Japan floats idea of a digital yen
Party lawmakers are working on proposals.
FinTech
Catalyst Fund raises $15m from JP Morgan and UK Aid for emerging market fintechs
Thirty fintech start-ups from South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, India and Mexico will get funding.
Video: Top fintech stories this week – 24 January 2020
FinTech Future’s weekly news round-up.
What does open finance mean for the wealth management sector?
Five opportunities that are both clearly beneficial for investors, and technically very feasible for FIs to develop.
Freetrade takes on Europe, starting with the Netherlands and Ireland
Germany and France are next on Freetrade’s list.
Liberis raises £32m to boost growth plans
The funding for the SME finance provider was led by investment firm FTV Capital.
Tokopedia lines up $1.5bn funding from Alibaba and Softbank
The $1.5bn funding would value Tokopedia at between $8bn and $9bn.
Aussie neobanks challenge country’s big four banks
ANZ, Westpac, NAB and Commonwealth Bank have lost a collective half a billion dollars.
BMO to acquire Clearpool
The transaction is subject to receipt of required regulatory approvals & conditions.
Barclays signs tech partnership with invoice insurance firm Nimbla
UK bank to offer Nimbla technology to one million SME customers.
Alipay partner Tranglo integrates Ripple’s cross-border payments
Tranglo partnered with bigtech Alipay earlier this month.
BNP Paribas extends open banking partnership with Tink
French banking group now deploys Tink in Belgium and Italy.
Digital broker Stake releases UK beta app ahead of February launch
The app plans to expand across Europe “in the coming months”.
Vodafone leaves Facebook’s Libra to focus on M-Pesa
M-Pesa is the telco’s digital payment service.
Amazon set to turn hands into cards with Visa
The bigtech is reportedly in talks with Mastercard, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo.
Switzerland’s Neon scraps abroad card fees to win more users
The challenger tries to win ground from UK’s Revolut and Germany’s N26.
GetVantage debuts with India’s first revenue-based financing platform
The alternate funding model is gaining significant traction in foreign markets.
Cloud: Does it deserve a bad rap from the Treasury?
The Treasury Committee singles out the cloud as a “source of systemic risk”.
Living in the not knowing
Building the future is not about what you know. It’s about what you dare believe is possible.
Monese becomes UK’s latest fintech unicorn
The challenger aims to close £100m funding in the first half of this year.
Goldman leads LumApps $70m Series C funding
The French start-up hits $100m in total funding.
Mortgage broker Trussle raises £7.5m
Fresh funding brings total investment in Trussle to £26.5m.
Mastercard and Marqeta collaborate to help fintechs go to market
Twisto will be the first European customer to deploy Marqeta and Mastercard’s initiative.
Qonto raises $115m round led by Tencent
The SME challenger bank says it’s the largest funding round ever for a French fintech.
UK challenger Vive gets restricted licence to help bad credit scorers
Vive aims to fully launch in the second quarter of 2020.
Ask the expert: how can I convince a retailer’s CFO to work with us?
You’ve had a successful first meeting with a prospect. How do you persuade them to sign a partnership?
Islamic banking app Niyah launches in UK
The challenger says the UK’s Muslim community has been “financially isolated”.
Kristal.AI raises $6m in Series A for algo-powered wealth management
Singapore-based firm plans Middle East expansion with fresh cash.
Plaid and Honey: How consolidation helps and hinders competition
Consolidation is now becoming synonymous with standardisation – breeding competition.
ICAP founder to invest £25m in new fintech fund Element Ventures
It’s one of the largest investments Spencer has made since selling Nex to the CME.
For the sake of fraud fighting: how to secure online transactions on the Russian market
All the new forms of digital interaction are getting particularly vulnerable to fraudulent activities.
Dubai-based challenger OG Bank selects Bankable to tap UK and Germany
The bank says ‘OG’ stands for ‘on the go’.
Volt closes $70m ahead of IPO plans
Volt plans for $50 million Series D round with British and Middle Eastern investors.
Lydia raises €40m in Tencent-led Series B funding round
Tencent-backed funding to be used to avoid “costly mistakes”.
Azimo shake-up sees appointment of new CFO and COO
Remittance fintech looks internally for C-level replacements.
Tink raises €90 million to power European expansion
Swedish open banking firm brings funding total close to the $200m mark
BMLL appoints Paul Humphrey as CEO
Johannes Sulzberger, outgoing CEO, will remain on the board as a non-exec director.
Brazil’s Ebanx launches beta digital wallet Ebanx Go
The fintech is testing the digital wallet with 10,000 customers.
Video: Top fintech stories this week – 17 January 2020
FinTech Future’s weekly news round-up.
Capital markets fintech iStox raises $5m in South Korea
iStox claims to offer one-stop issuance, custody and trading of digitised securities.
