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Global FinTech News - 6th August 2021

Global FinTech News - 6th August 2021
By Holland FinTech  • Issue #110 • View online
Dear reader,
This week, while we celebrate Pride week and watch the Olympics in Japan, many people are worried about severe heat and resulting raging wildfires across Greece, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Lebanon.
Of course we also kept an eye on things related to fintech. So sit back, and take your time to read up on the latest news in fields of cryptocurrencies, banking, payments, cybersecurity, online insurance, funding and many more.
From the Holland FinTech team, we wish you a sunny weekend!

Highlights from last weeks news related to fintech
Explore the latest fintech news for this week and dive into topics regarding mortgage, banking, online insurance, acquirence, new upcoming platforms, cybercrime, invoicing solutions and crypto.
  • Starling Bank has announced the acquisition of specialist buy-to-let mortgage lender Fleet Mortgages in a £50 million (€58.7m) cash and share deal
  • The second largest cryptocurrency across the globe, Ethereum, underwent a much-awaited update called ‘London Hard Fork’
  • Indian online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar has filed for an initial public offering in which it is seeking to raise $800 million (€675.8m), becoming the fourth startup in the past two months from the South Asian market to explore public markets
  • Square plans to acquire Australian company Afterpay, which offers a buy now, pay later service that lets you pay for purchases in installments interest-free, for $29 billion (€24.5b) in stock
  • British people and businesses have suffered financial losses of £5.7million (€6.7m) from a reported 14,883 cyber crime incidents since the start of the year
  • Uruguay parliament has proposed to allow businesses to accept cryptocurrencies as payments and regulate their use
  • Australian banks have opened a new front in their battle to gain access to the NFC chip on Apple’s mobile wallet, in written submissions to a parliamentary enquiry on mobile payments reform
Read more about this week’s news HERE.
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The largest funding rounds we found from across the world
Discover the latest fintech deals and transactions selected from 28 July - 4 August, gathering funding rounds from various sectors, including investment advisory, fintech, cryptocurrency, blockchain, financial services platform, mobile money business, payments and software platform and more.
  • NightDragon (San Francisco, CA, US), an investments and advisory services company, announced the close of NightDragon Growth I, a new $750 million (€632m) venture capital fund to invest in and advise late-stage and growth companies in the cybersecurity, safety, security and privacy industry
  • BharatPe (New Delhi, India), a fintech startup, has raised $370 million in a new round of financing as it looks to aggressively scale its business in the next two years
  • Fireblocks (New York, NY, US), a startup ecosystem capital funding party, has secured $310 million (€261m) in Series D funding at a $2.2 billion (€1.85b) valuation
  • Rapyd (London, UK),a global Fintech-as-a-Service company has raised a $300 million (€252m) Series E funding round led by Target Global
  • Paxos (New York, NY, US), a provider of blockchain infrastructure, received $300 million (€252m) in Series D funding round from Bank of America, crypto exchange FTX, Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures and other investors
  • VNLife Corp, the parent company of fintech firm VNPay (Lang Ha, Hanoi, VN), a financial services company, had raised US$250 million (€210m) in a funding round led by General Atlantic and Dragoneer Investment Group and included SoftBank Vision Fund 1
  • Other interesting funding rounds for this week: Xepelin (€194m), Figure Technologies (€169m), Airtel Africa (€169m), LogicGate (€95m), South Africa’s Yoco (€79m)
Read more about the funding news HERE.
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A selection of recent research reports and papers worth reading
Bitcoin usage, unicorn companies, cyber attack, stablecoin, regtech, investment, digital customer engagement and more. Check the reports below and find out the latest trends from fintech:
  • “Nigeria’s surging bitcoin use” (Inside) - This paper investigates the fact that Nigeria is now only second to the U.S. in bitcoin trading volume, hitting $2.4B in May, from $684M in Dec 2020
  • “23 private $1B Latin American companies” (Inside) - This publication reports that at least 23 private Latin American companies have become unicorns. Of the 23 unicorns, 15 have raised capital in 2021. Fintech represents the largest sector with 40% of the 23 unicorns
  • “Cyber Claim Frequency Growing; Smaller Organizations Targeted” (Claims Journal) - This whitepaper is detailing on the share of policyholders who filed a cyberattack claim jumped by 50% from the first half of 2020 compared to the first half of 2021
  • “What are Stablecoins and What Risks and Opportunities Do They Bring?” (Fintechnews Switzerland) - This report analyses results from a research by ClauseMatch, which states that during the pandemic, financial institutions have been accelerating spending on regulatory technology. A survey of almost 40 organisations was conducted
  • “Three quarters of UK financial organisations unprepared for unforeseen challenges, nCino research shows “(The Paypers) - This work reveals results from a new research on the views of senior executives within financial institutions on their ongoing digital transformation journeys
  • “State Of Fintech Q2’21 Report: Investment & Sector Trends To Watch” (CB Insights) - This publishing features data-driven insights from their emerging tech insights platform. It takes a close look at global fintech investment trends in key financial verticals, partnership activity, top deals, and more
  • “From Surviving to Thriving: Digital Customer Engagement beyond Video Conferencing” (Finextra) - This study explores how a more customer-centric approach can result in improved customer retention, increased revenues, and maintenance of market share
Read more about these research papers HERE.
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Background information and insights from opinion leaders and experts
Opinion leaders, industry experts and researchers. Find out what topics the top voices from fintech are exploring:
  • “Senate Banking Crypto Hearing: Senator Warren Says Crypto is Dangerous for Our Financial System” via CrowdFundInsider - Writers of CrowdFundInsider highlight the Senate Banking’s Committee hearing held earlier last week
  • “Fernando Martinelli: Balancer Co-Founder Says DeFi Is Going to Be the Rails of Every Financial Application in Next 10-20 Years” via CrowdFund Insider - Writers of CrowdFund Insider recently connected with Fernando Martinelli, co-founder and CEO at Balancer Labs, an automated portfolio manager and digital asset liquidity provider to discuss their upcoming updates
  • “Protect: The Second Pillar in Your Journey to Improve Industrial Cybersecurity Posture” via SecurityWeek - Yaniv Vardi, the CEO of Claroty, an operational technology (OT) security company, highlights warnings on the risks of connecting industrial networks to IT networks issuing two cybersecurity advisories
  • “Robinhood CEO says the meme-stock craze has helped ailing companies survive, and that high retail investor participation is fundamentally good for markets” via PwC - Writers at PwC investigate the statement made by Robinhood’s CEO, Vlad Tenev, that retail investors who’ve put money into so-called meme stocks have contributed to struggling companies and the market overall
  • “Bahrain EDB: Why UK Fintechs Should Build Their Future Foundations in the Sand” via The FinTechTimes - Writers at The FinTech Times explore the statement that the UK is a beacon in the financial services industry and has for a long time led the way in innovation and progress
  • “The Role of Knowledge Graphs in Artificial Intelligence” via Techopedia - Dr. Tehseen Zia, Artificial Intelligence expert, states the importance of a knowledge graph (KG), which can be a powerful data structure that represents information in a graphical format
  • “The Power of Payments: Why the European Payments Market is Hotter than Ever” via SAPPHIRE Ventures - Andreas Weiskam, Kevin Diestel, Annalise Dragic, and Imogen Mulliner, writers at SAPPHIRE ventures, explore the fact that for consumers, convenient digital payments have become a part of everyday life, meanwhile wads of cash or writing paper checks have now become a thing of the past
Read more about these analyses HERE.
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Connect with the fintech ecosystem at some of the upcoming events
Holland FinTech Online Meetup - 13th August
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!
Register HERE.
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Open Banking Asia - 19th August
Open Banking Asia Digi-Conference will bring together senior decision makers from central banks, leading banking and financial services institutions in Asia to discuss how the region can effectively implement open banking, unlock its potential, and capitalize on the financial services market opportunities it creates for the banking industry.
Register HERE.
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Money20/20 Europe in Amsterdam | 21-23 September 2021
Join this event in Amsterdam, 21 - 23 September, 2021, where the industry’s leading Financial Services innovators come together to connect and create the future of money. Money20/20 is the largest fintech event enabling payments and financial services innovation for connected commerce.
Register HERE.
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