FinTech Europe | 2023 #21
Weekly news up to Tuesday, 23rd of May 2023
WEEKLY FUNDRAISING ACTIVITY
Last week we spotted 13 European FinTech deals for a total amount of €188.4m raised;
REPORT
Regulating Open Banking report by Open Bank Project provides a snapshot of global progress by examining respective initiatives in jurisdictions around the world.
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Frost announced the expansion of its automated provider switching tool 'Save Assist' to include broadband switching services.
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📊 INFOGRAPHIC
⚫ PayPal Q1 2023 and FY 2022 Performance Assessment
‣ PayPal lost ~$155 B in market cap with ~70% decline in share price since Jan ’22.
‣ Share price hit a 6-year low on 12 May this year.
‣ Pace of M&A clearly slowing with potential for divestitures.
⚫ There was over $1.8bn in investment raised across the FinTech sector this week
A particularly weak Q1 for FinTechs was seen in Switzerland, with FinTech Global research finding that FinTech deal activity in the country fell 77% year-on-year.
📰 ARTICLE
How Klarna Grows: From 0 to 150M customers
To simply dub Klarna as a BNPL product would be huge undersell. While the company has its roots in this lending model — Klarna has evolved into a full-fledged retail platform.
💡 INSIGHTS
UK consumers spent a total of £8 billion online in April 2023, down 2.2% YoY, according to the Adobe Digital Economy Index. The analysis also revealed a 2% increase in average order values using BNPL compared with March.
📅 EVENT
The Fintech Talents Festival will return for its 5th edition on November 13-14, at The Brewery in London. Over two days, more than 2,000 attendees will connect with top-tier leaders in digital transformation from the FinTech and financial services industry.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Swan open-sourced its no-code banking interfaces and reduced the time to market of new pilots by 75%.
⭐️ Firmbase raises $12 million to modernize financial planning for startups.
⭐️ Deblock quietly raised a $12m seed round.
⭐️ Wefox raised $110 million from backers including JPMorgan and Barclays.
PAYMENTS
Paydock secures a £25 million Series A funding round.
Deutsche Bank wins Moss payments mandate.
Manigo launches cards, accounts, and payment services under their own brand.
Airwallex partners with MODIFI to launch Global Account Solution for smooth and flexible cross-border B2B payments.
GoCardless partnered with bluefort to offer more simple methods for businesses to manage their payment processes.
Zimpler launched its instant cross-border payouts feature, enabling its clients to send Euros instantaneously to all 20 Eurozone countries via SEPA.
Yield App announced a partnership with Volt to offer additional GBP and EUR on-ramps via FPS and SEPA Instant.
Zepz is laying off 420 employees, as the FinTech sector grapples with a tough macroeconomic environment.
Fabrick announced the acquisition of Judopay, making a major step in its expansion into the UK digital payments market.
Brite Payments is launching a network to power instant payments and payouts across Europe.
BNPL
Tilta announced the successful launch of its greenfield lending solution on Mambu’s cloud banking platform.
Klarna’s Head of UK Alex Marsh is stepping down after four and a half years.
DIGITAL BANKING
Cashplus Bank announced the expansion of its Liverpool office, with plans to double its presence in the Northwest over the next five years.
N26 is set to reduce its headcount by 71 people, or around 4 percent. The layoffs add to a number of departures for the fintech at the start of the year.
Standard Chartered Bank partnered with Worldpay from FIS to expand the market coverage of its Straight2Bank Pay solution.
BUX rebrands its investment app from BUX Zero to BUX, as the next step in its strategy to double down on its flagship application.
OPEN BANKING
Skaleet joins Salt Edge to facilitate the compliance of banking institutions with the strict regulatory requirements of open banking.
CRYPTO
Ripple announced that it had acquired Metaco for $250 million in cash and Ripple equity.
100-odd companies could be registered in France as the just-agreed MiCA EU crypto legislation beds in, Financial Markets Authority officials said.
BLOCKCHAIN / DEFI
Ultimate Wallet is now available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Germany, albeit with reduced functionality.
StocksFC announced its launch and a pre-seed investment from Antler.
REGTECH
Amlyze concluded a $1 million pre-seed investment round led by Practica Capital, with participation from Lithuania's Firstpick Accelerator and Venture Capital Fund.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
FinTech Banked promoted ex-PayPal Head of Product Marketing, Lisa Scott, to CEO of its European operations.
Wise CFO Matthew Briers stands down in the wake of a bike accident.
Several executives left Revolut in the previous weeks, including CFO Mikko Salovaara, Matthew M. (Director of People), Yuval Rechter (US General Manager), James Radford (CEO of Revolut NewCo UK), Michal Laube (the Group COO).