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The Front Page of Global Fintech

The the largest fintech community in the world. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest in news opinions, and all things financial technology.

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On your (Starling) bike - TWIF UK & Europe (05/02)

On your (Starling) bike - TWIF UK & Europe (05/02)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

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

πŸ‘ πŸ‘Ž Have feedback or news to share? Let me know on Twitter and LinkedIn.


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Funding πŸ’Έ

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

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί SpeedInvest closed its fourth fund of €350m.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Payroll data access solution Bankflip raised a €2.6m round.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Cross-chain liquidity provider Squid raised a Β’4m round.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί FinOps solution Qvalia raised a €4m round from Spiltan and Stella Capital.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Carbon credit insurance solution CarbonPool raised Β’12m from Heartcore Capital, HCS Capital, Vorwerk Ventures and Revent Capital.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ B2B payment fintech Kriya raised a Β£50m debt facility from Viola Ventures.

🌍 Digital asset embedded finance solution Mesh received a $6.5m investment which included $5m from PayPal in the form of its PYUSD stablecoin.

🌍 BNPL provider Sunbit secured a $310m debt facility from Citi and Ares Management.

Challenger Banking πŸš€

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Trade Republic had 1 million people register interest in their new "Saveback" card.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί N26 is reportedly closing accounts of Italian customers without warning.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Dutch neobank Bunq has applied for a UK EMI licence and has achieved a full year of profitability.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Starling is to be the sponsor of the bike hire scheme in Manchester.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Fintech super-app Paysme is closing down after failing to gain traction.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Embedded finance lender YouLend has completed a private securitisation transaction with JP Morgan enabling it to lend an additional Β£4bn to SMEs.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Circular economy fintech Twig is shutting down.

🌍 Spend management solution Ramp has expanded its procurement capabilities through acquiring Venue and launched Ramp Procurement.

🌍 Amazon is partnering with embedded lending solution SellersFi to provide Amazon sellers with access to credit lines of up to $10m.

Digital Assets β‚Ώ

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί BitPanda has launched "Wealth" a solution for family offices and asset managers to invest and manage their crypto assets and diversify.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ British police have uncovered nearly $2bn of bitcoin linked to an investment fraud in China.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Crypto exchange Binance is struggling to find an authorised third party to satisfy the FCA so it can re-enter the market.

🌍 The US government is selling nearly $120m of BTC into the market that it seized from users of the Silk Road.

🌍 Think tank The Atlantic Council has said that the US is falling behind other countries on CBDCs.

🌍 Chinese asset manager Harvest Global Investments has applied to launch a spot bitcoin ETF with the Hong Kong SFC.

🌍 The DOJ charged two people for operating a near $2bn crypto fraud scheme called HyperFund.

🌍 Binance has allowed its large liquidity providers to keep assets outside of its custodial partner Ceffu, adding Sygnum and FlowBank as options.

🌍 Crypto payments company Transak is to use Visa Direct for crypto withdrawals.

🌍 The personal accounts of the Ripple co-founder were hacked for $120m. Binance froze $4.2m worth of XRP linked to the hacking.

🌍 Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius is to distribute $3bn to creditors via Coinbase and PayPal.

🌍 FTX has said that it expects to fully repay customers. Three individuals were also charged with operating a $400m sim-swapping hack that targeted FTX.

🌍 Coinbase has appointed former UK Chancellor George Osborne to its advisory council. It also announced USDC to USD conversion fee of 0.1% for amounts over $75m to institutional investors.

Traditional Banking 🏦

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί SociΓ©tΓ© GΓ©nΓ©rale is looking to sell Shine, the neobank it bought in 2020.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Bank of Ireland is investing €60m into ATMs to ensure each branch has one.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Deutsche Bank is cutting 3,500 jobs to improve efficiency.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ HSBC has been fined nearly Β£60m by the PRA for failing to log accounts eligible for FSCS compensation.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ NatWest have reported that businesses using open banking payments save 150 hours each year on operations.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ TSB is cutting jobs and branches in order to save costs.

🌍 CIBC Innovation Banking invested in AI-powered OCR solution Rossum.

🌍 Citibank is being sued by the New York AG for failing to protect customers from scams online and refusing reimbursement.

🌍 US Bank has launched consumer originated RTP payments.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ The UK's Labour party has announced its fintech plans which include delivery of the next phase of open banking, to embrace securities tokenisation and a digital pound.

🌍 Payroll solution Pinwheel is partnering with bank software platform Jack Henry to make its deposit switching solution available to community and regional banks.

Payments πŸ’°

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Klarna is bringing back Money Story, a feature that encourages consumers to review their personal spend over the past year and nudges users to money management tools in its app.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Over 30 payment firms got in touch with MessageBird whose CEO posted they wanted to acquire a company with an EMI or PI licence.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Biometric card solution Zwipe is pulling back from card payments and focusing on biometric access control.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Adyen is partnering with SMB finops platform BILL to provide acquiring and issuing services for its AP/AR solution.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Payment solution Worldpay has extended its partnership with embedded finance solution Liberis.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Visa has said that in the UK one in three consumers are victims of APP fraud.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Real-time payment solution Volt is bringing open banking payments to car dealerships with Bumper.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Open banking payment solution Kikapay is winding down.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Open banking payments company Ecospend has signed wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown for its Pay-by-bank solution.

🌍 New York Governor promised legislation to requirements of BNPL providers with that of other consumer credit products including a requirement to assess affordability and maintain accurate data for credit reporting.

🌍 PayPal is cutting 9% of its workforce, some 2,500 jobs.

🌍 Block is laying off 1,000 employees across Square and Cash App. Block has also integrated Cash App with PSP Nuvei allowing merchants to easily adopt Cash App Pay at checkout.

🌍 The Reserve Bank of India has halted the ability of PSP Paytm to take on new deposits and its wallet services and is considering cancelling its bank permit.

🌍 Mastercard has launched a new AI model to detect fraud that they claim improves detection rates by 300%.

🌍 Apple released stats for its Apple Card; 12m cardholders, $1bn earned in cash back and $10bn in Savings accounts.


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