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REPORT

• Her FinTech Edge FinTech Report

Market Insights from FinTech Firms Serving Women Customers based on the findings of the recent IFC International Finance Corporation and Dalberg survey.

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?? NEWS HIGHLIGHT

• Digital bank OakNorth looks to US expansion.

Digital bank OakNorth is expanding its business beyond the United Kingdom and into the United States, exploring a merger and acquisition strategy.?

“We’ve always been clear that we want to build our business across the U.K. and U.S.,” Chief Executive Rishi Khosla?told Bank Automation News. The timing is right: Since its inception in 2015

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?? ARTICLE

• My Monthly Top 10 European FinTech Funding Rounds.

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• Last week we saw 12 official FinTech deals all over Europe for a total amount of 136m€ raised with 3 deals in Germany, 2 in the UK, 2 in France, 1 in the Netherlands, 1 in Sweden, 1 in Denmark, 1 in Belgium and 1 in Switzerland.

Congratulations to ELEMENT, the digital insurer, who has successfully raised €50 million in a Venture round led by the PFDAB.

Well done also to Global Screening Services, a London-based company that provides a sanction screening solution platform for financial institutions, for having raised a $47 million Series B round. The new round was led by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, with participation from AlixPartners and Cynosure Group.

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??INSIGHTS

• The most active FinTech investors in the US ???? and Europe ???? show a mix of generalists and FinTech specialists.

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• Alongside the main GFCI index, Z/Yen analyzed Financial Centres in terms of their FinTech offering.

For further access to indices data, including centre rank vs rating over time, top 5 centres by regions, side by side centre comparison, survey respondent information, and R-squared values of instrumental factors, please join or login to the FS Clubroom and check the indices tab.

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?? PODCAST

• In this "The FinTalks" Podcast innovance Global Partnership Director, Togay ??nlarses, shared insights into his company's vision, global partnerships, and the future of the industry.

Listen to the full podcast.

• In this FinTech Leaders episode, Miguel Armaza sits down with Alberto Dalmasso, CEO & Co-Founder of Satispay, the largest FinTech in Italy and one of the largest in Europe.

Listen to the complete podcast episode.

NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S?NEWS

?? FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS

?? Wirecard shareholders sue EY over alleged asset stripping in Germany.

?? Hokodo Secures €100m Debt Facility to Facilitate €1.5BN of B2B Transactions Over the Next 2 Years.

?? The UK has a plan to help its financial industry seize $14tn tokenisation opportunity.

?? Future of Digital Finance with E-Wallet Innovations.

FINTECH

AIM-listed Alpha Group plots move to London’s main market as FinTech looks to expand. The firm, which listed on the bourse’s Alternative Investment Market in 2017, said on Wednesday that, in line with prior guidance.

XTB surpasses 1m customer milestone. This achievement comes in little over three years after XTB expanded its CFD offer with the addition of stocks and ETFs. XTB experienced exponential growth as the number of customers doubled since the end of 2021.

Stockholm-based Scayl emerges from stealth and raises €100 million to grow the loan books of European FinTech lenders. Dubbed a “FinTech for FinTech Lenders”, Scayl provides FinTechs building credit products with access to transparent funding structures.

Tamamliyo, a Turkish FinTech developing microinsurance products and integrating them into e-commerce companies' payment processes, has announced its expansion into the European market under the name komplet.io, with Germany being its primary target.

ClearBank, a British FinTech scored its first full year of profit after higher interest rates helped drive a 91% jump in revenues. The firm swung to an ￡18.4 million ($23.3 million) pre-tax profit in the year ending Dec. 31, 2023, according to financial statements recently released. That’s up from a ￡7.1 million loss in 2022.

Wise Platform teams up with Swan for faster, cheaper and more convenient international payments. Swan enables companies across Europe to easily embed banking features such as accounts, cards, and payments into their own product.

Papaya Global announces partnership with Fortris. This is another step on their journey to remove workforce complexities enable workforce payments worldwide in every FIAT currency.

Klarna Late Fees Spark Uptick in On-Time Payments. Klarna?is reportedly sending fewer British customers to debt collectors after introducing late fees. he reduction follows Klarna’s addition of?late fees?last year.

PAYMENTS

Payment provider Yaspa is awarded Innovate UK grant for Safer Gambling platform. Yaspa’s innovative web-based B2B platform will combine payments and AI to help gambling operators identify vulnerable players in a frictionless manner.

Zilch Selects Checkout.com for Global Acquiring. This appointment represents an important milestone in Zilch’s operations and technology strategy as it rapidly evolves to best support the company’s high growth.

Viva.com and Bluecode team on QR payments in Europe. Through this partnership, Bluecode and Viva.com are driving digital QR code payments adoption, providing consumers in Europe with a simple, and convenient way to pay.

Paymentology And Rain Unveil Industry First Payment Solution For Web 3.0, Digital Asset Businesses. The collaboration is a first for the FinTech industry with the launch of a new payment solution for digital asset businesses throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.

CAB Payments launches in Europe. The commercial activities of CAB Payments Europe are led by Kostas Konstantis as General Manager, who has more than 20 years of experience in financial services working with ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas, and RBS.

Ecommpay strengthens its position in the UK and EU by adding Bacs & SEPA Direct Debit capabilities. The strategic move allows Ecommpay to increase UK and EU market coverage by approximately 44% without cannibalising existing payment methods.

REGTECH

Chekk and Symphony partnership enables access to instant Know Your Business reports via chat bot. This new bot will enable the quick generation of exhaustive real time reports for 450? million entities across 220 countries and territories.

DIGITAL BANKING

N26 further strengthens offer in Germany with launch of Stocks and ETFs trading, and 4% interest on savings for Metal customers.

DONEDEAL

UK regtech GSS lands ￡37m in Series A2 funding round. As part of its investment, CBA’s executive general manager of financial crime compliance, John Fogarty, will join the company’s board.

B2B FinTech Startup Bavest Secures $1.2m in Pre-Seed Funding. With the funds, Bavest aims to cement its status as a leading provider of AI-driven financial infrastructure for businesses.

A pair of former Revolut employees have quietly raised ￡2.5m in pre-seed funding from Lightspeed and Cocoa for their business verification startup Condukt, according to Companies House filings.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Mangopay appoints Bertrand Dezard as Head of Sales for Fraud. Bertrand has notable experience in the European payments landscape and in implementing commercial optimisation tooling for clients.

TaxBit announces European expansion. This move follows recent regulatory developments and the increased demand for TaxBit's tax and accounting compliance solutions.