Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Chantal Swainston, PR manager at Wise has created The Heard, a women in fintech speaker index.  The initiative is bringing together women and non-binary people in the fintech industry who have put themselves forward for public speaking and other media opportunities. Check it out!

I look forward to seeing all thoughts who managed snag a ticket to the next London Fintech Happy Hour with Fidel API on wednesday! Tickets are sold out but be sure to join the waitlist as there is usually some last minute availability.  Join here.

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.

🇪🇺 Home financing fintech Justhome raised a €3.3m round led by Tiger Global.

🇪🇺 Hardware subscription fintech topi raised $30m in equity from Creandum, Index Ventures and TriplePoint Capital.

🇪🇺 Credit broker Change Capital raised €1.7m from Weholding and Banca Valsabbina.

🇪🇺 Heath insurer Ottonova raised €34m from Cadence Growth Capital.

🇪🇺Intelligent invoicing startup Billogram rasied $15m from Partech, Swisscom Ventures, Inbox Capital and Club Network Investments.

🇪🇺 Contactless payments startup Pagopace raised €200k from angels.

🇪🇺E-commerce lender Fulfin raised a €4.4m Series A from Hevella Capital, Stableton Financial and Lakeside Partners.

🇪🇺Web3 data ecosystem Redstone raised a $7m seed round from Blockchain Capital, Coinbase Ventures and others.

🇬🇧 Agricultural bank Oxbury raised £25m in Tier 2 capital.

🇬🇧 Investment provider Assetz Capital Borrower raised £300k on Seedrs.

🌍 Blockchain remittance fintech Lightnet raised $50m from LDA Capital.

🌍 New banking-as-a-service provider Solid raised $63m.

🌍Digital asset infrastructure provider LevelField is raising $50m.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Crowdfunding platform Lendahand has secured a crowdfunding licence across Europe.

🇪🇺 Payments firm SumUp is launching a consumer digital wallet.

🇬🇧 Seedrs has announced it has raised £2bn over its 10 year life span, with the first £1bn coming after 8 years.

🇬🇧 Jupiter Fund Management is selling its 10% stake in Starling Bank.

🇬🇧 The City of London is searching for a CEO to lead the new Center for Finance, Innovation and Technology.

🇬🇧 Wise was fined $360,000 by the Abu Dhabi regulator over AML breaches.

🇬🇧 US investment firm Republic has completed its $100m acquisition of crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

🌍 Block is facing a lawsuit over a data breach at Cash App which impacted 8.2m customers.

🌍 Telecoms company Singtel and superapp Grab have launched GXS, a digital bank for consumers and businesses.

Digital Assets ₿

🇬🇧 Sweatcoin will launch its SWEAT token on DAO Maker’s crypto launchpad so the token can be interoperable for customers.

🌍 22 crypto firms are looking to buy Voyager Digital assets which include Binance and FTX.  Coinbase has backed out.

🌍 The Monetary Authority of Singapore is considering “suitability tests” for crypto trading.

🌍 The AVAX token dropped 11% after the company was accused of conspiring with a law firm to harm competitors. The lawyer at the center of it, Kyle Roche, has withdrawn as counsel from some lawsuits.

🌍 Crypto.com is heading to court to try and recoup $10.5m it incorrectly transferred to an Australian user back in May 2021.

🌍 MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor is being sued by the District of Columbia over tax fraud totalling $25m.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 UBS has signed a carbon removal agreement for 10 years with Climeworks. It also decided to terminate its acquisition of Wealthfront.

🇪🇺 ING is to completely shut Yolt, closing its remaining B2B operations after its consumer facing app was closed last year.

🇪🇺 BBVA is hiring engineers, with 1,000 joining in H1 and expectations to double that by the end of the year.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Solaris is seeking to become profitable on a monthly basis by the end of the year.

🇪🇺 Findynet Cooperation, a group of financial institutions, has received a €3m grant to build a self-sovereign identity network.

🌍 FIS is launching a CBDC Virtual Lab to give central banks a place to experiment with CBDCs.

🌍 FedNow, the real-time payments system, is to launch by the middle of next year, the Federal Reserve announced last week.

🌍 Indonesia and Singapore are connecting their QR code standards to create a cross-border link.

🌍 Swift is aiming to reduce friction on its network by mining previous transactions to flag upfront when payee details may be incorrect and cause a payment to be delayed.

🌍 National Australia Bank has launched ConnectedID, a service to allow users to validate their identity across e-commerce, utilities, banking and other services.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Mobile payments firm Blik is looking to expand through an acquisition of Slovakian competitor Viamo.

🇪🇺 Losses at Klarna nearly quadrupled for H1 2022 due to international expansion, integration of new acquisitions and larger credit losses.

🌍 Affirm’s outlook warned of consumer stress and its revenue outlook sent shares 20% lower.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧 A group of UK MPs that form The Challenger Banking APPG are calling for a “Big Bang” deregulation moment for fintech to encourage competition.  The group specifically is seeking for broader open banking, a FSCS scheme for fintechs offering consumer access, more financial education and closing branches offered to fintechs.

🌍 Democrat lawmakers have expressed “strong concern” over Credova Financial which provides BNPL for gun purchases.

Longer reads 📜

• The branch banking model - Patrick McKenzie
• Pay By Bank – Where does it work and why? - Tom Noyes
• A simple guide to the web3 developer stack - Coinbase

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See you next week!