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

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Tweet of the week 🦉🏆

Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺 Outsourced finance team solution Fuelfinance raised a ¢1m seed round from angels Markus Villig and John Kim.

🇪🇺 BaaS provider Omnio raised a €9m round with it open to another €3m from selected investors.

🇪🇺 Crypto firm Taurus raised a ¢65m Series B led by Credit Suisse and included Deutsche Bank, Pictet and others.

🇪🇺 Insurer wefox raised a $55m Series D.

🇬🇧 Onboarding and verification platform Sikoia raised a $6m seed round led by MassMutual Ventures.

🌍 Indian digital payments provider PhonePe has raised a $100m at a $12bn valuation from Tiger Global and Ribbit Capital.

🌍Deposit marketplace ModernFi raised a $4.5m round led by a16z.

🌍 Payment solution for Australia businesses Shift raised an A$27m Series C led by Sequoia.

🌍 Saudi fintech Halal acquired Paymennt.com, a payment processor for SMBs in UAE.

🌍 Credit scoring and lending solution for Pakistan banks, AdalFi, raised a $7.5m seed round.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Wirecard boss Marcus Braun rejected the charges connected to the collapse of the company.

🇪🇺 US neobroker Public.com is expanding to Europe.

🇬🇧 Starling Bank is to offer savings for businesses, with a 2.5% interest rate over one year for balances larger than £2,000.

🇬🇧 Monzo has launched a 3% instant access savings account.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 The founder of insolvent Nuri is looking to launch a new venture under the company's original name "Bitwala".

🇪🇺 The European Parliament updated rules requiring banks to disclose crypto exposure to suggest digital assets have a 1,250% risk weighting.

🇬🇧 The founder of crypto company Ziglu has resigned.

🇬🇧The FCA has joined forces with police to shut down an illegal crypto ATM in Leeds.

🌍 Deposit tokens instead of stablecoins could emerge as the base layer for digital money according to JP Morgan.

🌍 NYDFS is investigating Paxos and has stopped minting BUSD after legal action from the SEC for selling an unregistered security.

🌍 PayPal has paused its stablecoin project after increasing regulatory scrutiny of Paxos.

🌍 Coinbase is headed on a collision course with the SEC after its CEO indicated it would go to court to defend its staking service.

🌍 The UAE is to build a CBDC and domestic card scheme as part of a plan to overhaul its financial infrastructure.

🌍 Singapore's DBS Bank saw a growth of 80% in bitcoin trading volumes on its exchange.

🌍 BUSD token has regained its peg after temporarily falling on news Paxos is to stop minting it. Tether has gained $1bn in market cap as investors switch from BUSD to USDT.

🌍 The Financial Stability Board is to increase its investigation into DeFi and potential impacts on traditional finance.

🌍 Binance, sensing that it is increasingly in the crosshairs of US regulators, said it is prepared to pay penalties for past regulator violations. It reportedly transferred $400m from Binance.US, via Silvergate Bank, to a trading firm managed by founder CZ.

🌍 FTX reportedly sent nearly $8bn of assets from its Bahamas unit to its US entities.

🌍 The Mango Markets scammer is seeking to keep his ill gotten gains.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Index group Deutsche Borse has selected Google Cloud for its new digital asset platform.

🇬🇧 NatWest is buying an 85% stake in workplace pension fintech Cushon for $174m.

🇬🇧Nationwide is to cut 450 jobs.

🌍 Global Payments is selling its gaming subsidiary for $415m.

🌍 Payment giant FIS is planning to spin off its merchant acquiring business Worldpay.

🌍 The head of Goldman's consumer unit Marcus is leaving.

🌍 RBC has acquired the real estate platform of OJO Canada.

🌍 US banks have asked for a delay in implementing the debit routing rule but face the ire of merchants who want it implemented as soon as possible. Banks claim a lack of network availability.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Solaris finds itself in trouble with German regulator BaFin, facing a "permission proviso", which restricts it from taking on new customers without regulatory approval.

🇬🇧Finastra is mulling over selling its banking business for up to $7bn.

🌍 Payroll API provider Pinwheel is pushing the CFPB to include payroll data in the agency's definition of consumer financial data.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺Nordic payment processor Nets is hiring 50 engineers in a new hub in Finland.

🇬🇧 The UK Government has opened its long awaited BNPL consultation which could see BNPL firms placed under the scope of the FCA and consumers given additional rights to complain.

🇬🇧NewDay, the credit card provider for John Lewis, is to use Checkout.com for payments.

🇬🇧 Neobank Zopa has acquired BNPL provider DivideBuy for $75m.

🌍 Stripe has partnered with Xero to help SMBs get paid faster.

🌍 PayPal CEO Dan Schulman is to step down from PayPal at the end of the year after nine years in charge.

🌍 Australian bank Westpac has created a twist on BNPL by letting its credit card customers pay off their bills in four monthly instalments.

🌍 Apple will look to evaluate customers for its BNPL product based on its history with Apple, for things such as Apple Credit Card applications and other Apple Pay histories.

🌍 Shopify saw a growth of 40% in offline volume as shoppers returned to in-store. It also saw a 21% increase in demand for Shopify Capital. Growth in its e-commerce volumes slowed.

Longer reads 📜

• Boutique Wars - Marc Rubinstein
• A Brief History of Platform Payments - Jareau Wade
• Stripe, Amazon, and The Compounding Nature of Digital Infrastructure - Jareau Wade
• Square & the Holy Grail of Payments - Jareau Wade
• The Future of Payments - Simon Taylor

👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!

See you next week!