Happy New Year TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Join us for our first London fintech breakfast of 2025, when we return to the fantastic Shoreditch Treehouse alongside our friends CMS! RSVP to secure your spot.

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

👍 👎 Have feedback or news to share? Let me know on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Funding 💸

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

🌍 Fraud prevention fintech Bureau raised a $30m Series B led by Sorenson Capital.

🌍 Chargeback management fintech Justt raised a $30m Series Z led by Zeev Ventures.

🌍 Bank technology start-up Infinant raised a $15m Series A led by FINTOP Capital and Jam FINTOP.

₿ Tokenization platform Allo.xyz secured a $100m debt facility backed by bitcoin.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇬🇧 UK neobank Dave faces a US lawsuit from the DOJ and FTC for misleading customers.

🇬🇧 B2B lending marketplace Levenue partnered with Newfound to provide SMEs access to growth capital.

🌍 Varo Bank launched zero fee cash deposits at participating CVS stores.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Germany passed legislation needed for full MiCAR implementation.

🇪🇺 Luxembourg passed Blockchain Law 4, a new blockchain law making digital fund issuance easier.

🇪🇺 Coinbase acquired a MiFID II licence through the acquisition of the Cyprus unit of neobroker Bux.

🌍 Blockchain security platform Chainalysis acquired web3 security solution Hexagate.

🌍 Crypto onramp MoonPay secured a Texas MTL licence as well as MiCA approval.

🌍 The SEC approved the first combined Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF from Hashdex and Franklin Templeton.

🌍 The SEC fined Jump Trading $123m for propping up TerraUSD stablecoin.

🌍 Crypto.com launched a sports prediction market in the US.

🌍 Binance and Kraken lead a $10m investment into decentralised stablecoin Usual.

🌍 The IRS delayed implementing crypto cost-basis reporting rules.

🌍 Binance secured regulator approval in Brazil for a broker-dealer license.

🌍 Defi protocol Frax launched a stablecoin, frxUSD that leverages BlackRock's BUIDL and is tokenised by Securitize.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Credit Agricole acquired Santander's stake in asset servicing business Caceis.

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank was fined $4m by the SEC for late SAR filings.

🌍 JP Morgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo were sued by the CFPB over Zelle fraud.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Bulgaria has joined the ECB's TIPS payment system.

🌍 Financial technology provider Fiserv is to acquire EWA firm Payfare for $147m.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Payment provider Enfuce signed Alisa Bank as a customer for business credit cards for SMEs in Finland.

🇪🇺 Klarna is to become a default payment option for merchants using WooPayments.

🇬🇧 PSP Checkout reported losses narrowing to $6m in 2023 (down from $138m the previous year) with revenues also down 14% to $212m.

Longer reads/listens 📜

• Tornado Cash and the Limits of Money Transmission - Stanford Blockchain Club
• The most important breakthroughs of 2024 - Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
• Anatomy of an Address Poisoning Scam - Chainalysis
• The California job-killer that wasn’t - Rogé Karma, The Atlantic
• Europe must decide on the banking union - Andrea Orcel, FT

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See you next week!