👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Starling Bank founder Anne Boden released her third book: Female Founders’ Playbook Insights from the superwomen who made it.
In her latest work, Boden weaves together the experiences of leading women entrepreneurs and VC investors, offering insights on every aspect of launching a high-growth business.
📰 ARTICLE
Temenos to conduct independent review of Hindenburg allegations.
Shares in embattled core banking vendor Temenos continued to wobble as the company reported full year results ahead of guidance but forecast slower growth in 2024 net earnings.
Temenos shares plummeted by 33% after Hindenburg Research shorted the stock, alleging "accounting irregularities, failed products and an illusive turnaround".
Sequoia partner Matthew Miller, the director who in recent days had asked Klarna shareholders to remove Moritz, is instead leaving the Klarna board.
💡INSIGHTS
Here is a deep dive comparison by Flagship Advisory Partners:
In North America, 16% of the payfacs registered today are new since Mar ’23. However, 5% of the payfacs from Mar ’23 were unregistered by Jan ’24, a 6% annual attrition rate.
In the EU & UK, 14% of the payfacs registered today are new since Mar ’23, on the other hand, 12% of the payfacs from Mar ’23 were unregistered by Jan ’24, a 14% annual attrition rate.
Swan, a rapidly expanding fintech company, needed a robust admin panel to manage sensitive operations securely. They chose Forest Admin for its flexibility, ease of use, and strong security features.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Banks to regain processing and acquiring control with Aevi and Silverflow alliance.
⭐️ Former Tinkoff CEO, Oliver Hughes, shares fintech vision for Uzbekistan's growth.
⭐️ Molo introduces Expat buy-to-let mortgages.
⭐️ British SMEs lost £2.8 billion in 2023 to "rip off" bank FX fees says Wise.
FINTECH
Y Combinator Looks to Invest in Stablecoin Finance. Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley incubator, has listed stablecoin finance as a category in its new and updated list.
Yonder launches free membership in latest move to reshape market. Designed for ‘adventurous’ millennial and Gen Z professionals, Yonder’s new membership has no monthly fee and allows members to earn 1 point for every £1.
BVNK goes live as an e-money institution in Europe, bolstering B2B payment services. With both licences operational, the provider can now offer enhanced payment services for EUR and GBP.
BankiFi and Praetura partner on fintech project to revolutionise small business lending. Praetura, backed by BankiFi’s tech platform, will deliver asset and invoice finance to SMEs on behalf of banks unable to support those businesses.
Iwoca joins with business account provider Countingup to offer flexible loans. The integration will see iwoca’s Flexi-Loan for SMEs made available on the app, and uses Countingup’s data and interface to streamline the loan application process.
eToro CEO considers IPO after scrapped SPAC deal. CEO Yoni Assia told “We definitely are eyeing the public markets,”. “I definitely see us becoming eventually a public company.”
PAYMENTS
Payplug and Mangopay partner to strengthen payments offering for marketplaces and platforms. The partnership will allow clients to benefit from a complete, seamless payment solution with Mangopay’s marketplace capabilities, including payout solutions.
Adyen and Billie partner up to bring Buy Now, Pay Later to businesses across Europe. This includes managing cash flow for buyers and sellers, eliminating payment defaults and fraud risks, and simplifying dunning and collection processes.
Network tokenization, essential to Apple Pay, is undergoing significant changes. Traditionally, after cardholder verification, a device-specific network token (DPAN) replaces the customer's Primary Account Number (PAN) in Apple Wallet.
Payment orchestration platform market to reach $4.83 billion by 2032. The global expansion of businesses requires seamless cross-border payment capabilities, which payment orchestration platforms offer.
Strong growth for Visa in Germany. Visa grew strongly in Germany in the financial year 2023. The payment volume with Visa debit and credit cards increased by 25%. In terms of the number of transactions.
Russian payment providers knocked offline after Qiwi Bank licence revoked. The central bank, which has taken regulatory action against Qiwi five times in the last year, said Qiwi Bank had engaged in high-risk operations.
Zilch launches 'Pay over 3 months' BNPL product. The new product will sit alongside the shorter-tenor ‘Pay over 6 Weeks’ or, for day-to-day purchases, Zilch's 5% interest-bearing ‘Pay Now’ debit product.
Tink joins SEPA Payment Account Access (SPAA) scheme to help reshape payments across the EU. SPAA aims to unlock the opportunities of open data access while ensuring that banks are sufficiently incentivised to invest in maintaining application programming.
Numeral launches Swift payments. The payment technology provider, announces the support of Swift payments, enabling companies and financial institutions to automate cross-border payments with their partner banks.
Buy Now, Pay Early: 97% of Klarna Black Friday purchases paid off on time or early. A report concludes that people who use BNPL are 13.4% less likely to be over-indebted or in arrears on all their loans than those who do not use BNPL.
OPEN BANKING
Turkish financial technology company United Payment received an Open Banking license. United Payment, continues to implement its own innovations that go beyond the norm in the sector.
OpenPayd partners with TrueLayer to bolster instant A2A payments. OpenPayd and TrueLayer, are partnering to enhance the former’s instant account-to-account (A2A) payments offering.
Bud joins forces with Fintech Galaxy. The partnership is based on a shared vision to harness the power of Open Banking and data intelligence to deliver unparalleled insights into customer behavior and financial needs.
REGTECH
Frankfurt wins race to host new EU anti-money laundering agency. Frankfurt was chosen ahead of rivals Brussels, Dublin, Madrid, Paris, Riga, Rome, Vilnius and Vienna in series of votes at the European Council and European Parliament.
DIGITAL BANKING
Revolut targets CFOs with new AI-driven product ‘Billpay’, which will allow businesses to automatically pull in invoices from their accounting platforms, extract the necessary information.
Revolut launches Robo-Advisor in EEA to automate investing. The new product is advantageous for those who don't have the time to actively invest, or have limited or no trading experience.
Solaris Bank Ends Months of Trepidation with ADAC Deal. The deal is financially important for both companies, not only for Solaris bank. It also marks a turning point in the banking fintech’s strategy.
Griffin Launches Foundations, An Early Access. Foundations are designed for companies in the UK who want to offer financial products to their customers and build directly on a full-stack BaaS provider.
Finnish digital neobank Saldo Bank opens in Sweden . The bank will start operating in Sweden in February and offers interest rates of up to 5% on one year’s fixed-term accounts.
CRYPTO
Archax launches stablecoin yield service. This service enables individuals with assets in stablecoins to transition them into yield-generating instruments, such as regulated Money Market Funds (MMFs), which are also available in tokenised form.
New emails from Satoshi Nakamoto that are made public show that the bitcoin creator warned against pushing bitcoin’s anonymous angle, and warned against labeling bitcoin as an ‘investment’.
DONEDEAL
Peter Thiel-backed Valar Ventures invests in $6M funding round of German fintech Monite, US expansion on cards. Monite aims to revolutionise this space by providing seamless financial operations within the B2B platforms used daily by businesses.
Monzo targets £4bn valuation in fresh funding round. The UK fintech could finalise a deal as soon as the next two weeks to raise as much as £350mn from a mix of new and existing investors.
Januar raises Seed extension and launches B2B crypto services platform. The combination of Januar Wallet and Januar Trade will allow businesses to easily convert fiat to crypto right on the Januar platform.
DBT Capital secures SEK 285 million to lend to Swedish SMEs with EIF backing. DBT will also promote the growth of Swedish SMEs and small mid-caps active in sustainable and energy efficiency by providing tailor-made financing terms.
M&As
Nigerian digital bank FairMoney in talks to buy Umba in $20M all-stock deal, sources say. The move signals FairMoney’s interest in growing its customer base by expanding into more countries, specifically Kenya.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
FinTech Wales announces Sarah Kocianski as new CEO. Sarah has worked with global organisations, scaleups and startups from across the financial services industry and beyond, including major banks and insurers, healthtechs and retailers.
Ozone API, a FinTech in the open banking sector, announces the appointment of former Virgin Money CEO, Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia as the Chair of its Board.