A European first for Bizum - TWIF UK & Europe (21/10)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

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

👍 👎 Have feedback or news to share? Let me know on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Check out our sponsorship information

Highlights below of deals since the last post in the fintech space across the UK & Europe. Deal data powered by Dealroom.

🇪🇺 Mortgage solution Pretto raised a €12.2m round from Alven, Eurazeo, Serena, Orange Ventures, BlackFin Capital and Kernel.

🇪🇺 Wealthtech Axyon AI raised €2.1m from Green Sands Equity.

🇪🇺 Cybertech Stoik raised a €25m Series B from Anthemis, a16z, Munich Re, Opera Tech Ventures, Alven and Tokio Marine HCC.

🇪🇺 Payment solution for the hospitality sector Tebi raised a €20m Series A from Index Ventures.

🇬🇧 Payment firm Acquired.com raised £4m.

🇬🇧 Fintech angel fund Rerail closed a $20m funding target.

🇬🇧 Insurtech Diesta raised a $3.8m seed round from Commerce Ventures, SixThirty Ventures, Fintech Collective and Restive Ventures.

🇪🇺 Neobank N26 is expanding its brokerage service to 12 new markets.

🇬🇧 Revolut released a new POS Terminal designed for larger businesses in the UK and Ireland. It also launched eSims in New Zealand and topped the fraud leaderboard among UK banks.

🇬🇧 Liberis launched a multi-product financial platform for SMBs.

🇬🇧 Neobank Monzo launched Team, a new business plan for larger SMBs alongside hitting 500,000 business customers. Former Monzo employees are also petitioning the board to be included in the secondary share sale for existing employees.

🇬🇧 Business bank Tide has become a customer of Adyen to provide SMBs with Tap to Pay on iPhone.

🇬🇧 John Lewis is to offer personal loans to its customers powered by Zopa Bank.

🇬🇧 UK retailer Currys released a new BNPL credit product, Flexpay.

🇬🇧 Marketplace lender Storfund integrates with payment infrastructure provider Mangopay for embedded wallets and FX.

🌍 Spend management platform Brex and travel management solution Navan have launched a joint solution.

🇪🇺 Bitpanda is to make security tokens available to retail investors in Europe.

🇪🇺 MiCA compliant stablecoins are taking market share in Europe.

🇬🇧 Crypto firm Ziglu has acquired the retail arm of crypto payment firm Damex.

🇬🇧 Payment infrastructure provider BVNK is partnering with Circle to expand the use of USDC for business payments.

🌍 Digital asset custodian Copper appointed a former SEC advisor and former Goldman Sachs MD as its new CEO.

🌍 Presidential candidate Kamala Harris announced she supports a regulatory framework for crypto.

🌍 Tether's CEO has said they are exploring commodities trading and tradfi opportunities.

🌍 On-chain digital asset manager Hashnote launched its yield-bearing coin USYC on the Canton Network.

🌍 Ripple is preparing to launch its US stablecoin, RLUSD and is partnering with exchanges Bitstamp, Bitso and Bullish.

🌍 DTCC has created a digital asset sandbox.

🌍 Payments giant Stripe is in talks to acquire stablecoin platform Bridge. The payment giant is utilising Paxos stablecoin payment plaform.

🌍 Coinbase's Base L2 Ethereum network has become the largest rollup in terms of TVL. The exchange is also seeking a court to rule on an FOIA case to get documents from the SEC.

🌍 Digital asset issuer Securitize and crypto infrastructure provider Zero Hash have enabled USDC to USD conversion for BlackRock's BUIDL fund.

🇪🇺 Italian bank Banca Sella became the first European bank to launch a QR code for the visually impaired.

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank launched dbX, a next generation correspondent banking solution.

🇬🇧 Barclays has taken over from Goldman Sachs as the issuer of two GM credit cards in the US.

🇬🇧 Metro Bank partnered with engagement banking provider BankiFi.

🇬🇧 HSBC is to accept overseas credit history for UK mortgage applications.

🌍 Capital One turns debit and credit cards into authentication methods.

🇪🇺 Open banking platform Neonomics released a PFM app.

🇪🇺 BaaS provider Solaris is to cut a third of its workforce, the majority hitting its Contis business in the UK.

🇪🇺 BaaS provider Tuum announced neobank Zenus has gone live on its platform.

🇬🇧 BaaS provider ClearBank onboarded its first clients, OpenPayd, Pay Perform and Transact Payments, to it connection to Eurosystem's T2 payment rail.

🇬🇧 Open banking credit bureau AperiData introduced a real-time open banking credit score.

🌍 Credit bureau Experian partnered with fraud provider Sardine.

🌍 Credit bureau Nova Credit and fintech SoFi have expanded their relationship to use cashflow underwriting.

🌍 Origination and decisioning solution Amount launched a unified account opening and loan origination solution.

🌍 Payments infrastructure provider Treasury Prime 🌍 compliance solution Greenlite to its Partner Marketplace.

🌍 Open banking platform Plaid launched a new fraud calibration and Trust index features for its Identify Verification product.

🇪🇺 Spanish A2A payment scheme Bizum has launched Bizum Pay, a contactless payment solution using NFC.

🇪🇺 Klarna's Cashback product has driven $100m worth of sales in six weeks. It also sold £30bn of its loans to hedge fund Elliott. Klarna is now available at checkout in Apple Pay.

🇪🇺 Romania has launched an instant mobile payment system, RoPay.

🇪🇺 Payment provider Worldline is launching its A2A service in Europe.

🇬🇧A2A infrastructure provider Token.io signed Santander as a customer.

🇬🇧 The UK government is forging ahead with new rules for BNPL products.

🌍 Payment provider Stripe officially launched Pay-by-Bank in Stripe Link.

💡

Have a thought/question/comment about anything we covered?

‌Start a discussion in the comments section below!

👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know

Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn for more fintech contentSee you next week!