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.

🇪🇺 B2B billing solution Hyperline raised a €4m seed round led by Index Ventures and included Kima Ventures, Cocoa and others.

🇪🇺 B2B social trading software StockRepublic raised a SEK 30m round led by Placera Media.

🇪🇺Financial advisor matching platform FinFinder.ch raised a CHF 200k seed round.

🇬🇧Payments provider Volt raised a $60m Series B led by IVP and included Commerz Ventures, EQT, Augmentum and Fuel Ventures.

🇬🇧 Cash management fintech TreasurySpring raised a £15m Series B from MMC Ventures, Balderton Capital, Anthemis, Black Lion Ventures and ETFS Capital.

🇬🇧 Payment provider Mypinpad raised £13m from Crossfin Technology.

🌍 AI risk provider Blackbird AI raised a $20m Series B led by Ten Eleven Ventures.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺Froda, Lunar and Visa are collaborating to launch a card-based embedded lending solution in Denmark.

🇬🇧 Revolut has unveiled a new premium tier "Ultra" that costs £540 per year which comes with a range of benefits. It partnered with Qover for trip and event cancellation insurance.

🇬🇧 Wise has launched an instant access account with 4.12% interest by investing in government bonds via an BlackRock fund.  It charges a 0.19% management fee on top of BlackRocks 0.10%.

🇬🇧 Embedded lending fintech YouLend is partnering with Amazon to provide Amazon businesses with up to £2m in funding.

🌍Robinhood is acquiring X1, a credit card startup.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank has applied for a Digital Asset Custody Licence in Germany.

🇪🇺Legislation on a digital euro is back on the table to be published later this month by the European Commission.

🇬🇧A public comment on the plans for a digital pound have seen requests for the CBDC to be interoperable with crypto.

🌍 Ripple is testing its CBDC platform with Colombia's central bank.

🌍 Data obtained by CoinDesk from a Freedom of Information Law request concerning Tether showed that 80% of its funds were invested in commercial paper back in 2021.

🌍 The SEC and Binance have agreed to further ring fence Binance US by ensuring only employees of the US subsidiary can access its customers funds. The crypto exchange also cancelled its UK registration.

🌍 Crypto.com confirmed it trades on its own exchange after the FT reported allegations.

🌍EDX Markets, a un-hosted crypto exchange from Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities and Fidelity Investments launched.

🌍 Crypto payments platform Wyre has shut down.

🌍 More US asset managers including WisdomTree and Invesco have followed Blackrock and applied to the SEC for a bitcoin ETF.

🌍 Prime Trust cannot meet all of its customers withdrawals according to the Nevada Financial Institutions Division.

🌍 MakerDAO has bought $700m in US Treasury bonds.

🌍 Fed Chair Powell wants federal regulation for stablecoins and a role in the sectors regulation more broadly.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺BBVA is to partner with AWS for its new data platform.

🇬🇧 Nationwide has pledged to postpone closing branches that might leave any town or city without one until 2026

🇬🇧Lloyds Bank is setting up an IT center in India

🌍 JP Morgan invested in trade finance fintech Cleareye.ai.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺EBA Clearing is to pilot a pan-European fraud detection solution.

🇪🇺Core bank software provide Tuum is integrating Marqeta's card issuing capabilities

🇬🇧Credit scoring provider ClearScore is launching in New Zealand.

🇬🇧BaaS provider Bankable has acquired Arex Markets a business lender.

🇬🇧UK payment system CHAPS has migrated to the new ISO 20022 messaging format.

🌍 Financial data enrichment provider Ntropy partnered with Ocrolus to enable enrichment of PDFs.

🌍 Plaid launched a hosted solution for Plaid Link to more easily embed the product into user journeys. They also launched Plaid Beacon, a platform to share information about stolen identities and compromised accounts.

🌍 The state of Nevada has created a licensing requirement for earned wage access providers.

🌍 Banking software provider nCino's stock saw a 25% rise after reports that a private equity firm was interested in taking it over.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺Payment provider BridgerPay launched Paywith, a solution to to allow consumers to may with a mix of payment methods.

🇪🇺 PayPal is selling €40bn of its European in BNPL loans to private equity group KKR.

🇪🇺 Payment provider Payabl is bringing a POS terminal to market through a partnership with Mastercard.

🇪🇺 Payment giant Adyen is partnering with Shopify as the e-commerce provider seeks to target enterprise customers. Shopify is also making its Shop Pay checkout available as a standalone component for large retailers.

🇬🇧 Payment provider Zepz, owner of WorldRemit and Sendwave, is looking to grow via acquisitions

🇬🇧Payments infrastructure Thunes has opened an office in Beijing.

🌍 Both JP Morgan and American Express reported steady delinquency rates.

🌍 American Express has partnered with spend management platform Payem to enable its customers to create on-demand virtual cards.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇪🇺The Bank of Lithuania has revoked the licence of an EMI provider UAB Payrnet, the subsidiary of Railsr, for violations of AML.

Longer reads 📜

• Money Stuff: Big Firms Want Normal Crypto Markets - Matt Levine
• Are we there yet? - Amias Gerety
• Requiem for a bank loan - Patrick McKenzie
• Payments Plus - Jared Franklin
• Generative AI Is the Attila the Hun That’s Going to End the Banking System as We Know It - Matt Harris, Bain
• The OCC Knows What BaaS Is - Alex Johnson
• Nasdaq's Pivot - Marc Rubinstein
• FedNow instant payments are about to unlock fintech investment opportunities - Tx Zhou

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See you next week!