We bring you the latest updates which caught our attention this week from the fintech sector. As such, we look at blockchain-based global payments, digital banks, stock market, IPOs, trading, cross-border payments, cryptocurrency, instant payment systems, and more! Dive into the selection and enjoy the reading.
Temasek, DBS And J.P. Morgan To Launch A New Blockchain-Based Global Payments Platform (Vulcan Post)
DBS, J.P. Morgan and Temasek announced on earlier this week their plans to develop an open industry platform for payments, trade and foreign exchange settlement through a newly-established technology firm.The platform will start with a focus on facilitating flows primarily between Singapore-based banks in both USD and SGD, with the intent to expand service offerings to other markets and in various currencies. Read more
Brazil’s Digital Bank Nubank In Talks To Go Public In US (Pymnts)
Nubank, a Brazilian neobank and the largest fintech in Latin America, is in talks to go public on the US stock market. The bank is coordinating with advisers in New York, but further details, such as when the IPO would happen, are unclear. Nubank was most recently valued at $25 billion, after a $400 million Series G funding round in January. The IPO would be one of the largest to come out of South America recently. Read more
Revolut is expanding into India (CNBC)
Revolut, a fintech company that offers banking service, will invest about $25 million (€20M) into the Indian market over the next five years and aims to launch its app there by 2022. The company would hire 300 employees at its India subsidiary, which will serve as a global operations hub for the firm. Revolut says its aim is to become a global bank, and even has ambitions to launch in China, a highly-competitive fintech market. The firm is reportedly in talks to raise fresh funds in a round that could value it as much as $15 billion, as it ramps up its international expansion. Read more
UiPath climbs 23% in stock market debut, becoming one of the 3 largest US software IPOs (CNBC)
UiPath, a global software company for robotic process automation, rose 23% in the company’s stock market debut after the company and its investors reeled in $1.34 billion in the company’s IPO. The shares closed at $69The company, whose software automates repetitive office tasks, generated $607.6 million in the last fiscal year, an increase of 81% from the prior year. If underwriters buy their allotted shares, it will be the third-biggest U.S. software IPO, behind Snowflake last year and Qualtrics in January. Read more
Deutsche Boerse to de-list Coinbase from Xetra and Frankfurt trade (Reusters)
Deutsche Boerse announced it will delist Coinbase Global Inc’s shares from its Xetra trading system and the Frankfurt stock exchange over incorrect data for regulatory reasons, a wrong reference code, so-called LEI code, which was used by mistake. The only way for Coinbase to resume trading is for the issuer to apply for an LEI. The U.S. cryptocurrency exchange saying it was working to resolve the “administrative error”. Read more
PayPal to launch local wallet in China focused on cross-border payments (CNBC)
PayPal plans to set up a local wallet in China focused on cross-border payments. In January 2021, the US fintech company became the first foreign firm with 100% ownership of a payments platform in China. The PayPal China CEO says that they need to build a bridge, bringing good Chinese products overseas and taking good overseas products back to China. Read more
Geico admits fraudsters stole customers’ driver’s license numbers for months (Techcrunch)
Geico,an auto insurer in the US, managed to fix a security bug that let fraudsters steal customers’ driver’s license numbers from its website. The company did not say how many customers were affected by the breach but said the fraudsters accessed customer driver’s license numbers between January 21 and March 1. Geico said information gathered from other sources was used to “obtain unauthorized access to your driver’s license number through the online sales system on our website.” Read more
Thailand and Singapore launch first linkage of domestic instant payment systems (Finextra)
Singapore and Thailand have linked their respective real-time payment systems, enabling instant transfer of consumer funds across borders. Under the arrangements, customers of participating banks in Singapore and Thailand will be able to transfer funds of up to S$1,000 or THB25,000 daily, with conversion into the local currency dependent on the foreign exchange rate at the time of sending. Read more
Turkey Drafting Crypto Regulation and Has No Intention to Ban Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin.com)
The Turkish government is reportedly creating a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies after two crypto exchanges in the country abruptly halted trading and are now being investigated for fraud. The government is reportedly planning to establish a central custodian bank among other initiatives. Read more
China regulators order Tencent, other fintech companies to boost anti-monopoly measures (MarketWatch)
The regulators, which include the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and China’s securities and banking regulators, said in a statement Thursday that they had summoned companies including Xiaomi, Tencent, Bytedance, e-commerce platform JD.com, and the finance arm of food delivery platform Meituan to strengthen anti-monopoly measures. Read more
Facial recognition should be banned, EU privacy watchdog says (Reuters)
Facial recognition should be banned in Europe because of its “deep and non-democratic intrusion” into people’s private lives, EU privacy watchdog the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) said after two days after the European Commission proposed draft rules that would allow facial recognition to be used to search for missing children or criminals and in cases of terrorist attacks. Read more
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