View profile

Global FinTech News - 15th of January

Global FinTech News - 15th of January
By Holland FinTech  • Issue #81 • View online
Hello reader,
With the announcement of Trump’s second impeachment, and optimistic news regarding the rapid advancement of Covid-19 vaccination across the US after a rocky start, we further explore the hottest developments from fintech. For this week, we invite you to dive into your four favorite categories of fintech news that keep you up to speed with the latest developments - news, funding rounds, research reports, analysis and opinion.
In case you have missed the Flash Friday edition of today, presented by Don Ginsel, our Founder & CEO, with guest speaker Nicholas Frasse-Sombet, Sales Director at NCC Group, check out our YouTube channel here. And don’t forget to sign up for our event on Tokenization, on the 20th of January.
Do you have an opinion on the future of financial supervision? The Dutch Central Bank would like to hear from you. Participate here (English) or here (Dutch).
From the Holland FinTech Team, we wish you a nice end of the week!

Highlights from last weeks news related to fintech
M&A, security tools, and IPOs. New developments happening every day in fintech. Here is our selection of news for this week, that we found of importance for the fintech sector.
  • Visa and Plaid announced that their agreement is off, due to regulatory issues; it is already reported that Plaid is likely to go public rather than looking for another merger
  • Mastercard launched a new security resource, the Mastercard Trust Center, with free online access to trust cybersecurity research, education, resource, and tools for small businesses
  • GoFundMe, an American for-profit crowdfunding platform, has banned Trump rally travelers from raising money for travel expenses
  • Singapore’s Sea, a tech startup that’s become Southeast Asia’s most valuable company, has acquired Indonesia’s PT Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi
  • Walmart announced its plans to launch a fintech start-up with Ribbit Capital, one of the investment firms behind Robinhood
  • Equifax, an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency, announced its plans to acquire Kount, a digital fraud prevention network, for $640 million
  • A group of major Irish banks, including names such as Allied Irish Banks (AIB), Bank of Ireland, Permanent TSB, and KBC Bank, are banding together to create a payments app rivalling fintechs like Revolut
  • Earlier this week, Affirm, a fintech services company providing installment loans to consumers at the point of sale, soared 98% in its IPO on the Nasdaq
  • With the last week’s news of cryptocurrencies raising a new record, bitcoin achieving the $40,000 last week, the digital asset fell back to $34,000 shortly
Read more about this news HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
The largest funding rounds we found from across the world
Here is your weekly overview of the largest investment rounds we have tracked from across the world. This is what we found, in the week going from 6-13 January.
  • Checkout.com (London, UK), a connected payments solutions provider, closed a $450m (€369.5m) Series C funding round
  • Rapyd (London, UK), an API-based “fintech-as-a-service” platform provider covering payments, banking services, fraud protection and more, has raised $300 million (€246.61m)
  • Jedox (Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany), a startup that builds tools to help companies with their financial planning and analysis, raised over $100 million (€82.12m) in funding
  • Curve (London, UK), a fintech that combines multiple cards and accounts into one smart card and an app, has secured a Series C funding round of $95 million (€78.02m)
  • Gro Intelligence (NY, US), an AI-powered insights company, has secured $85 million (€69.8m) in Series B funding
  • Clark (Frankfurt, Germany), a digital insurance manager, raised €69m in Series ​C funding
  • Sysnet (Dublin, Ireland), a payments security company, has raised $65m (€53.38m) in debt funding
  • Other funding rounds which caught our eye this week: Capchase (€49.27m), Modern Treasury (€31.21m), TagPay (€25m), Ajaib Group (€20.53m), Brace (€12.89m), BukuKas (€8.21m), Altruist (undisclosed)
Read more about this funding news HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
A selection of recent research reports and papers worth reading
Many research reports see the light each week, providing insights on market developments, sentiments, investments and the larger trends. We provide you with the most relevant research reports and white papers we discovered this week.
  • “Embracing the New Paradigm of Cloud Migration to Future-Proof Payments Technologies” (Finextra, Global Payments & AWS) - with consumers’ expectations evolving, payment processors and issuing banks are in need of new technology advancements in order to meet the demands
  • “UK regulatory approach to cryptoassets and stablecoins: Consultation and call for evidence” (HM Treasury) - with the UK being recognised as a world-leader in financial technology, expectations rise in terms of creating a regulatory environment in which firms can innovate
  • “Venture Capital Funding Headline Report Q4 2020” (PwC & CB Insights) - this Q4 2020 MoneyTree Headline report presents a high-level view of some of the latest trends in US venture capital funding
  • “How the fourth quarter saved the RegTech industry from suffering its first drop in years” (FinTech Global) - in 2020, RegTech companies set new records in both funding and the number of investment deals
  • “European Insurtech Deals 2020” (astorya.io) - in this overview, astorya.io presents a comprehensive mapping of the most prominent European InsurTech Deals from 2020, classified on the basis of funding received
  • “Top 25 Case Studies of Digital Customer Experience in Banking and Fintech” (UX Planet) - the analysis presents the most prominent UX case studies on how to properly reach a high-end customer experience for banking and fintech
  • “January 2021’s Top 30 Digital International Insurance Companies” (Digitalscouting.de) - this overview presents the top 30 digital international insurance companies, classified on their reaching power score
  • “Creating an Omnichannel Digital Experience for Insurance Companies” (Fintech Finance) - this report explores the importance of digitalization and customer experience for insurance companies to innovate and remain relevant.
  • “Can fintech improve the efficiency of commercial banks? - An analysis based on big data” (ResearchGate.net) - in this study, Yang Wang, Sui Xiuping and Qi Zhang analyze the impact of fintech services on the banking industry
  • “2021 Industry Trends Report” (STANLEY Security) - in this report, insights were gathered from over 2400 decision-makers on a global scale in order to find out the latest trends, challenges and opportunities companies are facing in 2021
  • “Orca Security 2020 State of Public Cloud Security Report” (Orca Security) - this paper dives into the topic of public cloud security, exploring systems such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
  • “2020 Payment Security Report” (Verizon) - this report presents strategies on how companies can constantly develop and improve their data security environment
Read more about the research papers and download the pdf’s HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
Background information and insights from opinion leaders and experts
The future is uncertain, so we are exploring how different opinion leaders across the world are thinking about everything that is happening in and around financial services and technology. Here are the views that caught our attention this week.
  • “What will happen to Bitcoin and Crypto this year?” via The Finanser - in a recent interview conducted by Chris Skinner, an independent commentator on the financial markets, Janis Legler, Chief Product Officer at LSE-listed challenger Mode, a view about tokenization, regulations and the price of bitcoin in 2021 is given
  • “Legal Tech’s Predictions for Legal Technology Innovation in 2021” via Law.com - according to Zach Warren, editor-in-chief of Legaltech News, attorneys and legal technologists expect that 2021 will introduce new trends mainly due to the rapid increase of remote working
  • “Seamless payment experiences essential in months ahead” via Bobsguide.com - Aoife Morgan, writer at Bobsguide.com, explains in this analysis why 2021 is expected to be a transformative year for the payments industry
  • “Meeting the requirements of AML 5 and 6” via Finextra - Alistair Catto, Managing Director at Beyond, highlights why financial institutions are struggling to complete their implementation plans for the Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (5AMLD)
  • “Digitisation answers the quest for risk mitigation in global trade” via FinTech Futures - Andrew Raymond, CEO at Bolero International, shows why digitisation is an important feature for cross-border trade transactions
  • “The 10 fastest fintechs to reach billion dollar valuations” via Sifted.eu - Isabel Woodford, fintech journalist at Sifted.eu, shows in a recent analysis the the 10 fastest fintechs to reach a $1bn valuation
Read more about these analyses & opinion pieces HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
Connect with the fintech ecosystem at some of the upcoming events
Holland FinTech in association with 2Tokens & NVB invite you to join for an online interactive event on January 20 from 16:30 – 18:00 PM CET. In this event, we bring together experts of some of the best-in-class Finance Specialists to discuss market update on Tokenization, Banking, Expectations & Predictions for 2021 and much more!
Register HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
14th Asian Financial Forum - 18th-19th January
AFF is Asia’s premier platform for global leaders in government, finance and business to exchange insights, intelligence as well as business and investment opportunities.
Register HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
Virtual Europe & Asia Global Payment Summit 2020 - 19th January
With 3 geographical regions (Europe, Asia & Africa) successfully developed over the last 18 years, the GPS series of events have been setting the scene for in-depth debate and discussions on payments and transactions in the retail space.
Register HERE.
events.currencyresearch.com  •  Share
Holland FinTech Flash Friday: Staying Ahead of the FinTech News - 22nd January
Holland FinTech’s Founder & CEO, Don Ginsel, presents Flash Friday – a weekly live show that brings you the latest fintech news and developments! For this edition, we will be joined by a special guest speaker.
Register HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
Open Banking MENA Digi-Conference - 25th January
The banking sector has been impacted in its earnings due to the global pandemic. Coupled with increased competition from financial technology companies who are increasingly expanding products and financial services to banking customers in ways traditional banks are not able to due to regulations.
Register HERE.
hollandfintech.com  •  Share
Ready to get involved? Click here to find out more.
Did you enjoy this issue?

Global Fintech News

If you don't want these updates anymore, please unsubscribe here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Powered by Revue
Amsterdam