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.

🇬🇧 European VC firm Balderton raised $1.3bn for two new funds; a $615m Early Stage Fund IX and a $685m Growth Fund II.

🌍 Latam B2B cross-border payments fintech Conduit raised a $5m seed extension round.

🌍 Cross-border money transfer solution Sling Money raised a $15m Series A led by Union Square Ventures, Ribbit Capital and Slow Ventures.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 N26's regulatory chief is to exit the neobank.

🇬🇧 Chinese tech company Tencent has sold its stake in SME bank Tide.

🇬🇧 Wise has begun signing up customers in India to tap into the large $32bn remittance market.

🇬🇧 Monzo customers reported a technical outage on Tuesday leaving customers unable to make payments.

🇬🇧 Finops company Sage expanded its AP automation product worldwide.

🇬🇧 Science Card has launched e-money accounts for socially conscious spending.

🌍 Consumer debt fintech Tally has shut after nine years after failing to sure funding.

Digital Assets ₿

🌍 US digital asset company BitGo received a MPI licence in Singapore.

🌍 Bitget Wallet has hit 30 million users.

🌍 Tether is looking to double its workforce and expand its investment, development and compliance teams.

🌍 Ripple has begun testing its RLUSD and XRP for cross-border payments.

🌍 Crypto.com, Gemini and Coinbase have all opposed new CFTC rules that would ban prediction markets.

🌍 Goldman Sachs holds over $400m in BlackRock's IBIT Bitcoin ETF .

🌍 MetaMask is rolling out a debit card created with Mastercard and Baanx.

🌍 The head of Digital Asset Management at Fidelity has hinted stablecoins, tokenized Treasury's and on-chain credit might be part of its offering.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇬🇧 HSBC has pledged to not close any additional branches until 2026.

🌍 Customers Bancorp was hit with enforcement action by the US Federal Reserve.

🌍 Standard Chartered has launched an ESG linked Cash Account with fees and interest rates liked to clients ESG performance.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇬🇧 GoCardless has joined the SPAA scheme, a scheme from the EPC to introduce premium open banking APIs banks card monetize.

🌍 Modern Treasury has expanded instant payment support for mutual clients at six banks.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Amazon is launching a new Visa credit card in Germany with Santander.

🇪🇺 Payments provider Worldline has made BLIK payments available on its Tab on Mobile app.

🇪🇺 European Banks had expressed concerns about the UK's plans to cap interchange fees to pre-Brexit levels for cross-border transactions made by EU customers in the UK.

🇪🇺 Adyen has expanded to India and reported H1 2024 earnings with revenue +24%, TPV + 45% and EBITDA +32%. h/t to Jevgenijs.

🇪🇺 Klarna has launched a "balance account" to store funds as well as a cashback rewards feature at participating retailers.

🇬🇧 Amazon and Barclays launched a new co-branded credit card in the UK

🌍 Apple is opening up its NFC chip to third-party developers to enable competition with Apple Pay although they will charge a fee for access after the EU forced access to avoid legal issues.

🌍 Global payments platform Airwallex announced it surpassed $100bn in annual processing volume and $500m in ARR on its way for a 2026 IPO.

🌍 BNPL provider Zip integrated its payment method with Stripe for US merchants,

Longer reads/listens 📜

• The Unraveling of a Crypto Dream - New York Times
• The 'no tax on tips' policy - Tangle
• Free Money - Marc Rubinstein
• Meta's Payments Opportunity - Matt Jones
• The Next Wave Of AI In Banking: Intelligent, Autonomous Agents - Ron Shevlin, Forbes
• Brazil's Pix payments are killing cash. Are credit cards next? - Marcela Ayres, Reuters
• The low-tax countries wooing the world’s wealthy - FT

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See you next week!