Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

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

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Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺 Insurtech Afori raised a €4m seed round from General Catalyst.

🇪🇺 Stablecoin payment network Better Payment Network raised a $50m round from YZi Labs.

🇬🇧 Payments infrastructure provider Form3 secured funding from Nationwide and BlackRock.

🇬🇧 Insurance software Instanda raised a $20m round from CommerzVentures, Toscafund Asset Management and Dale Ventures.

🇬🇧 Financial services software solution Hyperlayer raised a £30m round from Mouro Capital, CDAM, Flintlock Capital and Iona Star.

🌍 Payments infrastructure provider Basis Theory raised a $33m round.

🌍 Credit bureau Nova Credit raised a $35m Series D led by Socium Ventures.

₿ Stripe-backed L1 blockchain Tempo raised a $500m round led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Neobank Bunq is to partner with Ascenda to power premium rewards.

🇪🇺 Santander has merged its neobank Openbank with its consumer finance business.

🇬🇧 Specialist lender Shawbrook is looking at listing on LSE in November at a £2bn valuation.

🇬🇧 Business bank Tide is expanding its presence in Lithuania.

🇬🇧 It has been reported that Revolut's banking licence has been delayed by concerns over risk controls. The neobank acquired an AI travel agent startup Swifty.

🇬🇧 Cross-border transfer service Wise received new approvals and licences in UAE for retail payments.

🇬🇧 Neobank Monzo has launched a built-in tax filing tool for its business customers powered by Sage.

🇬🇧 Spend management provider Pleo launched a cash management service for its UK and German customers.

🌍 YouTube giant MrBeast is seeking a trademark for financial services.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Boerse Stuttgart Digital and DekaBank are partnering to offer crypto trading to DekaBank's retail customers.

🇪🇺 Neobank Lunar received a MiCA licence.

🇪🇺 Deutsche Borse's Crypto Finance Group has launched staking in Europe.

🇪🇺 Standard Chartered is offering off-exchange custody for OKX in Europe.

🇪🇺 Crypto exchange Kraken has acquired CFTC registered Small Exchange for $100m.

🇪🇺 Payments processor Euronet selected Fireblocks to power its stablecoin cross-border payments.

🇬🇧 The FCA is supporting tokenisation of funds within asset management to boost efficiency and innovation.

🇬🇧 Crypto on and offramp provider BCB Group partnered with digital asset custodian and collateral manager Copper.

🌍 A group of the largest banks in the world are exploring jointly issuing a stablecoin.

🌍 US Bank is to custody the reserve assets for stablecoins issued by Anchorage Digital.

🌍 Binance is paying $283m in compensation to users that suffered losses in recent token depegs.

🌍 Citi is planning on offering crypto custody services in 2026.

🌍 Stripe's stablecoin unit Bridge is applying for a national bank trust charter. Stripe is launching stablecoin payments for subscriptions.

🌍 Ripple has expanded its digital asset custody footprint to Africa through Absa Bank. It also acquired GTreasury as it seeks to expand into the corporate treasury market.

🌍 Crypto onramp MoonPay has launched a commerce platform.

🌍 Stablecoin issuance platform Paxos mistakenly minted $300 trillion of PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin.

🌍 Coinbase launched new business payment tools dubbed Coinbase Business, focused on stablecoins. It also invested in CoinDCX, one of India's largest exchanges.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Banco Sabadell's shareholders rejected the takeover bid from rival BBVA.

🌍 Citi ended its consent period with CFPB three years early.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🌍 Open banking platform Plaid launched embedded bank payments targeting vertical SaaS platforms.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Klarna signed Qatar Airways as a customer. It also launched a flexible debit card and digital wallet in the UK.

🌍 Mastercard has launched a platform to help merchants increase approval rates on purchases. They also launched Commercial Connect API.

🌍 Visa has launched Trusted Agent Protocol as a framework for AI agents to make payments. The network is also demanding more data from merchants in exchange for discounts.

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See you next week!