Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Join us at our two upcoming events. First, the road to Stablecon starts here. Join us at Electric House (Soho House, Notting Hill) for our stablecoin focused party. RSVP here.

Secondly, we are hosting our first fintech breakfast in Berlin. Join us there.

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

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

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Fintech Growth Demands Smarter Security

In the fast-moving world of fintech, strong security isn’t optional — it’s foundational. As you scale, so does your exposure to risk, regulatory scrutiny, and customer expectations. The question isn’t if you need compliance and security — it’s how to achieve it without slowing down.

Vanta’s latest guide, Security Must-Haves for Europe’s Trailblazers, is built for high-growth fintechs navigating the complex landscape of data protection, compliance, and trust. It outlines the core security practices you need to stay ahead — from day one and beyond.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

🔐 How to build a scalable, audit-ready security foundation

📊 Key frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR — and how to align with them

⚙️ Tips to automate compliance and reduce manual work

🤝 Strategies to strengthen trust with partners, customers, and regulators

Security shouldn’t be a bottleneck. With the right systems in place, it becomes your launchpad for growth.

Download the guide now and future-proof your fintech.

Check out our upcoming events and join us for our next London fintech breakfast!

Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺 Spend management fintech Pliant raised a $40m Series B from Speedinvest, Illuminate Financial, Motive Partners and PayPal Ventures.

🇪🇺 Stablecoin payments startup Next Generation raised a $5m seed round.

🇪🇺 Tokenised real-world asset analytics provider Particula raised a $5.5m round from SixThirty Ventures, Plug and Play, Future Capital and more.

🇬🇧 Payment provider Navro raised a $41m Series B. from Bain Capital Ventures, Motive Partners, Unusual Ventures and Jump Capital.

🇬🇧 Business bank Tide raised a £100m debt facility from Fasanara Capital.

🌍 Cross-border payment provider Thunes raised a $150m Series D from Vitruvian Partners and Apis Partners.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Business lender Qonto and payment provider Mollie have partnered.

🇪🇺 B2B lender Wayflyer has reached $5bn in deployed working capital to 5,000 SMBs.

🇬🇧 Atom Bank is to deploy Provenir's AI decisioning platform across its consumer and business products.

🇬🇧 Revolut is to offer mobile hone plans.

🇬🇧 Business bank Tide is rolling out its B2B BNPL product after raising a $100m debt facility from Fasanara Capital.

🌍 Latam neobank Nubank received approval for a banking license in Mexico.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Neobank Bunq has launched crypto trading in partnership with Kraken.

🇬🇧 Coinbase and Founders Factory are launching a crypto and AI accelerator in the UK.

🇬🇧 Digital asset custodian Copper has partnered with Circle to expand USDC functionality to institutional clients.

🇬🇧 The UK has published a draft of its crypto laws. It will exempt foreign stablecoin issuers from regulation.

🌍 Crypto exchange Kraken is to offer US securities through a partnership with Alpaca. The crypto exchange also launched Embed, a crypto-as-a-service solution for banks and fintechs.

🌍 Stripe is already building a new product using technology from its recent acquisition of stablecoin provider Bridge.

🌍 Circle secured in-principle regulatory approval in ADGM from the FSRA. The company also rejected a $4bn-$5bn acquisition offer from Ripple.

🌍 Staking provider Figment is partnering with digital asset provider Taurus.

🌍 Crypto exchange Crypto.com is to utilise Green Dot's embedded banking services.

🌍 Stripe, Bridge and Visa have launched a stablecoin-based card which works globally.

🌍 Crypto custodian Zodia is exploring acquiring UAE competitor Tungsten Custody.

🌍 UAE's largest bank FAB is to launch stablecoin and partner with investment firm IHC and sovereign investor ADQ.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 BNP Paribas has signed a multi-year cloud partnership agreement with IBM.

🇬🇧 HSBC has overhauled its mobile banking application.

🇬🇧 UK banks have signed a new cash access deal with the Post Office.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 EPI is looking to partner with other payment schemes in Europe to gain dominance.

🇪🇺 A2A payment provider Trustly signed Paytweak as a customer.

🇪🇺 Payment giant Adyen has expanded its partnership with Vietnam Airlines.

🇬🇧 Affirm has become a payment option for merchants using WooCommere in the UK.

🇬🇧 PSP Checkout.com launched face authentication.

🇬🇧 PayPal is seeking to expand its omnichannel payment strategy in UK and Germany.

🇬🇧 Payment solution Volt has partnered with Shopify to offer its one-click payment solution in Australia.

🌍 Bank owned digital wallet Paze is to work with payment processor Fiserv.

🌍 Mastercard, PayPal and Visa launched agentic commerce products.

🌍 Fiserv's merchant acquirer bank has processed its first card transaction and is the nations first chartered MALPB to process a transaction.

🌍 Modern Treasury has launched an AI platform for B2B payments.

🌍 Global payments solution Mesh added an integration with Apple Pay.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧 The FCA is to launch a live AI testing service, enabling firms to deploy safe and responsible AI.

Longer reads/listens 📜

• The future of credit underwriting - Giorgio Giuliani
• Agentic AI - Citigroup
• Stablecoins: The Next Global Payment Rail - Dawn Capital
• The Visions of Neil Mehta- Colossus

👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know

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See you next week!