Fintech Growth Fund launches in UK - TWIF UK & EU (21/08)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

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

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Highlights below of deals since the last post in the fintech space across the UK & Europe.

🇪🇺Irish-based insurtech provider Fineos raised €24m.

🇪🇺 Alternative investment app Arttrade raised a €2m pre-seed round.

🇪🇺 Insurtech Tuito raised a €1m pre-seed round from Purple Ventures and Nation 1.

🇪🇺 Insurtech Surein raised a €4m seed round led by PactVC.

🇪🇺 Mobility fintech Moove raised $28m in equity from Mubadala Capital and $10m in debt from BlackRock.

🇬🇧Regtech Kore raised a £2.4m round from angel network Wealth Club.

🇬🇧 SumUp raised a $100m debt facility to power its cash advance product for UK and EU merchants from Victory Park Capital.

🇬🇧 The Fintech Growth Fund, a growth-stage investment fund for Series B to Pre-IPO stage has launched in answer to the £2bn funding gap highlighted in the Kalifa Review. Backed by Barclays, LSE, Mastercard and NatWest.

🇬🇧 Savings app Communion raised a £2.5m pre-seed round led by Target Global.

🌍 Asian digital wealth manager Endowus raised $35m in funding from Citi, UBS, MUFG and others.

🌍Lending repayment infrastructure Rightfoot raised a $15m Series A.

🌍 Corporate spend management fintech Ramp looking to raise "several hundred million" at a $5.5bn valuation, down from its peak of $8.1bn in early 2022.

₿ BitGo raised a $100m capital raise at a $1.75bn valuation.

🇪🇺Block is shutting its Verse brand in Europe as well as pulling its Clearpay product in Spain, France and Italy due to lack of traction.

🇪🇺Comparison provider Check24 is expanding into SME lending through a partnership with Iwoca.

🇪🇺 TransferGo was hit with a fine of €310,000 by Bank of Lithuania for AML failures.

🇬🇧Benefit solution Yonder is partnering with Smart Pension to help international employers easily offer pensions for UK-based employees.

🇬🇧 Revolut has launched Revolut Lite in Latam, a free transfer solution to encourage financial inclusion.

🇬🇧Starling is looking to expand its BaaS product Engine into Asia through working with an Asian bank.

🇬🇧 Monzo is hiring for a pensions team as it looks to add new capabilities. It was also ranked highest by the CMA for best personal and business accounts. Starling was a notable second in each category.

🇬🇧 Rental credit solution Fronted has shut down due to rising capital costs.

🇬🇧 Data from SMB lender Sonovate found 65% increase in businesses experiencing difficulties accessing finance from high-street banks.

🇬🇧 Nutmeg CEO has quit his role at JP Morgan's Chase, the UK digital bank that acquired the robo-advisor.

🌍 Citizens Bank of Edmond has launched a neobank for military service members.

🌍 Nubank reported Q2 earnings and highlighted it has 83.7m customers, revenues increase 61% yoy to $1.87bn and gross profits +20% yoy. The neobank is also expanding into home insurance.

🌍 Neobank for immigrants Zolve has partnered with telecom-as-a-service platform Gigs to launch its own mobile phone plan.

🌍 Brex is moving deeper into the travel space with a new solution to help companies book group travel and manage corporate events like off-sites.

🇪🇺Garanti BBVA Financial Technologies is launching a digital asset trading and custody business.

🇪🇺Jacobi Asset Management launched the first bitcoin ETF, listing on Euronext Amsterdam.

🇬🇧Revolut suspended its US crypto services due to the regulatory environment but is also looking to expand its global crypto team by 20%.

🇬🇧 The Bank of England is recruiting researchers and academics to help it design its digital pound.

🌍 Digital asset custody platform Fireblocks is working with the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

🌍 Coinbase's layer 2 blockchain Base went live. It also asked a judge to drop the SEC lawsuit against it. The exchange is also buying back $150m of its bonds and expanded into Canada. It also won approval for a crypto futures from the NFA and beat analysts expectations for Q2.

🌍 PayPal launched a $ based stablecoin on Ethereum. PYUSD can be transferred between users on PayPal and pay for goods and services.

🌍 Binance is a licensed exchange in El Salvador. It also lost Checkout.com as a payment partner due to concerns over AML. The crypto exchange also asked for protection against the SEC and what it calls a "fishing expedition" and is seeking registration in Taiwan.

🌍 Microsoft and Aptos Labs are collaborating to bring AI and blockchain together.

🌍 The Bank of Russia is to pilot a digital ruble in real-world transactions with 13 banks.

🌍 FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been sent to jail after his bail was revoked over allegations of witness tampering.

🌍 Kraken Ventures is seeking to raise $100m for its second fund.

🌍 Singapore has introduced a regulatory framework for stablecoins.

🌍 Brazil has picked 16 proposals for a pilot of a CBDC including those from Nubank, Microsoft, Visa and SETL.

🌍 OpenSea has ended its support for BNB Smart Chain.

🌍 The SEC has been granted the right to appeal its recent loss in the Ripple court case.

🇪🇺SVB's German $169m loan portfolio was sold to Bootstrap Europe for $64m.

🇪🇺Technical issues at the Bank of Ireland led to huge queues at ATMs as customers tried to exploit a glitch allowing those with no funds in their account to make withdrawals. The Irish minister for finance has called for an investigation.

🇬🇧Barclays is calling on tech giants to be responsible for scams on their platform and to reimburse victims.

🇬🇧TSB is working with FinTech Scotland to create an Innovation Labs programme.

🌍 Two more banks, Wells Fargo and BNP Paribas have been hit with fines over employee use of unofficial channels like WhatApp and iMessage to carry out business.

🌍 ANZ is investing in technology to help it detect and flag "money mule" accounts in order to help prevent fraud.

🇬🇧Open banking aggregator Bud is working with Google Cloud to develop an AI powered chatbot.

🇬🇧A technical glitch caused a six-hour outage with the Bank of England's RTGS system and Chaps.

🌍 Transaction enrichment provider Ntropy partnered with lender Sivo.

🌍 Marqeta has secured a four year extension with Block to provide its Cash App card. The card issuing provider also announced an AI assistant to help customers better understand its docs and products utilising ChatGPT.

🌍 Payment infrastructure provider Dwolla has launched an API to enable A2A payments.

🌍 Lending repayment infrastructure Rightfoot launched a consumer permission data product called Connect Magic.

🇪🇺 Adyen missed earnings as a result of hiring and also saw slower growth in the US causing the company's stock to drop 40%.

🇪🇺 Austria is considering making the right to pay anonymously a constitutional right.

🇬🇧 Visa is providing UK SMBs with a new tool to protect them from friendly fraud.

🇬🇧The UK government is to integrate open banking payments within its Gov.uk Pay system, facilitating easy payment for government services.

🇬🇧Spend management platform Payhawk partnered with Yapily to allow its customers to link bank accounts and top up debit accounts using open banking payments.

🌍 Mastercard is enabling CVC-less online payments in India for cardholders who have tokenized their cards with the merchant.

🌍 Visa is being investigated by the DOJ over its practice of charging retailers more for not using its own tokenization technology.

🌍 India is to introduce AI-powered conversational payments into its UPI system.

🌍 PayPal has named Intuit exec Alex Chriss as its new CEO and president.

🌍 Discover's CEO resigned abruptly amid a regulatory review.

🌍 Latam payment provider Dlocal is exploring selling itself.

🌍 Amazon and Chase have expanded their partnership to allow Prime Visa and Amazon Visa cardmembers to use its instalments payments anywhere they use Amazon Pay.

🌍 Australian BNPL provider Splitit is to delist from the ASX after raising $50m from Motive Partners.

🌍 Indonesia and Singapore are to launch QR code cross-border payments between the two countries.

🌍 Twitter has received another payment licence, this time in Maryland.

🌍 Payment solution Mesh Payments is entering the travel expense space.

🇬🇧 The PSR has announced it plans to cap APP fraud reimbursements at £415,000.

🌍 The US Federal Reserve is creating a new supervisory unit to oversee "complex" technology partnerships between banks and non-banks which also includes crypto activities. Check out Simon Taylor's breakdown above.

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