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Tweet of the week 🦉🏆

Mengxi Lu @mengxilu

BNPL for gas fees

Mr. Whale @CryptoWhale

It costs $500+ in fees to transfer $20 on the #Ethereum blockchain. The banks are quivering in fear…

John Street Capital @JohnStCapital

0/ A few FinTech companies reported earnings the past two days including: $AFRM, $COIN, $LMND, $LPRO, $MQ, $OPEN, $PAYO, $PSFE, $ROOT, $SOFI, & $UPST, plus $MA's investor day. Some highlights:

Funding 💸

There were 12 deals in the fintech space across the UK and Europe since the last post, with a total investment of $185m. Some highlights are below.

🇪🇺 Financial Index platform Bita raised a €6m Series A from ETFS Capital.

🇪🇺 Tot raised a €2m seed round from Banca Sella.

🇬🇧 BNPL fintech Zilch raised a $110m Series C at a $2bn valuation from existing investor Gauss Ventures and new investor Ventura Capital.

🇬🇧 Crypto app Ziglu raised over £7m from crowdfunding platform Seedrs.

🌍 Chipper Cash raised a $250m Series C at a $2bn valuation in a round led by FTX and SVB Capital.

🌍 Bank technology platform Jumo raised $120m from Fidelity, Visa and Kingsway Capital.

🌍 US investing API Atomic raised a $25m Series A led by Anthemis and QED.

Challenger Banking 🚀

🇪🇺 Neobroker Trade Republic announced commission income of €26.8m for the year ending September 2020 (+3,600% yoy). Estimates on revenue per customer are €100 and turnover currently between €75m-100m.

🇪🇺 3 Fintech veterans from Finleap, Bafin and Figo are launching Brygge, a neobank for people over 55.

🇪🇺 Neobank Bunq has celebrated planting 5m trees in Kenya and Madagascar as part of its Easy Green account scheme.

🇬🇧 Starling Bank is to offset its carbon emissions starting this year which is estimated to cost around $40,000. They also added support for its multi-currency accounts into Xero in real time.

🇬🇧 Neobank Atom is partnering with lender Landbay in a £500m funding deal to utilise its deposit base in the latter’s buy-to-let mortgages.

🇬🇧 Affluent-focused neobank Monument is set to launch after its regulator restrictions were lifted by FCA.

🌍 Neobroker Robinhood revealed a data security breach of 5 million customer emails.

Digital Assets ₿

6529 @punk6529

1/ The European Union could be the natural home of crypto. It won't be, I believe. But it should and could be. It would be the best jujitsu move it could do.

🇪🇺 Banque de France has reported on positive tests with a wholesale CBDC but also surfaced questions about the impact of financial intermediaries and the transmission of monetary policy.

🇪🇺 The ECB hired Evelien Witlox from ING to spearhead its digital euro program

🇬🇧 Treasury minister John Glen has outlined a path to the creation of Britcoin in the latter half of the decade as the BoE and Treasury launch a formal consultation on a UK CBDC.

🌍 Coinbase is testing a subscription product called Coinbase One, which includes zero-fee trading and priority customer support.

🌍 BIS reported on the positive impacts of blockchain technology being used in green bond issuing and tracking projects environmental impact through Project Genesis.

🌍 The ENS service released an airdrop to early users as it pivots to become a DAO.

Traditional Banking 🏦

🇬🇧 Asset manager Abrdn is in talks to buy investing platform Interactive Investor.

🌍 BNY Mellon has launched an ISO 20022 Hub to help other institutions transition to the new payment messaging standard.

Fintech Infrastructure 🚧

🇬🇧 Standard Chartered is to use Starling Bank’s BaaS platform to create a green savings platform called Shoal.

🇬🇧 Truelayer has signed new neobroker Lightyear as a customer for its payments product, to be use to fund accounts at the investment platform.

🇬🇧 ClearBank has been selected by SME fintech Recognise Bank for access to the UK payments system.

🇬🇧 Mode Global has partnered with PayEscape to allow employees get some of their pay in bitcoin.

Payments 💰

🇪🇺 Klarna has finally launched in Ireland and also launched “Money Talks”, a card game to encourage people to talk about money.

🇬🇧 Visa launched Visa Eco Benefits, powered by climate fintech ecolytiq, to issuers in Europe to help cardholders calculate their carbon footprint as well as offset it.

🌍 Facebook has renamed its fintech unit Novi, as part of its broader rebrand.

🌍 Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang has joined Stripe’s board in a nod to its future crypto business.

🌍 Visa is partnering with automaker Daimler to provide drivers to pay using a in-car fingerprint sensor for two-factor authentication.

🌍 Amazon has added Venmo has a payment option.

🙌🏻 TWIF Take - More on this in the long reads section from Tom Noyes but should significantly lower payment costs for Amazon.

🌍 Mastercard has signed American Airlines, CSI, Fiserv and Tsys to its new BNPL product.

🌍 Affirm expanded its partnership with Amazon to allow any US purchase of greater than $50 to be split into monthly payments.

Regulatory Corner 🔎

🇬🇧 Industry body Innovate Finance has criticised the government’s lack of response from the Kalifa Review to put together a national strategy for UK fintech.

🙌🏻 TWIF Take - It appears the government has listened as Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced plans for a “once in a generation” reform of UK financial services and set up a consultation

🇬🇧 The FCA is looking to improve its data capabilities through a partnership with Aiimi’s Insight Engine.

🇬🇧 The CMA has delayed outlining the future for open banking in the UK after recent governance failings.

🌍 International

Don’t forget to subscribe to TWIF US & Global by Nik Milanovic, TWIF India & SEA by Osborne Saldanha and TWIF Latam by Christine Chang.

Longer reads 📜

Amazon takes Venmo & Amazon - Affirm - Tom Noyes
Check: Solving the $150 Billion Payroll Problem - The Generalist
Afghanistan’s Pivot to Crypto: Will It Work? - Scott Chipolina
Tether Papers: This is exactly who acquired 70% of all USDT ever issued - Protos
$76 Billion a Day: How Binance Became the World’s Biggest Crypto Exchange - WSJ
Can bitcoin overcome social gravity? - Chris Gledhill

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This Week in Fintech

This Week in Fintech UK & Europe (15/08)