Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,

Today’s edition is not only our last of the year, it’s also my last as Editor of TWIF UK & Europe.

When I started this edition of This Week in Fintech over 4.5 years ago, it was reaching a few thousand readers. Since then, it’s grown to more than 80,000 subscribers. Watching that growth and being part of this unique community has been a real privilege. Through the newsletter and the events I’ve hosted, my aim was to help bring an often fragmented fintech ecosystem a little closer together, and I hope I’ve played a small part in sparking meaningful connections along the way.

As I sign off, I want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who opens and reads this each week. I hope it’s helped you keep up with what’s happening in a fast-moving industry, and that it’s been a useful lens on the companies, people, and ideas shaping fintech. And to the many fintech friends I’ve met along the way: thank you for your generosity, your time, and everything you’ve taught me. I look forward to continuing to learn from you.

A special thank you to Nik for trusting me with this opportunity, and for your support and guidance throughout. You’re one of a kind. And to the extended and ever-growing TWIF team: it’s been a pleasure building alongside you. Your energy and passion for the industry are remarkable.

I’m also genuinely excited to be handing the reins to not one but two new Editors, Matt Jones and Daniel Cronin. I’m confident they’ll take TWIF UK & Europe to the next level and continue strengthening the ecosystem from January.

This is the end of an era for me in this seat—but I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be active in fintech, trying to learn and continuing to ask questions. I still care deeply about the same mission: helping connect the community and supporting the future of fintech.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.

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

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

Sign up to TWIF Premium Join us on WhatsApp Join our Slack

Funding 💸

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

🇪🇺 Open insurance and wealthtech Flinket raised a €1.4m round.

🇬🇧 Billing platform Sequence raised a $20m round.

🇬🇧 Employee benefits fintech Ben raised a $27.5m Series B from Atomico,, DN Capital, Seedcamp and more.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 BaFi appointed a special monitor to keep additional tabs on neobank N26.

🇪🇺 Dutch neobank Bunq has launched high-interest term deposits

🇪🇺 Neobroker Trade Republic has confirmed its €12.5bn valuation from a secondary sale.

🇬🇧 Starling has launched a tool to help couples navigate difficult financial conversations.

🇬🇧 Neobank Monzo is to acquire digital mortgage broker Habito as it looks set to make a push into the space. It also secured a full European banking licence from the ECB and Central Bank of Ireland and its shareholders are revolting over the exit of its CEO.

🌍 Business bank Mercury has filed an application for an OCC bank charter.

Digital Assets ₿

🇪🇺 Digital asset custodian Zodia secured a MiCA licence.

🇪🇺 Crypto exchange OKX is to roll out spot margin trading in Europe.

🇬🇧 The FCA is planning to regulate crypto under existing financial regulations in 2027.

🇬🇧 Bybit has relaunched its UK crypto platform after a two year gap.

🌍 JPMorgan has launched a tokenized money market fund, MONY, on Ethereum.

🌍 CME Group is expanding its crypto derivatives with spot-quoted XRP and Solana futures.

🌍 Anchorage Digital has acquired Securitize's RIA platform as it expands its wealth management business. It also acquired Hedgey, a token lifecycle management solution.

🌍 Japanese bank SBI Holdings launched a yen-pegged stablecoin,

🌍 Visa is expanding its USDC settlement capabilities to US banks.

🌍 The FDIC proposed the first US stablecoin rule under the GENIUS act.

🌍 SoFi has launched stablecoin infrastructure as well as its SoFiUSD stablecoin.

🌍 Traditional financial markets infrastructure provider DTCC has selected the Canton Network for its tokenization efforts.

🌍 Crypto exchange Coinbase is rolling out stock trading and prediction markets in a bid to become a financial super app.

🌍 The SEC has said that broker-dealers need to maintain crypto private keys to comply with customer protection rules.

🌍 Intuit is integrating Circle's USDC for stablecoin payments across TurboTax and QuickBooks.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇪🇺 Deutsche Bank is launching Wero to simplify payments.

🇬🇧 NatWest Group has opened applications for its 2026 fintech program.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇪🇺 Open banking platform Salt Edge launched a new bulk payments solution.

🇬🇧 BaaS bank Griffin announced it has signed Uber and Marqeta as customers and reached £3bn in payments volume.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Klarna has launched an open standard to make products discoverable and understandable by AI agents.

🇬🇧 Global financial platform Airwallex is to invest $590m into its UK entity over the next five years.

🌍 PayPal s seeking a bank charter.

👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know

See you next week!