Hello Fintech Friends,

It was another banger of a week for fintech M&A: 16 new deals were announced between banks and fintechs, it emerged that JP Morgan has acquired over 40 fintech companies since 2021, and – as a bonus – we may have our first fintech IPO since last year on the horizon.

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Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below.

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

• Are fintech IPOs back? They may be soon! Kaspi, Kazakhstan's publicly-listed fintech superapp valued at $1.4 billion, is preparing for a U.S. IPO that may come this year.

🤝 M&A - Fintech

• Private equity giant Vista is in the market to raise $6 billion from credit funds to refinance the debt of financial software provider Finastra.
• Belvo, the Latin American open finance platform, announced its first acquisition of Skilopay, a Brazilian payment institution specializing in payment services through PIX.
• Pan-African compliance and KYC / IDV solution Smile Identity announced the acquisition of Inclusive Innovations, the parent company of Appruve, a Ghanaian developer of identity verification software.
• Korean fintech giant Kakao Pay, one of the country's largest online payment services, acquired an interesting minority stake in Siebert Financial, a brokerage firm based in New York, for $17 million, giving it 19.9% of the company.
• Gemini and Arrington are both bidding to buy failed crypto lender Celsius.
• Binance, meanwhile, called off its $1 billion deal to acquire the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager.
• Delta Capital is getting into decentralized finance with its acquisition of capital markets blockchain firm SETL.
• Founders Forum Group acquired Tech Nation, a UK group for entrepreneurs that had supported Monzo, Revolut, and Thought Machine.
• Tradeweb, a fixed-income marketplace, made an A$125 million offer for Australian government bond and interest rate derivatives trading platform Yieldbroker.
• It emerged this week that JP Morgan has invested in or outright acquired more than 40 fintech companies since early 2021.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

• The European Payments Initiative, a joint venture set up by European banks to rival Mastercard and Visa's card networks, announced the acquisition of iDeal – a Dutch payment network – and Payconiq, a mobile payments app supported Belgian and Dutch banks.
• German stock exchange Deutsche Börse made a €3.9 billion bid for Danish financial software developer SimCorp.
• German bank Deutsche Bank announced that it agreed to buy UK boutique investment bank Numis for $511 million.
• Swiss bank Zürcher Kantonalbank has held potential takeover talks with troubled asset manager GAM.
• US regional bank PacWest Bancorp is looking into selling off its lender finance arm.
• HSBC is under pressure from shareholders to spin off its Asia business.
• Specialized custody solutions provider Millennium Trust is exploring a sale that could value it at $8 billion.

🌎 Fintech Around the World

Fraud dents trust in digital payments in Nigeria

Naira nullified: Killing cash in an economy that runs on cash

Do We Finally Have a Business Case For Multiple Payment Rails In Nigeria?

How collaboration between banks and fintech is driving financial inclusion in Africa

Fintech has ‘great growth opportunity’ in London — but UK is failing to attract listings

📚 Deeper Reads & Features

How Can We Align the Interests of Bank Shareholders with Depositors?

The Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank: What Happened and What it Means for Banking Regulation

Crypto regulations and building financial inclusion

Mitigating the Risk of Runs on Uninsured Deposits: the Minimum Balance at Risk

SVB’s new owner fights to rebuild brand and stem outflows

The Crypto Detectives Are Cleaning Up

Will Apple take a big bite out of the banks?

Apple’s New Savings Account Is Convenient. Is That a Good Thing?

Female Invest: Meet the women taking on the gender finance gap

Fintech firms and banks are now frenemies

Dreams of replacing humans in finance may come true

Higher gender pay gap in fintech driven by lack of transparency

The Myth of the Broke Millennial

Platform for Loans Looks to Revamp Market by Getting Traders Off the Phone

What’s Likely to Brew in Fintech Market in 2023?

Watch how excited this grandmother is when she is gifted a new puppy

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