Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Sadly this week Nick Hungerford, the co-founder of roboadvisor Nutmeg, which was sold to JPM in 2021, passed away. Nick started Nutmeg in 2011, one of the early fintech entrepreneurs in the UK. Rest in peace Nick.

Sponsored Content 

You’re invited to join Public.com tomorrow evening in celebration of their United Kingdom launch. Join CEO Leif Abraham and COO Stephen Sikes to learn more about Public’s investing platform, whilst meeting others in the London fintech community.

Attendees will receive priority access to the Public app, which offers over 5,000 US-listed stocks with competitive, low FX fees.

Learn more here.

Tweet of the week 🦉🏆

Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺BaaS provider Solaris raised a €38m Series F from HV Capital, Lakestar, ABN AMRO, , Finleap, Yabeo Capital, SBI Group, Decisive capital management and BBVA.

🇪🇺 Open banking payment solution Ivy raised a $7.7m seed round led by Creandum.

🇪🇺Climate fintech Finres raised a €4.1m seed round led by Speedinvest and included Tiny VC, Plug and Play, Kima Ventures and Illuminate Financial.

🇪🇺Institutional crypto exchange Blocktrade raised a $10m round from ABO Digital.

🇪🇺NFT ticketing solution Get Protocol raised a $4.5m seed round led by Flow Ventures and included Tezos Foundation, Redbeard Ventures and FunFair Ventures.

🇪🇺 Insurtech Hepster raised a €10m Series B from Seventure Partners, b Ventures and Claret Capital.

🇪🇺 Portfolio monitoring solution 73 Strings raised a $10m Series A led by Fidelity and Blackstone and also included Broadhaven Ventures.

🇬🇧Unified credit bureau API solution Slipstream raised a pre-seed round

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺Corporate spend management provider Moss is to use GoCardless direct debit products in the UK.

🇬🇧Budgeting and payments app Moneyhub is partnering with data aggregator MX.

🇬🇧 Neobank Fiinu had its restricted banking licence withdrawn after failing to raise capital.

🇬🇧 Neobank Monzo was reported to be in merger talks with Nordic peer Lunar.

🇬🇧US neobroker Public is now live in the UK offering fractional shares, NFTs, crypto and alternative assets.

🇬🇧 New global clearing bank The Bank of London has applied for a European banking licence and will spend €200m investing and hiring 300 people in Luxembourg over the next five years.

🇬🇧 Revolut has rolled out Apple's Tap to Pay on iPhone for its UK business and freelance customers.

🌍 Fintech giant Ant Group has been fined nearly $1bn for violating laws and regulations by China's central bank.

🌍 Latam neobank Nubank has partnered with Fireblocks to enhance its crypto infrastructure.

Digital Assets ₿

🇬🇧 The Bank of England is partnering with KYC and identity provider Nuggets to support its digital pound project.

🇬🇧The UK Government is to introduce a Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS) to allow innovations for new market infrastructure with digital assets to be tested. Likely to include stocks and bonds but not BTC or ETH.

🌍 Binance has seen three executives leave the exchange in the past week.

🌍 JP Morgan has said that SEC approval of a bitcoin ETF would not be a game changer for the crypto market.

🌍 Crypto exchange Gemini has sued Digital Currency Group and its founder for fraud in an attempt to recover Gemini funds from DCG.

🌍 Crypto bridge Multichain was exploited for $120m.

🌍 Crypto asset manager Grayscale has criticised the SEC for approving a leveraged bitcoin ETF after the regulator rejected its own spot ETF application. Its GBTC discount to NAV continues to fall.

🌍 A federal judge ruled that Ripple's XRP token "is not necessarily a security on its face" except when sold to raise funds from institutions. The price of XRP surged over 70% on the news as Coinbase, Crypto.com and Kraken reopened trading of the token.

🌍 Co-founder and ex-CEO of Celsius was arrested on fraud charges.

🌍 BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has said that crypto will transcend international currencies because of global demand.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺CaixaBank is hiring 200 new staff in its tech team.

🇬🇧NatWest has partnered with Perse and Absolar to help SMBs financially benefit from lowering their carbon emissions. It is also shutting another 36 branches.

🇬🇧 Barclays won unanimously in the Supreme Court over liability for a £700,000 APP scam against a customer potentially setting a new precedent and flying in the face of new regulations from the PSR.

🌍 SVB has sued the FDIC to recover the ~$2bn in funds that the regulator seized from it earlier this year

🌍 The FT reported that the six largest US banks have seen higher credit card losses as delinquency rates increase.

🌍 Citi has launched a digital client platform for its Commercial Bank customers.

🌍 JP Morgan looks to be trying to fill the void of SVB by growing its VC and startup banking business. It hired SVB veteran John China.

🌍 Bank of America has been ordered to pay $250m in penalties by the CFPB to customers for double-dipping on fees imposed on customers for NSF.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇬🇧 Cloud payment platform Form3 is partnering with POS provider SumUp to provide it with access to the Faster Payments Scheme and Bacs Scheme.

🇬🇧A2A solution Token has signed payment processor Total Processing as a customer for its open banking payment solution.

🌍 Card issuing platform Marqeta is expanding to Brazil through a partnership with BaaS provider Fitbank.

Payments 💰

🇬🇧Open banking payment provider Boodil is partnering with Shopify to provide its Pay by Bank solution to it's UK merchants.

🌍 BNPL provider Affirm is sunsetting Returnly, the startup it bought for $300m in June 2021 and has entered into a strategic partnership with Loop Returns. Its stock jumped nearly 10% during the week from favourable coverage of its decoupled debit product from an analyst.

🌍 The FTC has added more counts to its lawsuit against Walmart over failures to protect consumers against money transfer scams.

🌍 Stripe is reported to have cut another 40 members of staff.

🌍 Twitter has received MTL licences in Michigan, Missouri and New Hampshire.

🌍 Payment platform Payoneer is to cut 9% of its 2,000 staff by the end of Q3.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧The FCA has warned banks of the rise of "deep fake" fraud and the need to increase spending to combat impacts of AI.

🇬🇧 The Center for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT) has launched the "Open Finance Coalition" who will join together to collaborate on using financial data for better SME and consumer outcomes.

🌍 Federal agencies including the CFPB are investigating medical credit cards and instalment loans due to their high cost.

Longer reads 📜

• Wise FY 2023 Performance Assessment - Flagship Advisory Partners
• Card Scheme Performance, 2022-2023 - Flagship Advisory Partners
• Banking with SVB UK? What you need to know as you migrate to HSBC Innovation Banking - Karina Seskena, Payable
• The sad conclusion of an effort to make bank customers happier (and banks and regulators too!) - Norbloc
• The Checking Account War Is Over (And The Fintechs Have Won) - Ron Shevlin, Forbes
• Brex’s Second Act - Mario Gabriele
• Payments and Identity – UPI continues to lead the world - Tom Noyes

👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know

Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more fintech content

See you next week!

This content is not investment advice. When you invest, your capital is at risk. The value of your investments may go up or down. The past performance of a security or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. There is always the potential of losing money when you invest in securities or other financial products. Investors should consider their investment objectives and risks carefully before investing. ‘Public’ is a trading name of Public Investing UK Limited is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 13760183 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Public Holdings, Inc. Registered office at C/O Browne Jacobson LLP 6 Bevis Marks, Bury Court, London, United Kingdom, EC3A 7BA.Public Investing UK Limited (FRN: 985994) is an appointed representative of Khepri Advisors Limited (FRN: 692447) which is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities are offered by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. See public.com/disclosures for more information.