FinTech Europe | 2023 #22
Weekly news up to Tuesday, 30th of May 2023
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Embedded finance SaaS provider Toqio announced a new Vice President of Sales. With over 14 years of experience in finance and technical sales, Michael Pierce joins Toqio to lead its commercial and marketing teams.
📰 ARTICLE
The Financial Services Pendulum: From Unbundling to Re-Bundling.
In the world of finance, trends come and go, and sometimes they come full circle. Fifteen years ago, the financial services industry saw a seismic shift as tech firms began to unbundle traditional banking services.
Read the full article on this topic by Max Cutler from Swan here.
👨💻 BLOG
FinTech valuation dip – Correction or crash?
In this WhiteSight blog, Risav Chakraborty and Kshitija Kaur expand upon their analysis from last year, which focused on public market FinTechs, to encompass the noticeable downward trend that has now also permeated private markets.
💡INSIGHTS
Klarna halved its losses in the first quarter as the Swedish BNPL pioneer said it was on course to return to profit by the end of the year.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Klarna launched the UK’s first voluntary credit ‘opt out’, an additional tool in the Klarna app.
⭐️ Monzo Bank quit London in favour of San Francisco as he said the US was “much more accepting” of tech companies than Britain.
⭐️ Team8 leads $5m seed round for FinTech start-up Ballerine.
⭐️AXA Venture Partners launched €1.5bn fund to support FinTech industry growth.
PAYMENTS
TBC Bank Group of Georgia has entered into an agreement to acquire a 51% stake in LLC Inspired.
BKN301 brings digital payments on taxis in Georgia.
Paynetics agreed to acquire Phyre, one of Europe’s leading digital payments application (app) providers.
Mollie is integrating in-person and online payments to create “unified commerce” for merchants called; Mollie Terminal.
Hokodo integrated its payment solutions to the Mangopay payment marketplace to help foster growth and scale for B2B payment capabilities.
Freemarket announced a growth capital investment from Baird Capital’s Global Private Equity Fund.
BNPL
While 80% of purchases currently originate from search, shoppers are now looking for recommendations instead, BNPL provider Klarna said in a press release announcing its first-quarter earnings.
OPEN BANKING
Airwallex picks TrueLayer for open banking payments in Europe.
DIGITAL BANKING
Monese joins Starling in creating a new subsidiary for banking-as-a-service push.
CRYPTO
The Winklevoss twins have warned ministers not to “politicise” the UK’s crypto regime as they launch a charm offensive in London amid a “warpath” and charges from regulators in the US. They also name Dublin as European HQ for Gemini crypto exchange.
LiteBit reached an agreement with Bitvavo to transfer clients’ funds to their platform.
Bitpanda is teaming with Coinbase to connect the U.S.-listed exchange giant with banks in Europe who are looking to offer digital assets to their customers.
INVESTMENT
Barclays made a strategic move into next-generation business finance with a significant investment in Trade Ledger.
Qred is to become Europe's newest bank, having been granted a full banking license by the country's financial regulator.
GREEN FINANCE
Pyrpose is looking to accelerate its growth trajectory after announcing that it has completed its fundraising.
FRAUD PREVENTION
BR-DGE announced its latest partnership with Volt to support merchants countering payment fraud.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Trustly appointed Anna Bjurefeldt as head of internal audit and Mia Bjurkell as director of risk and compliance.