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Global FinTech News - 7th of May 2021

Global FinTech News - 7th of May 2021
By Holland FinTech  • Issue #97 • View online
Hello fintech reader,
This week, it is reported that the EU’s vaccination rate is accelerating, with 30 Europeans being inoculated per second, while exporting more than 200 million vaccine doses to the rest of the world - contrasting with limited sharing of vaccines by the United States and Britain. This week it also was big news that Melinda and Bill Gates are divorcing, quite relevant as their foundation plays a large role in funding Covid research as well as supporting projects for financial inclusion and diversity. The foundation is said to stay in operation led by the two of them.
In the meantime, we invite you to explore the latest highlights from fintech - banking, investment, fintech startups, blockchain, lending and more!
This Friday morning, our Founder & CEO, Don Ginsel, explored the latest developments in defi and cryptocurrencies with Joost van der Plas, Managing Partner at Maven 11 Capital
Check out the video recording here.
From the Holland FinTech Team, we wish you a happy weekend!

Highlights from last weeks news related to fintech
Find out the latest fintech news for this week and dive into topics regarding blockchain-based global payments, digital banks, stock market, IPOs, trading, cross-border payments, cryptocurrency, instant payment systems, and more!
  • Galaxy Digital Holdings, a financial services and investment manager in the digital asset, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology sectors, has agreed to acquire BitGo, an independent digital assets infrastructure provider, for $1.2 billion
  • The U.S. nonprofit Digital Dollar Project said it will launch five pilot programs over the next 12 months to test the potential uses of a U.S. central bank digital currency
  • The UK will be delaying the requirement for card issuers to implement a second factor for the purposes of strong customer authentication (SCA), following data protection concerns over behavioural biometrics
  • Plaid, a data transfer network builder for digital finance products, and Railsbank, an open banking platform, are teaming up to bring Plaid’s Payment Initiation API to Railsbank’s customers
  • Payoneer, a cross-border payment platform, says it is collaborating with eBay, a multinational e-commerce corporation, to enable sellers in selected countries to get paid for their sales on eBay’s core marketplace
  • Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, is making it possible for US customers to buy cryptocurrencies using debit and bank accounts linked to PayPal
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched Amazon FinSpace, an analytics service for financial services institutions (FSIs)
  • Lanistar, a banking service that allows customers to stack all cards onto a single payment card, has now secured the regulator’s approval to operate as an Electronic Money Directive (EMD) agent of payments firm Modulr
  • Okta has announced that its $6.5 billion Auth0 acquisition is now complete with Auth0 continuing to operate as an independent unit inside Okta
  • Cryptocurrency Ethereum broke past $3,000 to set a new record that has outshone the bigger bitcoin and investors believe that ethereum will be of greater use in a decentralised future financial system.
Read more about this week’s news HERE
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The largest funding rounds we found from across the world
New transactions and deals are emphasized this week from the latest funding rounds from multiple sectors, including wealth management, neobanks, crypto, neobrokers, blockchain infrastructure. Dive into the funding rounds, ranging from 28 April to 5 May:
  • Wealthsimple (Toronto, Canada), an online investment management platform focussed on millennials, has raised a new round of $750 million CAD (€505M) at a post-money valuation of $5 billion CAD (€3.32Bn)
  • Vena (Toronto, Canada), a cloud-native platform that leverages the familiarity and flexibility of an Excel interface, announced it has raised $300 million (€250M) in Series C funding
  • Paxos (New York, New York, US), a regulated blockchain infrastructure platform, has raised a $300 million (€250M) Series D funding
  • N26 (Berlin, Germany), a neobank, has raised an additional $100 million (€83M) in funding
  • Vectra AI (San Jose, California, US), a cybersecurity startup announced it has raised $130 million (€107M) in a funding round that values the company at $1.2 billion (€1Bn)
  • Step (Palo Alto, California, US), a fintech company that helps teens and young adults with banking accounts, secured $100 million (€83M) in new funding
  • Wasabi (Boston, US), a cloud storage company, announced that it raised $112 million (€93M) in series C financing, bringing its total raised to $219 million (€181M)
  • Bux (Amsterdam, Netherlands), a neobroker, raised $80m (€67M) in follow-financing round
  • Alchemy (San Francisco, California, US), a platform managing blockchain infrastructure in-house, announced it has raised $80 million (€67M) in a Series B round of funding
  • Bibit (Jakarta, Indonesia), a stock investing and community platform, announced that the firm led a new $65 million (€54M) growth round
  • Boost Payment Solutions (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), a wallet and payments provider, has raised $22 million (€18M) in a Series C funding round
  • Other fundings we thought interesting for this week include: Finoa (€18.1m), Baufi24 (€6.7m), Alt.bank (€4.9M), CreditBook (€1.25M)
Read more about this week’s funding news HERE.
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A selection of recent research reports and papers worth reading
Take a closer look at diverse domains and topics, including banking, investment, fintech startups, blockchain, fiscal earnings and more!
  • “Big banks narrow customer satisfaction gap with smaller counterparts” (Insider Intelligence) - J.D. Power’s 2021 US. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study shows that the biggest US banks have reduced the gap between themselves and smaller competitors when it comes to customer satisfaction
  • “UK FinTech Investment Rebounds To Record Breaking Highs” (Innovate Finance) - The findings show a breakthrough record in the UK fintech. Investment in the first quarter of 2021 is 153% higher (2.5x) than the final quarter of 2020
  • “Visa’s fiscal Q2 earnings reveal impressive volume recovery” (Insider Intelligence) - This report reveals that Visa’s total payments volume grew 11% year-over-year (YoY) on a constant currency basis in its fiscal Q2 (ended March 31, 2021)
  • “Startup Heatmap Europe 2021” (Startups And Places) - This research investigated what cities are most attractive to start a company in for European founders and reveals that the COVID-19 and Brexit brought sizable changes among the startup city brands
  • “Blockchain hackers netted over $100 million in Q1 2021” (AtlasVPN) - This report found that cybercriminals stole around $108.3 million from various blockchain projects in the first quarter of 2021 – a 46% rise from the same period last year
  • “State Of Fintech Q1’21 Report: Investment & Sector Trends To Watch” (CBInsights) - This report takes a look at global fintech investment trends in key financial pillars, partnership activity and top deals. Results show that Q1’21 was the largest funding quarter on record for fintech funding
  • “Finnfund first development financier to report carbon net-negative investment portfolio” (Mondovisione.com) - Finnish development financier and impact investor Finnfund released data showing that its total investment portfolio has a net negative carbon balance
Read more about 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:
  • “What does insurance’s digital future hold for actuarial?” via Digital Insurance - Ian Sterling, Scott Weinstein, and Jeremy Smith, writers at Digital Insurance, dive into the insurance market and highlight that insurers should transform their actuarial roles and responsibilities to remain competitive in the insurance industry
  • “One Certainty in These Uncertain Times: Innovate Through Ecosystems, or Miss the Opportunity to Radically Transform Your Innovation Strategy” via Innovation Management - Patrick Ferran (CEO & Co-founder at Hypsous SAS), François Bourachot (Co-founder at Hypsous SAS), Naveh Shetrit (Co-founder at Treebute.io), and Omer Gazit (Co-founder at Treebute.io), explore why and how a company needs to embrace an ecosystem approach in its innovation strategy
  • “How banks can address rising skepticism in 2021” via Accenture.com -Alan McIntyre, Senior Managing Director of Global Banking at Accenture, shares his findings that banking sceptics make up 38% of all banking customers globally and this is an alarm for banking leaders
  • “Why ESG Will Include Consumer Metrics” via Bankdirector.com - Joan Susie, chairman of Bank Director and FinXTech, emphasizes that the banks that include customer financial health in their ESG measurement will survive, thrive and become the true ESG stars
  • “What Banks Can Learn From Retailers to Grow Loans” via Bankdirector.com - Barry Kirby, the SVP of CuneXus, reveals that banks have come a long way with online and mobile features, while credit and loan application procedures are still stuck in the early 2000s
  • “10 takeaways from Big Tech’s big earnings” via Protocol.com - David Pierce, editor at Protocol, draws 10 take-away lessons from big tech companies after they benefit huge revenues from the pandemic
  • “Simple Answers to Four Questions From Blockchain Skeptics” via Crowdfund Insider - Lee A. Schneider, co-founded Global Blockchain Convergence, shares new views on the usual questions concerning the blockchain and crypto asset space
  • “How Digital Banking is Changing in 2021” via PaymentsJournal - Vidya Peters, writer at PaymentsJournal, taps all the trends that will drive major changes for digital banking in 2021 and predicts the future for challenger banks, partnerships between big tech, digital wallets, credit cards, and cryptocurrencies
  • “Dogecoin (DOGE): What You Need To Know” via Forbes - Andrew Michael, writer at Forbes, discusses the risk and speculative nature of cryptocurrencies and makes a comparison between Dogecoin, Bitcoin and Ethereum
  • “Virtual Card Investments Heat Up To Help Firms Spend Wisely” via PYMNTs - Writers at PYMNTs look at commercial card innovation, a ramp-up in virtual card investment, and how to SMBs remain savvy about spending
Read more about these analyses & opinion pieces HERE.
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Connect with the fintech ecosystem at some of the upcoming events
Amsterdam Fintech Week (XFW) is a project for the fintech community, by the fintech community. So whether you run a startup or work at an insurer or a bank, whether you care about payments or pensions or whether you are a techie or a business person - this week is for you!
Get involved HERE.
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The LEGALTECH Innovation Conference - 13th May
The future of legal technology is here! Join the LEGALTECH Innovation Conference 2021 for the latest insights in legal technology, and find out first-hand how tech trends will impact legal practices and financial services.
Register HERE
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Finnovex Europe - 24th - 25th May 2021
Finnovex is a series of Summits that examines the Future of Financial Services on how disruptive innovations are reshaping the way they are structured, provisioned and consumed.
Register HERE
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CB Insights Tech Market: Digitizing P&C Insurance - 13th - 14th May 2021
Join 400 peers for an online innovation & tech showcase designed for property and casualty execs responsible for making tech strategy & buying decisions.
Register HERE
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AccountingTech Hybrid Meet Up - Bizzabo - 20th May 2021
An event dedicated to AccountingTech This hybrid MeetUp explores the evolution of accounting tech and how the automation it brings, will ultimately change accounting processes and the accountant’s role. What impact will it have on other business processes?
Register HERE
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Ready to get involved? Click here to find out more.
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