Yaspa secures UK government grant to develop affordability check deposit platform
Fintech company plans to deliver “non-disruptive, real-time risk detection” to operators after landing funding from Innovate UK
Yaspa has been awarded a grant from the UK government to further develop its safer gambling payments and AI platform, which could play a key role in affordability checks for operators.
The firm, which was founded in 2018 by former Worldpay chief technology officer James Neville, has secured the undisclosed amount of funding from Innovate UK.
Innovate UK is one of the sub-divisions of UK Research and Innovation, a government-funded body that invests £8bn of taxpayer’s money annually into various projects.
Yaspa said the funding would allow the firm to work with academics across safer gambling and AI to build a platform to allow players to make deposits with “non-disruptive, real-time risk detection”.
The company said the development of the platform would help operators “identify and address some of the UK’s 300,000 estimated problem gamblers”.
The group added that operators would be able to access player transaction data at the point of deposit, while the use of AI will lead to a higher likelihood of detecting risk in customers.
Yaspa said: “The inclusion of payment data will offer a frictionless way to conduct affordability checks that go beyond current consumer protection initiatives, such as paper-based affordability checks and reliance on data from within a single operator’s domain.”
The London-based fintech’s core capabilities centre on open banking and instant payments, with the firm having received backing from Fin Capital, SGH Capital and Metavallon VC.
Yaspa already works with the likes of Novibet, White Hat Gaming and Delasport in the industry.
James Neville, Yaspa CEO and co-founder, said the grant would allow the firm to play a “pivotal role in the future of compliance within the gambling sector”.
He explained: “With the use of fast-growing technologies including AI and open banking, our safer gambling platform will reimagine how affordability checks are conducted and actioned to protect vulnerable players.
“Currently, operators view players at the single operator level, and rely on disruptive checks that risk driving people to grey markets.
“Yaspa’s frictionless process, combined with a pan-operator view, will transform the experience for operators and players alike,” the CEO added.