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Global FinTech News 15th May

Financial Technology in week 20 of 2020: Omnipresent tech heavyweight Google has teamed up with the w
Global FinTech News 15th May
By Holland FinTech  • Issue #46 • View online
Financial Technology in week 20 of 2020: Omnipresent tech heavyweight Google has teamed up with the world’s most well funded philanthropic organization to start a foundation aimed at providing digital financial services in developing countries. In an interesting development that might spell a new opportunity for the crypto market, The largest bank in the United States, JP Morgan, has allegedly taken on Crypto Exchanges Gemini and Coinbase as clients, and will provide banking services to them. Tech remains high on the agenda with payments platform VISA, the world’s largest, said it would continue to grow its token offering, eyeing increased safety measures in the e-commerce space. Arch rival MasterCard has continued on it’s pledge towards financial inclusion, and expanded in to a worldwide commitment of bringing 1 billion people and 50 million MSMEs into the digital economy by 2025. In a reversal from usually rosy news, unicorn player Revolut has announced that despite a historic funding round of $500 million earlier this year, redundancies are a reality with 60 jobs already taking the fall. Funding, although generally down on a macro level compared to other years, still saw some pretty hefty deals this week - Australia leading the pack with $147 million for Fintech Judo, and Verteva bringing in $33 million USD. The Western hemisphere didn’t do too poorly either with examples of decent funding coming in with for instance UK based FeatureSpace raking in $37.4 Million.
Prefer to listen and watch your news? Check out Don’s Flash Friday news roundup from this morning with Nick Bortot, founder and CEO at Bux here!
Take a look at all things FinTech&COVID-19 on our resource page here.
We hope you had a good week and are staying safe & healthy! Eager to learn more? Check out the insights section on our website!
- The Holland FinTech Team

Highlights from last weeks news related to fintech
Omnipresent tech heavyweight Google has teamed up with the world’s most well funded philanthropic organisation to start a foundation aimed at providing digital financial services in developing countries.
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Industry heavyhitter JP Morgan to provide banking services to Crypto Exchanges like Gemini and Coinbase
The largest bank in the United States, JP Morgan, has allegedly taken on Crypto Exchanges Gemini and Coinbase as clients, and will provide banking services to them.
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Tokens Rising: VISA continues to expand tokenization service
Payments platform VISA, the world’s largest, said it would continue to grow its token offering, eyeing increased safety measures in the e-commerce space.
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R&R: Redudancy at Revolut hits 60 staff
Not even the hottest fintechs in the world are immune to the COVID-crunch, as Unicorn Revolut moves to make 60 workers across it’s offices redundant. The company stresses that the redudancy come as a last resort and that despite it’s current cash rich position on the heels of a $500 million dollar funding round – cuts had to be made.
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Financial Inclusion: MasterCard is not giving up
Global Payments Platform MasterCard has continued on it’s pledge towards financial inclusion, and expanded in to a worldwide commitment of bringing 1 billion people and 50 million MSMEs into the digital economy by 2025.
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Fintech VC deals see it's worst month since 2016
At a “mere” 404 deals and $6.1 Billion USD, the global fintech market saw it’s worst month since 2016 – according to reporting firm CB insights. Despite some hefty funding rounds, it was obvious that investors are pulling out of early stage deals amid uncertainty and poor performance indicators for the market as a whole.
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The largest funding rounds we found from across the world
“Judo Bank, an Australian neobank that provides loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), has raised $147 million in a Series C round of funding.”
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$37.4 (~€34.2) million for Financial Crime prevention software provider FeatureSpace
“Featurespace, a provider of Adaptive Behavioral Analytics software for enterprise financial crime prevention, raised £30m ($37.4m) in funding.”
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Australian Fintech Verteva brings home $33 (€30.5) million
“Sydney-based fintech Verteva has secured $33 million in Series A funding, as it gears up to launch its digitised home loan solution and disrupt the “laggard” financial services industry”
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UK based ANNA raises $21 (€19.4) Million for SME business and tax app
“ANNA, a mobile-first banking, tax accounting and financial service assistant aimed at small and medium businesses and freelancers, has closed a $21 million (£17.5 million) round of investment from a single investor, the ABHH Group, the sometimes controversial owner of Alfa Bank in Russia, the Amsterdam Trade Bank in the Netherlands and other businesses.”
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Dathena: $12 (€11) Million in Series A
“Dathena, a Singapore-based company that provides AI-based data protection and privacy solutions, announced it has raised a $12 million Series A. Part of the funding will be used to expand Dathena’s co-sell partnership with Microsoft in the United States, which is targeted to Azure Cloud and Microsoft 365 customers who need to comply with new data privacy regulations like the California Consumer Privacy Act.”
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$10 (€9.25) million for Briq, financial forecasting platform
“Briq, a Santa Barbara, CA-based construction financial forecasting and intelligence platform, secured 10m in Series A funding.”
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A selection of recent research reports and papers worth reading
Though this is a random listing of innovation labs in the Fintech sector, it is a nice one to check. Especially with an expected increase of corporate interest in innovation labs, such as last week’s announcement by Mastercard ‘s to open an Israeli fintech-cyber innovation lab.
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The Future of Blockchain 2020
This report looks at the future of Blockchain its impact in the cross-border payments space, in T+0 in settlement cycles and it’s role in digital currency. The report uses data from Deloitte as well as PwC Blockchian survey’s.
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The State Of Fintech Q1’20 Report: Investment & Sector Trends To Watch
The quartery insights from CBInsights tell us that in Q1’20, VC-backed fintech funding dropped to $6.1B across 404 deals. The Covid-19 outbreak had a significant impact on fintech financing resulting in the worst Q1 since 2016 for fintech deals and the worst Q1 for funding since 2017.
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2020 Red Herring Top 100 Europe Awards
The Red herring has published its annual listing of top 100 tech startups in Europe. No ranking or background is provided, however the list does provide an excellent overview of some of Europe’s most exciting startups.
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The world’s most innovative WealthTech companies
This report highlights the top wealthtech companies, as selected by a panel of industry experts and analysts. A range of range of factors was considered, including the industry significance of the problem being solved, growth (both in capital as in customers), and innovation level of the solution.
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Designing Digital Services that work for US SMB's
SMBs are underserved by banks. As a result they are turning to alternative providers to help them with these needs. This is one of the conclusions drawn by he latest research from 11:FS.
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Background information and insights from opinion leaders and experts
Whereas a tech giant like Amazon is largely poised to remain a vendor to finance companies and the fintech market, the prediction for Google is different. Analysts point to the possibility of Google joining the fintech market next to it’s Gpay offering, potentially with a debit card or an AI tool for paycheck protection.
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Working in Fintech: Will you be able to keep your Job? - via Sifted.eu
Like so many sectors around the world, the finance subsector known as Fintech is also grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic – not only from a drop in funding and revenue, but also in terms of what it means for people who work in the space.
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InsurTech: A new start - via Yourstory.com
The insurance market has been traditionally slow moving, but in recent years some neo-insurance providers who sell insurance online and in different ways has begun to shake up the market.
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Customer Facing: A new Ecosystem Model - via Fintechmagazine.com
Digital Technology coupled with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis is forcing Financial Institutions to rethink their customer facing proposition. Global Consulting firm Accenture has identified a 5-pronged approach to getting it right.
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What VC's can learn from Fintech's - via Forbes.com
Although the funding powerhouse behind the fintech investment boom of the last decade, the way VC’s make decisions and rate prospective investments is lagging from a technological perspective.
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Fintech can help save MSMEs hard hit by COVID-19 pandemic - via Weforum.org
The need for capital and credit amongst the millions of MSMEs around the world was already high – but the COVID-19 pandemic placed an unprecendented strain on debt finance. Alternative ways to provide access to capital and credit for MSMEs can be achieved at scale by providing fintech solutions, such as crowdfunding, peer-2-peer lending, invoice factoring and microfinance players.
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Connect with us at some of the upcoming events
Join us for a 30 minute session with Holland FinTech’s Founder, Don Ginsel, who will be diving into the latest fintech news, providing you with his take on latest fintech developments, followed by Q&A.
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Holland FinTech Meetup Online
Our Holland FinTech Online Meetups allow the international Fintech ecosystem to gather together and allows for the companies of our Network to stay at the Forefront of Innovation. If you are looking for exposure, new customers, investors, team members or cool startups, you will surely meet them here!
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London Tech Week 2020 - London, United Kingdom - 2nd-10th of September
London Tech Week will be returning on the 2 – 10 September 2020, bringing our global tech audience the innovations, technologies and business partners they need for the next chapter of their growth.
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Cognitive Finance AI - Berlin, Germany - 21st/22nd of September
The 2-day event is a unique combination of inspirational keynotes, well-moderated, interactive World Cafés, Challenge your Peers sessions, a pre-event Workshop, Icebreakers and much more.
Be part of our exclusive platform that explores business models, case studies, actions, and profitability and identify missing gaps that hide opportunities, chances and potential solutions for your technical and business challenges.
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MoneyNext Summit 2020 - London, United Kingdom - 20th/21st of October
#MoneyNext Summit is the leading event to address the financial landscape in 2020 and beyond – offering unparalleled access to decision makers, visionaries, influencers and disruptors from the world of finance. 200 inspirational speakers and 25 of the most innovative next-gen vendors discuss, demo and showcase the latest industry innovations.
20% Members-Only Discount available.
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Ready to get involved? Click here to find out more.
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