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

A guide to the future of consumer lending in the UK

Get fresh research and analysis from Plaid and Datos Insights. The white paper is packed with insights to help you unlock the benefits and opportunities of cash flow underwriting.

Read it today and rethink credit decisioning for tomorrow.

Tweet of the week 🦉🏆

Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺 Payment provider Payrails raised a $32m Series A from HV Capital, General Catalyst, a16z and EQT Ventures.

🇪🇺Hospitality payments solution Tebi raised a €30m Series B from Index Ventures and CapitalG.

🇬🇧 Payroll data platform Teal raised a £1.4m round led by Passion Capital.

🇬🇧 Stablecoin infrastructure and yield solution OpenTrade raised a $7m seed round from Notion Capital, Mercury Fund, AlbionVC, CMCC Global and a16z.

🇬🇧 Stablecoin payment solution Noah raised a $22m seed round from Felix Capital, LocalGlobe and angels.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Neobank N26 has launched an updated version of its premium subscription and renamed it N26 Go.

🇬🇧 Starling Bank is rolling out a AI spending intelligence tool.

🇬🇧 B2B lender Froda is to offer its lending providers through platform Mimo.

🌍 Walmart's fintech business OnePay is adding credit cards to its product offering with Synchrony.

🌍 Chime's stock soared nearly 40% on its IPO debut.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺Deutsche Bank is actively exploring its own tokenised deposit options and is considering launching a stablecoin.

🇬🇧 The FCA is to lift its ban on retail access to crypto ETNs.

🌍 Circle shared surged more than 150% on its NYSE debut.

🌍 Crypto exchange Gemini has filed for IPO. Crypto exchange Bullish has also filed for a US IPO.

🌍 Payment giant Stripe has acquired crypto wallet infrastructure startup Privy.

🌍 Coinbase has unlocked DeFi opportunities for XRP and DOGE holders. Ondo also expanded its tokenised treasury OUSG to XRP ledger.

🌍 JP Morgan is to begin accepting bitcoin ETFs as collateral.

🌍 PayPal is to bring its PYUSD stablecoin to the Stellar blockchain.

🌍 Shopify is to enable USDC payments on Coinbase's Base chain for merchants worldwide through Stripe.

🌍 Uber is exploring using stablecoins as a payment method.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇬🇧 JPMorgan has opened applications for its Fintech Forward accelerator program in the UK.

🇬🇧 Santander UK is to offer Worldpay's solutions to its clients.

🇬🇧 NatWest has announced the closure of another 52 branches.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Wealthtech Upvest signed Webull UK as a customer.

🇬🇧 Open banking platform TrueLayer announced it has 15 million active consumers in its network.

🌍 Plaid and Experian are partnering to utilise cash flow underwriting for lending decisions.

🌍 Cross River signed Plaid as a customer for its RFP feature.

🌍 Marqeta is to power the new Klarna debit card.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Irish PSP AIB Merchant Services is being fully acquired by Fiserv.

🇪🇺Marketplace PSP Lemonway acquired PayGreen to expand its ecommerce business.

🇬🇧 Klarna signed Meta as a customer for BNPL offers on its AR headsets in UK.

🇬🇧 International payments firm Navro acquired its first US money transmitter licence.

🌍 Visa has established a new company, Visa Conecta in Brazil to move beyond card payments and build on top of Pix.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧 The FCA announced a Supercharged Sandbox for companies to experiment with AI through a partnership with Nvidia.

Longer reads/listens 📜

• Big News – Google I/O 2025 – Payments View - Tom Noyes
• How Blackstone and its biggest rivals are drifting apart - FT
• Top US Banks to Issue their own Stablecoin - Tom Noyes
  
  See you next week!