Global FinTech | 2022 #8
Weekly news up to Tuesday, February 22nd, 2022
MVO BLOG
REPORT
Climate FinTech: Using Data and AI To Fight Climate Change And Create Business Opportunities.
As large organizations including Citi work towards a net-zero carbon future for themselves and their clients, partnering with climate fintechs could help accelerate efforts and provide a strategic advantage.
👉 Read the full Citi Ventures report by Jelena Zec and Alix Brunet Nazir here
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Despite its recent dip, 2021 was a breakthrough year for crypto, with its market capitalization rising by 188% to reach ~$3 trillion in November 2021.
Crypto’s profile and growth to date has derived from its utility as a store of value, but we are finally starting to see its potential as a ‘medium of exchange’.
👉 Read the full article by Flagship Advisory Partners here
😎 SPONSORED CONTENT
Fintech Meetup: Last Chance To Save On Tickets!
Want to join 30,000+ meetings at the world’s largest Fintech meetings event and get business done? Like saving money? Get your Fintech Meetup ticket before prices go up on Friday! Join thousands of participants already signed up from leading Fintechs, Investors, Networks, Tech Companies, Banks, Credit Unions and many others. Virtual, March 22-24. Get Ticket Now
📊 INFOGRAPHIC
An Apple A Day With FinTech In Play, by WhiteSight . Link here
📰 ARTICLE
A timeline of the last 100+ years in Insurance in the U.S. The insurance industry is one of the oldest industries in the world with an estimated global market size of $10.00Tn by 2030.
👉 Read the full FINTECHNA article by Amir Kabir here
👨💻 BLOG
Innovation and investments have been the key trends in the WealthTech industry over the last decade.
Its recent claim to fame with the high-value mergers and acquisitions is driven not only by incumbents like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Charles Schwab, but also by FinTech players such as SoFi, Acorns, and NuBank. While the financial details of most of the deals remain undisclosed, the sheer size of the acquirers has been sufficient to garner attention.
In this post, WhiteSight is taking a closer look at some of the mega mergers and acquisitions that the sector witnessed in recent year.
👉Read the full Whitesight article here
👨💻 EVENTS
Join Provenir as they discuss insights from Aurélie L'Hostis, Senior Analyst, guest from Forrester Research and a recent Pulse survey of global fintech/banking decision makers on the biggest challenges and opportunities for 2022. Join the discussion here
💡INSIGHTS
Coinbase faces stiff competition from other firms in the business of cross-border money transfers, and new entrants continue to materialize. The crypto exchange must compete with industry stalwarts like Western Union and MoneyGram International, and fintechs like Revolut and Ripple.
Read the full Banking Dive article👉 Link here
🎤 PODCAST
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NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Flutterwave raised $250 million in a Series D round that tripled the company’s valuation to over $3 billion in just twelve months. Link here
⭐️ Sokin is set to enable full ecommerce payments for the first time in the metaverse. Link here
⭐️GoDaddy launched QR codes for on-the-go transactions. Link here.
⭐️ Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway dumped a portion of its Visa and Mastercard holdings and increased exposure in Nubank. Link here
⭐️ London fintech firm PrimaryBid collects $190M to give everyone fair access to public markets. Link here.
PAYMENTS
BillEase, the flexible and transparent alternative to credit cards and e-wallets, today announced its partnership with Shopify, the leading global commerce company, introducing its first-ever Shopify payment app which allows merchants to easily add BillEase at checkout with just one click. Link here.
Suberra Protocol secures $1M funding in a pre-seed round to build next-gen Crypto payment infrastructures. Suberra will use this funding to expand the team, fund product development, and finance product growth to enable true crypto-first payment services for the industry. Link here
Trustly, the leading global payments platform for digital account-to-account transactions, is proud to introduce FlexPay by Trustly, a new product that gives consumers the flexibility to defer the settlement date of a debited amount to a date in the future. Link here
One of the big questions—if Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for a persistent virtual world is ever realised—is how will we pay for stuff in this future? Clearly, that discussion has come up at payments provider Sokin, which came out with a preview of a “metaverse community designed to process full eCommerce transactions.” Link here
Amazon has reached agreement with Visa to accept its credit cards across its network, ending a standoff between the two that threatened to disrupt e-commerce payments and deal a blow to the U.S.-based payments processor. Link here
Finsure Group has joined forces with payments and international money transfer provider, Send Payments to provide a new service for its broker network. Simon Bednar, Finsure general manager of aggregation, said Send will be added to Finsure’s customer relationship management (CRM) platform, Infynity’s App store, to enable its brokers and their clients to transfer money overseas at competitive exchange rates.
Link here
The co-founder of payment automation platform Primer has hit out at the “brazen” copying of ideas in FinTech. Paul Anthony writes about some of his experiences and learnings since he co-founded the firm, with Gabriel Le Roux, who are both ex-Paypal and Braintree employees, in early 2020. In the post entitled, ”Reflections on growing to Series B in under 18 months”, Anthony says a “dozen clones” appeared in the months after Primer was founded. Link here
ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time digital payment software, announced ACI PayAfter™, a new solution that enables merchants globally to provide their customers with a choice of more than 70 BNPL options through a single integration. Link here
OPEN BANKING
TSB Bank has teamed up with Manchester-based fintech BankiFi to launch a small business banking app that helps ease the burden of chasing overdue invoices. The Revenu app allows TSB’s business clients to collect customer payments from requests sent via SMS, WhatsApp, email and QR code. Link here
CRYPTO
On Saturday, attackers stole hundreds of NFTs from OpenSea users, causing a late-night panic among the site’s broad user base. A spreadsheet compiled by the blockchain security service PeckShield counted 254 tokens stolen over the course of the attack, including tokens from Decentraland and Bored Ape Yacht Club. Link here.
Jambo, a Congo-based startup building Africa’s web3 user acquisition portal through “learn, play, earn” and democratizing access to crypto-based income-generation opportunities, has raised $7.5 million in seed funding. Link here.
Crypto custodian Fireblocks has made its first acquisition. It has bought out First Digital Assets Group (First DAG), an Israel-based crypto payments processor. Link here
Rainbow, a crypto startup building a mobile wallet app that allows users to interact with decentralized applications on the Ethereum blockchain, wants to be the app users download to tap into that future. Link here
Hamburg-headquartered NAGA Group AG is taking another major leap into the crypto industry and is set to launch its cryptocurrency exchange on March 7, 2022. Link here
REGTECH
Vneuron, Tunisia-based software company, has revealed its plans to boost its regional operations with its new branch in Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) Authority Fintech Circle, in response to the growing demand for regtech solutions in the Middle East region. Link here
The CEOs of the UK’s leading fintech firms including the likes of Monzo, Starling and Checkout.com have called on regulators and the UK government to speed up new reforms aimed at better financial regulation. Link here.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Capchase hired is ex-Silicon Valley Bank senior, Alex McCracken, who takes up the position of Head of Venture Relationships in the London office. Link here
OpenPayd, a payments and banking-as-a-service platform, has hired Daniel Belda as its new head of product strategy. Link here
Nuvei Corporation, announced senior leadership team enhancements that further position the global payment technology partner of thriving brands to deliver on its next phase of growth. Link here.
OPPORTUNITIES
Money transfer giant Wise is seeking growth in Asia-Pacific (APAC), with the announcement of 150 new hires at its Singapore office this year. Link here.
FINTECH MAPS
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.