Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Fintech is heading to the moon according to a report from BCG and QED, with revenues set to hit $1.5trn by 2030.

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

Sponsored Content 

Want to be a This Week in Fintech - UK & Europe sponsor? Reach out to me at michael@thisweekinfintech.com and see our sponsorship information here.

Tweet of the week 🦉🏆

    ‌

Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺 Nordic open banking startup Kreditz raised a €10m investment from Creades.

🇪🇺 SMB platform Pennylane raised a €29.5m Series C from DST Global.

🇪🇺 NFC wallet for crypto Tangem raised a $8m round from SBI Digital Asset Holdings and Shima Capital.

🇪🇺 Insurtech Qiti raised a €1.9m round from Bpifrance.

🇬🇧 Consumer financial management app Frost raised £1.87m on crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

🌍 Middle Eastern open banking platform Tarabut Gateway raised a $32m Series A round led by Pinnacle Capital.

🌍 Latam payments provider Liquido raised a $26m round from Index Ventures.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Portuguese business app Rauva is now live, to help business owners manage all aspects of their operations.

🇬🇧 Revolut is now live in Brazil, its first market in Latin America.

🇬🇧 Tax and accounting app Coconut is to be sold to rival GoSimpleTax after it failed to raise funding due to the UK governments two-year delay to its Making Tax Digital Scheme.

🇬🇧 UK SMB neobank Allica Bank saw revenue grow over 500% in 2022 and turned a £3m pre-tax profit in H2 2022 driven by lending.

🇬🇧 Monzo announced it now has 250,000 business customers in the UK.

🇬🇧 LHV UK has secured its own UK banking licence.

🌍 Apple has secured $1bn in deposits in just four days from 240,000 customers since launching its savings account according to unnamed sources. As a point of international comparison, Chase's UK launch attracted 1m customers and £10bn (~$12.6bn) in twelve months and it took Goldman's Marcus eight months to get 250,000 customers and £8bn in deposits.

🌍 US neobank Kinly is to be acquired by neobank Greenwood, merging to neobanks with a similar mission in helping underserved communities.

🌍 Latam neobank Nubank has hit 80m customers in the region.

🌍 The chair of the US Senate Banking Committee has written to FDIC Chairman expressing concerns about savings fintech Tellus, backed by a16z.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺The ECB is looking for a closer integration of its centralised settlement systems with the wholesale financial markets as they move towards using distributed ledger technology.

🇪🇺 Crypto investment firm Greenfield named Lisbon as the world's most important crypto hub, with NYC and Berlin tied for second.

🇪🇺  Crypto exchange Gate Group has secured a VASP registration in Italy.

🇬🇧 A public consultation into changing the tax treatment of DeFi lending and staking has been launched.

🌍 JPMorgan has affirmed its commitment to tokenize traditional financial assets through its Onyx unit, despite increasing regulatory scrutiny.

🌍 Binance is set to begin its operations in Japan after taking over regulated exchange Sakura Exchange BitCoin.

🌍 PayPal is to enable Venmo users to transfer crypto.

🌍 Mastercard is partnering with crypto wallet providers Bit2Me, Lirium, Mercado Bitcoin and Uphold to improve on-chain identity and verification through its Mastercard Crypto Credential between the US and Latam.

🌍 Crypto exchange Gemini, lender Genesis and its parent Digital Currency Group alongside creditors are entering into mediation.

🌍 Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius is looking to mingle both its UK and US entities due to poor record keeping has made untangling them difficult.

🌍 Crypto exchange Coinbase has launched the Coinbase International Exchange following its approval by Bermuda Monetary Authority, as it steps up its plans to scale globally.

🌍 The founders for bankrupt crypto hedge fund 3AC have been reprimanded for marketing their new bankruptcy claim trading exchange, OPNX, to residents of Dubai and the UAE.

🌍 President Biden is looking to impose a 30% tax on crypto mining operations due to their impact on the environment and energy prices.  The tax will be assessed on firm's energy costs.

🌍 FTX is trying to clawback almost $4bn it paid to bankrupt crypto lender Genesis Global.

🌍 Crypto bull and former Coinbase executive Balaji Srinivasan has closed his losing bet that Bitcoin would rise to $1m in just 90 days.

🌍 Crypto exchange Poloniex will pay a $7.6m settlement to OFAC for sanctions violations.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Danske Bank is rolling out a B2B intelligence service that allows its corporate clients to track the financial health of customers.

🇬🇧Lloyds Bank is now starting to enforce its two days a week in the office policy through looking an employee card swipe data.

🌍 US bank Capital One's earnings showed a decline in lending activity coupled with an improvement in credit card delinquency to 3.66% and an increase in deposits.

🌍 Cross River Bank has been the target of a consent order by the FDIC about its lending practices.

🌍 JPMorgan successfully acquired First Republic Bank through the FDIC for $10.6bn.

🌍 KPMG is becoming scrutinised after being the auditor on three failed US banks, SVB, Signature Bank and now First Republic Bank.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Swedish bank-owned identity provider BankID is launching a digital ID card.

🇪🇺German exchange Deutsche Borse is acquiring investment management software provider SimCorp.

🇬🇧Open Banking provider Ozone has joined the Temenos Exchange, a partner program of fintech solutions available to the customers of the core banking software provider.

🇬🇧 Wise has partnered with US banking platform BlueVine to provide SMBs an international bill pay solution.

🇬🇧 Open banking platform Tink has secured European credit provider Younited as a customer to improve accuracy in affordability decisions.

🌍 LatAM open banking platform Belvo has acquired A2A payment provider Skilopay.

🌍 Fiserv will integrate Clover, its POS, with Apple's Tap to Pay so allow merchants to accept payments on iPhone.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Adyen is partnering with restaurant software provider Olo to provide a consolidated solution for payments, capital and cashflow management.

🇬🇧 Industry body Innovate Finance has expressed it is "deeply concerned" with the governments planned BNPL regulation and that they would be stricter than the rules for credit cards.

🇬🇧 Payment orchestrator Paytently has launched out of stealth.

🌍 Mastercard's earnings reported GMV up 15%, most notably cross-border volumes which were up 35%. The company is also being investigated by the DOJ for anticompetitive practices in its debit card operations.

🌍 BNPL solution Splitit has launched a two-second checkout experience.

🌍 Kroger and Walmart are rumoured to be interested in using FedNow for payments as an alternative to traditional card rails.

🌍 Stripe is to process payments for businesses in Microsoft Teams. The payment processor has also expanded its partnership with Uber across the US, Australia and Japan to enable pay by bank by combining its Link and Financial Connections products.

🌍 Payments solution Finix has now directly integrated with Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover, and has been itself designated an acquirer-processor.

🌍 Payment solution Shift4 acquired restaurant payment provider Focus POS for $45m.

‌             ‌

Longer reads 📜

• Thriving in the Next Era of BaaS - Alex Johnson
• Return of the Zombies - Marc Rubinstein
• Lessons From Ancient Rome: How Banks Can Learn to Love Start-Ups - Matt Harris, BCV
• Grow the Puzzle Around You - Jessica Livingston
• There Are Gaps In The US Real-Time Payment System. Who Will Fill Them? - Rocio Wu
• The Full Power of Deposit Networks - Paolo Bertolotti, ModernFi
• -The Era of Easy Deposits Is Over for Main Street Banks - Gina Heeb, WSJ
• How Bank Apps Know You’re You - Dalvin Brown, WSJ

‌             ‌

👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know

Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more fintech content‌‌‌‌See you next week!