Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

There is a fintech happy hour planned in Berlin on 23rd November, please sign up here! Please find another week of fintech news, financings and exits below.

Editor’s Note: If you’re an early-stage startup founder raising equity or debt, I may be able to help - reach out to michael@thisweekinfintech.com.

Tweet of the week 🦉🏆

Funding 💸

There were 13 deals in the fintech space across the UK and Europe since the last post, with a total investment of $169m. Some highlights are below.

🇪🇺 Billie announced it raised $200m in debt as well as equity, with Klarna participating.

🇪🇺 Global spend management platform Yokoy raised a $26m Series A led by Left Lane Capital and included Balderton Capital.

🇬🇧 Property lender GB Bank raised a £28m in funding from Teeside Pension Fund.

🇬🇧 KYC provider Ondato raised a $1.7m seed round from OTB Ventures and Startup Wise Guys.

🇬🇧 UK neobank Monzo is in talks to raise £300m at a £3bn valuation, a turnaround from its previous down round in February.

🌍 Chime is in discussions to IPO in 2022 at a $35bn-$45bn valuation.

🌍 Token listing platform CoinList raised $100m at a $1.5bn valuation.

🌍 Card tech startup Deserve received investment from Visa.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 German neobank Penta abolished its free account and although missed its 50,000 customer target for 2020, revealed its hit an ARR of €7.2m.

🇬🇧 Automated savings app Chip has launched FSCS protected savings accounts through a partnership with clearing bank ClearBank

🇬🇧 Neobank Starling has become the official sponsor of Women’s Euros 2022.

🇬🇧 The Current Account Switch Service (CASS) reported a sharp 56%+ yoy increase in bank switching in Q3. Halifax was the most popular bank to switch to followed by Starling, Virgin Money and then Monzo.

🇬🇧 P2P lending service Zopa and Tesco are partnering to create a hire purchase loan for cars via ClearScore’s marketplace

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 The ECB is inviting technology folks to participate in a talk on the design for CBDCs.

🇪🇺 BitPanda has recruited Joshua Barraclough as its CEO from JP Morgan.

🇬🇧 Crypto wallet and trading service Crypterium has secured FCA registration from the FCA to provide cryptocurrency services to people in the UK.

🌍 Mastercard is partnering with Bakkt to make it easier for its customers to offer crypto services.

🌍 DeFi protocol Cream Finance was hacked for $130m.

🌍 G7 Finance ministers have agreed 13 public policy principles for CBDCs that would bring wider adoption.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇬🇧 Chancellor Rishi Sunack announced in his Budget that he is cutting the bank profit surcharge from 8% to 3% in a bid to boost the competitiveness of UK banks which received condemnation from Louise Beaumont, chair of techUK’s Open Finance and Payments Working Group. Neobanks will be exempt from the surcharge until they reach £100m in profit.

• 🙌🏻 TWIF Take - The Budget also included some positives for startups including a new scaleup visa to attract talent, expansion of R&D tax credits to include data and cloud computing, establishing The Regional Angels Program for £150m early stage funding outside the UK, a consultation on removing Pension Charge Cap and to encourage institutional investors to back tech startups and increase the budget for Innovate UK to £1bn. Above provided by COADEC.

🌍 American Express is launching digital checking accounts for businesses as well as a debit card as it looks to expand its stack of business services.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Dutch neobank Bunq has launched multi-currency accounts for its remote working customers.

🇬🇧 Yapily and Trilo have partnered to bring open banking benefits to more businesses and merchants.

🇬🇧 Compliance provider ComplyAdvantage has added a new blockchain monitoring tool in partnership with UK blockchain compliance provider Elliptic.

🇬🇧 Plaid and PensionBee have partnered to streamline pension saving from a two week process to nearly instant with Plaid’s Open Banking network.

🌍 Singapore embedded finance solution Nium has launched its BaaS product in the US

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Klarna has launched a strategic partnership with Stripe to distribute its BNPL products to the latter customers.

🇬🇧 ATM provider Link is to remain under the oversight of the Payment Systems Regulator in its mission to maintain easy access to cash.

🌍 PayPal said it is not pursuing an acquisition of Pinterest “at the time”.

🌍 Mastercard has a new card design to help visually impaired customers work out if they are holding a credit, debit or prepaid card.

🌍 Visa is powering BNPL across the globe with HSBC using Visa Installments in APAC as well as signing a global brand deal with Klarna.

🌍 Wharton Business School is accepting tuition payments in BTC and ETH.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇪🇺 The EBA is launching a consultation around the incoming 90day SCA ruling and a proposal for 180 day renewal.

🌍 International

Don’t forget to subscribe to TWIF US & Global by Nik Milanovic, TWIF India & SEA by Osborne Saldanha and TWIF Latam by Christine Chang.

Longer reads 📜

• Visa vs Amazon - When merchants get leverage - Tom Noyes
• Institutional crypto adoption - will it happen? Natasha Jones
• Open Banking Report 2021 - The Paypers
• Decouple Debit - Tom Noyes
• Why wallets excite me again - Richard Burton

Want to be a This Week in Fintech - UK & Europe sponsor? Reach out to me at michael@thisweekinfintech.com or find me on Twitter.

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See you next week!