 2020, they got fed up with that lack of opportunity and decided to do something about it. That’s how the CWSA began – with a few women playing football twice a week. Now, it boasts over 90 members and has expanded to include basketball, boxing, and other sports – although Sara maintains that football is definitely their biggest passion.
“I think football is the best sport in the world because literally, all you need is a ball to get started. It has built-in inclusion. That’s probably why it’s so popular.”
Indeed, the first thing you notice about these weekly meetups is their inclusivity. When asked who is welcome to join, Sara emphasizes, “It’s literally any woman who wants to join – all faiths, backgrounds, sexualities. Anyone who’s ever felt like they don’t belong, this is their space. There are no outsiders here – it’s just about beating the other team.”
This inclusion goes far beyond surface-level diversity for the CWSA. Sports are famously maledominated, and women’s sports are chronically underfunded. Additionally, if you come from a historically marginalized group, there are a host of reasons you may not have easy access to sports – and this is something CWSA is serious about addressing.
Sara explains that it’s about removing barriers and facilitating access in the long term. “Some of these girls have never had this kind of access to sports before. They’ve always faced some sort of resistance – whether it’s society or family or financial barriers, or because they wear the hijab, so they don’t feel welcomed in all spaces. And now they’re absolutely addicted and they never miss a session!”
Listening to Sara speak about being on the field with her co-members, or watching one of their games, it’s immediately clear that what CWSA is doing runs much deeper than just weekly sports.
While the physical benefits are obvious, Sara sheds light on multiple positive side effects that no one anticipated.
For many who are struggling with their mental health, these bi-weekly football sessions have provided a rare and much-needed respite. “Some of them have told me: for that hour and fifteen minutes, all I’m thinking about is getting that ball in the net. Whatever is happening in my life, is gone from my mind for that time.”
Others have noticed how much their experiences on the field trickle into the rest of their lives. “Girls are coming up to us saying how their overall confidence has improved, or they’re speaking up more in the workplace, or standing up for themselves more. That confidence and invigoration you feel on the field – you carry it home, to work and to your relationships. It’s actually incredible.”
It’s not just kicking the ball around that helps, however. Sara makes it clear that the women are truly the ones making the community what it is. “So many have said they’ve met their best friends here. It’s such a vibrant and boisterous group of girls — they make you feel good about yourself. Even when a team scores, the defending team is always applauding and just commenting on what a great shot it was. Although we want to keep it very competitive, it’s still such a beautiful and empowering environment with very little ego.”
This sense of community and electric energy was on full display this past July with the first CWSA x Algbra Cup at the Stonebridge Sports Pavilion. Eight teams from all parts of London competed in a full-day tournament, which was accompanied by catering from Chai Walla and face painting for the little ones. This wasn’t just a tournament – it was a festive community event. “Best day ever, really”, Sara gushed, “We stayed up until 2 am just talking about it afterwards.”
When asked what made this event so significant, Sara explained that this is what inclusion and equity looked like in action. Indeed, this was the first time London saw such a large and diverse group of women compete in such an accessible football tournament. Moreover, it was the types of women that have typically been pushed aside in a male-dominated sport.
“By partnering with Algbra, we were able to secure a really great venue near Wembley Stadium, and Algbra made sure there were no costs for teams to join. That removal of barriers was a priority for both CWSA and Algbra, which is what brought us together really.”
“It really gave us so much hope. Looking around, it was quite emotional, like a glimpse into the future,” Sara said with a tender smile.
This speaks to something much deeper than visual diversity. As Sara points out, this removal of barriers is just one step towards gender, racial, and economic equity.
“You still hear people say stuff like, ‘Oh any girl can go and book a venue to play football.’ But that doesn’t bear in mind the systemic inequalities and barriers that might prevent her from doing that. You need to actively create spaces and opportunities for disadvantaged people to be supported. It’s only after a long process of doing that we can achieve true equality.”
The CWSA works hard to ensure that this understanding of equity and social change is integrated into everything they do behind the scenes. When asked for an example of how they do that, Sara touches upon the importance of self-awareness and intersectional thinking.
“Even within disadvantaged groups, there can be privileges we have to be mindful of, and we have to be careful to not just reenact oppression amongst ourselves. For example, Riham and I are both Arab women and do face discrimination from that. But we’re also both from academic backgrounds and thus have access and language that can aid us in certain projects or getting pitches.”
“Furthermore, regardless of our experiences, we’ll never know what it’s like to be a black woman or a transgender woman. If we are representing others, we have to actively make sure we’re listening to them, that we’re not speaking over anyone, and that every woman is pushed forward in the process.”
It’s that kind of sincere self-awareness and devoted community building that’s made the CWSA such a model for social impact. Rooted in their values and grounded by their community, it’s clear that the women of the CWSA are intent on continuing to trailblaze their way through London. Next on the docket: they’re putting forward six girls to become FA-approved coaches with Level 1 accreditation. That means by the summer of 2022, they can start up games for girls under age 12, led by their newly trained coaches.
“We’re really building something long term that we never had at that age. Weekly football, in a good and very accessible location, coached by young women who will gas you up! If you don’t believe yourself, by the end of the session, you absolutely will.”
It’s this kind of exuberance that really makes someone want to join the CWSA. Through the magic of football and the power of young women, they’ve been able to build something with long-lasting effects and a tangible impact on the community.
When asked what Sara dreams of for the future, she poignantly says: “For us, this is groundbreaking. I look forward to the day when it’s not exciting whatsoever, and that this kind of inclusion and diversity is just the norm.”
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The world has eyes on this conference, as its outcomes may very well determine how the next few decades will unfold in regards to climate change. In order to understand why this is such a critical moment, let’s dive into what COP26 is, its history, and its ultimate desired outcomes.
COP stands for Conference of the Parties – the parties in question being all signatories of the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty created to combat the climate crisis through ongoing research, regular meetings, negotiations, and policy agreements.
Since 1995, the COP has been hosted in a different country annually, with the exception of last year when it was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This year marks the 26th Climate Change COP, and is being hosted by the UK in partnership with Italy. This year in particular is a crucial one as the climate crisis is on red alert. What’s different about this COP?
COPs have had a somewhat tumultuous history, marked by many historic mandates and protocols, as well as political stand-offs and standstills. Over the decades, there has never been a consensus on the urgency of climate change, the weight of responsibility upon individual nations, and the appropriate measures and policies to be taken to reduce emissions.
However, in 2015 the world witnessed a historic breakthrough: the Paris Agreement. For the first time in the three decades of meetings, almost all countries of the world came to an agreement on a common goal: to limit the rise in global warming to “well below” 2 degrees, with the ideal aim of 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. The goals also included adapting to the impact of climate change, and mobilising finance flows to support these goals.
The Paris Agreement caused a commotion – both for its groundbreaking consensus, but also for the perceived vagueness of its aims. The questions were plentiful: are these commitments enough? How will these goals be enforced? What does “well below 2 degrees” even mean?
That’s where NDCs come in, or Nationally Determined Contributions. Countries agreed that each government is responsible for determining their target emission reductions per year, then report it to the UNFCCC.
If you suspected this wouldn’t result in the desired outcomes, you are neither alone nor wrong. Collectively, the NDCs submitted were objectively insufficient to meet the 2030 goals, and amounted to less than 1% cut in global emissions compared to 2010 levels.
As wildfires, floods and droughts devastate countries and communities around the world, there has never been a more critical time for decisive and swift action on climate change – which is why COP26 is under sharp scrutiny.
The science is now indisputable. This past August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report confirmed that “human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.” The pace and state of current environmental changes are “unprecedented by thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years”, and many of these changes are already irreversible.
The state-of-the-science report warned that the window for action against catastrophe is closing rapidly. However, the global scientists behind the research emphasized that achieving the 1.5- degree-target was still possible – but only if sweeping, rapid actions were taken to cut global emissions. Specifically, greenhouse gas emissions must be halved by 2030, and reach ‘net-zero’ by 2050.
“Bottom line is that we have zero years left to avoid dangerous climate change, because it’s here,” Michael E. Mann, a lead author of the IPCC’s 2001 report, told CNN.
If we exceed the 1.5 degrees limit, the report warns, we will most certainly witness the effects by 2030. That means more catastrophic weather, extreme sea level events, and ultimately, devastating loss of life and livelihoods.
This year, signatories were expected to submit much more ambitious NDCs than the ones they submitted in 2015. So far, the results have not been promising.
Of the 192 Parties of the Paris Agreement, 165 NDCs are available. When taken together, the commitments result in a 16% increase of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 compared to 2010. This translates to a global temperature rise of 2.7 degrees by the end of the century. Independent climate watchdog the Climate Action Tracker confirmed this in their Thursday report, which found that all G20 economies were far from enacting any effective policies to meet the 1.5 degrees goal – despite comprising 80% of the world’s emissions.
For the average reader, the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees might seem miniscule. In fact, every increment has a monumental impact on people’s lives, communities, and ecosystems.
Alok Sharma, British MP and President of COP26, has made it clear that he is taking these warnings seriously. The overarching message of COP26 has been to “Keep the 1.5 alive” – which is to say, we need to have as many as countries as possible commit to the hard goal of – “Well below 2 degrees” can no longer be an option.
In response to the UNFCCC report, Sharma agreed that ambitious action was needed. “That is why we especially need the biggest emitters, the G20 nations, to come forward with stronger commitments if we are to keep 1.5c in reach over this critical decade. Glasgow must launch a decade of ever-increasing ambition. At COP26 we must come together for ourselves, future generations and our planet.”
The COP26 has delineated several targets for this conference, which are a crucial update to the original Paris Agreement:
Net Zero means the amount of greenhouse gases emitted must be equal or lower than the amount removed from the atmosphere. This translates into phasing out coal completely, putting a stop to deforestation, switching to electric vehicles, and investing in renewables.
The impacts of climate change are already around us – so action must be taken to adapt in order to protect communities and the environment before further damage is done. This includes stronger warning systems, more resilient infrastructure, proactive initiatives in protecting ecosystems, and more.
Back in 2009, developed countries promised to mobilise $100 billion by 2020 to support developing countries in the fight against climate change. Governments will be pressed to fulfill this promise, alongside international financial institutions, in order for the first two goals to truly be achievable.
While news of climate change inevitably veers in the direction of pessimism and doubt, this doesn’t mean that the UNFCCC and COP26 is without hope or deep significance. As a result of these processes, we have witnessed science, media, public opinion and governments converge to create a clear discourse on the direction we need to take.
COP26 is the best mechanism we have available to enact change at the governmental and global level, and in the weeks ahead, it will be worth keeping our eyes and ears alert to what’s to come.
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Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, have long made it clear that their values are at the forefront of their decisions, as evidenced by the bevvy of socially-minded initiatives the pair has supported in recent years. Yet it still surprised many when, this past Tuesday, Meghan and Harry announced that they were now ‘Impact Partners’ at Ethic, a sustainable investing firm based in New York. In their exclusive New York Times interview, they said they hope to encourage more young people to invest their money in sustainable companies.
You may have heard about this news and wondered: what exactly is ethical banking, and does it even apply to me?
Before we can delve into what sustainable, ethical finance is, let’s take a step back and understand: what’s unethical about banking to begin with? There are a few facets to this.
When you put your money in the standard, high-street bank, it doesn’t just sit there idly in your savings account. Banks invest your money and make a profit off it – which you may or may not reap the benefits of. How they invest your money is the point of contention here – one that more and more people are paying attention to.
A significant portion of banks indeed invest in questionable or blatantly unethical industries – fossil fuels, tobacco, arms trade, deforestation, to name a few. This means that your hard-earned money might be, unbeknownst to you, financing activities that are in direct conflict with your values and the health of the world.
This just scratches the surface, however. Big banks have frequently made headlines for tax evasion, unethical dealings, and unfair lending practices. Moreover, with the increasing global wealth gap worldwide, mis-selling measures, and mounting interest-based debt, it’s not a surprise that many people eye the finance sector with a degree of suspicion.
Ethical finance is a broad umbrella. For a start, it means the institution has structured its products, services, and investments in ways that it deems as ethical or socially responsible. What this specifically includes varies from institution to institution, depending on their priorities.
Some, like the fintech app that Harry and Meghan represent, may broadly offer ethical investing, while others strictly focus on environmental impact; others still may prioritize offering transparent services and financial literacy programs to underserved communities.
Algbra, for example, fuses these priorities: it has strict policies on ethical investments, interest-free banking, and serving communities that have otherwise been neglected by the financial industry.
When asked about this new ethical wave within fintech, Nicolas Huss, former CEO of Visa Europe says this: “Inclusive, accessible, and ethical finance is no longer a niche demand within the industry, but a necessary transformation that banks must contend with. If we’re serious about improving the state of the world, we need to look seriously at what our industry can do and adapt meaningfully.”
Most of the problems we see in the financial world are systemic – so is ethical investing enough to make a change? Beyond banking, ethical business practices should also be reflected in how a company is run internally, how it treats its customers, and how it sees its role in broader society. Many ethically-driven institutions and B-corp businesses understand this difference and have taken steps to ensure they are actively contributing to a better society, such as instituting fair labour practices, gender pay equity, and supporting social impact initiatives.
Algbra has taken a multi-pronged approach. Institutionally, it was created by people from the communities it was built for – namely, immigrant, Muslim, and otherwise marginalized sectors of society – and prioritizes diversity in hiring practices to ensure that integrity is not lost. On the external front, Algbra X is a social impact foundation created by the fintech startup to build ongoing, long-term projects with the UK’s diverse communities, with a focus on building youth leadership, growing community partnerships, and investing in local social impact initiatives.
The Algbra app itself is also designed to help users do good daily and easily. It features a Carbon Tracker which empowers users to track their carbon footprint through their expenses. Moreover, you can donate to your choice of over 100 local charities from across the UK through the Donate feature.
“Real, long-term change needs to start from the roots up. Ethical practices shouldn’t be an afterthought or just a clever feature, but built into every level of an organisation”, says Nizam Uddin OBE, Chief Strategy Officer at Algbra
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the dozens of ethical finance institutions out there, from traditional credit unions to the latest fintech apps. We recommend that you start by considering your values and practical priorities: what financial services are most important to you, and how do you want to see your money used in the world?
When you research different ethical finance services, you can compare their offerings with your personal values and needs. From there, it becomes easier to determine the right fit, and you can take your first step in making your money do good. If Harry and Meghan can do it, why not you?
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Focused on providing ethical financial services, Algbra raised over £3.75m in funding in its seed round earlier this year and has more recently been backed by high profile investors — including Lord Philip Hammond (former Chancellor and Foreign Secretary) and Rick Haythornthwaite (former Chairman of Mastercard and current Chairman of The AA and Ocado Group) — in its bridge investment round. Algbra is also working with Mastercard, Allen & Overy and New World Group — among other Tier 1 partners — to create a network of highly qualified institutions dedicated to bringing transparency and developing a core set of inclusive financial products for overlooked financial networks and communities that includes accounts, foreign exchange, remittances and rewards, with lending products to follow shortly thereafter.
“With over a quarter of the world’s population being financially overlooked (with 1.7 billion people on the planet remaining unbanked), decentralised finance has recently become a viable solution for communities both in the UK and across the globe,” said Zeiad Idris, CEO at Algbra. “Every person on this planet deserves to participate in the modern financial system, which is why we are partnering with Fetch.ai to provide state-of-the-art innovative solutions with governance at their core that will address the inequities that are currently in place.”
By collaborating with Fetch.ai to enable advanced transaction solutions, Algbra will be able to ensure customer funds will always be handled ethically while bringing transparency and clarity to the financial system. Through this partnership, Fetch.ai and Algbra will apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to DeFi and banking/fintech sector to enable retail consumers and SMEs to benefit from a more advanced understanding of their transactions, helping businesses succeed, and providing consumers with the ability to manage their money and the impact of their transactions. Fetch.ai’s artificial intelligence solutions will give smaller players access to larger data sets translated for the benefit of the everyday consumer through machine learning, leading to a more personalised user experience, better governance and a more democratised and secure financial system for all.
“Together, we will combine our expertise and technology with Algbra to pioneer a new space of ethical, decentralised and democratised finance,” said Humayun Sheikh, CEO of Fetch.ai. “This partnership will demonstrate that technology and finance can be brought together with moral values without sacrificing quality to enable a better and more financially inclusive world. We are very excited to be branching our technology into the financial technology ecosystem, helping to show that autonomous technology is the key to providing solutions for broader industries.”
Fetch.ai, a Cambridge-based artificial intelligence lab, is building the infrastructure required for autonomous software agents to begin performing useful economic work on behalf of individuals, machines, businesses, and organizations. Fetch.ai’s network is based around open-source technology and gives users access to the power of AI on a world-scale secure dataset to carry out complex coordination tasks in the modern economy. For more information, please visit https://www.fetch.ai.
Algbra is a next generation fintech platform headquartered in London, leveraging state-of the-art technology, working with tier one partners and operating within the UK regulatory framework. The Algbra platform is built to create a values-based ecosystem that fits with the everyday financing needs of ethically-minded consumers, offering products and services that have the following principles at its heart — transparency, fairness, sustainability and non-interest based finance. Combining grassroots community understanding with global expertise, Algbra will provide products and services to enhance the financial wellness of overlooked UK communities and facilitate global social mobility. For more information, please visit https://www.algbra.com/.
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“The UK has and will continue to play a significant role in the global financial landscape. Utilising Britain’s leading expertise across technology, regulation and finance, UK fintechs will enable major boosts not only to the British economy but to infrastructure and economies worldwide. I’m thrilled to be supporting Algbra in this endeavour, in particular their quest to make a global imprint on balancing the financial system to be more sustainable and accessible,” said Lord Hammond.
Founded by Chief Executive Officer Zeiad Idris and Chief Operating Officer Fizel Nejabat, Algbra’s much anticipated public launch - with their proprietary tech stack – will take place in early 2022 with a set of inclusive products and services including accounts, foreign exchange, remittances, and rewards along with other finance products, including ethical mortgages, to follow.
“Our latest group of investors and advisors provide us with the expertise and guidance to deliver world-class solutions to a global market. Their passion for a more equitable and sustainable society is a source of encouragement as we seek to implement our vision,” said Idris.
Algbra, a UK-based sustainable and values-focused digital fintech platform dedicated to providing ethical finance solutions and promoting financial wellbeing, is shaking up global finance by attracting a number of high-profile backers. Its seed investment round led by New World Group, SFC Capital and the British Business Bank earlier this year was oversubscribed.
With the latest success surrounding the launch of its bridge investment initiative, Algbra hopes to be able to enhance its portfolio whilst continuing to focus on its mission of providing a wide range of financial services to the world’s underserved and marginalised sectors.
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":"https://gulfnews.com/business/corporate-news/high-profile-global-investors-join-algbras-latest-bridge-investment-round-1.1632208194702","author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"203","url":"/s3-storage/12_gulfnews_37a23ceae5.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#083858","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/ae912b572f72290817aebf5ae3e6382e/1bd63/12_gulfnews_37a23ceae5.webp","srcSet":"/static/ae912b572f72290817aebf5ae3e6382e/b3ba1/12_gulfnews_37a23ceae5.webp 750w,\n/static/ae912b572f72290817aebf5ae3e6382e/aabaf/12_gulfnews_37a23ceae5.webp 1080w,\n/static/ae912b572f72290817aebf5ae3e6382e/d0f53/12_gulfnews_37a23ceae5.webp 1366w,\n/static/ae912b572f72290817aebf5ae3e6382e/1bd63/12_gulfnews_37a23ceae5.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"11","slug":"former-chancellor-lord-philip-hammond---backs-algbras-quest-to-deliver-sustainable-and-values-based-finance","title":"Former Chancellor Lord Philip Hammond – Backs Algbra’s Quest to Deliver Sustainable and Values-Based Finance","date":"2021-09-13T09:00:00.000Z","content":"LONDON, September 13, 2021 Algbra, a sustainable and values-focused digital finance provider dedicated to providing ethical finance solutions and promoting financial wellbeing, has attracted a wide range of high-profile backers. The Seed investment round, led by New World Group and SFC Capital earlier this year, was oversubscribed.
Lord Philip Hammond, former Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary, has joined a number of new investors in Algbra’s recently launched Bridge investment round, which has also attracted: Rick Haythornthwaite, former Chairman of Mastercard (2006-2020) and current Chairman of The AA; Sir Michael Lockett KCVO, Chairman of Audley Consulting; Alastair Lukies CBE, Chairman of the UK Fintech Alliance and Founder & CEO of Pollinate International; and Jeffrey Cruttenden, Co-Founder of Acorns.
Founded by Chief Executive Officer Zeiad Idris and Chief Operating Officer Fizel Nejabat, Algbra’s much anticipated public UK launch - with their proprietary tech stack – will take place in early 2022 with a set of inclusive products and services that includes accounts, foreign exchange, remittances and rewards, with finance products - including ethical mortgages - to follow.
The latest group of investors join an existing group of strategic backers that include Nicolas Huss, formerly CEO of Ingenico Group and VISA Europe; Marika Svärdström, formerly Head of Venture Capital at Legal & General and SVP at Khazanah Europe; Shabir Randeree CBE, founding investor in the Islamic Bank of Britain; Lena Tan, Director of 7-Eleven in Malaysia; Amir Nooriala, formerly COO of OakNorth Bank; Claire Valoti, VP of International at Snapchat; Humayun Sheikh, Co-Founder of Fetch.AI and founding Investor in DeepMind; and Salaam bin Said Al Shaksy, CIO of Oman Arab Bank and formerly CEO of Dubai Banking Group.
Zeiad Idris, Co-Founder and CEO, Algbra: \"Our latest group of investors and advisors provide us with the expertise and guidance to deliver world-class solutions to a global market. Their passion for a more equitable and sustainable society is a source of encouragement as we seek to implement our vision.\"
Fizel Nejabat, Co-Founder and COO, Algbra: \"Over the past year we have put a lot of work into developing institutional foundations for a globally scalable and market-leading fintech. As the UK plans to maintain and develop its competitive edge in a post-Brexit and post-Covid world, Algbra seeks to lead the way.\"
Lord Philip Hammond: \"The UK has and will continue to play a significant role in the global financial landscape. Utilising Britain’s leading expertise across technology, regulation and finance, UK fintechs will enable major boosts not only to the British economy but to infrastructure and economies worldwide. I’m thrilled to be supporting Algbra in this endeavour, in particular their quest to make a global imprint on balancing the financial system to be more sustainable and accessible.\"
","isFeatured":false,"hasDetailPage":true,"isUnlisted":null,"link":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/high-profile-investors-including-former-070000616.html","author":null,"newsCategory":{"title":"News","slug":"press","id":"1"},"attachment":null,"newsImage":{"__typename":"StrapiGQL_UploadFile","id":"205","url":"/s3-storage/11_yahoo_7985e0088a.png","ext":".png","resolved":{"childImageSharp":{"gatsbyImageData":{"layout":"fullWidth","backgroundColor":"#4808a8","images":{"fallback":{"src":"/static/a454a716798c40edaf44124b92cb37f1/1bd63/11_yahoo_7985e0088a.webp","srcSet":"/static/a454a716798c40edaf44124b92cb37f1/b3ba1/11_yahoo_7985e0088a.webp 750w,\n/static/a454a716798c40edaf44124b92cb37f1/aabaf/11_yahoo_7985e0088a.webp 1080w,\n/static/a454a716798c40edaf44124b92cb37f1/d0f53/11_yahoo_7985e0088a.webp 1366w,\n/static/a454a716798c40edaf44124b92cb37f1/1bd63/11_yahoo_7985e0088a.webp 1920w","sizes":"100vw"},"sources":[]},"width":1,"height":0.5671875}}}}},{"id":"10","slug":"sums-add-up-for-ex-chancellor-hammond-as-he-takes-stake-in-ethical-fintech-algbra","title":"Sums add up for ex-chancellor Hammond as he takes stake in ‘ethical fintech’ Algbra","date":"2021-09-07T09:00:00.000Z","content":"Lord Hammond, the former chancellor, is taking a stake in a London-based technology company which aims to target underserved customers with a range of financial products.
Sky News can reveal that Lord Hammond, who served as finance minister under Theresa May, is among a syndicate of investors who are backing Algbra, a new digital finance provider.
The former chancellor's involvement has emerged just weeks after he faced a public rebuke from an influential Whitehall committee for using his government connections to assist Oaknorth, another British fintech company.
Lord Hammond insisted that he had emailed a senior Treasury official simply to inform them about the COVID response assistance that Oaknorth - which he advises - was providing to customers.
His investment in Algbra adds Mr Hammond's name to a list of prominent backers, including Alastair Lukies, chairman of the UK Fintech Alliance and founder and chief executive of Pollinate International, another fintech.
Rick Haythornthwaite, the Ocado and AA chairman, is also an investor in Algbra.
\"The UK has and will continue to play a significant role in the global financial landscape,\" Lord Hammond said.
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The Patchwork Foundation’s primary focus is to promote and encourage the active participation of underrepresented and minority communities, particularly young people, in democracy and across civil society. The Patchwork Foundation does this by supporting and equipping young people with the fundamental skills and experience required to inspire dynamic engagement and to prevail within politics and industry. The cohort of young people shall take part in a range of sessions; tutored by Members of Parliament, senior civil servants, government ministers, and distinguished journalists. The programme shall cover a series of themes including leadership, media and journalism, campaigning and policymaking.
Algbra, in its quest to build a balanced world, is committed to undertaking a systemic approach to tackle issues preventing the full economic and social progress of underserved and minority communities across society.
The Patchwork Foundation and Algbra – in this natural partnership – will invest in a new generation of leaders that will possess advanced financial literacy; that will deeply understand and promote inclusion and diversity across sectors, and that will become a new class of informed policymakers who create enabling environments for social and financial inclusion.
“We are thrilled to have Algbra on board with us bringing together two organisations at the forefront of new ideas seeking to create a better and more inclusive society. We look forward to continuing to strengthen this partnership and inspiring the next generation of leaders bringing a greater financial inclusion dimension to our work.”
“Partnering with the Patchwork Foundation is a good start to demonstrate Algbra’s commitment to taking a systemic approach to financial inclusion; both organisations share a core set of values and both are working hard to create a new and more inclusive landscape for future generations. We see this as just the beginning and look forward to continuing our relationship and building something for the long-term.”
If you would like to discover more about the partnership and the latest activities, please visit the websites below.
Patchwork Foundation – www.patchworkfoundation.org.uk
Algbra – www.algbra.com
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The 108-page review’s scant interest in the sector reflects the fact that sharia-compliant fintech “is still a bit under the radar”, according to Harris Irfan, chair of the UK Islamic Fintech Panel. “Despite the UK’s creativity and talent in the sector, there’s not the capital to match.”
However, a host of start-ups are hoping to reverse the trend in time to ride an expected wave of growth, and are being encouraged by politicians who see it as a way to boost London’s status as a global financial hub after Brexit.
Islamic finance companies provide similar services to conventional banks, but their products are structured to comply with traditional Islamic laws such as a prohibition on charging interest.
Islamic fintechs currently account for less than 1 per cent of annual fintech transaction volumes globally, according to the 2021 Global Islamic Fintech report, but the figure is on track to more than double from $49bn to $128bn by 2025, outpacing the growth rate in the wider fintech sector.
US-based investment platform Wahed Invest has arguably come closest to becoming the first truly global Islamic fintech, with more than 150,000 clients in 130 countries and a valuation of more than $100m. In December it agreed to buy British start-up Niyah, which is building a digital challenger bank, to fuel its quest to become the “leading, one-stop-shop” for sharia-compliant financial products.
Niyah underwent a soft launch in January 2020 and, according to the company’s co-founder Ali Abdulkadir Ali, is planning to launch a “combined proposition” with Wahed Invest by the end of 2021.
Meanwhile, UK-based algbra (which #fintechFT profiled two weeks ago) has raised £3.75m of seed funding and is mooted to begin operating its first bank accounts later this year with plans to roll out a retail investment platform shortly afterwards.
Zeiad Idris, algbra co-founder, hopes his brand can appeal to an otherwise “completely untapped” market. The first step for algbra is to launch a retail banking product aimed at the more than 3m Muslims in the UK, the median age of whom is just 25, meaning they are a “natural fit” for fintech.
“Young British Muslims have never been offered a relatable finance brand that matches their ethical outlook on the world,” said Idris, pointing to how Qatar-owned Al Rayan Bank, the UK’s biggest Islamic finance institution, has just 90,000 customers.
Niyah’s Ali agrees, and believes that UK-based Islamic fintechs will have a competitive advantage worldwide as a result. “In the Middle East, Islamic finance is a default so it means they’re less likely to go out of their way to innovate for the global market,” he said.
That global market is the ultimate prize for both brands: nearly half of the world’s 1.7bn unbanked adults are Muslim, according to the World Bank, and four of the top 10 fastest-growing economies worldwide are Muslim-majority countries, according to the IMF.
According to Idris, the UK’s cultural links to those countries, a number of which are Commonwealth nations, are a “natural gateway to a global brand”.
Global success will require avoiding problems that have slowed down earlier start-ups such as StrideUp and Primary Finance — property finance companies that saw their growth stall after struggling to raise enough capital, according to Islamic Finance Guru, a comparison site.
However, they will at least have the support of high-profile figures who see growth as another way to boost the UK’s position in the wake of Brexit. In March, Sunak issued the UK government’s second sukuk — a sharia-compliant government bond — an event which he said was “cementing the UK’s position as the leading global hub for Islamic finance outside the Islamic world”.
Sajid Javid, the UK’s first Muslim chancellor, who was the mastermind behind the country’s first sukuk when serving in the Treasury in 2014, said the political will is “absolutely there” to foster Islamic fintech in London.
“Supporting Islamic fintech as a way of further enhancing our status as a global financial hub naturally fits with the post-Brexit agenda,” Javid told #fintechFT. “We’ve got the technical knowledge, physical infrastructure and institutions to support fintech in general, but also the homegrown talent and cultural ties to build world-leading fintech brands.”
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