Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Thanks to everyone that came out to our first London Fintech Breakfast in collaboration with Techspace & Plaid. We are hoping to move the next one to a larger venue to accommodate the overwhelming interest we had to so keep your eyes peeled for the next one 🫣.

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.

🇪🇺 Lending decisioning platform CreditLogic raised €3.5m from Riverside Acceleration Capital.

🇪🇺 Escrow payment solution for marketplaces Trustap raised a $5.5m Series A from MiddleGame, Act Venture Capital, TX Ventures and more.

🇪🇺 Neobroker infrastructure provider Lemon.markets raised an €12m round led by CommerzVentures and included Creandum, Lakestar Lightspeed and more.

🇪🇺 Financial education startup Starting Finance raised €2.5m from Vertis and CDP Venture Capital.

🇪🇺 Savings app Cashbee raised €7.5m from La Banque Postale, MIF and 115k.

🇬🇧 Property finance provider CapitalRise raised a £30m line of credit.

🇬🇧 Credit score provider ClearScore raised £3.4m from Fair4All Finance.

🌍 Cross-border transfer fintech Nala raised a $40m Series A from DST, Nyca, Acrew and others.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Neobank N26 launched stocks and ETF trading in Ireland.

🇬🇧 Neobank Revolut faces potential delays to its mortgage offering by the Central Bank of Ireland.

🇬🇧 The British Business Bank has launched The Growth Guarantee Scheme to support SMEs by accrediting lenders

🇬🇧 Neobank Sends has launched SEPA transfers.

🇬🇧 Payments and cashback app Super Payments, founded by the co-founder of Funding Circle has reported £7.5m in losses in 2023.

🇬🇧 B2B lender Liberis has signed eBay Sellers Capital as a customer.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 The EBA has extended its Travel Rule guidelines to include cryptocurrency service providers and intermediaries.

🇪🇺 Digital asset custodian Zodia has partnered with lender Maple Finance. Its sister company, Zodia Markets is attempting to acquire digital asset trading business Elwood Capital.

🇪🇺 Digital asset group Sygnum launched a 24/7 instant settlement network.

🇪🇺 Payment provider Nuvei has partnered with Mastercard to allow off-ramping from digital assets to debit, credit and prepaid cards.

🇬🇧 SME lender Greengage has partnered with crypto exchange Coinbase to originate debt using Coinbase Diamond protocol.

🌍 KuCard, a Visa debit card from exchange KuCoin will support virtual and physical cards.

🌍 Mt Gox creditors have started to receive payments but some make take up to three months to receive their bitcoin or cash repayments,

🌍 Crypto exchange Crypto.com is seeing a resurgence from retail traders.

🌍 Exchange BitMEX has pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act according to the DOJ.

🌍 Jump Trading is seeking $264m in damages from the FTX estate over failed delivery of SRM tokens.

🌍 Digital asset technology provider Fireblocks has added Zodia, Komainu, CloudTech, Zerocap and Rakkar as partners for its Global Custodian Partner Program.

🌍 The SEC has dropped its investigation into Paxos as part of a probe into the BUSD stablecoin.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Danish bank Nordea is facing charges over violating the Danish AML act between 2012 and 2015.

🇪🇺 BNP Paribas have signed a partnership with AI company Mistral AI.

🇬🇧 Barclays is to sell its German consumer finance business to BAWAG Group.

🇬🇧 NatWest is partnering with digital ID solution OneID in the Nordics and to also utilise its Adobe Acrobat Sign.

🇬🇧 HSBC's cross-border payments app Zing was built in collaboration with Visa utilising Visa-owned Currencycloud and Tink.

🇬🇧 Metro Bank has withdrawn its personal credit card product.

🌍 DBS Bank was fined $1.3m for breaching AML rules in Hong Kong.

🌍 Fifth Third Bank was fined $20m for improper auto lending practices. It also launched a bank switching tool.

🌍 Evolve Bank and Trust have confirmed the personal data of 7.6m customers was accessed by cybercriminals.

🌍 Citi has been fined $135m over 2020 orders from the OCC and Federal Reserve.

🌍 Bank of America has added a powerful transaction search engine to its CashPro business banking solution,

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Core banking software provider Mambu signed travel payments solution Outpayce as a customer.

🇬🇧 BaaS bank Griffin has become a B Corporation, showcasing its sustainable credentials.

🇬🇧 BaaS provider ClearBank has signed payment platform Payset as a customer.

🌍 Bain Capital and Reverence Capital have acquired software provider Envestnet.

🌍 Financial software provider Galileo has launched wire transfer APIs.

🌍 Financial technology provider Cross River has signed payment orchestrator MassPay as a customer.

🌍 Fraud data sharing consortium Sonar has launched Red Flag service, helping banks and fintechs identify if a customers data has been breached.

🌍 RTP Network reached new records in Q1 2024 with $42.3bn in quarterly volume and hit over $1b daily volume.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Square is bringing Tap to Pay to French merchants.

🇪🇺 Apple has agreed to open up access to the NFC chip to avoid massive fines from the European Commission.

🇬🇧 Payment provider Ecommpay has enabled subscription payments from PayPal.

🇬🇧 White label BNPL provider Divido is insolvent.

🇬🇧 Payment orchestrator BR-DGE has launched a white-label payment orchestration solution for PSPs.

🇬🇧 OpenPayd has launched Pix payments for its clients.

🇬🇧 The Payments Association has called on the new Economic Secretary to reduce APP fraud reimbursement limits to £30,000 from over £400,000.

🌍 Visa and Mastercard agreed to extend the cap on card fees for tourists in the EU for an additional five years.

🌍 Discover is settling a class action lawsuit for $1.2bn.

🌍 US payment solution Shift4 has partnered with Phos by Ingenico for software POS..

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧 The FCA has simplified listing rules to align with international standards to drive growth and innovation.

Longer reads/listens 📜

• Prints at POS - Dave Birch
• The E.U. Goes Too Far - Ben Thompson
• eCom – Politics and Scenarios and Bank Transformation – Actions for Banks to Succeed in the Storm of Disruption - Tom Noyes
• Interlinking Fast Payment Systems for Cross-border Payments - Reserve Bank of Australia
• The Trump Trade - Marc Rubinstein

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See you next week!