REPORT
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Checkout.com, a leading global digital payments provider, announces a partnership with Mastercard to bring virtual cards to Online Travel Agents.
As part of the Mastercard Wholesale Program, which reduces costs for travel businesses through virtual card technology and an innovative pricing model, customers of Checkout.com will be able to pay their suppliers more easily and benefit from higher conversion rates by issuing virtual cards.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ The April edition of Finch Capital’s Monthly Market Pulse is out.
⭐️ Nayax acquires Brazilian paytech VMtecnologia to propel LatAm expansion.
⭐️ Lunar founder has "confidence" appeal against court decision will be successful.
⭐️ Prague-based Birdwingo secures €1.2 million for their financial education and investment platform.
FINTECH
Danish FinTech Ageras raises €82m for acquisitions. The oversubscribed private placement round was joined by i.a. the Norwegian state pension fund Folketrygdfondet, Lazard and Investcorp.
Plend, a UK-based consumer lender, has partnered with Monevo, an innovative credit eligibility and distribution platform, empowering over 150 credit providers and banks to host, manage and distribute pre-qualified credit offers.
Soldo and TRIVER Partner to Help its Customers Boost SME Cashflow. The spend management FinTech, Soldo and TRIVER, cash flow financing provider have partnered in a bid to tackle the cashflow challenge many UK SMEs are facing.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is leading a €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) private credit loan package for London-based card reader maker SumUp. The London-based FinTech is looking to continue expanding globally.
Neon and Invesco launch free ETF savings plans for Switzerland. With immediate effect, they are offering ETF savings plans that can be traded free of charge and held without custody account fees.
Italian Antitrust Ruling Puts Halt on Intesa Sanpaolo’s FinTech Ambitions. The decision, delivered by Italy’s competition authority, demands explicit consent from the approximately 4 million clients intended to be migrated to Isybank based on their digital behavior.
PAYMENTS
Phos and Silverflow combine on SoftPOS. The partnership combines Phos’ innovative SoftPoS technology with Silverflow’s modern payment processing platform, to offer a comprehensive and ready-to-deploy solution for banks.
Mastercard: Tokenized Transactions Grow 50% Year Over Year. Worldwide gross dollar volume (GDV) increased by 10% year over year to $2.3 trillion. In the U.S., GDV increased by 6% to $712 billion with credit growth of 6% with credit growth of 12% and debit growth of 13%.
Icon Solutions announces that it has developed and launched a new SIC5 scheme pack for its Icon Payments Framework (IPF) the payments solution putting global banks in control to accelerate support for domestic instant payments in Switzerland.
OPEN BANKING
Neonomics joins with Qvik on open banking roll out to the Nordics and UK. Working with some of the largest and most established companies in the region, Qvik has quickly built a strong customer network in large part to its agility and payments expertise.
DIGITAL BANKING
Norris Koppel, the founder and chief executive of Monese, is to take control of its consumer arm as a standalone entity. Monese, which was in talks to raise funding at a valuation of over £1bn four years ago, will confirm a plan to break itself up amid mounting losses.
Tide set to launch business accounts in Germany with Adyen. The companys offer small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) Tide business accounts, first in Germany before potentially expanding further into Europe.
CRYPTO
Convicted CZ owns 100% of Binance France. Now all of EU access is under threat. Europe’s crypto rulebook known as the Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, will force regulators to make a call on whether the legally entangled Binance has a place in the bloc.
Vodafone, a United Kingdom-based telecommunications provider, hopes to bring blockchain technology to smartphone users by integrating cryptocurrency wallets with subscriber identity module (SIM) cards.
DONEDEAL
Gideon Valkin formerly of Monzo, ClearScore and Entree Capital has closed on a $12 million FinTech venture fund, Adrena Ventures, and made his first investment in Nustom, an AI startup founded by Monzo’s co-founding CTO Jonas Templestein.
Monese and XYB announce that they have each secured new funding and are to separate from their existing Group structure and become two independent businesses.
Lunar raises EUR24.1m. It comes as Lunar prepares to expand its basic package in Sweden to a full service bank for both consumer and business customers.
Manchester-based FinTech Firenze secures 750K to make Lombard loans accessible to all. The investment will be used to accelerate its mission to democratise access to Lombard lending.
Pleo secured €40M in debt financing from HSBC Innovation Banking to level up credit offering. Pleo's Overdraft feature is already available across Sweden, Germany, the UK, and Denmark.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Johan Bergqvist to Join Banking Circle Group as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Johan will work closely with the Co-Founders, Anders la Cour and Laust Bertelsen, and the rest of the management team, to drive the next phase of sustained, rapid, and profitable growth.