Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

It’s been a busy week in the UK this week with a new Prime Minister and the sad passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, may she rest in peace.

We also had the latest London Fintech Happy Hour sponsored by Fidel API last week, thanks to everyone that came out for the event.  We had a blast at an incredible venue!  Check out the pictures here.

If you are interested in sponsoring an event in the future reach out to me at michael@thisweekinfintech.com.

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.

🇪🇺 Financing platform Wayflyer has raised $253m in debt funding from Credit Suisse.

🇪🇺 Moneyflow raised €250m in debt financing.

🇪🇺 Software for private market investors Edda raised a $5.8m round.

🇪🇺 Protech Hestia raised a €1m seed round.

🇪🇺 Digital financial advisor Selma raises a CHF 7m Series A extension led by TX Ventures.

🇪🇺 Open finance orchestration provider Bits Technology raised a €1m seed round from Cherry Ventures and Greens Ventures.

🇬🇧 Regtech firm SteelEye raised a $21m Series B from Illuminate Financial, Fidelity International and Ten Coves Capital.

🇬🇧 Neobroker Freetrade has launched a crowdfunding campaign after a deal with investors fell through.

🌍 Identity and risk platform Alloy raised $52m at a $1.55bn valuation.

🌍 Finance automation platform Mesh Payments raised a $60m Series C led by Alpha Wave.

₿ DeFi credit marketplace Credix raised a $11.5m Series A led by Motive Partners and ParaFi Capital.

₿ Crypto ETP issuer 21Shares has raised $25m in a round led by Marshall Wace.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 N26 is taking proactive measures to protect consumers against phishing scams.

🇪🇺 Nebobroker Tiger.Trade has secured the services of UFC Champion Conor McGregor as an ambassador.

🇬🇧 Revolut was reported by the FT as the bank whose auditors found an “unacceptably high” risk of “material misstatement. It is also reported to have pulled job offers to new graduates as part of a broader in-house review. The company is also launching a one-click payment feature called Revolut Pay.

🇬🇧 Lending marketplace Funding Options will provide lenders access to its own market data to give them a competitive edge.

🇬🇧 Chip has launched a Prize Savings Account, a premium bond concept, as it also raises fees for its ChipX account from £3 to £4.99 whilst removing the platform fee and adding fair usage fees to its free plan of £0.45 per autosave and £0.25 for a recurring save.

🇬🇧 Lending Works is rebranding to Fluro as it refocuses on its strategy to become an embedded lender.

🇬🇧 Creator fintech XPO has gone into administration after failing to raise another round.

🇬🇧 Starling Bank has estimated it has £92m of fraudulent Bounce Bank Loans on its books, more than double what Barclays Bank has who was the largest user of the scheme.

🌍 Singapore has a new neobank in Trust Bank, a partnership between Standard Chartered and FairPrice.

Digital Assets ₿

🇬🇧 Crypto exchanges operating in the UK will be forced to report sanctions breaches.

🇬🇧 Revolut is lowering the amount it charges from buying and selling crypto from 2.5% to 1.99% or £0.99 (whichever is higher).

🌍 DeFi platform Kyber Network was exploited for $265k and will reimburse all funds.

🌍 Crypto lender Celsius Network is asking its US bankruptcy judge to allow it to return $50m to users that is sitting in “custody accounts”. A filing by the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation said the lender made “false and misleading claims” about its “financial health and compliance with securities law”.

🌍 BlackRock is using Kraken’s CF Benchmarks bitcoin index pricing for its new bitcoin offering.

🌍 Binance is converting USDC, USDP and TUSD into its new Binance USD stablecoin from 29th September.

🌍 Coinbase has proposed MakerDAO deposit $1.6bn of its USDC holdings in its institutional platform in exchange for 1.5% yield, providing the DAO with an additional $25m in revenue.

🌍 $30m has been recovered by the US government and Chainalysis from the Axie Infinity hack.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Western Union’s WU+ banking app in Germany has been downloaded over 100,000 since it was launched in the spring.

🇬🇧 TSB Bank launched a marketplace to help customers connect to fintechs to support their financial decisions.

🇬🇧 The shared bank branch trial is being extended with 25 being set to be launched across the UK to ensure access to cash.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 French BaaS provider Swan is opening a Berlin office.

🇬🇧 BaaS provider Griffin has launched Verify, a onboarding product for fintechs that combines KYC and KYB in a single platform.

🇬🇧 Fidel API announced the joining of former Marqeta and Mastercard executive Salman Syed as COO and a new office in San Francisco.

🌍 A top US regulator has highlighted the increasing partnership between fintechs and banks could pose a risk to the financial system.

🌍 Zelle reported it has facilitated over 5bn transactions, with $1.5trn being send since it started in 2017.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 A2A provider kevin has partnered with Switchio, a POS provider to enable its A2A payment solution to be available on terminals.

🇪🇺 Klarna employees have elected a works council in the wake of its 10% layoffs.

🇬🇧 A study from ACI Worldwide, Global Data and Cebr has found that upgrading the UK’s payments infrastructure could boost GDP by $3.8bn by 2026.

🇬🇧 Lloyds Bank have found that 90% of in person debit card purchases are done via contactless.

🌍 Shopify is warning its merchants that are using Amazon’s Buy with Prime checkout that it could enable fraud.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🌍 The FTC has fined Credit Karma $3m for providing false “pre-approvals.

Longer reads 📜

• The barrier to entry for Embedded Finance is too damn high - Dilip Ramachandran
• Banking as a Service (BaaS) Fintechs Coming to Age to Fuel Integrated Finance Needs - Flagship Advisory Partners
• The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero - Patrick McKenzie
• What Is a Partner Bank’s Responsibility When a Neobank Fails? - Jason Mikula
• TCH Phase 1 – eCom Wallet - Tom Noyes
• Foundations for Successful Fintech Infrastructure - a16z
• Filling the Advice Gap: a startup opportunity - Rob Moffat
• Apple – #1 Payment Innovator - Tom Noyes
• What is Tokenisation and how does it Work? - Paypr.work

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See you next week!