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UK & Europe

Is the music stopping? - (13/03)

Is the music stopping? - (13/03)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

The big news last week was the rapid collapse of SVB and SVB UK, both of which were taken over by regulators.  Insured deposits are likely to be paid out quickly on Monday, the recovery of the remainder of depositors assets will be a managed process likely to take more time.

The TWIF slack has a dedicated channel for folks with questions and founders looking for new banking alternatives.  You can join the Slack here and participate.

Will this cause a shift in banking behaviour of businesses in the longer term? I would think customers are likely to spread their deposits across multiple bank accounts but that can become unmanageable with large amounts.

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.

🇪🇺 B2B financing Aria raised a €50m debt facility.

🇪🇺Try before you buy fintech Elyn raised a €2.5m pre-seed round led by Headline and Sequoia Arc.

🇪🇺 Crypto tax platform Divly raised a $400k pre-seed round from Young Entrepreneurs of Sweden, Greens Ventures and DHS Venture Partners.

🇪🇺 AI liquidity platform Tidely raised a €3.5m seed round led by TX Ventures.

🇪🇺 Investment platform Change raised a €2m seed round from Andromeda Capital.

🇪🇺 Data platform wealth managers Aisot raised CHF 1.8m from Swiss ICT Investors Club and Haute Capital Partners.

🇪🇺 Payments platform NX Technologies raised an €11m Series A from Motive Partners and others.

🇪🇺 Expense management software solution N2JSoft raised a €24m round from PSG.

🇬🇧 Lender Abound raised a £500m debt and equity round from Citi, Waterfall Asset Management, K3 Ventures, GSR Ventures and Hambro Perks.

🇬🇧 Digital identity provider Yoti secured a £10m investment from Lloyds Bank.

🇬🇧 POS provider for hospitality sector Grafterr raised £100k.

🇬🇧 Business banking provider ANNA Money raised $2.7m from angel investor Alex Fork.

🌍 Student debt platform Candidly raised a $10.5m Series B led by Altos Ventures.

🌍 Australian payments fintech Till Payments secured a $70m Series D.

🌍 Socure raised a $95m debt facility from JP Morgan, SVB and KeyBanc.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Rumours surround the culture at N26 after its risk officer left and with total senior departures numbering 20 since 2020 and a poor relationship between founders and management.

🇬🇧 BaaS platform Griffin has become a bank, after securing a banking licence from FCA. Its authorisation has some limitations on deposit amounts and payment services.

🇬🇧 Starling Bank is creating 1,000 jobs in Manchester as part of a northern expansion and likely to help with costs.

🇬🇧VibePay won its trademark dispute against Japanese company Rakuten.

🇬🇧 Neobroker Freetrade is more than doubling the FX fee on its basic free tier, from 0.45% to 0.99% and also increasing fees on its paid tiers as it attempts to increase revenues.

🇬🇧 Payment automation platform Numeral launches in the UK next week to help companies in the UK access the SEPA in the EU and fight IBAN discrimination.

🇬🇧 Digital mortgage lender Molo has been acquired by Australian lender ColCap.

🌍 Amazon has partnered with online mortgage lender Better.com to offer its employees a way to use their vested equity for a down payment on homes.

🌍 Brex is integrating ChatGPT into its platform to automatically parse receipts and invoices to extract data.

🌍 Payroll and benefits platform for independent workers Catch has shut down.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 German regulator BaFin is investigating Uniswap.

🇬🇧 Crypto payments provider BCB Group plans to offer fiat USD to crypto rails to take advantage of the issues at Silvergate and its closed SEN network.

🌍 Silvergate Bank has gone into liquidation after more customers are fled, causing the price of Bitcoin to drop. Circle, Crypto.com, Bitstamp, Cboe, Galaxy Digital and Gemini have suspended business with the beleaguered crypto bank. Silvergate also asked for more time to prepare its 2022 accounts and shut its SEN network.

🌍Dapper Labs has laid off another 20% of staff whilst rumours of the CEOs extravagant spending habit and a culture if bullying have surfaced.

🌍 An SEC attorney has said the agency believes Binance.US is operating as an unregistered securities exchange.

🌍 ByBit has suspended its USD deposits via wire transfer due to issues with the processing partner.

🌍 FTX is suing Grayscale Investments in a bid to recoup the full value of the shares it holds (currently trading at a discount) to recoup for creditors.

🌍 Objections to Binance.US acquisition of the assets of Voyager Digital were overruled by a US bankruptcy judge, although the deal is still not finalised and the US DOJ wants to appeal.

🌍 US regulators have blocked the SEC from punishing executives at Voyager Digital who are creating a new crypto to help repay customers.

🌍 Coinbase purchased One River Digital, an asset management provider as it seeks to diversify its revenues.

🌍 USDC has depegged following the announcement from Circle that some $3bn of its funds are stuck at the now defunct SVB.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 The Central Bank of Ireland is blocking staff using ChatGPT.

🇬🇧 Nationwide is overhauling its payment infrastructure with the help of Form3 and Accenture.

🇬🇧 Silicon Valley Bank UK, the UK arm of the US bank, has been placed into a "Bank Insolvency Procedure after it applied for nearly £2bn in liquidity.  Depositors will be paid out the £85,000 quickly and liquidators managing the remaining assets.

🌍 After trading of Silicon Valley Bank stock was halted late last week and a stock sale failed, the regulator stepped in to shut down SVB, causing chaos amongst the startup and VC community. Depositors will receive up to the $250,000 insured amount on Monday.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇬🇧Industry body Innovate Finance is calling on regulators to extend open banking to include savings accounts, credit and mortgages to help consumers with the cost of living crisis.

🇬🇧 The UK's Pensions Dashboard project, think a way for consumers to have an overview of their pensions in one place, has been delayed for a second time.

🇬🇧Embedded finance provider Weavr has acquired B2B payments platform Comma Payments.

🇬🇧 Embedded banking platform Railsr looks set to be sold through a pre-pack administration process to existing investors led by D Square Capital.

🇬🇧 London Stock Exchange Group is to partner with Mastercard to utilise its open banking solutions to offer secure account verification for customers.

🇬🇧 Thought Machine signed US digital bank HMBradley as a customer for its core banking product. The digital bank also signed as a customer of sponsor bank NYCB.

🇬🇧 Yapily has signed BNPL provider Zilch to improve its credit decisioning.

🌍 US BaaS platform Synctera is partnering with National Bank of Canada to expand in North America.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Adyen has embedded its click-to-pay experience into online checkout flows to speed up the checkout process and remove the need for a lot of manual data to be entered via using a previously used stored card.

🇪🇺 Mercedes is introducing in-car fingerprint payments to its Germany drivers

🇪🇺 BNPL provider Scalapay acquired payment provider Cabel IP to grow in Europe.

🇬🇧 mPOS has launched the next generation of its POS device for SMBs.

🌍 A CFPB report finds that many BNPL users are using the product out of choice and not due to financial stress.  Lower credit score users are attractive compared to the higher rates of alternatives.

🌍 WhatsApp has been given the green light to allow its users to make payments to businesses in Brazil.

🌍 US Senators are pushing regulators to tackle fraud related to Zelle.

🌍 Affirm is exiting the Australia market due to competitive pressure and macroeconomic headwinds.

Longer reads 📜

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See you next week!

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