Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Please find another week of fintech news, financings and exits below.

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Funding 💸

Highlights below of deals since the last post in the fintech space across the UK & Europe.

🇪🇺 KYB and identity orchestrator Bits Technology raised a €4m seed round led by Unusual Ventures.

🇬🇧 Digital bank software provider Plumery raised a $4.5m seed round from Headline Ventures, Seedcamp, Better Tomorrow Ventures and others.

🇬🇧Digital mortgage platform Tembo raised a £5m round from Lone Ventures.

🇬🇧 Property fintech Wayhome raised a £8m Series A led by Allianz and Augmentum Fintech and also included Volution, Love Ventures and Cur8 Capital.

🇬🇧 Crypto custody provider Zodia Custody raised a $36m Series A led by SC Ventures and SBI Holdings.

🌍 Three former Amex Ventures investors launched Versey Ventures, a $78m fund to back early-stage fintechs.

🌍 Closed loop digital wallet provider Ansa announced their $5.4m seed round from Susa Ventures, Cambrian Ventures, TWIF's own The Fintech Fund and angels.

🌍 Savings app Super.com raised an $60m Series C led by Inovia Capital. as well as a $25m debt facility.

🌍 Digital identity solution IDPartner raised a $3.1m seed round led by Abstract Ventures.

₿ DeFi and CEFI credit markets infrastructure provider Credora raised a $6m round from S&P Global and Coinbase Ventures.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 N26 is cutting 4% of staff, some 71 employees.

🇬🇧 Investment company Schroders has reduced the valuation of its Revolut stake in one of its funds by 46%, implying a valuation for the fintech of $17.7bn, down from $33bn. It also reduced its valuation of its Atom Bank stake by 31%.

🇬🇧 Neobroker Freetrade is to increase the cost of its monthly subscription plans in the near future but offering an annual plan at the equivalent rate of existing, lower monthly rate.

🇬🇧 New payment operations fintech Apron launched from a former Revolut and Cash App employee.

🇬🇧 The CEO and founder of payments and tax fintech Paddle is stepping down.

🇬🇧 Monzo launched savings accounts for businesses with a 1.5% interest rate and no minimum deposit.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 France has said that existing crypto providers could see their MiCA applications get fast-tracked.

🇪🇺 ECB board member Fabio Panetta has said that merchants should be obliged to accept a future digital euro.

🇪🇺 Austrian bank Raiffeisenlandesbank wants to become the first European bank to offer crypto and other digital assets to its clients.

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank subsidiary DWS has pull out from investing in crypto solution Tradias.

🇬🇧Standard Chartered has declared the crypto winter over and predicted bitcoin will reach $100k but the end of 2023.

🇬🇧 Savings and investment app Moneybox is shelving its plans to offer crypto.

🌍 Crypto exchange Gemini is to open its first office in Asia, selecting India as the location.

🌍 Money market funds from Franklin Templeton that record share ownership on the blockchain are seeing inflows after crypto-friendly banks shut down.

🌍 Coinbase has obtained a Bermuda licence to operate as a digital asset exchange as it seeks to expand internationally. It has also asked a federal court to force the SEC to respond to its request for formal rules on digital assets.

🌍 Do Kwon, founder of Terra blockchain, will be indicted for passport forgery after being arrested in Montenegro and attempted to escape to Costa Rica.

🌍 The Solana Foundation is measuring its carbon emissions in real-time and claims to be the first major blockchain network to do it.

🌍 A exchange for crypto bankruptcy claims, OPNX, founded by executives from 3AC, published a list of investors this week but swiftly saw investors distancing themselves from the project.

🌍 Yuga Labs, creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs has won a trademark lawsuit against two artists that created a ripoff NFT series based on BAYC.

🌍 A three way auction has emerged for bankrupt lender Celsius Network with Techcrunch founder Michael Arrington and the Winklevoss twins.

🌍 Binance has lifted restrictions it placed on Russian citizens and has allowed ruble deposits and other currencies from Russian bank cards. It also pulled out of its $1bn deal to buy Voyager Digital due to the regulatory environment.

🌍 Visa is hiring software engineers for its "ambitious crypto product roadmap".

🌍 Phantom, the Solana wallet, has gone multichain by expanding to Ethereum and Polygon.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 ABN Amro has partnered with Swedish financial literacy provider Gimi to create a financial literacy app designed for kids.

🇬🇧 Chase has increased the rate it pays on current account balances to 1%.

🌍 First Republic Bank is cutting 25% of workers after seeing unprecedented deposit outflows and could seek a rescue from FDIC.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇬🇧 Revolut has created its own connection to SEPA to allow it to clear its own € transactions.

🇬🇧 Thought Machine has integrated the services of MQUBE, a digital mortgage lending platform.

🇬🇧 Issuer processor Global Processing Services, known as GPS, is rebranding as "Thredd".

🌍 Loyalty platform Triple and receipt data provider Banyan have partnered to enable SKU level card-linked offers.

🌍 Sardine has partnered with Fortress Trust to improve the safety and security of blockchain payments.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Klarna has released an AI-powered shopping feed for consumers.

🇪🇺 Payment solution Paysend is opening an office in Dublin.

🇬🇧Executives from both Klarna and Block (formerly Square) have criticised the UK's BNPL regulation plans as being "outdated".

🇬🇧 Payment orchestrator Br-dge launched Vault, a network tokenisation product to improve security for merchants.

🌍 American Express reported earnings that showed spending among younger cardholders increased doubt digits but also provisioned $1.1bn for credit losses.

🌍 Payment provider Elavon has partnered with California Restaurant Association to provide its payment services to the CRA's 22,000 members.

🌍 Shopify is partnering with B2B payment provider Melio to create Shopify Bill Pay, a business bill payment solution embedded in the Shopify's commerce platform.

🌍 A US appeals court has upheld an earlier ruling stating that Apple cannot prohibit links to enable payments outside of the App Store.

🌍 Stripe has added new features to its Revenue and Finance Automation products to provide key financial metrics and deliver automated accounting statements.

🌍 Citi credit card holders have an instalment option when paying with Amazon Pay.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧 The FCA is warning of money laundering schemes using the Post Office and has outlined new measures to tackle the problem.

🌍 The CFPB has fired an employee that sent personal information of more than 250,000 Americans to a person email account.

Longer reads 📜

• The best fintechs turn risk into leverage - Matt Brown
• Earning the Right to Win in Embedded Lending - Alex Johnson
• Future of Retail Banking – Part 5 - Tom Noyes
• How to Stop Return Fraud - Merchant Fraud Journal
• The Price of Confidence - Mar Rubinstein
• How Germany’s top fintech is struggling to grow up - Olaf, Storbeck

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See you next week!