This Week in Fintech UK & Europe (07/03)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,
Please find another week of fintech news, financings and exits below.
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Tweets of the week ๐ฆ๐
๐ผ Open Role Spotlight
Come find your place on the team at the most inspiring fintech startups! Browse open roles on This Week in Fintechโs job board.
Funding ๐ธ
There were 19 deals in the fintech space across the UK and Europe since the last post, with a total investment of $101m. Some highlights are below.
๐ช๐บ Commerzbank has raised โฌ300m for itโs third fintech fund
๐ฌ๐ง Family financial planning app Nosso raised a $2.8m seed round co-led by Octopus Ventures and Anthemis Group.
๐ฌ๐ง Life insurance startup DeadHappy raised ยฃ11.5m from Octopus Ventures, Verso Capital and others.
๐ฌ๐ง PayHawk extended its Series B by $100m led by Lightspeed Ventures.
๐ฌ๐ง KYB solution Detected raised $3.25m from Love Ventures, EmergeVest and others.
๐ฌ๐ง Capital raising fintech Delio raised a $8.3m round led by Octopus Ventures.
๐ฌ๐ง Social trading NFT platform Nested Finance raised $7.5m led by Alan Howard.
๐ Blockchain intelligence startup TRM Labs has raised an undisclosed amount from JP Morgan.
Challenger Banking ๐
๐ช๐บ Freetrade has launched in Sweden and is also asking users to agree to let their securities be lent out so the neobroker can earn revenue of between ยฃ10m - ยฃ40m.
๐ช๐บ N26 will be ready for an IPO at the end of 2022.
๐ฌ๐ง CreditLadder is partnering with TransUnion to give renters a boost to their credit rating by reporting rent payments.
๐ฌ๐ง Zopa is sponsoring 50 work visas for Ukrainian nationals after changes to visa concessions were made by the government.
๐ฌ๐ง Revolut and Wise have waived transfer fees to Ukrainian bank accounts. Bunq CEO Ali Nikam has created a foundation to help people escape Ukraine and Russia.
๐ฌ๐ง Flux has reached the 1 million customer milestone, with 700,000 receipts digitised every month.
Digital Assets โฟ
๐ ย Coinbase has partnered with hardware security device Ledger to provide additional security for digital assets.
๐ ย Ukraineโs official twitter account has issued a call for cryptocurrency donations, with the country raising more than $20m through crypto.
๐ The SEC is seeking to expand its crypto oversight to DeFi with an expansion of the definition of an โexchangeโ to include โcommunication protocol systemsโ as reported by Protocol.
๐ Crypto wallets are coming under pressure to enforce sanctions against Russian wallets and are moving to restrict access in certain areas.
Traditional Banking ๐ฆ
๐ฌ๐ง TSB is partnering with another fintech, this time probate provider Farewill, to offer a simple will writing service to their customers.
๐ฌ๐ง NatWest data has shown that women-led business growth overtook male-led business growth last year.
๐ฌ๐ง Nationwide customers were hit again with outages to Faster Payments system.
๐ฌ๐ง Barclays has added Apple Pay support for its virtual Visa cards for businesses, which will enable employees to have their virtual card added to Apple Pay and spend immediately.
Fintech Infrastructure ๐ง
๐ช๐บ Irish postal service An Post has partnered with Tink to help its customers improve their financial wellbeing.
๐ฌ๐ง Thought Machine has been selected by HD Bank out of Vietnam for its core banking upgrade.
Payments ๐ฐ
๐ช๐บ Deutsche Bank and nine others are pursuing plans for an cutdown version of the proposed European Payments Initiative.
๐ช๐บ Klarna reported large losses for 2021 due to market expansion but GMV increased to $80bn and income +38%.
๐ฌ๐ง Another BNPL solution has entered the fray, with PollenPay launching on iOS.
๐ฌ๐ง Vyne and Gr4vy have partnered to provide the latterโs merchants with the formers A2A processing solutions.
๐ฌ๐ง Pay.UK has unveiled a tool to fight APP fraud using a data model to allow banks to identify fraudulent transactions.
๐ Russia has been cut off from the SWIFT financial messaging system, with the EU banning seven Russian banks. ย Checkout the above thread for more context of what this means. Visa and Mastercard have also blocked some Russian banks from their networks.
๐ Australian BNPL fintech Zip is acquiring US competitor Zezzle for ~$356m
Regulatory Corner ๐
๐ฌ๐ง The Kalifa Review of the Fintech space was one year ago and Fintech Founders has lamented the governmentโs lack of action on the reports recommendations.
๐ฌ๐ง The UK is set to enforce SCA from 14th March, with merchants being warned of increased transaction declines by issuers for transactions that have not been through 3DS.
๐ฌ๐ง Crypto firms in the UK face a tense month as the deadline for FCA authorisation looms but the registration process appears to be in chaos with some firms criticising the FCA for its approach. The FCA is also actively investigating 50 crypto firms.
๐ The Fed is asking for public feedback on its plan to introduce a tiered system to evaluate requests from fintechs
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Longer reads ๐
- Data Is Not The New Oil - Dave Birch
- Finality does not exist in payments - Patrick McKenzie
- PayPal, 20 years on - Marc Rubinstein
- Children of Durbin - Ayo
- Visaโs interchange reduction - Tom Noyes
- What do BNPL customers want? - Me, Fintech Across The Pond
Your feedback is a gift, please give below ๐
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See you next week!

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