The Burnside Partnership, based in Combe, has launched the service to support clients with interests in Spain, including property ownership and residency visas.

The Spanish Desk follows the appointment of Yolanda Pérez Berges, a bilingual lawyer with more than 17 years of experience in both the UK and Spain.

She is registered with the Solicitors Regulatory Authority and the Madrid Bar Association.

Ms Pérez Berges said: “I’m delighted to have joined The Burnside Partnership as it expands its international services – particularly within Europe.

“I can help bridge the two jurisdictions and support clients with cross-border interests in a joined-up, practical way.”

The new desk will provide guidance on cross-border estate planning, tax matters, probate, property transactions, residency visas, and cross-border family matters.

Della Burnside, managing partner, said: “Spain has become a key destination for our clients, and the launch of our dedicated Spanish Desk is a natural next step.

“With Yolanda joining the firm, we can offer a seamless service to those who need cross-border Anglo-Spanish advice.

“We are delighted to welcome Yolanda and to further strengthen our international expertise.”

The Burnside Partnership, which also has offices in Marlow, London, was founded in 2015 by Oxford lawyer Anna Burnside.

LemFi has committed GBP £100 million to the UK economy over the next five years and named London its global headquarters.

The fintech group said the investment would support hiring in London, expansion of compliance functions, technology development and research. It described the move as its largest investment pledge linked to the UK market.

The announcement puts London at the centre of LemFi’s global operations as it expands services for diaspora communities that send money and manage finances across borders. The business said its team operates across five continents and serves customers in corridors linking markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The UK’s Department for Business and Trade highlighted the investment as part of broader trade ties between the UK and Nigeria. Annual bilateral trade between the two countries stands at GBP £8.1 billion, according to figures cited alongside the announcement.

London base

The UK funding package will go toward recruitment across engineering, compliance and product roles at the London headquarters. LemFi also plans to invest in its regulatory systems and in the next stage of its platform.

That focus reflects a wider push across fintech to strengthen compliance and local oversight while building products for internationally mobile customers. Firms serving migrant and diaspora populations have faced growing pressure to show they can expand while meeting standards in multiple jurisdictions.

Mark Smithson, Country Director for Nigeria and Regional Director for Anglo West Africa at the UK’s Department for Business and Trade, commented on the move. “LemFi’s £100 million investment and job-creation commitment over the next five years is a strong vote of confidence in the UK’s fintech ecosystem and in deepening our economic partnership,” he said.

“It also underlines the UK’s position as a global home for high-growth businesses-supporting firms to scale responsibly, delivering safer and more accessible financial services for diaspora communities worldwide.”

Expansion path

LemFi has been building its footprint through regulatory approvals and acquisitions. It said it now holds financial services licences and approvals in the UK, Ireland, Australia and across 14 US states.

Last year, it acquired London credit fintech Pillar in a deal intended to add credit services for customers with limited formal credit histories. The group also secured approval from the Central Bank of Ireland to acquire Bureau Buttercrane, a move it said would give it access to the European Economic Area.

Those moves suggest the business is looking beyond remittances to a broader set of financial products. They also show how regulated entities and approvals have become an important route for fintech companies seeking faster access to new markets.

Rian Cochran, LemFi’s Co-founder and Chief Financial Officer, linked the London decision to the company’s customer base and international structure.

“Our team across five continents reflects every corridor we serve; to us, that lived experience is not a diversity metric; it is our product advantage,” said Cochran. “Our £100m commitment is more than just a capital injection; it is a promise of stability and accessibility. By centralising our global operations in London, we are creating a hub that ensures every corridor we serve, whether in Africa, Asia, or Latin America, benefits from world-class financial infrastructure and a cooperative relationship with local regulators.”

Founders’ view

LemFi was founded to address the needs of people who live and work across borders, and that proposition has widened as it has expanded into more countries. Its customer base now runs into the millions, according to the company.

Ridwan Olalere, LemFi’s Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, said the latest investment would support the next phase of growth. “We started LemFi to solve a real problem for people living across borders, and today, that mission is scaling globally. From our roots in Africa, we’re now serving millions of customers across continents, building financial services that reflect how people actually live and move.”

“This next phase is about expanding that impact: reaching more people across more markets with products that help them not just send money, but also build and grow financially wherever they are. The UK provides an enabling environment for us to achieve that,” said Olalere.

hivr.ai has launched software designed to eliminate manual rooming lists from meetings and group hotel bookings. Radisson Hotel Group is rolling out the system across its European portfolio.

Developed with Radisson, the product targets a part of group booking that still relies heavily on staff rekeying guest details into property management and customer systems. The launch covers both hotels that still use rooming lists and those that want guests to book directly into reserved room blocks.

For hotels that keep existing processes, the system ingests guest data from a range of formats, including PDFs, emails, spreadsheets and handwritten inputs, then structures the data and syncs it into hotel systems. It also compares different versions of a rooming list to identify additions, removals and changes, reducing the need for staff to check updates manually.

The second option replaces rooming lists with direct booking into room blocks. In that model, attendees book their own rooms through a built-in engine, while planners and hotel teams can track pickup and see how the block is being used.

According to hivr.ai, a typical European corporate group booking with 100 guests can involve about 50 minutes of manual data entry. That estimate is based on roughly 30 seconds of processing time for each guest name and room entry, with further savings when revised lists no longer need to be compared by hand.

The rollout extends an existing relationship between the two companies. hivr.ai already works with 1,200 Radisson properties across Europe, giving the new product a large installed base as it is introduced across the chain’s regional estate.

The system can be deployed as separate modules or as part of hivr.ai’s wider sales platform for meetings and groups. Hotel teams can manage the workflow directly through the platform or use software agents to handle tasks such as guest data ingestion, change reconciliation and pickup tracking, with hotels setting the rules for how those agents operate.

Manual burden

Hotels have long treated group bookings as valuable business because they can fill large room blocks and generate meeting and event revenue. Yet the administration around those bookings often remains fragmented, with planners, sales teams and hotel staff exchanging spreadsheets and email attachments before room allocations are finalised.

That process can create operational friction, especially when rooming lists are revised several times before arrival. Each update may require staff to compare versions line by line, enter changes into booking systems and check whether room blocks still match guest demand.

hivr.ai is positioning the new release around that pain point. “Most group bookings still involve someone manually rekeying a rooming list into the PMS. That’s where errors creep in, revenue leaks and hotel teams get stuck doing admin instead of managing relationships. We’ve built something that eliminates that entirely – and we’ve built it with the right partners to make sure it works in the real world,” said Felix Undeutsch, Chief Executive of hivr.ai.

For Radisson, the change is intended to shift staff time away from spreadsheet work and towards customer-facing activity. “Group bookings are some of our highest-value business and until now the operational side hasn’t matched that value. This changes the equation – our teams can focus on the guest and the relationship instead of processing spreadsheets. That’s a meaningful shift for Radisson,” said Mandy Stam, Senior Director of Business Solutions at Radisson Hotel Group.

Wider push

The launch reflects broader efforts across the hotel sector to automate back-office booking tasks that have resisted digital standardisation. Meetings and group reservations are often more complex than transient bookings because they combine room allocations, event requirements, negotiated rates and changing attendee lists.

By targeting rooming lists, hivr.ai is moving into a narrow but labour-intensive part of that workflow. The company was founded by former Expedia Group executives and focuses on software for hotel sales teams handling meetings and group business.

The latest product is also going live with a travel technology partner alongside the Radisson rollout in Europe, according to hivr.ai. The software is designed to fit into existing hotel operations rather than force teams to replace current systems, while staff retain control over when automated processes are used.