Daily Fintech Crunch: 13/04/2022

Dear All

Greetings from today’s Fintech Crunch bringing you a curated set of news bites about the latest updates on payments, fintech, defi, crypto, and the world beyond…

? Fintech:

• American fintech Plaid to start expanding in Europe with ex-Booking.com veteran joining their ranks.

• The buy-now-pay-later market is predicted to reach $3.98 trillion by 2030, presenting opportunities for peer-to-peer lenders and other fintechs.

• Philippine's own Voyager Innovations achieves unicorn status following integration with cryptocurrencies.

• The Bank of England’s head of fintech Varun Paul has announced he is leaving the central bank and moving into the digital asset space by joining Fireblocks in an unspecified role.

• Google’s Vice President and Head of Finance Kristin Reinke said Alphabet Inc. is automating as many financial tasks as possible to reduce manual work completed by staff.

• Netcetera announced that it has formed a partnership with Platform Pacific (Platformpac), a homegrown fintech subsidiary of Bank South Pacific Financial Group Limited (BSPFGL).

• Angel investors injected over $6.9 billion into European fintechs last year, with two angels participating in each seed round on average, according to Dealroom.?

• BaaS provider Contis is teaming with open banking technology firm Ecospend to bring a closed-loop, instant account-to-account payment and withdrawal solution to MrQ.com.

• You can now enjoy baseball season in stadiums with mobile ordering coming to stadiums across the U.S.

• The total investment in UK fintech companies in 2021 hit an all-time high of $37.7 billion. Globally, the number exceeded $200 billion.

?? Crypto & DeFi:

• Crypto trading has been dealt a double whammy by tax implementation and MobiKwik withdrawing its services across exchanges on April 1 amid unclear regulations.

• Coinbase is producing a Bored Ape Yacht Club animated short films called The Degen Trilogy.

?? Metaverse & NFTs:

• White Star Capital raises $120 million for Ubisoft-backed Web3 investment fund.

• Tokens.com acquires 34 parcel of Meraverse land comprising The Music District.

?? Other News:

• UK PM Johnson and Finance Minister Sunak are fined for Covid lockdown breaches.

?? Graphic of the Day:

As the graph suggests, fintech took India’s economy by storm following the Covid-19 pandemic and will continue to go unhindered for the foreseeable future.

?? Report of the Day:

• In Singapore, digital wallets are set to overtake credit cards as the preferred online payment method over the next four years and BNPL options will grow the fastest, according to the 2021 Global Payments Report by FIS.

I hope you enjoy today's crunch

Until tomorrow, goodbye and good night.

–Arjun Vir Singh