W2 Global Data plans to recruit 20 more staff after funding worth £1.25 million

W2 Global Data, a fast-growing fintech company based in Newport, has finished a round of funding worth £1.25million backed by Mercia Fund Managers, Development Bank of Wales and TTI Angels. This brings the total amount raised by the company to over £3.0million.

W2 Global Data has achieved consistent growth since its founding in 2011. It has doubled in size over the last year. Currently it employs almost 40 people, and is planning to recruit 20 more. 

The company provides identity verification services to help prevent fraud and money laundering. With access to thousands of government and commercial data sources, it can instantly verify whether the data given by individuals is genuine and even whether they are on a criminal wanted list.

W2’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools allow payment and financial services companies to screen clients and managers, online retailers to verify the identity of purchasers in card transactions and online gaming firms to check the age of players.

Warren Russell, the current CEO, says: “The rapid growth of online fraud and increased regulation is putting real pressure on banks, financial services, online retailers and other businesses to verify their customers’ identity. Demand for our services has far outgrown our earlier projections and we have doubled our headcount over the past year.”

Julian Dennard, Investment Director at Mercia Fund Managers, says: “There is a growing global demand for the fraud detection and identity verification services that W2 provides. The company has a strong management team and an excellent reputation in the market. This latest funding round will allow it to build its team, enhance its platform and accelerate growth.”

Richard Thompson, Senior Investment Executive at the Development Banka of Wales said: “It’s brilliant to see cutting-edge SaaS companies like W2 Global expanding their workforce so significantly in Wales. It’s a testament to their growth and the success of their technology since relocating to Wales. We’re pleased to be able to continue supporting Warren and his team.”

A major increase in staff numbers can cause unforeseen problems for HR, admin and accounts job tasks if the company’s method of recording time worked has not kept up with the expansion. 

For example, paper timesheets are open to deliberate falsification as well as simple confusion over layout or categories, and payroll staff end up suffering from everyone’s bad handwriting and worse memory!

At Time and Attendance Southern we offer specialised attendance management software which can work either with smartcards or with biometrics. As well as recording who has worked when, where and on which user-defined job, the WinTA.NET software suite can also export the data straight to all major payroll programmes (as well as many other features)

Our smartcards are about the size of a credit card and fit nicely into most wallets. The Radio Frequency technology means that you don’t need to physically swipe the cards, just hold them up near the reader terminal. This means they don’t wear down and need replaced.

For the ultimate deterrent against time theft, we can provide a hand scanner and/or a fingerprint reader. Smartcards can be lost, or swapped with colleagues to input fake times. This isn’t the case with hands and fingers! 

The HSCAN Hand Scanner Terminal captures an image of the hand each time the employee punches. The hand’s size and the shape are used to verify their identity. 

Once registered on the fingerprint scanner, the image of the patterns usually found on one’s fingertips is converted into a code through a secure algorithm. Whenever registered users scan, the live fingerprint and the stored fingerprint template are compared.