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Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺Spend management provider Mooncard raised a €37m Series C from Partech, Orange Ventures, BlackFin, Portage, Aglaé and RAISE Ventures.

🇪🇺 Healthy neobanking app Kenzee raised a $750k pre-seed round.

🇪🇺 Bitcoin based neobank Bitstack raised a €2m seed round from Founders Future.

🇪🇺 Digital wealth fintech Colbr raised a €1m seed round.

🇪🇺 Alternative lender Kameo raised a SEK700m round from Insight Investment.

🇪🇺 Insurance core platform Korint raised a €2m seed round from 360 Capital Partners.

🇬🇧 Credit card provider Yonder raised a £12.5m equity round co-led by Northzone and RTP Global as well as a £50m debt round.

🇬🇧SME lender Triver, founded by a former Funding Circle executive raised a £7m seed round from Stride, Axeleo Capital, Motive Partners, a16z and Sequoia.

🇬🇧Digital banking startup Fintech Farm raised a $22m Series B led by Nordstar and included Chrome Capital.

🇬🇧 B2B BNPL provider Hokodo raised a Series B from Citi.

🇬🇧 Financial crime control tester Cable Tech raised a $11m round.

🌍 Canadian payments provider Nuvei has raised an undisclosed investment round from actor Ryan Reynolds.

🌍 SMB lender Charm Solutions raised a $3.5m seed round led by BootstrapLabs.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Insurance group Allianz is selling its 5% stake in neobank N26 at a $3bn valuation, signalling a dramatic decline in valuation for the neobank from a high of $9bn in 2021.

🇬🇧 Pension provider PensionBee cut its median hourly gender pay gap to 0 whilst rivals Smart Pensions saw an increase to 36% and Hargreaves Lansdown decline to 13.6%.

🇬🇧 Neobank Lanistar is looking to relaunch in the UK after running into trouble with the FCA two years ago.

🇬🇧 Wise is increasing the fees for its FX transactions.

🌍 Apple has launched a savings account in partnership with Goldman Sachs.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Danish crypto payment solution Januar received a payment licence from the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority.

🇪🇺 Societe Generale's digital asset division SG-Forge launched a euro stablecoin on ethereum.

🇪🇺 The MiCA crypto bill was passed in the EU, making it the first jurisdiction with a comprehensive crypto law.

🇪🇺 France is gaining in popularity as a crypto hub as Binance and Circle set up operations.

🇬🇧 The Bank of England and the BIS have piloted the use of DLT technology to settle central bank money.

🌍 Crypto infrastructure provider Paxos is to close customer accounts in Canada in May as it withdraws from the country.

🌍 Coinbase CEO has indicated the exchange could move away from the US if there is no more regulatory clarity at the same time as praising the UK for moving fast.

🌍 A long awaited draft of a stablecoin bill has been published by the House Financial Services Committee, outlining a framework for Circle and Tether and the defining them as "payment stablecoin issuers" that need to be state or federally licensed.

🌍 In a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler refused to comment on whether ether s a security.

🌍 US crypto exchange Gemini is to open an offshore derivatives platform as a result of the regulatory landscape in the US.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Italian bank Illimity has signed a €200m credit line with the European Investment Bank to lend working capital to SMBs in Italy. The bank also sold its source code for its IT platform for €55.5m.

🇪🇺 Credit Agricole is partnering with Worldline to create a new company targeting payment services in France for merchants.

🇪🇺 Santander is partnering with DailyPay in the US to offer earned wage access programs to the bank's commercial clients.

🇬🇧HSBC is creating a new unit to target tech, healthcare and VC funds in the US and is hiring some former SVB bankers to its US entity.

🌍 Goldman Sachs is exploring the sale of its BNPL home improvement lender Greensky.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 The European Credit Sector Associations want the European Commission to remove payments from its Digital Identity plan due to the huge investment it would require and the impact on merchants and service industry.

🇪🇺Gigs, a MVNO as a service provider hired former Tink and Nubank exec Rafa Plantier to build out its fintech business.

🇬🇧Digital wealth infrastructure provider WealthKernel appointed a new chair.

🇬🇧 The Joint Regulatory Oversight Committee (JROC) have set out a brief outline of the future of open banking, with a detailed plan to come in Q4 2023. The report will focus on five themes (availability and performance, risk of crime, consumer protection, improved information flow to TPPS and users, and the promotion of additional services such as VRP.

🇬🇧 The FCA is to create a permanent digital sandbox with provider NayaOne.

🇬🇧 Finastra is partnering with Plaid to provide account verification through its Fusion digital bank platform.

🌍 Goldman Sachs is to offer payment provider Coupa's B2B payment capabilities to its customers to help them simplify domestic and cross border payments.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺Asia based payment provider Thunes secured a payment institution licence in France.

🇪🇺 Nordic payment project P27 looks to be in doubt as it withdrew an application for a clearing licence in Sweden and the CEO commenting on the vision being "too ambitious and complex".

🇪🇺 The much faltering European Payments Initiative (EPI) is to takeover iDeal and Payconiq.

🇬🇧 Lloyds Bank is introducing PayMe, a B2B payment solution developed with Bottomline Technologies, for one off payments to suppliers whose details they do not know.  

🇬🇧Google is to allow UK app developers to use an alternative in-app payment system other than its own Google Play billing due to concern from regulators about competition.

🌍 The Federal Trade Commission is suing Chargebacks911 to preventing people disputing credit card charges.

🌍 Stripe is to offer Affirm's "Adaptive Checkout" to its users in Canada.

🌍 Visa lowered the surcharge merchants can impose on credit card sales from 4% to 3% this week.

🌍 The CFPB has highlighted in a panel discussion its concern around how BNPL providers handle disputes and billing.

Longer reads 📜

• Short Blog – Apple Savings - Tom Noyes
• How to Beat Roulette: One Gambler Figured It Out and Won Big - Kit Chellel, Bloomberg
• So You Want to Launch a Hedge Fund? - Marc Rubinstein
• Multicoin Capital: Web3-Native SQL - Multicoin Capital
• Identity Driving Payments - Tom Noyes
• The U.S. Cracked a $3.4 Billion Crypto Heist—and Bitcoin’s Anonymity - Robert McMillan, WSJ
• The Impact of Open Banking and Transaction Enrichment on Business Lending Underwriting - Ntropy
• Visa Launches Visa+ with PayPal as Anchor - Tom Noyes
• Tim Cook on shaping the future of Apple - GQ
• Moving identity authentication earlier in customer flow is top of mind at MRC Vegas 2023: - Bradley Chalupski, Merchant Fraud Journal

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