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.

🇪🇺 The EU is seeking to attract more private capital through harmonising its bankruptcy and tax laws as well as creating better supervision and a retail cross-border savings product.

🇪🇺 Lender Gilion closed a €10m equity round from LocalGlobe and angels.

🇪🇺 Neobank Bunq has raised €29m in capital.

🇪🇺 Income tax return solution TaxDown raised a €5m round from ENISA, JME Ventures, 4Founders Capital, Base10 Partners and Abac Nest.

🇬🇧 Cross-border transfer service TransferGo raised $10m from Taiwania Capital as it expands to APAC.

🇬🇧 B2B BNPL solution Hokodo raised a €100m debt facility from Viola Credit.

🇬🇧 B2B payments and credit provider Mimo raised a £15.5m round led by Northzone and included Cocoa Ventures, Seedcamp and Upfin VC.

🇬🇧 Lending software Funding Xchange raised a Series B led by Barclays.

🇬🇧 Institutional blockchain treasury management solution OpenTrade raised a £3.2m seed round from Draper Dragon, CMCC Global, Plassa Capital, Ryze Labs and a16z.

🌍 PE investment lifecycle fintech Pactio raised an £11m Series A from EQT Ventures.

🌍 Embedded lending solution Parafin raised a $125m debt warehouse from SVB.

🌍 Payment orchestrator Paytring raised a pre-seed round led by global PSP Unlimit.

🌍 Finops startup FloQast raised a $100m Series E led by ICONIQ Growth and included Meritech Capital and Sapphire Ventures.

🌍 Accounts receivable solution Tabs raised a $7m seed round led by Lightspeed.

🌍 Digital investment platform Linqto is going public via a $700m SPAC.

₿ Layer 1 blockchain Monad Labs raised $225m led by Paradigm and included Coinbase Ventures, Electric Capital and Greenoaks.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Investment platform Nectaro has attracted 1,500 new investors in its first quarter of operation.

🇪🇺 B2B lender Silvr is to use Google Cloud to power its lending.

🇪🇺 Neobank N26 has launched joint accounts in Ireland.

🇬🇧 Neobank Revolut has received a Mexican banking licence. It's app for under 18 year olds has hit 2 million customers worldwide.

🇬🇧 TotallyMoney has launched TotallySure, to help consumers avoid loan rejections through pre-approval and guaranteed loan terms.

🇬🇧 Embedded lender Liberis is to power loans to ecommerce software provider Shop Circle's customers through Shop Circle Capital.

🇬🇧 M&S has signed an agreement with HSBC to revamp its lending, payment and loyalty solutions.

🇬🇧 Digital savings solution SmartSave has hit £2m in deposits.

🇬🇧 Monzo customers can deposit cash at the Post Office.

🌍 Nubank Ultravioleta, an account for high-income Nubank customers, has integrated with Wise Platform for cross-border transfers. The Brazilian neobank has also integrated its NuInvest investment platform into the Nubank app.

🌍 Credit card Petal has agreed to sell itself to neobank Empower Finance.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Clearinghouse LCH has received approval to clear cash-settled Bitcoin futures and options contracts.

🇬🇧 Crypto.com has received operational approval from Dubai's regulator.

🇬🇧 A London Mayoral candidate wants to give every person in London £100 of a yet to be created LONDON token.

🇬🇧 Crypto exchange Luno has received a South African licence.

🌍 Investigation platform Siren and blockchain intelligence platform Chainalysis are partnering to trace blockchain transactions.

🌍 Coinbase has integrated with Lightspark for Bitcoin Lightning connectivity.

🌍 Hong Kong is to approve spot bitcoin ETFs next week according to Reuters.

🌍 MetaMask has added the ability for users to check if they are eligible for airdrops and NFT claims.

🌍 Google Cloud and Coinbase have joined EigenLayer as operators.

🌍 VC firm a16z has released a "zero-knowledge virtual machine" called Jolt.

🌍 The SEC has delayed a decision on whether to allow spot bitcoin ETFs by 45 days.

🌍 Binance is weighing up a few different locations for its headquarters.

🌍 FTX sold $1.9bn worth of SOL for $64 per token. Its former CEO has appealed his conviction.

🌍 BlackRock has said that Citadel, Citi, Goldman Sachs and UBS are authorized participants on its spot bitcoin ETF.

🌍 The SEC is set to sue defi exchange Uniswap after issuing a Wells Notice.

🌍 Crypto trader Avi Eisenberg may testify in his trial for a $110m crypto fraud.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Santander is to bring its digital neobank Openbank to the US and Mexico.

🇪🇺 Finland's Alisa Bank is to acquire invoice financing firm Puro Finance.

🇬🇧 HSBC is offloading its Argentina operation to Grupo Financiero Galicia for $550m.

🇬🇧 Lloyds Bank has reduced the size of its risk department which was seen as a "blocker" to progress.

🌍 BNY Mellon is collaborating with treasury solution Kyriba to enhance liquidity and unlock cash visibility by combining its LiquidityDirect platform with Kyriba's SaaS solution.

🌍 JP Morgan has launched Chase Media Solutions, a way for advertisers to target customers based on their bank transactions.

🌍 Bank of America's virtual assistant is managing two million client interactions per day.

🌍 Morgan Stanley's wealth arm is facing AML probes from the SEC, OCC, FinCEN, OFAC and the Fed.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 EBA Clearing, a payment infrastructure solution owned by European banks, announced it will provide Verification of Payee services across Europe from December.

🇪🇺 Banking Circle has upgraded its solutions to enable faster and cheaper access to local payment schemes.

🇬🇧 Listed trading infrastructure fintech Gresham Technologies is going private in a £150m deal with PE firm STG Partners.

🇬🇧 Cashflow management solution Multifi is to work with Plaid to support faster lending applications through quicker evaluation of SMBs financial health.

🇬🇧 GoCardless has expanded its partnership with Sage.

🇬🇧 Credit risk solution Atto (formerly DirectID) has partnered with FICO to deliver transaction based scores for UK lenders.

🌍 Asset management data provider Rimes is being sold by EQT to Five Arrows.

🌍 Google Cloud has announced deals with large financial services firms including Citadel, Discover and Scotiabank.

🌍 Treasury management solution Kyriba has launched an AI powered cash forecasting feature for its CFO customers. The company is also working with JP Morgan's blockchain Onyx unit to increase transparency of payments.

🌍 Risk decision engine Oscilar has launched an AI-powered AML solution.

🌍 Cashflow intelligence firm Pave has partnered with real-time debt insights solution MethodFi.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Dutch EV charging provider Road has partnered with Worldline for payment processing.

🇪🇺 Spend management platform Spendesk acquired Okko to add a procurement service to its platform.

🇪🇺 Payment provider PayDo has launched embedded payments for SEPA, SEPA Instant, FPS and SWIFT.

🇪🇺 Credit Agricole and Worldline have launched a joint venture to provide payment services to merchants.

🇪🇺 Merchant payment provider Viva.com is partnering with Bancomat, the leading payment network in Italy.

🇬🇧 Payment fraud in the UK costs £11.3bn according to Adyen.

🇬🇧 PSP PXP Financial has received accreditation to become a Token Service Provider for Mastercard.

🇬🇧 CAB Payments has received a PSP licence in Netherlands.

🌍 PayPal has partnered with PSP PayU to provide cross-border payments for Indian merchants.

🌍 Enterprise billing solution JustPaid has launched an API for usage based billing.

🌍 Mesh Payments has created a travel payment platform.

🌍 The CFPB is facing pushback on Regulation Z, its limit on credit card penalty fees, from Congress.

🌍 PSP dLocal is collaborating with payroll solution Papaya Global to enable companies to pay employees worldwide quickly in local currencies.

🌍 Mastercard has signed a MoU with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to collaborate on cybersecurity.

🌍 AliPay is working with major card issuers and card networks such as Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Discover to build International Consumer Friendly Zones across Chinese tourists cities to enable travellers to pay with their home e-wallets in China.

🌍 Canadian payment provider Nuvei has received a payments licence in Singapore. It also launched an invoice financing service that integrates directly with ERP systems.

🌍 Global payments platform Airwallex has launched a borderless Visa card in Canada issued by Peoples Trust Company.

Longer reads 📜

• The Woman Who Bilked Reagan’s Hometown Out of $54 Million - Politico
• United States v. Apple (Complaint) - Steven Sinofsky
• Insurance Companies Reap Hidden Fees as Patients Get Unexpected Bills - The New York Times
• Anatomy of a credit card rewards program - Patrick McKenzie
• 8 Google Employees Invented Modern AI. Here’s the Inside Story - Steven Levy, Wired

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See you next week!