Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Join us in London on March 20th at an exciting new venue for the next edition of the London Fintech Breakfast! RSVP now to secure your spot! ☕🥐

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

Programming Note: There will be no TWIF UK & Europe next week.

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

Sign up to TWIF Premium Join us on WhatsApp Join our Slack

Fact: Humanizing Fintech apps through UGC and influencers is the key to scaling and expanding global reach.

Problem: Manually sifting through thousands of influencers to find the perfect match is a time-consuming nightmare.

Solution: You need Insense’s carefully vetted marketplace of 60,000+ UGC creators and micro-influencers from 20+ countries across the USA, Canada, APAC, EMEA, and Latin America. 2,000+ brands including Revolut, OKX, and Paysend are using Insense to find their perfect niche creators and run diverse influencer collaborations.

Book a discovery call by March 21 and get a $200 bonus for your first campaign.

Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺 Digital asset market maker Flowdesk raised $102m.

🇪🇺 Digital banking platform myTU raised a €10m round.

🇪🇺 Bill splitting fintech Cino raised a €3.5m round led by Balderton.

🇪🇺 POS Sitoo raised. €26m round from Verdane Capital.

🇬🇧 B2B lender Lenkie raised £49m in a mix of debt and equity in a Series A

🇬🇧 AI regtech Quantexa raised a $175m Series F from HSBC, Warburn Pincus, BNY Mellon, Evolution and others.

🌍 Spend management solution Ramp launched a secondary share sale that valued the company at $13bn as it hits $700m in ARR.

🌍 AI FX hedging solution Grain raised a $33m Series A from Bain Capital, Aleph, Vesey Ventures and Hanaco Venture Capital.

🌍 Construction B2B lender Flex raised $25m from Florida Funders, Titanium Ventures, Campanyon Ventures and others.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇬🇧 The Ukrainian Central Bank has told Revolut it needs a licence to operate in the country.

🇬🇧 Digital wallet solution Curve has launched Curve ReFi, a tool to allow customers to move balances between any card or account linked to their Curve Wallet to avoid overdrafts and shift credit card balances.

🇬🇧 Neobank OakNorth reported £215m in pre-tax profits for 2024 and provided over £2bn in new lending, taking its total lending to over £12bn.

🌍 Wealthtech Betterment has acquired the automated investing business of Ellevest.

🌍 Neobroker Robinhood is to utilise CQG to provide order routing technology.

Digital Assets ₿

🇬🇧 Stablecoin payments provider BVNK launched a unified fiat and stablecoin wallet.

🌍 Crypto exchange Bybit secured initial approval top operate as virtual asset platform in UAE.

🌍 The US administration announced a strategic crypto reserve that will include Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Cardano amongst its assets.

🌍 The SEC has plans to drop its case against crypto exchange Kraken,. Yuga Labs also said the SEC had closed its investigation into the company. The SEC also dropped its enforcement suit against DRW Cumberland.

🌍 Crypto exchange Bybit is listing Ethena's USDtb as collateral and will pay a daily reward to holders.

🌍 Digital asset group Hex Trust received a Major Payment Institution Licence in Singapore.

🌍 Crypto ECN Crossover Markets is integrating with digital asset custodian BitGo.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank was €23m by regulator BaFin.

🇪🇺 Santander received approval to acquire alternative financing platform Tresmares Capital.

🇬🇧 More UK banks suffered outages on payday in February with Lloyds, TSB, Halifax and Nationwide suffering. UK high street banks accumulated 803 hours of outages in the past two years and are facing heavy fines.

🌍 Citi mistakenly sent $81 trillion to a customer account instead of $280 as a result of poor UX.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🌍 Payment infrastructure provider Treasury Prime signed KeyBank as a customer to its bank network.

🌍 Marqeta has signed a partnership with Green Dot to enable its customers to deposit cash into bank accounts.

🌍 Digital banking technology provider Alkami is acquiring account opening fintech MANTL for $400m.

🌍 Financial services software provider Finastra and payment infrastructure provider i2c are partnering to offer debit card issuance and digital wallet solutions.

🌍 Spend management infrastructure provider Astrada has come out of stealth after being spun out of Fidel API

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Adyen signed loyalty program and card issuer Bilt as a customer.

🇪🇺 Cross border payments solution Currenxie was granted an EMI licence in Ireland.

🇪🇺 Payments fintech Mollie is expanding into Poland.

🇪🇺 Bloomberg reports Klarna is to file for an IPO as early as next week.

🇬🇧 The PSR is to take action against Visa and Mastercard after an increase in fees.

🌍 The CFPB dismissed its lawsuit against Capital One savings account interest rates. It also dropped its fraud suit against Zelle operators.

🌍 Google Wallet in Australia has enabled least-cost routing for multi-network debit cards in its wallet with Australian Payments Plus.

🌍 The US Senate voted to remove a regulation issued by the CFPB that would regulate Big Tech providers of mobile and digital wallets and transfers.

Longer reads/listens 📜

• Attitudes and Anonymity in Digital Currency - Dave Birch
• The iPhone 16e; Apple Intelligence Table Stakes; Apple vs. U.K, Continued - Ben Thompson
• An Interview with Manna Founder and CEO Bobby Healy About Drone Delivery - Ben Thompson
• Inside the Murdochs’ Succession Drama - The New York Times
• Stripe Annual Letter 2024
• Apollo’s private credit ETF claims to have squared the circle - FT
• Trump's federal cryptocurrency reserve - Tangle
• The Largest Theft in History - Following the Money Trail from the Bybit Hack - Elliptic
• Ethena and Exchange Risk: Bybit Case Study - Ethena

👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know

Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more fintech content

See you next week!