Photo by Nathalie Ehrnleitner / Unsplash
Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,
Before we get into this week's news, please do us a quick favour to help TWIF land safely in your inbox:
→ Reply to this email (You can just say hello!)
→ Check your spam folder for any missed issues and mark them as non-spam
→ Mark TWIF as “Important” and drag us out of Promotions
Thanks much! Now, onto today's newsletter. We’ve got a few super exciting events coming up
August 21st - Edinburgh Fintech Drinks- Fintech meets festival vibes. Join us for relaxed drinks during the Fringe!
September 21st - Fintech in the City with 13books- An unforgettable night of networking and celebration at Nobu, co-hosted with 13books.
Please find another week of fintech news, financings and exits below.
Funding 💸
Highlights below of deals since the last post in the fintech space across the UK & Europe. Deal data powered by Dealroom.
🇪🇺 Payments solution Handwave raised a $4.2m round,
🇪🇺 Digital asset platform Bit2Me raised a €30m round led by Tether.
🌍 Digital bank Grasshopper raised a $46m round.
🌍 Dispute platform Casap raised a $25m Series A from Lightspeed, Primary Venture Partners, SoFi and Emergence.
🌍 Open banking platform Trovata raised a $9m Series B from State Street and PNC.
Challenger Banking 🚀
🇪🇺 Neobroker BUX introduced actively managed ETF plans.
🇪🇺 German family finance app Bling acquired teen banking app Finstep.
🇪🇺European SME financial app Vivid has expanded its travel management tool for in-app flight booking.
🇪🇺 US spend management provider Brex is launching in the EU after securing a Payment Initiation licence.
🇬🇧 Business bank Tide has launched a cashback feature for SMBs using their Tide card.
🇬🇧 Insurtech Lemonade has launched buildings-only insurance.
🇬🇧 Monzo announced that it has hit 13 million customers, following strong business customer growth.🇬🇧 BNPL provider Clearpay has introduced a spend cap feature.
🇬🇧 Starling Bank is to open a North America office as it explores a US IPO.
🇬🇧 Neobank Zempler (formerly Cashplus) hit its third consecutive year of profitability, reaching £5.2m in pre-tax profits.
Digital Assets ₿
🇪🇺Crypto platform Bitpanda doubled revenues in 2024 (to €393m) and generated a 30% EBITDA margin.
🇪🇺Crypto exchange Binance is partnering with BBVA to enable its clients to keep assets off-exchange when trading for additional security.
🇪🇺 Credit Agricole acquired a minority stake in tokenised SME exchange Kriptown.
🇪🇺 Backed Finance's tokenised stocks, xStocks, passed $2bn in trading volume.
🇬🇧 The FCA will soon allow retail investors to access crypto exchange traded notes.
🇬🇧Stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK launched a real-time stablecoin operations solution to manage liquidity.
🌍 Digital asset firm Ripple acquired Canadian stablecoin payment platform Rail for $200m.
🌍 Stablecoin issuance firm Paxos is paying a $48.5m fine for AML failures.
🌍 Coinbase shares tanked after reporting Q2 earnings which missed expectations. It also plans to raise $2bn from a private convertible note offering.
🌍 Ethena's USDe stablecoin market cap surged 75% in the past few weeks to nearly $10bn.
🌍Financial services firm Marex has integrated with JP Morgan's Kinexys Digital payments.
🌍 JP Morgan has launched onchain intraday repo through its Kinexys blockchain and partnership with HQLAx.
Traditional Banking 🏦
🇪🇺 UBS is to pay $300m to settle Credit Suisse's mortgage securities case with the US DoJ.
🌍 Wells Fargo is making an agentic AI push supported by Google Cloud.
Fintech Infrastructure 🚧
🇪🇺 Wealthtech Lemon.markets is to be acquired by Dwpbank.
🇬🇧 Payments infrastructure provider OpenPayd signed Kraken as a customer for virtual IBANs to for fiat onramp capabilities.
🇬🇧 Open banking provider Ordo is shutting down.
🌍 Open banking platform Plaid signed crypto exchange Crypto.com as a customer for instant asset transfers.
Payments 💰
🇪🇺 Klarna is eyeing a September IPO. It also announced an improved delinquency rate globally for its BNPL loans.
🇬🇧The FCA is to bring in new rules to protect consumers in the event of a payment firm with an EMI licence insolvency.
🇬🇧 Payment firm GoCardless is in talks to be acquired by Mollie.
🌍 JP Morgan Payments launched a supply chain finance solution with Oracle's ERP.
🌍 Cross-border transfer solution Remitly has launched a wallet for cross-border stablecoin payments.
🌍American Express has partnered with restaurant POS firm Toast.
🌍 Cross-border payment platform dLocal introduced recurring Pix payments.
Longer reads/listens 📜
Retail Banking and Stablecoins - Tom Noyes
👍 👎 Have feedback for us? Let us knowSee you next week!
