Weekly Fintech Newsletter | 2021 #1
Fintech Highlights, Payments, InsurTech, Open Banking, Crypto, Funding, and other topics.
Welcome to my first Weekly Fintech Newsletter. In this newsletter, we will cover Fintech Highlights, Payments, InsurTech, Open Banking, Crypto, Funding, and other topics.
If there is anything else you think I’m missing, please don’t hesitate to reach out by email at bonjour@marcelvanoost.nl.
If you are looking for my weekly digital banking newsletter (the one divided by regions), you may find it here.
Also, Tymit is looking for a senior compliance manager in London. Tymit’s mission is to reinvent the credit card to make it honest, safe, and more transparent. Based on the UK, Spain, and Greece, Tymit’s talented and growing team is committed to creating a diverse and fun work environment putting the user at the center of every decision they make. They are seeking their first Compliance hire in the business. Learn more here.
FINTECH MAPS
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S FINTECH SPACE
FINTECH SPOTLIGHT
Andreata Muforo is a partner at TLcom Capital, a pan-African early-stage VC firm. She told TechCrunch that last year’s run of 23 pre-seed rounds (10 of which were $150,000+ deals) per Briter Bridges data, was due to the confidence investors had in the market, especially fintech. For Muforo, witnessing more early-stage investments is a big deal, one the African tech ecosystem should savor regardless of the round in question. “Pre-seed or seed are just names investors and founders give,” she said. “What I think is most important is the fact that we’re getting more early-stage capital into Africa, and startups are getting more attention from investors, which is fantastic.” Link here.
FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
In its 2020 African tech startups funding report, Disrupt Africa identifies 99 FinTech companies across 11 countries that raised some form of external funding from investors. Link here.
Small businesses in developing countries present a massively underserved opportunity for FinTech players in the post-COVID world. Link here.
PAYMENTS
On 28th January 2021, the Dutch Central Bank (DNB) granted ibanXS a PSD2 license. PSD2 is the European Directive on consumer and business payments. With the introduction of PSD2, new providers of new payment and account information services will enter the market. They will act as an online third party between a consumer and their bank. These third parties may be other banks, for example, or FinTech companies. However, providers must have a PSD2 license. ibanXS is a fully operational pan-European PSD2 Open Banking platform with connections to more than 1.500 European banks in 22 countries. This new license makes ibanXS a licensed Account Information and Payment Initiation Service Provider. Link here.
Entersekt asked Americas Market Intelligence to explain to readers of our blog how Brazil’s incoming instant payment system works. As a global specialist in user authentication, strong device ID, and secure QR payments, they support the Brazilian Central Bank’s vision of a nation-wide digital payments system, free to all and as accessible to the unbanked as it is to cardholders. Pix adoption has been instant and impressive. As of 30 December, more than 133 million chaves and 55+ million users were registered in the system. Link here.
Guavapay Limited, a payment processing company has been granted Principal Member status of Mastercard allowing it to issue cards directly and on behalf of others; and offer acquiring services to merchants. Link here.
Square has launched its latest hardware offering, Square Register, a fully integrated countertop point-of-sale (POS) solution, designed to give UK businesses with complex needs the versatility they need to manage sophisticated operations. Link here.
TrueLayer, the leading technology company building financial infrastructure that’s open to everyone, announced the launch of PayDirect, a new payments method enabling any firm to create streamlined, secure, and cost-effective onboarding and payments processes. Link here.
kevin., a fintech startup based in Lithuania, has launched the first-ever PSD2 payments solution for mobile payments from pre-linked bank accounts and has raised €1.5 million in seed funding to scale into new markets. Link here.
Stripe has co-led a $102 million Series B funding round for San Francisco-based one-click payments startup Fast. Link here.
BNPL
Klarna’s stronghold in Europe is slowly coming under attack from a wave of new BNPL startups. 2020 has been a record funding year for the BNPL sector, which raised $1.5bn globally according to CB Insights, and prompted a strong public listing by Affirm, Inc. in the US a fortnight ago. Link here.
Scalapay, a third-party 'buy now and pay later' platform, has raised €40m ($48m), in a seed round of funding. Link here.
French buy now, pay later outfit Alma has raised €49 million in a Series B funding round joined by Cathay Innovation and Idinvest Partners. Link here.
EPP - EMPLOYMENT PAYMENTS PLATFORMS
Branch announced the launch of its Employer Payments Platform (EPP) to help businesses accelerate payments. Branch created the platform to provide an integrated solution for businesses seeking faster, more reliable ways to move money to employees instantly. Link here.
Employee benefit and reward pioneer Ben has raised $2.5m in a round led by Cherry Ventures and Seedcamp. Link here.
OPEN BANKING
“I’m excited about a world of open, connected data and the innovation this can bring. Open banking regulation and the likes of Plaid and TrueLayer have been a catalyst for financial services organizations thinking differently about data, but there is still a long way to go, both in banking and other sectors. Link here.
The pairing of Open Banking with smart data insights provides companies with an incredibly flexible tool kit for solving business problems. This brings its own challenges. With such a flexible set of tools, it can be hard to show the concrete, discreet use-cases that really demonstrate its value. That's not the case with the way Dozens is implementing their technology. Link here.
Open Banking payments platform Token has secured $15 million in Series B funding from SBI Investment and Sony Innovation Fund as well as from existing investors Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures, and the venture arm of BNP Paribas, Opera Tech Ventures. Link here.
CRYPTO
Visa CEO Alfred F. Kelly, Jr. says the card scheme is preparing its payments network to handle a full range of cryptocurrency assets. In an earnings call with analysts, Kelly says the company will treat the cryptocurrency market as two distinct segments: traditional cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ether; and fiat-backed digital currencies including stablecoins and central bank digital currencies. Link here.
Sequoia Holdings, LLC has begun offering employees the option to receive a portion of their salary in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Link here.
New data from Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange and custodian, presents the demographic profile of existing and potential crypto investors in the UK market. Link here.
INSURTECH
Berlin-based insurtech startup INZMO has closed a €3.1 million seed round led by Change Ventures. Swiss insurance company Helvetia, an existing backer from the pre-seed round in 2018, also participated. Link here.
FUNDING
Feel-good fundraising platform TapSimple has raised £900,000 in an investment round as it continues to develop its technology to support charitable fundraising activity in an increasingly cashless world, taking its total fundraising to date to the £2m marks. Link here.
This ends my weekly digital fintech newsletter. Thank you for reading to the end! If you liked it, I invite you to like, share and/or leave a comment below. You may find more information regarding my newsletter, here.
Let me know if there are any questions or news/insights worth mentioning in next week's newsletter. Until the next!
Regards,
Marcel van Oost