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.

🇪🇺 On-chain AML solution Micapass raised €240,000.

🇪🇺 Green supply chain finance solution Twinco Capital raised €50m in debt from BBVA Spark.

🇪🇺 Insurtech Kota raised a €5m seed round from Northzone, Frontline Ventures, EQT Ventures and angels.

🇪🇺 Crypto trading platform Atani raised a $6m round.

🇬🇧 Monzo is looking to raise £300m in new funding according to Sky News.

🇬🇧 Embedded finance solution Railsr has raised £20m to kickstart itself after going bankrupt from investors D Squared Capital and Moneta Venture Capital.

🇬🇧SMB lender Multifi raised a £10m seed round from Fasanara Capital.

🇬🇧 Insurtech Laka raised a €3.8m round from Creandum, Elkstone Capital, ABN Amro Ventures, Autotech Ventures and others.

🇬🇧 Alternative assets fintech Ctrl Alt raised a $2.7m seed round from Forward Partners, Middlegame Ventures, Enterprise Ireland and others.

🌍 Canadian spend management solution Procurify raised a CAD $68m Series C.

🌍 Open banking solution Prism Data raised a $5m from Citi, Core Innovation Capital and Obvious Ventures.

🌍 Financial planning startup Aleph raised a $16.7m round led by Bain Capital Ventures and included Khosla Ventures, Picus Capital and YC.

🌍 Singapore digital wallet YouTrip raised a $50m Series B.

🌍 Fintech investor Flourish Ventures raised $350m in fresh capital.

₿ Web3 security startup Blockaid raised $33m in funding.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 CEO of neobank Lunar has rubbished talks of a merger with Monzo.

🇪🇺 N26 has received the go ahead from German regulator BaFin to onboard an additional 10,000 more customers a month, increase its restriction from 50,000 to 60,000.

🇬🇧 Subscription management provider Youtility was acquired by US insurance comparison service Squeeze.

🇬🇧 Digital wallet Curve launched a credit card which provide protections on eligible purchases.

🇬🇧 Neobank Monese is to part ways with its core banking provider Thought Machine after developing an in-house solution.

🌍 Spend manage solution Expensify is launching a consumer payment app.

🌍 TodayPay, a solution to help merchants instantly provide refunds to customers, has come out of stealth.

🌍 NerdWallet has partnered with Bond to launch a credit card.

🌍 Elon Musk has told employees that X will replace the need for a bank account by the end of 2024.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 The European Payments Initiative is to make the digital euro a key part of its plans through its new wallet called "Wero".

🇪🇺 Binance is to stop service for its European Visa card.

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered are testing a blockchain based SWIFT competitor.

🇬🇧 Binance's UK head has left after regulatory pressure.

🇬🇧 The FCA has discovered that crypto firms are trying to skirt its new financial promotions rules with illegible notices.

🌍 The SEC is no longer pursuing Ripple executives for aiding and abetting the company violate federal law.

🌍 Tether has promised to publish real-time data on its UST reserves next year.

🌍 Grayscale has launched a Crypto Sector Index Series with FTSE Russell. The SEC must also reconsider its application to convert its GBTC fund into a spot ETF.

🌍 Ripple has partnered with web3 platform Uphold to increase liquidity and improve cross border payments.

🌍 FTX is weighing three bids to potentially restart its exchange.

🌍 JP Morgan's digital token "JPM Coin" is handling $1bn transactions per day.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 BBVA has consolidated three of its technology units into one to give it more strategic focus.

🇬🇧 Core bank software provider Thought Machine and payments platform Form3 have partnered to easy access to FedNow, TCH, RTP and Sepa to bank customers. It also has cut some jobs as part of a cost reduction exercise.

🌍 US Bank launched an embedded POS lending platform that allows businesses to offer customers loans when checking out.

🌍 Capital One has said its domestic card delinquency rate is 4.3%, up from 3% a year prior and are above 2019 levels.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 The EPC has postponed the migration of Sepa to ISO 20022 by four months after four countries were estimated not to be able to meet the November deadline.

🌍 Banking software provider Amount introduced a new digital origination platform.

🌍 Marqeta has launched a new credit card issuing platform for consumer and commercial cards.

🌍 Belvo has partnered with regional fintech MOVii to help stop payment fraud.

🌍 Plaid and Zero Hash have partnered to enable ACH crypto trades. Plaid also partnered with Riskified to bring AI risk tools to ACH payments.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Shares in payment solution Worldline fell around 50% after its poor sales outlook.

🇪🇺Payment solution Freemarket has received a payment licence in Ireland which would allow it to expand to Europe.

🇪🇺 Klarna staff in Sweden are threatening strike action if a new collective bargaining agreement is not reached.

🇬🇧 B2B BNPL solution Hokodo has partnered with US competitor Balance to provide global B2B businesses with a one stop shop.

🇬🇧 UK consumers lost nearly £600m to criminals during H1 2023 according to UK Finance.

🇬🇧 US Bank subsidiary Elavon has secured a authorisation and licence to provide financial services by the Bank of England and will offer payment acquiring services.

🌍 Visa is to launch an accounts receivables tool to automated virtual card transactions and provide reconciliation data for finance teams to close out invoices in ERPs. Earnings from Visa showed strong growth (+19%) in Visa Direct.

🌍 PayPal is to use Fiserv as its payment processor.

🌍 Apple Pay Later has officially launched for all US residents.

🌍 The Fed has proposed recommendations to cut debit interchange from $0.21 to $0.144 and to review the cap every two years.

Longer reads 📜

• Payment Operations Software: The Multi-Hundred Billion Dollar Market to Optimize Payments - Darshan Patel and Rikhil Bajaj
• Inside a $30 Million Cash-for-Bitcoin Laundering Ring in the Heart of New York - Joseph Cox
• The insider: how Michael Lewis got a backstage pass for the fall of Sam Bankman-Fried - Samanth Subramanian
• How much data do you need to raise debt capital - Rohit Mittal
• Signals Fintech Founders: Ansa's Sophia Goldberg - Dez Fleming, This Week in Fintech
• Fed Proposing New Rates for Durbin - Tom Noyes
• Fundraising for fintech infra is different - Matt Brown
• Tokenisation, The ApplePay payment process, and mobile wallet growth - Jas Shah

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See you next week!