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.

🇪🇺 Climate fintech Cloover raised a €7m pre-seed round.

🇪🇺 Digital wealth solution Flanks raised a $8m Series A led by Earlybird Venture Capital and included JME Ventures and 4Founders Capital.

🇬🇧 SME lender iwoca raised £200m in debt from Barclays and Varde Partners.

🇬🇧 Lender Uncapped raised a €230m debt facility from Fortress.

🇬🇧Insurtech Bikmo raised a £3.4m Series A from Puma Private Equity.

🇬🇧 Cap table management solution Globacap raised a $21m Series B from CoinShares Ventures, CBOE Holdings, QBN Capital and Moore Strategic Ventures.

🇬🇧 Financial service data science platform Auquan raised a $3.5m seed round from Episode 1 Ventures, Neotribe and Stage 2 Capital.

🌍 US investing app Stash raised a $40m round led by T Rowe Price.

🌍 International credit bureau Nova Credit raised a $45m Series C.

🌍 Digital identity provider Prove raised a $40m round led by MassMutual Ventures and Capital One Ventures.

🌍 Insurance payments solution Iink raised a $12m Series A from Headline, Chartline Capital Partners, Motley Fool Ventures and SilverCircle.

🌍 Enterprise cashflow management solution Statement raised a $12m seed round from Glilot Capital, Citi, Mensch Capital, Titan Capital and Operator Partners.

₿ DeFi exchange SynFutures raised a $22m Series B led buy Pantera Capital.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Lender Creditshelf is rumoured to be in talks with rival Teylor about an acquisition after a deal with Goldman Sachs faltered.

🇬🇧 Digital mortgage broker Habito recorded its first monthly profit.

🇬🇧 Invoice finance provider Accelerated Payments has partnered with Funding Friends to give SMEs better access to working capital.

🇬🇧 Digital wallet Curve has partnered with payment solution Nuvei to provide card acquiring and alternative payment methods.

🌍 Nubank has applied for a Mexican bank licence as it looks to enter the market.

🌍 Gig worker benefit fintech Catch has relaunched with a focus on heath benefits.

🌍 Financial literacy for kids solution Till Financial has partnered with Astra Finance.

🌍 Robinhood partnered with Capitalize to enable 401(k) rollovers.

🌍 Global credit decisioning platform Uplinq is collaborating with EY.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 The EU has adopted rules that let tax authorities share data on individuals digital asset holdings.

🇪🇺 The EU data protection watchdog is recommending increasing the privacy of a digital euro.

🇪🇺 The ECB has launched a two-year prep phase for the introduction of a digital euro.

🇬🇧 Binance is stopping onboarding new UK customers while it finds a partner that can meet the FCA's new crypto asset promotion rules.

🌍 The former CEO of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital faces a fraud lawsuit from the CFTC.

🌍 Coinbase is arguing against a recent IRS proposal to define crypto brokers and tell them how they and their customers should pay tax.

🌍 The SEC has decided not to appeal a court ruling that it was wrong to reject Grayscale's bitcoin ETF.

🌍 California passed a Digital Financing Assets Law to create a regulatory framework for crypto.

🌍 After false reports that BlackRock's spot ETF was approved, the company confirmed it was still under review.

🌍 FTX has floated a proposal to return up to 90% of creditor holdings.

🌍 The Basel Committee that oversees banking supervision will require banks to disclose their exposure to crypto assets.

🌍 Binance.US users are no longer allowed to withdraw USD from the platform but instead can convert to stablecoin or other assets and withdraw them due to lack of a banking partner. It's main international entity signed partnerships with payment providers to enable Euro transactions.

🌍 New York AG has sued Gemini, Genesis and Digital Currency Group from defrauding investors of over $1bn.

🌍 Stock clearing company Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has agreed to acquire Securrency.

🌍 FinCEN has proposed new rules that would force crypto mixers to increase transparency on who is using their services.

🌍 Circle upgraded its crypto wallet to allow merchants to pay customer's transaction fees.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 BNP Paribas has launched a fintech solution for payments in marketplaces via a collaboration with Startup Studio 321.

🇪🇺 Rabobank has added fraud protection through payment solution SurePay.

🇬🇧 Barclays suffered a online banking outage earlier this week.

🌍 Citi have partnered with spend management solution Navan on a T&E solution for the banks corporate clients.

🌍 The WSJ reports that Goldman want to completely exit its partnership with Apple as it looks to fully retreat from consumer finance.

🌍 JP Morgan have launched a Pay-by-bank solution running on ACH rails. The bank also selected Trulioo to provide identity verification.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 BNPL firm Scalepay is to issue cards through Marqeta.

🇬🇧 The FCA has imposed customer onboarding restrictions on payments firm Modulr.

🇬🇧 Companies House data show that TrueLayer lost £40m in 2022 (down from £78m the previous year) with revenues only £4.1m (+56% yoy). Yapily lost £21.5m in the same period, up from £8.4m.

🌍 Fiserv signed a data-sharing partnership with Plaid to allow Fiserv's customers of bank and credit unions to use Fiserv's AllData Connect to share financial information with apps on Plaid's network.

🌍 Australian banks and payment organisations have come together to create ConnedID, a digital ID service that lets Australians use their bank to verify identities with third parties.

🌍 The BIS has issued a harmonised ISO 20022 data requirements to quell the inconsistent application of the standard across countries.

🌍 Mastercard has partnered with Worldpay and Zip for open banking.

🌍 Bank software provider Backbase is partnering with Atomic to enable direct deposit and income verification to banks and credit unions.

🌍 The CFPB released its new 1033 open banking rules, providing much to talk about at Money 2020.

🌍 Marqeta has partnered with Motive to enable card issuance.

🌍 Card issuer Galileo has launched a spend management solution.

Payments 💰

🇬🇧 B2B BNPL provider Mondu received a licence from the FCA and is now live in the UK.

🇬🇧 Stripe is to provide European merchants with open banking payment option through a partnership with TrueLayer.

🌍 Australia is looking to regulate digital wallet providers like Apple and Google through the RBA which also regulates payment services.

🌍 Payments company Block acquired musician focused fintech Hifi.

🌍 The UAE is to establish its own domestic card scheme and real-time payment system in order to decouple its dependence on Visa and Mastercard.

🌍 The Fed is exploring reducing the debit card fees merchants are charged which were fixed 13 years ago at $0.21 + 0.05%.

🌍 Square has launched new generative AI features to assist businesses including a menu generator, AI backgrounds, personalized emails and more.

🌍 Global payments firm Airwallex acquired Mexican PSP MexPago.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧 The FCA has fined Equifax £11m for a cyber security breach.

🌍 The CFPB and FTC are alleging TransUnion violated the FCRA through its rental screening tool for failing to have accurate information.

Longer reads 📜

• The Great Cash-for-Carbon Hustle - Heidi Blake, Bloomberg
• Buy Now, Regulate Later - Dave Birch
• Payments 3.0: Stripe And Adyen Vs. The Others - Colin Luce
• Inside Paypal’s Billion Dollar Battle For Payment Processing Dominance - Emily Mason, Forbes
• Talking expansion with Public.com GM International, Dann Bibas - Akash Bajwa
• Braid Is Dead, Long Live Braid - Amanda Peyton
• The Great Zelle Pool Scam - Devin Friedman
• Making & remaking the most important market in the world. Or why everyone should read Menand and Younger on Treasuries. - Adam Tooze
• Inside FTX’s All-Night Race to Stop a $1 Billion Crypto Heist - Andy Greenberg, Wired

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See you next week!