Global FinTech News - 7th of August

Google has announced to further expand into the US banking services and WhatsApp became compliant with India’s data-localization standards, meaning it will have access to the country’s payments market. TransferWise was granted permission to offer investment services in the UK and is expected by next year to offer its first investment product. Affirm, an innovative fintech that offers transparent loans and credit with no late fees or hidden costs, could be the next FinTech to launch its IPO. Metro Bank acquired P2P lender RateSetter and will use its deposit base to fund all new unsecured personal loans originated via the RateSetter platform.

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PPRO, a leading local payments platform-as-a-service, announced the closing of a $50 million (€42.29m) financing round. Spanish neobank Bnext extended its funding rounds. Other fundings include Censys, a cybersecurity start-up, Japan-based hey, a leader in payments and e-commerce, Splitit, a payment method solution, Katabat, Patra, Verikai, kompany, Ayoconnect and AgentSync, a salesforce app for carriers/agencies that automates licensing and compliance. In addition, Alphabet Inc.’s Google is buying a $450 million (€380.64m) stake in home security firm ADT Inc.

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KPMG researches the fintech industry as a business disruptor for financial services. After Pay Insights looks into the decline in offline and online purchases from Dutch “heavy shoppers”. BusinessFinancing.co.uk analysed 10,000 FinTech startups to find the industry’s hot spots. Allica Bank reports on the factors most closely aligned with a successful strategy for SMEs. IFC outlined a targeted road-map to construct fintech statistics. PWC presents new insights regarding automation trends, blockchain technology and public cloud. Visa Back to Business study assesses the increasing shift to e-commerce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. White Stars Capital explores how fintech emphasizes a customer centric approach for banks and CB Insights report features data from technology insights platforms. Harvard Business Review presents the benefits of using digital currencies.

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Princeton Growth Accelerator shows the benefits of adopting fintech technologies in the healthcare industry. Allon Advocacy and Prism Money discuss data privacy issues with potential consequences on the US financial services. Karen Webster dives into the aftermath of the 4 Big Techs latest appearance in front of US lawmakers, and a new opinion article from Forbes explores Uber’s decision to scale off its push into financial services. Capital markets firms are under pressure to increase efficiency and reduce operational costs. Harvard Business Review lays down a guide for executives to successfully implement AI and Pymnts’s analysis shows comprehensive cross-border payments strategies. Furthermore, in Latin America, women are stepping up as fintech leaders. The retail challenger bank models across the world have been diverging with the current pandemic.

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