Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

This week the UK and EU signed an agreement to boost financial services cooperation in a positive sign of the road ahead since Brexit.

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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.

🇪🇺 Wealth app Curvo raised a $500k seed round from angel investors.

🇪🇺Payment solution Centi raised a seed round from Bloomhaus Ventures.

🇪🇺POS payment solution for physical stores Flatpay raised a €15m Series A led by Seed Capital.

🇪🇺Cashflow management and planning fintech Embat raised a €5m Series A led by Samaipata and included VentureFriends and 4Founders Capital.

🇪🇺 Payments provider Beam raised a $27m Series B.

🇪🇺 AI insurtech Bdeo raised a €7.5m Series B from BlackFin Capital, Armilar Venture Partners, K Fund, lope Ventures and Hollard Insurance.

🇬🇧Corporate banking and treasury platform Fennech Financial raised a £2.3m seed round from Lloyds Bank.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 SMB neobank Qonto is expanding its loan offering with a partnership with Banxware, Defactor and Silvr.

🇬🇧 Funding Circle has securitised £240m of SME loads with Waterfall Asset Management.

🇬🇧 Wise reported strong pre-tax profits of £146.5m for year ending March 2023 (up from £43.9m yoy). It also announced 10m active customers, up 34% yoy.

🇬🇧 Consumer finance app Zipzero is moving from London to Aberdeen.

🌍 Apple is looking to launch a credit card in India and is working with HDFC Bank for the offering as well as talking with NPCI regarding Apple Pay.

🌍 Corporate spend solution Ramp acquired customer support platform Cohere.io.

🌍 Robinhood is laying off 7% of its staff, the third round of layoffs that it has made.

🌍 Square is testing a credit card product for its US clients in addition to a new loan service for larger merchants as it pushes deeper into lending.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺Crypto.com has received a Virtual Asset Service Provider registration in Spain.

🇪🇺 Bank of Italy has launched a CBDC pilot to assess viability.

🇪🇺 Binance is pulling out of Austria after withdrawing its registration application after pressure from authorities. German regulator BaFin also rejected its licence. This follows similar moves recently for Binance in Belgium, Netherlands, Canada and faced inquiries in France. The exchange also reversed an earlier decision to delist privacy coins in Europe and lost its European payment provider Paysafe.

🇪🇺 The EU reached agreement on changes to the Capital Requirements Regulation and Directive to include capital that banks must hold against crypto assets. Initial details suggest a 1,250% risk weight for free-floating crypto.

🇪🇺BitPanda has spun out its institutional platform, now known as One Trading (FKA Bitpanda Pro), and raised €30m.

🇪🇺The European Commission has confirmed that its digital euro will be a complement to cash and not a replacement. Also highlighted were its privacy elements

🇬🇧 Schroders is working with the Monetary Authority of Singapore to develop a tokenized digital asset fund.

🇬🇧The FCA's head of digital assets has left after less than a year in the role.

🌍 JP Morgan has expanded its blockchain based settlement token JPM Coin to euro payments. Siemens has conducted the first € payment on its platform.

🌍 The IMF has warned that banning crypto may not help mitigate its risks.

🌍 Coinbase successfully halted a lawsuit filed by an customer while it appeals a judicial decision in lower court. It also responded to the SECs lawsuit by claiming assets listed on its platform are outside of the SEC's purview.

🌍 FTX is suing investment firm K5 to try to recoup some of the $700m SBF paid the firm in order to buy influence with celebrities. It also reported it owes customers $8.7bn and is exploring a relaunch.

🌍 Circle is watching the regulatory environment in Hong Kong as it mulls expansion plans in Asia.

🌍 The SEC has postponed collection of a $30m penalty from BlockFi to boost repayments to creditors.

🌍 The State of Nevada is attempting to shut down crypto custodian Prime Trust.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Danske Bank is utilising Indian IT provider Infosys for a digital transformation project.

🇪🇺 ING is trialling a P2P app that utilises ultra-wideband technology that would allow users to transfer money by pointing one device at another. The bank is partnering with Samsung and NXP Semiconductors.

🇪🇺Orange Bank is in talks with BNP Paribas to take on its customers as it seeks to withdraw from the retail banking market.

🌍 JP Morgan Chase has been fined $4m for deleting 47m emails which the SEC wanted to access.

🌍 Mizuho, a Japanese bank, is embracing AI by rolling out OpenAI to its staff.

🌍 US Bank launched a corporate spend management solution for the underserved mid-market.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 The EU has published its PSD3 proposals, the update to PSD2. Check out Simon Taylor's breakdown above!

🇪🇺Yapily has signed corporate spend provider Pleo as a customer for its VRP product.

🌍 Fraud platform Sardine has launched SardineX, a industry consortium aimed at fighting fraud and money laundering. Founding members include Visa, Alloy, Airbase and more.

🌍 Brazilian payments infrastructure company Pismo has been acquired by Visa for $1bn.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺Savings bank acquirer Payone is closing its "E-payment partners" division due to the "increased regulatory requirements" on high risk payments.

🇪🇺Dutch payment service iDeal is only going to transfer its assets to its acquirer, EPI, once its solution has been complete due to iDeal being critical infrastructure in the Netherlands.

🇪🇺 Payments company PayU has a number of suitors including Nuvei and Rapyd after its parent company put it up for sale.

🇬🇧Worldpay has enabled its UK merchant customers to use Visa Instalments checkout functionality.

🇬🇧 B2B deferred payments provider Aria is launching in the UK.

🌍 Sezzle has launched Sezzle Pay Anywhere, a solution for consumers to use instalment payments anywhere a Visa card is accepted.

🌍 Stripe has partnered with Google Workspace to enable paid appointment bookings.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇪🇺 The EU has agreed on rules that ban payment for order flow, impacting neobrokers like Trade Republic which use it as a major source of revenue.

Longer reads 📜

• Wallets, APIs and Trust - Tom Noyes
• The Impact Of ChatGPT And Open Banking Cannot Be Underestimated - Dave Birch
• The competitors you should fear aren’t copying you - Ayo
• Money Stuff: The Big Banks Aren’t Stressed - Matt Levine
• Fintech 🧠 Food - The Future of Money - Simon Taylor

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See you next week!