Stay up to date with the latest news from fintech! This week, we bring you updates on regulations, legislations, partnerships, and more. Enjoy reading!
UK government launches fraud and money laundering crackdown (Finextra)
The UK government has announced plans to rolled out reforms to protect the economy from fraud and money laundering. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill aims to “drive dirty money out of the UK,” read a press release by the Home Office. The Bill is currently in Parliament for a second reading that will take place next month. Organised criminals, terrorists, and kleptocrats will be targeted, by needing to verify their identity before being able to register a company in the UK. The new regulation will require more transparency from businesses forming limited partnerships, and simplify registration processes for reliable businesses to protect small business owners and consumers from falling prey to fraud and money laundering. Read more
IMF calls for regulation of the cryptoasset ecosystem (Fintech Global)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has called for the greater regulation of the cryptoasset market. The Fund said that unbacked crypto assets are the ‘oldest and most popular type of crypto assets’, that rely not on any backing asset for value but instead on supply and demand. The IMF said, “They were originally developed to democratise payments but are mostly used for speculation. Crypto assets were designed to disintermediate financial services, but centralized entities, such as exchanges and wallet providers, offer key functions to users and sustain the necessity of trust in one or several entities.” Currently, many of these cryptoassets are not covered by existing conduct, prudential or payment regulations which can generate risks to market integrity, market conduct and potential financial stability. Read more
Swift to bring end-to-end view of post-trade processing (Finextra)
Following a successful pilot, Swift is gearing up to launch a service designed to increases transparency in post-trade processing and prevent settlement fails. Swift Securities View is set to be available for broad adoption next year, promising to address one of the biggest challenges in the industry. The lack of visibility after a securities transaction takes place means that there is no way of tracking all the steps in its lifecycle across multiple intermediaries, increasing the risk that a security may not be in the right place at the time of completion. Read more. On top of that, this week Chainlink and SWIFT have announced a proof-of-concept that will allow the international bank cooperative to transfer cryptocurrencies across most blockchains, Paypers reports. The collaborative proof-of-concept would allow SWIFT to instruct token transfers across nearly every blockchain environment. Chainlink added that this would allow financial institutions to become blockchain-capable without confronting high upfront costs and development challenges.Read more
Financial institutions commit to lower remittance fees to Ukraine (Finextra)
A number of financial institutions have signed a joint statement with the European Commission pledging to lower total fees of remittances to Ukraine at least during the war. Signatories include Mastercard, Visa, Wise, and TransferGo among others. The statement is inspired by the important role remittances play in the Ukrainian economy, which has significantly increased in importance during the war as people have been forced to leave the country. Remittance flows in Ukraine were over $14 billion in 2021, roughly 7% of its GDP. The World Bank now projects that remittances to Ukraine will increase by 22% in 2022. “Finding practical solutions to help Ukrainians living abroad, many forced to flee as a consequence of the war, to send remittances to their loved ones at home is a very concrete example of our solidarity. I welcome that EU and Ukrainian companies active in remittances have come together to achieve this objective. We are open to, and in fact would welcome, more providers joining the statement for affordable, accessible and transparent remittance services to Ukraine.” Read more
Wall Street giants join $60m AccessFintech funding round (Finextra)
Capital markets specialist AccessFintech has closed a $60 million Series C funding round led by WestCap and joined by a host of big banks, including BNY Mellon and Bank of America. Dawn Capital, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Citi participated in the round, which brings AccessFintech’s total funding to $97 million since 2018. AccessFintech is working to improve the capital markets operating model through data and workflow collaboration via its Synergy network, which now has over 100 participants. The network has recently expanded its asset class coverage to include derivatives and syndicated loans and has also added to its securities offering by extending its lifecycle management through its new claims network and the launch of a predictive fails service. Read more
Fasanara capital lauches $350 million VC Fund for fintech and crypto startups (Finance Feeds)
Fasanara Capital has launched a $350 million VC fund dedicated to finding the next-generation of global fintech and Web3 pioneers. This is Fasanara’s third venture fund and is intended to capitalise on the increasing level of innovation it sees from its vantage point as one of Europe’s leading digital lenders and trader in digital assets, including crypto. The London-based asset management and technology platform has already backed two of Europe’s fastest growing fintech unicorns: Italian Buy Now, Pay Later firm ScalaPay and German tech rentals startup Grover. Read more
Plum becomes latest fintech to move into crypto with Bitpanda deal (Financial News)
Plum has become the latest fintech to dip its toes into digital assets, with plans to offer European customers crypto trading services in the coming weeks. The money management app has done a deal with Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange Bitpanda to enable customers to invest in cryptocurrencies via its app. London-based Plum said in a statement that the move reflected “rising investor demand” across Europe for easy crypto trading. Fintechs are increasingly looking to offer crypto services, either via partnerships with industry specialists or with in-house trading options. Read more
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