Stay up to date with the latest news from fintech! This week, we bring you updates and developments on payments, tokens, NFT and more! Enjoy the selected materials!
China’s Fintech Crackdown Not Over Yet (Finews)
The governor of the country’s central bank said it would be taking more steps to curb monopolistic behavior among internet platform companies and strengthen consumer privacy and data security. He added that the country would be strengthening the regulation of the payments sector and require all financial services companies to be licensed. Read more.
AvidXchange unveils IPO (Bank Automation News)
Payments automation company AvidXchange Holdings Inc. this week filed an initial public offering for its common stock with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in an effort to raise up to $444.6 million in funding, according to the filing. AvidXchange plants to offer 22,000,000 shares of common stock at a price between $21 and $23 per share. Read more.
BNPL Firm Zip Teams With Payments Processor Adyen for Wider eCommerce Reach (PYMNTS)
Global Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Zip is teaming up with all-in-one payments processor Adyen in a strategic partnership to widen their eCommerce reach, according to a press release emailed to PYMNTS. Zip will offer the merchants in Adyen’s network the ability to integrate BNPL at checkout. Adyen will process all payments for Zip across a single platform and system, helping to boost point of sale (POS) revenue growth. Under the agreement, Adyen will become a payment processing partner for Zip and its global affiliates. Read more.
A new payments platform for African currencies is a push for independence from the dollar (Yahoo Finance)
High hopes for seamless intra-Africa trade under the terms of the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) got a boost this week with the formal roll-out of a payments platform by the Africa Export-Import bank (Afreximbank), the continent’s trade finance institution. Ideally, PAPSS would enable instant payments in African currencies between merchants on the continent, “essentially eliminating the borders that have balkanized us and robbed us of our economic prosperity for so long”. Read more.
Fintech company Toss acquires troubled mobility startup to benchmark Singapore’s Grab (Aju Business Daily)
The operator of Toss, a leading fintech startup in South Korea, acquired a troubled mobility startup to disrupt a market dominated by the mobility service wing of the country’s web service giant Kakao. The goal is to seek synergy between fintech and mobility services like Grab, a ride-hailing and logistics service in Singapore. In the domestic mobility market, Kakao is a dominant player backed by some 10 million monthly active users. Read more.
‘Fantasy equity’ NFT game wants you to spend real money buying fake shares of real startups (TechCrunch)
The meme-ification of ownership and the wild acceleration of private startup valuations have led us to this moment where a former VC firm associate has built a crypto marketplace designed for “fantasy startup investing,” where users spend real money buying fake shares — in NFT form, of course — of real startups. The game, which launches out of closed beta today, is called Visionrare and founders Jacob Claerhout and Boris Gordts see a way to take the gamification of investing to its furthest end, mimicking the appeal of fantasy sports leagues and giving users a way to compete with friends by betting on startups they think will be successful. Users can bid on NFT shares of hundreds of different startups at auction and compete to build the best-performing fake portfolio. Read more.
China’s Central Bank Vows to Continue Fintech Crackdown (Bloomberg)
People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gan says the central bank will continue to strengthen the regulation of the payments sector and ask all financial services companies to be licensed. Meanwhile, the government’s recent measures to tighten supervision over big tech firms and crack down on educational institutions are conducive to healthier growth of the economy and society, according to the spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in the U.K. Read more.
Block & Leviton Is Investigating Peak Fintech Group For Potential Securities Law Violations; Investors Who Have Lost Money Are Encouraged to Contact the Firm (Yahoo Finance)
Block & Leviton is investigating Peak Fintech Group, Inc. for potential securities law violations. Investors who have lost money in their Peak Fintech Group, Inc. investment should contact the firm to learn more about how they might recover those losses. Anyone who purchased Peak Fintech Group, Inc. stock and has lost money may be eligible, whether or not they have sold their investment. Investors should contact Block & Leviton to learn more. Read more.
—
Do you have any news to share: please put feed@beta.hollandfintech.com on your press list.
Curious to read and find out more from fintech? Then subscribe & read our full newsletters here: https://hollandfintech.com/featured/newsletters/. In order to see our other weekly highlights, check out the following links: analysis & opinion, research & funding.
