Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

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

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Funding 💸

Highlights below of deals since the last post in the fintech space across the UK & Europe. Deal data powered by Dealroom.

🇪🇺 KYC solution Ondorse raised €3.8m seed round.

🇪🇺 Real-estate liquidity solution Bambus raised a €1m Seed round.

🇬🇧 Trade finance document checking solution Traydstream raised a $21m Series B from Pivot Investment Partners and Emirates Telecommunications Group.

🇬🇧 Digital wealth management platform Vega raised $8m round from investors including Motive Ventures, Picus Capital, Citi Ventures and angels.

🇬🇧 Financial wellbeing app Mintago raised a $4.75m round led by BlackLion Ventures.

🇬🇧 SMB invoicing solution Apron raised a $15m Series A led by Index Ventures and included Bessemer Ventures.

🇬🇧 Neobank Perenna raised a $52m round led by Silverstripe after securing an unrestricted banking licence.

🇬🇧 Blockchain based signatory management solution Cygnetise raised £2.5m.

🇬🇧 Blockchain validator operator Rated Labs raised a $12.9m Series A from Cherry Ventures, Semantic Ventures, Chorus One and others.

🌍 Fintech investor Luge Capital raised $71m to invest in North American fintechs.

🌍 Consumer lender Bright Money raised $50m in debt and $12m in equity from Alpha Wave, Hummingbird and PeakXV.

🌍 SME lender Funding Societies raised $27m in debt led by AlteriQ Global, Aument Capital and Orange Bloom.

🌍 B2B payments solution Slope raised $30m.

🌍 South African payment operations fintech Revio raised a $5.2m seed round led by QED and included Partech, Speedinvest and Ralicap.

₿ Digital asset transfer and account aggregation company Mesh raised a $22m Series A led by Money Forward.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Consumer financial management app Fabit has filed for bankruptcy

🇪🇺 Savings fintech Raisin has reached €50bn in AUM.

🇪🇺 N26 is looking to sublease part of its new space as it seeks to cut costs.

🇬🇧 Savings app Plum launches Interest, a way for customers to hold government back assets with higher interest that savings accounts, through a partnership with BlackRock.

🇬🇧Neobank Starling has increased its interest rate on its one year fixed savings account to 5.53%.

🇬🇧Moneyhub is to provide the commercial pensions dashboard for Standard Life.

🇬🇧 Atom Bank is to use climate impact provider Kamma to measure the climate risk of its mortgage book.

🇬🇧 Apple has soft launched the integration of open banking into its iPhone wallet in the UK to enable customers to see balances from other bank accounts.

🇬🇧 Digital wallet Curve has integrated PayPal into its app.

🌍 Varo Bank has launched a new instant payment feature to enable users to send funds to any US debit card holder.

🌍 CNBC reports that Apple was to introduce stock trading with Goldman Sachs until the recent market downturn.

🌍 Robinhood is expecting a $100m charge relating to legal and regulatory issues.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺Coinbase has registered with the central bank of Spain to provide exchange and custody services. The exchange also looked into acquiring FTX Europe last year.

🇪🇺 The EU wants to investigate the climate impact of digital assets and is looking for support.

🇬🇧Crypto exchange Bybit is suspending its services in the UK ahead of new FCA regulations on crypto marketing which come into play on 1st October. The FCA has warned crypto companies over their lack of response to the new rules.

🇬🇧Chase UK has banned its customers from sending money to purchase crypto assets. The banks actions met a strong reaction from Coinbase CEO Brain Armstrong.

🌍 Crypto based app Eco is shutting down its custodial Eco App current app and pivoting to focus on self-custody solution under the brand of Beam.

🌍 Binance has sold its Russian businesses as it exits the market. It also reopened its services in Belgium.

🌍 Ripple has abandoned its acquisition of custody provider Fortress Trust.

🌍 3AC founder Su Zhu has been arrested in Singapore.

🌍 Circle has weighed in on the SEC's case against Binance over its definition and oversight of stablecoins.

🌍 The SEC has delayed its review of bitcoin ETFs.

🌍 Coinbase received regulatory approval to offer perpetual futures to its international retail customers.

🌍 Money transfer business MoneyGram is to release a non-custodial crypto wallet next year.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇬🇧NatWest has suffered an issue with its ATMs displaying a different cash balance causing customers to thing funds were missing. It will also collaborate with AWS to co-develop AI products.

🇬🇧Lloyds Bank is closing more branches, adding another 35 and taking its total to 155 in 2023 and 75 in 2024. It also announced a new spend management product in partnership with Visa and SAP Concur.

🌍 JP Morgan has been chosen by the US Treasury to provide account validation services to government agencies.

🌍 JP Morgan, BofA and Goldman Sachs will pay fines of over $50m to the CFTC relating to swap reporting failures.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 BaaS provider Solaris is struggling to raise new funds leaving it in difficulty to fulfill one of its recently won large contracts.

🇪🇺The ECB is experimenting with the use of large language models for document analysis and software testing.

🇬🇧Singapore payments infrastructure provider Nium has opened a European HQ in London,

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 The European Payments Initiative has chosen the name "Wero" for its upcoming digital wallet.

🇪🇺 Vertical SaaS for the travel industry HotelRunner acquired POS provider PayPad to provide a better POS solution for customers.

🇪🇺 Mercedes is introducing embedded payments in its cars through a partnership with Mastercard, enabling customers to make digital payments with an in-car fingerprint sensor at service stations.

🇪🇺 iDEAL has partnered with Dutch fintech in3 to launch a pilot BNPL instalment offering.

🌍 IKEA has partnered with Afterpay to offer US customers a "Pay in 4" option online and in-store.

🌍 Whatsapp has launched credit card payments within its app in India.

🌍 Payment solution FreedomPay is partnering with Worldpay to provide its omnichannel payment solution in EMEA, NAM and APAC.

🌍 Square has added new features for merchants including customisable website themes and AI generated product descriptions.

🌍 Apple will have to face a lawsuit that accuses it of illegally hindering competition in its payment wallet after a judge ruled against it.

🌍 Payment solution Shift4 has partnered with Amazon to deliver a checkout free payment experience at stadiums.

Longer reads 📜

• Post MRC Learnings - September 2023 - Tom Noyes
• Airlines Are Just Banks Now - Ganesh Sitaraman
• Stablecoins Get A New Pal - Dave Birch
• 10 Takeaways From Finnovate - Alex Johnson
• That’s What I Call Ponzinomics - Zeke Faux, NY Magazine
• CFPB probe of Apple Pay - Tom Noyes
• A2A, Fed Now and “Instant” Payments – Threat to V/MA? Nope - Tom Noyes

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See you next week!