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The Front Page of Global Fintech

The the largest fintech community in the world. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay up to date on the latest in news opinions, and all things financial technology.

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Monzo raises big - TWIF UK & Europe (11/03)

The latest fintech news across the UK and Europe

Monzo raises big - TWIF UK & Europe (11/03)

Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

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

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Funding πŸ’Έ

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

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Identity verification solution Meo raised €1.67m to expand its product.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Whistleblower compliance software Formalize raised a $16m Series A from BlackFin Capital and West Hill Capital.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Neobank Monzo raised Β£340m from led by CapitalG and included Google Ventures, HongShan Capital and existing investors Passion and Tencent.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Crypto payment company Baanx raised a $20m Series A from Ledger, Tezos, Chiron and British Business Bank.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Digital asset risk management solution Agio Ratings raised $4.6m from Portage Ventures, MS&AD Ventures and Superscrypt.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ AI fintech for investors Theia Insights raised a $6.5m round led by Unusual Ventures and included FISV and Clocktower Ventures.

🌍 BaaS provider Synctera raised a $18.6m Series A extension co-led by Lightspeed and Fin Capital.

🌍 Bank-to-bank loan marketplace Capstack raised investment from Citi Ventures.

🌍 Latam payment orchestrator Yuno raised a $25m Series A from Tiger Global, A16Z, DST Global, KaszeK Ventures and Monashees.

Challenger Banking πŸš€

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί German credit broker Smava is looking for a buyer for itself.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Business banking provider Qonto is acquiring financial platform Regate.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Digital pension provider PensionBee is expanding to the US.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Cross-border corporate banking solution Ebury is mulling a Β£2bn London IPO

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Monzo is reportedly looking to expand in France and Germany as well as the US alongside its fundraise.

🌍 Embedded lending provider ChargeAfter launched a embedded POS lending solution for banks to white-label.

🌍 Latam lending infrastructure provider Ziff acquired revenue based property lending firm Arrenda.

🌍 Apple has partnered with YNAB, Copilot and Monarch to launch an API allowing developers to fetch transactions and balances from Apple Card, Apple Cash and Savings.

Digital Assets β‚Ώ

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί German stock exchange Deutsche Borse has launched a crypto spot trading platform for institutions.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Revolut has integrated MetaMask to enable customers to on-ramp to crypto from Revolut.

🌍 A US court has ruled that trading certain crypto assets on a secondary market are securities transactions.

🌍 The Hong Kong Monetary Authority kicked off a new CBDC project to support tokenisation.

🌍 Customers are BlockFi will receive nearly $1bn in claims against FTX and Alameda Research as part of its bankruptcy process.

Traditional Banking 🏦

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί JP Morgan has joined French domestic payment network Cartes Bancaires.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Santander has cut 3% of its US staff as it focuses more on digital banking.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί ABN Amro is working with Buckaroo to provide payment solutions for retailers.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί UniCredit has been fined €2.8m for a data breach.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Lloyds Bank has joined the Open Property Data Association, a group trying to standardise how digital data is shared during the home buying journey.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Nationwide is buying Virgin Money for Β£2.9bn.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ NatWest is shutting its BNPL service less than two years after it launched.

🌍 JP Morgan is reported to have considered a bid for Discover before it was snapped up by Capital One.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί BaaS solution Solaris is losing technology rental portal Grover as a customer.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Nordic open banking platform Neonomics has partnered with data enrichment provider Bislabs.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Wise is to power cross-border payments for Hong-Kong's Mox.

🌍 Financial software provider TrueNorth and Brim Financial are creating a "credit-card-as-a-service" offering for banks, fintechs and brands in North America.

🌍 Financial infrastructure provider Galileo has expanded its relationship with Bancorp and will now have access to RTP Network.

🌍 Fiserv has signed up 200 banks for its FedNow system but are still looking for use cases.

🌍 Transaction intelligence fintech Prism Data launched CashScore FirstDetect product to stop first-party fraud.

Payments πŸ’°

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Worldline is cutting 200 jobs in Germany.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί The Central Bank of Ireland has outlined a new payment strategy focused on consumers and businesses benefitting from payments innovation and interoperability in Europe and cash availability.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί The EU fined Apple $2bn for preventing rival music streaming services from telling iPhone users of cheaper ways to subscribe outside of the app store.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί PayPal has launched new payment processing tools for SMEs in the UK and Europe so they can offer a wider range of payment methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay and BNPL solutions.

πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Ί Payment solution Viva.com as launched a business lending solution in Europe called Merchant Advance.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Stripe has expanded Tap to Pay iPhones in the UK.

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§ Payment verification provider SurePay has launched bulk Confirmation of Payee.

🌍 Indian regulators have fined payment provider Paytm $663,000 due to money laundering.

🌍 Consumer FI Synchrony completed the acquisition of POS financing business Ally Lending.

🌍 Zelle reported an 11% increase in volumes in Q4 vs Q2 2023, to $219bn.

🌍 American Express customers suffered a third-party data breach with account numbers and other card information having been potentially compromised.

🌍 Visa has partnered with Western Union for Visa Direct, enabling WU customers to send money to eligible Visa cards and bank accounts in 40 countries.

🌍 The RBI wants to prevent banks from signing exclusive deals with card networks as they do not offer consumers choice.

🌍 DailyPay has integrated Visa+ to give users more ways to manage their earnings.

🌍 PayPal has made Tap to Pay available for businesses using Venmo and Zettle in the US.

🌍 Payment platform Nuvei has added network tokenization features for its customers.

Regulatory Corner πŸ”Ž

🌍 The CFPB finalised a rule capping late fees on credit card payments to $8, down from an average of $32.


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