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Hello TWIF UK & Europe friends,
A quick favour
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Join us tomorrow for the next edition of our ever-popular London Fintech Breakfast, this time at Techspace with our friends at Vanta and CMS! RSVP now to secure your spot!
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 infrastructure provider Polar raised a $10m seed round from Accel and angel investors.
Wealthtech NaroIQ raised a $6.5m seed round from General Catalyst, Redstone, Angel Invest, Discovery Ventures and 14Peaks Capital.
Retail investing solution Realist raised a €1.5m pre-seed.
Payment provider IconSolutions received investment from UBS.
Spend management provider Ramp raised a $200m Series E at a $16bn valuation.
Stablecoin redemption infrastructure provider Ubyx raised a $10m round.
Challenger Banking
Neobank Revolut has said it is close to launching an AI financial assistant.
Immigrant credit service Pillar has been acquired by US fintech LemFi.
Digital wealth platform Sidekick has officially launched.
Wise has signed Nordic neobank Lunar as a customer for its cross-border transfer platform.
Nubank has rolled out automated recurring bill payments via Pix.
Digital Assets
Crypto exchange OKX has opened in Germany and Poland.
Crypto exchanges Gemini and Coinbase are set to gain EU MiCA licences according to a report from Reuters.
Coinbase is to launch Coinbase Businesses, a platform for SMEs to manage their finances using crypto. It is also seeking SEC approval for tokenised equities and launched a stablecoin payments service.
JPMorgan has launched its own deposit token, JPMD on Coinbase's Base chain.
Crypto exchange Kraken has launched Bitcoin staking with Babylon.
Walmart and Amazon are both considering issuing stablecoins.
The US Senate passed the Genius Act.
Traditional Banking
MetroBank shares have been rising on speculation of a takeover by PollenStreet.
BancoSabadell is mulling the sale of its UK subsidiary TSB.
Fintech Infrastructure
Stablecoin payments infrastructure company BVNK signed card issuer Highnote as a customer.
Plaid launched Protect, a real-time fraud intelligence system drawing signals from across the Plaid network.
Payments
Klarna has launched a mobile phone plan.
Stripe has launched 15 new capabilities in France.
Payment provider Mollie has launched Tap, its payment terminal.
Payment provider Paddle received a $5m fine by FTC over deceptive telemarketing practices five years ago.
-----------------------------See you next week!
