Digital payments and fintech company Novatti Group (ASX: NOV) is poised to make splashes globally having secured $10.2 million from institutional investors to accelerate their growth strategy as the world shifts towards a cashless economy, expedited by COVID-19.

The funds come after a very strong few months of corporate activity at Novatti which include integrating their China-focused payments platform into the official Alipay app, and on Thursday being selected by global payments business Marqeta as their domestic partner for an Australian expansion of their cards business.

With Marqeta’s cards already used by a growing list of consumer brands including Square, Uber, Affirm, Instacart, DoorDash, and Afterpay, there was significant market interest in Novatti following the partnership announcement.

On Friday, it was confirmed that Shaw and Partners had commenced a capital raise for Novatti which had secured $10.2m at $0.25 per share by Monday morning.

“This capital raising will provide the funding for Novatti’s next growth phase and to capitalise on the shift towards increased digital banking and payments that has been seen through COVID-19,” said Novatti Managing Director, Peter Cook.

“We strongly believe that the shift to a cashless society will accelerate going forward and, with Novatti already being fully digital, we are well placed to capitalise on this rapidly expanding market.”

Beyond their partnerships with Marqeta and Alipay, the world’s largest lifestyle platform with more than 1.2 billion users, 2020 has been a big year to date for Novatti which also reported record revenues of $3m for the March quarter and acquired fellow payments business Emersion Systems for $2.6m in April.

With established infrastructure in place for their digital payments business as well as holding a Visa Principal Issuer licence allowing the business to issue both digital and physical Visa cards, Novatti has weathered the COVID-19 storm significantly better than the wider market. This has been facilitated by the pandemic enforced shift towards online business, digital transactions and rise of cash alternatives.

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