Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Please find another week of fintech news, financings and exits below.

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Tweet of the week 🦉🏆

Funding 💸

There were 5 deals in the fintech space across the UK and Europe since the last post, with a total investment of $384m. Some highlights are below.

🇪🇺 Crypto platform Sygnum raised a $90m Series B led by Sun Hung Kai & Company.

🇬🇧 Payments provider CellPoint Digital raised $25m from Penta Capital and Toscafund Asset Management.

🇬🇧 Payroll payments fintech PayFit raised a £287m Series E led by General Atlantic and included Accel, Bpifrance and Eurazeo.

🇬🇧 PrimaryBid is rumoured to be raising £110m round led by SoftBank that will value the company at $500m+.

🌍 Petal raised a $140m Series D led by Sand Hill Angels.

🌍 NFT marketplace OpenSea raised a $300m Series C led by Coatue and Paradigm at a 13.3bn valuation.

🌍  Fintech VC Ribbit Capital raised a $1.15bn Fund VII.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇬🇧 Pensions provider Penfold triped the number of pension transfers in 2021 and now has over 40,000 customers.

🇬🇧 Affluent neobank Monument appointed former Barclays Business Banking exec Ian Rand as its CEO.

Digital Assets ₿

🇬🇧 British politicians are lobbying the government from stricter oversight of the crypto space, specifically against football clubs fan tokens

🌍  China’s CBDC wallet is now available on app stores as its launch at the Winter Olympics looms.

🌍  Central Bank of Bahrain is testing JPMorgan’s digital currency via the banks Onyx unit.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇬🇧 Lloyds Bank is becoming a shareholder in loyalty app Bink, following in the footsteps of Barclays who is also a shareholder.

🇬🇧 Nationwide customers are facing payment trouble again with customers complaining of not receiving incoming payments.

🇬🇧 Virgin Money has partnered with Expend to add expense management to its product offering for businesses.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Nordic cross-border payments platform P27 is to replace Denmark’s current national clearing house run by Finance Denmark.

Payments 💰

🇬🇧 Adyen has launched an Android POS terminal providing merchants a one stop solution, putting it directly in competition with Block, Shopify and PayPal.

🇬🇧 POS startup KodyPay hired former Atom Bank exec Sophie Haagensen as COO.

🇬🇧 Open banking platform Ecospend reported £2.5bn of transactions through its open banking technology.  Ecospend  was chosen to build HMRC new payment infrastructure.🌍

Regulatory Corner 🔎

In collaboration with Kat Cloud

🇬🇧 FCA rejected 20% of applications as it tightened its standards.

🇬🇧 Consumer watchdog Which? is calling on HM Treasury to crack down on BNPL as its public consultation comes to an end.  Specifically they call out the lack of consumer awareness that BNPL is credit.

Longer reads 📜

• India Stack vs Open Banking - Myself and Manjor Pahwa
• Sushiswap: the Dusk of the Samurais - Luca Prosperi, Dirt Roads
• The Inside Story of How India’s Crypto Exchanges Were ‘Inspected’ by Tax Agencies - Amitoj Singh, Coindesk
• How Shopify Outfoxed Amazon to Become the Everywhere Store - Brad Stone
• First BaaS Unicorn and 4 Other Predictions for Fintech in 2022 - Brad van Leeuwen
• London’s Fintech Boom Opens the Door for Dirty Money - Donal Griffin
• What Jack Dorsey doesn’t get about Web3 - David Hoffman, Bankless
• Which fintechs might go public in 2022? - John Reynolds
• Futuristic Predictions for the Fintech Industry by 2050 - Fintech Magazine

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See you next week!