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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.

🇪🇺 Wealthtech NAO extended its seed round by €1m.

🇪🇺 Leasing solution Flexvelop raised a €4 seed round from Seventure Partners.

🇪🇺 Health insurance company Dalma raised a €20m Series B from Northzone, Bpifrance, Anterra Capital and Breega.

🇬🇧 Digital wallet solution Curve raised £37m from Hanaco Ventures.

🇬🇧 Business multi-currency solution ALT21 raised a €12.5m Series A.

🇬🇧 B2B lender CapRelease raised a £1.7m round.

🇬🇧 Finance tool Mimo raised a €7.8m round from Northzone, Project A and Seedcamp

🌍 Lender SoFi secured a $5bn agreement with private credit firm Blue Owl to fund its loans.

🌍 Crypto exchange Binance raised $2bn from Abu Dhabi based MGX.

🌍 US BaaS provider Synctera raised $15m co-led by Fin Capital and Diagram Ventures.

🌍 MENA BaaS provider NymCard raised a $33m Series B led by QED.

₿ Crypto payments startup Mesh raised a $82m Series B.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Savings platform Raisin has expanded into the Nordics and launched in Finland.

🇪🇺 Neobroker Bux, now owned by ABN Amro, was fined €1.6m for paying influencers.

🇪🇺 Amazon and Santander have partnered to launch a Visa credit card for Austrian customers.

🇪🇺 Revolut has launched its Revolut Terminal in Spain.

🇪🇺 Nordic neobank Lunar reached one million users.

🇬🇧 Business bank OakNorth has acquired US based Community Unity Bank as it expands into North America.

🇬🇧 Neobank Monzo has developed a backup bank to cover outages.

🌍 SMB bank Mercury has cut ties with partner bank Evolve.

🌍 Square is to provide consumer loans through its Cash App wallet. The wallet will also start rolling out Afterpay's BNPL solution.

🌍 Verizon has partnered with Santandaer's digital bank to offer savings plans.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺US crypto payments firm MoonPay acquired German stablecoin infrastructure platform Iron.

🇪🇺 Boerse Stuttgart has received conditional approval from Swiss regulators for a DLT settlement system for digital assets.

🌍 Crypto exchange Coinbase is in advanced talks to acquire crypto derivatives exchange Deribit.

🌍 Ripple's XRP token has surged as the SEC drops its case against the company.

🌍 Crypto exchange Kraken is to offer super fast trading through a colocation service. It is also to buy US futures trading platform NinjaTrader.

🌍 DeFi protocol Ethena and tokenization platform Securitize launched Converge, an Ethereum blockchain.

🌍 The US Treasury department lifts its sanction on Tornado Cash.🌍

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 ING Spain was fined €3.91m for AML violations.

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank has launched mobile payment solution Bizum for businesses in Spain.

🇬🇧 Metro Bank has partnered with AI lending agent solution Covecta to streamline its loan lifecycle workflow.

🇬🇧 Virgin Money is to enhance its credit card app with open banking technology from Mastercard.

🇬🇧 Santander is to close nearly 25% of its UK branch network.

🇬🇧 HSBC has launched a daily liquidity management solution.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇬🇧 GoCardless signed accounting platform iplicit as a customer for its payment solutions. It also signed Capital on Tap for its variable recurring payments product.

🇬🇧 Real-time credit bureau Infact signed digital wallet provider Curve as a customer to report usage on its Flex product.

🇬🇧 Credit bureau Equifax has launched a cloud intelligence suit of tools for commercial lenders.

🌍 Bilt Rewards has acquired receipt data solution Banyan.

🌍 Post-trade firm DTCC is to extend the hours of operations for its clearing business.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Klarna has signed Walmart as a customer and will be the exclusive BNPL solution through the retailers OnePay arm. It also officially filed for an IPO and closed three offices.

🇪🇺 JP Morgan Payments has integrated with iDEAL as it expends in Europe.

🇪🇺 PSP Nexi has expanded Tap to Pay on iPhone support to Switzerland and Finland.

🇪🇺 Adyen extends Tap to Pay on iPhone in nine new EU markets; Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

🇪🇺 US payment giant Fiserv has acquired European payment provider CCV to expand in the EU.

🇬🇧 PSP Checkout.com has integrated with Middle Eastern BNPL provider Tabby.

🇬🇧 The UK government is set to abolish the PSR in order to cut unnecessary regulation.

🇬🇧 MyPOS has introduced Tap to Pay on oPhone in Switzerland, Hungary, Portugal and Bulgaria.

🇬🇧Atoa Payments has secured FCA approval to operate as an Authorised Payment Institution.

🌍 Payments fintech Dwolla announced an open-banking integration to Plaid.

Longer reads/listens 📜

• ApplePay is Bank Friendly - Tom Noyes
• Under the Hood🛠 - How GooglePay works - Jas Shah
• The Costs Of Fraud Should Be Shared - Dave Birch
• Schools Should Pursue Excellence - Jack Despain Zhou
• Why Apple will ultimately win the Token Wars - James Sherwin-Smith
• eCommerce Acquiring – Beyond Tokens – The Next Big Wave of Improvement - Tom Noyes
• The Four Models of Agentic Payments - Simon Taylor
• Agentic Payments – Card Considerations - Tom Noyes
• Visa's infinite runway - Jevgenijs Kazanins

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See you next week!