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REPORT
?? NEWS HIGHLIGHT
The largest bank-powered rewards app in the UK, Cheddar, re-launches its loyalty app to become the essential financial companion for Brits in the spiralling cost of living crisis.
Cheddar 2.0 is packed with various tools for consumers to regain control of their finances, and make their money go further. Features include cashback immediately landing in the user’s bank account with no clunky experiences and wait times and receiving recommendations based on spending patterns.
?? ARTICLE
??INSIGHTS
Gaining access to the physical POS (‘Point-of-Sale’) has been a pain point for local wallets and APMs (‘Alternative Payment Methods’) in several European markets. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and contactless cards have excellent customer experiences and broad acceptance, and APMs have struggled to match these card-centric form factors in terms of ease of use.
European regulators have focused on Apple for blocking third-party access to the NFC (‘Near Field Communication’) element in iOS devices, as this would be required (in regulators’ view) to increase competition and access to payments for European users in stores. In response to regulatory pressure, Apple committed, effective 19 January 2024 to allow third-party wallet and payment providers to access iOS devices' NFC functionality via APIs, free of charge.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S?NEWS
?? FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
?? Digital bank Monzo in talks to sell stake to Singaporean state fund GIC .
?? Millions more in cash needed to fund UK’s open-banking watchdog.
?? Bafin fines German FinTech Solaris SE €6.5M for late filing STRs .
?? iDEAL has launched new functionalities in collaboration with Rabobank.
领英推荐
FINTECH
WealthOS targets Sipp providers. Its technology delivers immediate end-to-end benefits from an operating model that is 40% cheaper to run than existing systems and enables three times faster product innovation.
Brokerage-as-a-service platform lemon.markets goes live. Having secured a license as an investment firm from German regulator BaFin in January, the startup is now ready to offer its white-label solution to FS providers and FinTech.
Meet the 17 startups founded by former Monzo employees. Neobank Monzo, which just raised a mammoth $430m funding round , is no exception to the rule and appears to be moulding its own set of former employees into founders.
Silverbird Global Limited (SGL) enters special administration. Silverbird, the digital payments platform for international trade , has been confirmed to have gone into special administration by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
PAYMENTS
Hotel guest experience management platform Eleanor chooses Mangopay to provide fully embedded payments solution. Through its suite of apps, Eleanor provides high-end hotels and resorts with concierge technology to help manage guest services.
Sweden's Klarna fined $733,000 over insufficient GDPR information. Klarna had failed to give clients sufficient information about how it would store their personal data, the court said in a statement, adding that the information was unclear or difficult to access .
Tranglo turns to Inpay for Instant Sepa payouts. The positive results of the partnership are already clear dramatically improving the speed of transfer from days to minutes and significantly reducing cost .
OPEN BANKING
GoCardless Becomes an Approved Open Banking Supplier to Central and Local Government. This means GoCardless will be eligible to bid for account information services and payment initiation services Request for Tenders issued by any UK public sector body that uses the DPS .
Tell Money supports Griffin Bank's launch in the FinTech sector. Leveraging its advanced tell.gateway service, Tell Money will aid Griffin Bank by providing crucial compliance and Open Banking capabilities .
Klarna adds open banking settlements for 18 million consumers and 32,000 retailers. The launch means consumers can now pay Klarna directly from their bank account instead of using a debit card .
REGTECH
Nethone, a Mangopay company, wins Fraud Prevention accolade at FinTech Breakthrough Awards. Facing strong competition from more than 4,000 global nominations, Nethone was named Best Fraud Prevention Company at the 2024 awards .
DIGITAL BANKING
ClearBank eyeing EU license. ClearBank officials are hopeful for approval from the European Central Bank in the second quarter, Paul Staples, group head of embedded banking, told Bank Automation News .
The Payments Firm selects SaaScada as core banking engine. Its open book pricing model and robust compliance are designed with fairness and honesty in mind , with competitive pricing and easy functionality.
Tide Set to Launch in Germany. Tide offers small businesses that don’t have a finance function, highly connected finance and admin solutions that save members time and money .
Portuguese bank Banco BPI and Personetics announced the introduction of Pulsoo, an independently branded application that empowers small and medium business owners to manage their businesses .
Kaspar& becomes a banking as a service provider for banks. Kaspar& is evolving into a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider for banks, leveraging its finance technology to offer embedded finance solutions for third-party partners .
DONEDEAL
JPMorgan invests in Eye Security. Eye Security provides 24/7 monitoring, attack response and cyber insurance to hundreds of mid-market businesses in sectors such as financial services, automotive, manufacturing and healthcare.
Tuum announced that Citi Ventures, has become a strategic investor in the company as a follow-on from Tuum’s recently announced series B fundraising.
Emerging from stealth, SAPI secures ￡7.5M equity fundraising for small business lending. SAPI which stands for ‘Securities API’ enables payment companies to offer business loans and other financing products to their clients .
M&As
Levenue, has acquired MidFunder, that provides financing for companies with recurring revenue. The acquisition marks a strategic move to enhance its Swiss operations .
GoCardless signs agreement to acquire Nuapay. The acquisition will significantly scale GoCardless’ indirect channel proposition, consolidating its position as a key payment provider to existing .
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Miranda McLean joins Ecommpay as chieff marketing officer. Miranda’s appointment underlines Ecommpay’s commitment to growing its presence in the UK and Europe, and continuing to scale in the US, Latin America and Asia.
United FinTech shuffles management . Following investments by BNP Paribas and Citi, United FinTech names Troels O. Lindblad as CFO and Rasmus Bagger as CCO while Marc Levin advances to CEO of Athena Systems in a strategic management.
Tink stengthens senior leadership team in UK with three new appointments. Ian Morrin has been appointed Head of Payments & Platforms. Ian will have a dual role of leading Tink’s UK operations, and being responsible for Tink ’s payments & platform business across 19 markets .