Global FinTech News - 14th of August

American Express is expected to soon be the owner of fintech company Kabbage. Currencycloud has signed a partnership with UK challenger Starling Bank, TranSwap and Remitr for its new multi-currency wallet. Ponto added Zapier to their partners to further improve their open banking solutions. MicroStrategy surprised by adopting Bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve asset. Facebook unveils its F2 product for payment and commerce plans. Holvi fintech is pulling out of the UK just six months after its launch. ABN Amro is to wind down its Moneyou online savings business as well as scaling down their corporate banking activities. Revolut has grown about times 3 in the past year across all fronts: revenue, staffing and losses. UK pensions firm Options teams with US Halal fintech Wahed Invest to offer sharia-compliant workplace pensions. Cred.ai has unveiled a new banking platform for millennials. Singapore will move into developing its fintech industry and Australian Credit Clear fintech is expected to soon launch its IPO.

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CloudPay announced a $35 million (€29.6m) Series D round led by Runway Growth Capital. mPulse Mobile, AI solution provider for healthcare, raised more than $16m (€13.5m) in Series C funding. Vitesse, a fintech company that provides international payment services to banks, has raised £6.6 million (€7.3m) in Series A funding led by Octopus Ventures. Fintech startup Routable, which helps companies speed up their business payments, raised $12M (€10.1m) to streamline business payments. CryptoKitties’ creator Dapper Labs has secured $12 million (€10.1m) for its Flow blockchain. Stream company, providing a scalable and fast API, received further investments. Remote working fintech Deel launched in Europe. Habito completed its Series C funding. Trumid, a fixed income e-trading platform, secured $200 million (€169.4m) investment. Fintech Blend, which offers a digital lending platform to banks, raised $75 million (€63.5m).

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Financial Services Club and Ravco Marketing found in their survey that the fintech industry sees positive results even amid Covid-19. PYMNTS analyzed how digital onboarding has also been going through changes, while The Fintech Times and Ten Bear Group cover the top 15 neo-banking leaders globally. PPRO has revealed that younger generations feel confident using or have used alternative payment methods. PULSE showed that the issuance of contactless cards nearly tripled recently. ScaleUp Institute, Innovate Finance and Deloitte recommend that National Growth Blueprint needs to fill in the UK capital gap to have a post-Covid recovery of the economy. A study by MEDICI and Aerospike focuses on sharing knowledge and promoting interest in NoSQL databases. Stichting MKB Financiering revealed that SMEs raised €2.7 billion in The Netherlands in non-bank financing. In addition, Monzo, the UK app-based challenger, was ranked among the top neobanks in terms of social media mentions. The International Monetary Fund analyzed new technological changes and their effects on financial intermediation. ADB saw an increase in the banked population due to new innovations in finance.

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Simone Aurighi, business-oriented risk specialist, explained the need of reassessing the role of risk management and rethinking it as a cultural attitude. Fintech Futures showed that Islamic banks are ahead, dominating the competition in terms of fintech solutions. According to Andy Efstathiou, Director at NelsonHall, new technology which permits remote access and robotics implementation can be a game changer for banks. Euromoney found that banks such as RBI, Standard Chartered and ING are focused on new solutions for monitoring fraudulent activities. Glen Kosaka, VP at NeuVector, laid down the 10 PCI DSS compliance requirements to help businesses prosper. Yaela Shamberg, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at InvestCloud, warned that wealth managers face the pressure of the race to zero fees in an increasingly competitive marketplace. In addition, experts need to be aware of algorithmic biases. Innopay argued that banks now have the opportunity to tackle a blue ocean market. Feintuch Communications shares advice on how start-up fintechs can assure a top position in the market. In addition, venture capitalists and investors are facing high expenses when it comes to the fintech industry. InsurTech is incorporating AI technology, blockchain and IoT to explore new opportunities.

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