Happy New Year 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.

🇪🇺 Private markets investment solution Crescenta raised a €3.5m pre-seed round from K Fund, FJ Labs and All Iron Ventures.

🇪🇺 Spanish neobank Myinvestor raised a €45m round from Nortia Capital, Arama Futuro Family Office.

🇪🇺 Payment operations fintech Formance raised a $6.6m round.

🇬🇧 Treasury solution Vitt raised $16m from SpeedInvest and BTV.

🇬🇧 Lender Updraft finalised a £250m forward flow arrangement with Jefferies and Santander as well as raising £22m in equity led by Quilam Capital.

🇬🇧 Crypto baas solution Fiat Republic raised a $7m seed round from Seedcamp, Speedinvest, Credo Ventures, Fabric Ventures and more.

🇬🇧 Car repair payment solution Bumper raised a £40m Series B.

🌍 MENA based BNPL solution Tamara raised $340m co-led by SNB Capital and Sanabil Investments.

🌍 MENA BNPL fintech Tabby raised a $700m debt round from JP Morgan and extended its Series D round by $50m.

🌍 Charley Ma (ex Ramp, Plaid and Alloy) and Mahdi Raza (ex Robinhood) launched Exponent Founders Capital.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇬🇧 Dutch neobank Bunq is preparing for a launch in the UK. It also launched an AI chatbot.

🇬🇧 Neobank Revolut finally reported 2022 earnings which saw revenue +45% to $1.1bn but profits down 78% to £5.8m due to an increase in admin expenses. It is not immediately pursuing a US banking licence but will in the long-term.

🇬🇧 HSBC has increased the size of its "Growth Lending" fund b £100m due to high demand.

🇬🇧 Neobank Monese lost £30.5m in 2022 and has warned of its going concern.

🌍 PFM Monarch Money is expanding to Canada to capitalise on the shutting down of Mint.

🌍 Digital wallet Cash App has introduced Savings, a separate savings account and round ups.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Circle has secured a Digital Asset Service Provider registration in France.

🇪🇺 The ECB is seeking vendors to provide services for a digital euro.

🇪🇺 The EBA is to study the impact of the crypto market and crypto companies on the banks it regulates.

🇪🇺 Ripple was approved as a Virtual Asset Service Provider in Ireland.

🇬🇧 Revolut is limiting its crypto buying functionality for UK business customers due to FCA guidelines on marketing of crypto.

🇬🇧 A Digital Securities Sandbox has received 19 applications from despite the exclusion of unbacked crypto assets.

🌍 The Financial Accounting Standards Board has changed its rules to allow corporations holding digital assets to recognise their "fair value", not just their impairment.

🌍 Representatives from BlackRock, Nasdaq and the SEC met to discuss spot bitcoin ETFs for a second time, increasing speculation of their approval. BlackRock also added Jane Street and JP Morgan as authorised participants.

🌍 3AC founders have had $1.1bn in assets frozen by a court in the British Virgin Islands.

🌍 Digital Currency Group (DCG) CEO Barry Silbert has resigned as chairman of Grayscale, the asset management portco of DCG.

🌍 Visa has partnered with SmartMedia Technologies to create a web3 loyalty offering for brands to enable consumers to earn digital rewards.

🌍 US asset manager Fidelity filed a registration with the SEC for a spot bitcoin ETF.

🌍 India banned 9 crypto exchanges including Binance and Kraken.

🌍 Paxos has received approval to expand to the Solana exchange.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Banco Santander is attempting to combat Facebook Marketplace scams with a custom scam warning and asking if they have seen the item in person and the payment not made if they haven't.

🇬🇧 HSBC is to launch Zing, a money transfer service to take on Wise. The bank is also among the companies interested in Tesco's banking unit.

🇬🇧 JP Morgan's UK neobank Chase is aiming to be profitable in 2025.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Core banking software provider Mambu is integrating payment solution Numeral's product into its offering to its customers.

🇬🇧 Open banking service provider D*One, a unit of ClearScore, is to power the consumer underwriting of lender Salad Money.

🌍 Lending software solution nCino has deepened its partnership with Salesforce.

🌍 Non-profit industry body Financial Data Exchange (FDX) has updated its API version to v6 to include two way fraud notifications, a account opening use case and an endpoint for sending employment and income data.

🌍 The CFPB is being urged to increase data protection in its new open banking rules by industry groups The Clearing House Association and Bank Policy Institute.

🌍 Card of file update solution Knot API partnered with Astra to make it easier to manage switching cards.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 EPI has completed its first A2A instant payment POC from a German bank to a French bank.

🇬🇧 Phase 1 of the rollout of non-sweeping VRP is to occur in Q3 2024.

🇬🇧 New PSR rules on APP fraud protections will come into force in October this year which include a potential £100 excess for consumers and the cost of reimbursement split 50:50 between sending and receiving firms.

🇬🇧 25% of UK BNPL users were charged a late fee according to research.

🇬🇧 The UK Government released its Future of Payments review. Check out my highlights 👇

🌍 Visa has acquired a majority stake in Mexican payment processor Prosa.

🌍 Apple, Visa and Mastercard have been accused of limiting competition in the POS market.

🌍 Affirm is extending its partnership with Walmart which will see the BNPL solution offered at self-checkout kiosks in 4,500 stores.

🌍 The CFPB is turning its attention to card acceptance costs and wants to see more competition to drive down costs.

🌍 PayPal is making its unbranded checkout, powered by its Braintree platform, a "strategic imperative".

🌍 Uber's business arm has partnered with both Brex and Ramp to help automated matching of Uber receipts.

Longer reads 📜

• The state of BaaS in UK & Europe - Whitesight
• Scaling Human's with Financial AI - Naré Vardanyan, Fintech Brain Food
• An Inside Look at Clustering Methods: The Patoshi Pattern - Elementus
• Build, Buy, or Borrow - Capital Gains
• The Long Shadow of Checks - Patrick McKenzie
• Fintech Brainfood's 2023 in Review - Simon Taylor

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See you next week!