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Global FinTech News - 11th June 2021

Global FinTech News - 11th June 2021
By Holland FinTech  • Issue #102 • View online
This week the G7 – the worlds largest 7 economies and guests – met in Cornwall, UK, to discuss several pressing geopolitical issues. Foremost, they negotiated and signed a breakthrough tax-treaty, paving the way for a global minimal corporate tax rate. Besides corporate taxes, also the climate, girls education, and vaccinations were on the agenda.
In the meanwhile, Fintech people from across Europe gathered at the Amsterdam Fintech Week, organised by Holland Fintech and partners to discuss the latest developments in digital finance and beyond. The full week event, focusing on an outside in perspective, was fully online this time and therefore fully accessible from anywhere. The line up consisted of several renowned tech unicorns, corporate innovators, investors and government representatives. The tone was set by HM Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, in her capacity as UNSGSA for inclusive finance for development, making a strong plea for financial well-being as a mark for the fintech industry. The events and sessions are making their way onto the website for review as we speak. You might even still catch the tail of the week, and in any case catch the warp up at our final event: the meetupXL.
Of course we also kept an eye on things outside Amsterdam, like you are used to from us. So sit back, and take your time to read up on the latest news, investments, opinions and research in fintech below.
Have a great weekend!
Team Holland Fintech

Highlights from last weeks news related to fintech
For this week, we saw many M&A, IPOs, new products on the market, developments in terms of crypto, banking, financial inclusion, and more:
  • Walmart, PayNearMe Team To Offer Cash Bill Payment Services
  • Paytm, India’s most valuable startup, confirms plan for an IPO
  • HSBC bolsters Hong Kong offering with AI-powered equity index product
  • The American Bankers Association has adopted a defensive stance over the possible future issuance of a central bank backed digital currency (CBDC)
  • Apple announced that its forthcoming mobile operating system will let Apple devices store driver’s licenses and state IDs for participating states to its Wallet app
  • The Banque de France and the Swiss National Bank are to work with a private sector consortium on the trial of a CBDC-based cross-border payments module
  • OneBanks taps G4S for cash and bill payment services at shared branch kiosks
  • El Salvador becomes first country to make Bitcoin a legal currency
  • Mark Cuban-Backed Personal Finance App Dave to Go Public in $4 Billion SPAC Deal
  • Digital identity verification company Mitek announced it has acquired ID R&D, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based voice and face biometrics and liveness detection firm
  • PayPal invests $135 million to help advance economic equality
  • Nuvei indicated in a regulatory filing that it could raise up to a total of $1.8 billion USD through new issues or secondary offerings over the next 19 months
  • Institutional investors sign investor statement on facial recognition
  • Marqeta, a card issuing platform, begins a new journey as a public company
  • Dave (LA, CA, US), a banking app, is set to go public via a special purpose acquisition (SPAC) deal at a valuation of around $4 billion ($3,28bn)
Read more about this week’s news HERE.
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The largest funding rounds we found from across the world
We gathered from 2 June to 9 June the most relevant investment and funding rounds, across banking, peer-to-peer tech, security, e-commerce tools, digital wealth management, and more:
  • Nubank (São Paulo, Brazil), a neobank, has received $500 million (€410,25m) in funding from US conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway
  • Circle (Boston, MA, US), a peer-to-peer payments technology company, has announced it has raised $440 million (€361,02m) in financing to fuel the company’s continued growth, organisational development and market expansion opportunities
  • Trulioo (Vancouver, Canada), an identity verification company, completed a $394M (€323,28m) Series D funding round at a $1.75 Billion valuation
  • Scalable Capital (München, Germany), a digital wealth management platform, has raised more than €150 million in a Series E funding round led by Chinese tech conglomerate Tencent
  • Aura (Burlington, MA, US), a digital security platform, has closed its Series E round of $150m (€123,08m), which was led by private equity giant Warburg Pincus
  • Stackline (Seattle, WA, US), a technology company that builds subscription-based ecommerce tools for thousands of the largest consumer brands and retailers, received a $130m (€106,67m) strategic investment from TA Associates
  • Other interesting funding rounds for this week: Capchase (€102,56m), SmartHR (€94,36m), Brinqa (€90,25m), Mythical Games (€61,54m), Kin Insurance Closes (€56,78m), Chia Network (€50,05m), Bench (€49,23m), Airbase (€49,23m), Branch Insurance (€41,02m), Credit Sesame (€41,85m), Grabango Raises (€32,00m), Overhaul (€28,72m), Tiger Global (€24,62m), Divido (€24,62m), Blockdaemon (€22,97m), Unchained Capital (€20,51m), TailorMed (€16,41m), Kafene (€11,49m)
Read more about this week’s funding news HERE.
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A selection of recent research reports and papers worth reading
Explore DeFi, CyberTechs, insurance topics, Open Banking, payments and trends, BNPL methods, and risk prevention in finance with the following reports:
  • “Decentralized Finance: (DeFi) Policy-Maker Toolkit” (World Economic Forum) - In this report, the focus lies on decentralized finance (DeFi) and its emerging and rapidly evolving area in the blockchain environment
  • “Security tokenization may be the next big use case for blockchain tech” (Cointelegraph) - Cointelegraph Research compiled a dataset of all security token offerings and found that almost $5 billion was raised in 2020 in order to provide detailed analysis on how blockchain technology can transform traditional stock exchanges
  • “CyberTech 100” (FinTech Global) - The CYBERTECH100 is an annual list of 100 of the world’s most innovative CyberTech companies.
  • “Open Banking: The Dawn of Collaborative Innovation” (WhiteSights) - The Spire Tech x WhiteSight Open Banking Report 2021 shows insights on the Open Banking ecosystem initiatives and takes a predictive shot at the future course of the financial services industry transformation
  • “UK banks speed up plans to ax branches and switch focus to digital” (S&P Global) - Jon Rees, a senior reporter covering UK and European banking and finance, highlights how British high street banks’ planned branch closures for 2021 already outstrip total closures for 2020, as lenders focus on boosting their provision of digital services to customers
  • “What are the key trends shaping the payments marketplace in 2021?” (Mollie) - The report highlights key trends that are reshaping the payments marketplace, which include: POS to online, cash to cards, the crypto boom, the convergence of SaaS and fintech
  • “The Global Phenomenon of Buy Now, Pay Later” (Fincog) - Jason Mikula, Jeroen de Bel and Benjamin Kral, look at the emerging market of BNPL, and the current players.
  • “Apple’s App Store Facilitated $643 Billion In Commerce In 2020” (PYMNTS) - Earlier this week, Apple announced that the App Store ecosystem enabled $643 billion in billings and sales last year, marking a 24% year-over-year rise
  • “From Risk Transfer to Risk Prevention” (The Geneva Association) - The research for this report uncovered an impressive number of successful IoT projects in insurance
Read more about research papers HERE.
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Background information and insights from opinion leaders and experts
What are the hot topics that fintech opinion leaders are discussing at the moment? Banking, insurance, capital funding, lending, BNPL, regulations and more:
  • “InsurTech and open banking: Insurance modernization pillars” via Willis Towers Watson - Max Drannikov and Charlie Samolczyk, Senior Director at Insurance Consulting and Technology, emphasize that the rise of fintech and InsurTech startups along with efforts by major digital vendors now mean that doing nothing is no longer an option for banks that wanted to keep their customer base and avoid being disintermediated by new entrants
  • “Funding for Africa’s startups is at a record high - this is where it’s going” via World Economic Forum - Niall McCarthy, Data Journalist at Statista, has revealed that venture capital funding for African startups will reach a record of $2.25 billion and $2.8 billion this year
  • “Should banks have more technologists than Microsoft?” via thefinanser.com - Chris Skinner, writer at The Finanser, highlights that it does not matter whether big banks have more developers than big tech because it’s about quality, not quantity
  • “Addressing Predatory Lending Apps: Lessons From the Regulatory Response in Indonesia, India and the Philippines” via Next Billion - Hema Bansal, independent consultant in Financial Inclusion and Consumer Protection, dives into customer complaints about digital lending apps that have been surging across several emerging markets, raising serious concerns about predatory digital lending
  • “How banks can play a role in reducing BNPL costs for merchants” via The Paypers - Yaacov Martin, Co-Founder and CEO at Jifiti, explains how banks can help merchants reduce BNPL costs and the benefits they can offer
  • “PayPal Leads Mobile Wallet Race With Half Of Online Transactions (And A Quarter In-Store)” via PYMNTS - In this analysis, a further look at PayPal and competition is given. PayPal dominates in almost every category measured: shopping online, shopping in-store, by gender and by generation, it has a commanding lead in almost every market
  • “BNPL: regulation gets the go-ahead, but what happens next?” via FStech - Alexandra Leonards, Senior reporter at Perspective Publishing, explores what regulation might mean for the future of buy now pay later and looks at how the market has responded to the government’s decision to green-light new rules
  • “Cyber Insurers Hike Rates But Worry About Pricing Long-Term As Losses Mount: Fitch” via Insurance Journal - This analysis explores how US insurers offering cyber coverage have been implementing significant pricing and underwriting actions in 2021 in response to a spike in cyber claim
  • “The worrying rise of ransomware as a service” via Raconteur - Oliver Pickup, author at Raconteur, emphasizes matters of cybersecurity, constructing over the example of the attack that cost a US fuel pipeline $4.4m in May
Read more about these analyses & opinion pieces HERE.
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Connect with the fintech ecosystem at some of the upcoming events
LHoFT, Holland FinTech and FinTech Belgium have joined forces to share essential insights on ESG developments in the Benelux. Register today!
Register HERE.
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Innovation in Belgium - Fintech Belgium - 17th June
Come and discover what’s new in our industry during our series of new events that will take place on June 17th and September 30th.
Register HERE.
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”How Artificial Intelligence can Transform your Industry” - 17th June
The 2021 RegTech Summit is a full day virtual event where experts will share their insights, expertise and experience on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their industry.
Register HERE
www.regpac.com  •  Share
Ready to get involved? Click here to find out more.
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