This week's top stories in fintech

Happy Friday everyone! I've been away for the past few weeks but I'm excited to be publishing the 8th edition of ?#fintechweekly, your go-to newsletter on all things fintech.

Let's dive into this week's top stories!

Revolut is hiring staff to enter the mortgages market

The financial payments company has announced that it's looking to disrupt the traditional mortgages market - a notoriously and complex and often slow product - with digital solutions.

This would initially be rolled out in Ireland and they are currently hiring for several positions acrosss Product management, credit, compliance and software engineering.

Merge has announced that they will launching in EMEA

Merge, the unified API for Payroll, HR and Accounting has announced that they will be launching internationally, starting in Berlin. They are currently hiring for Account Executives and Technical Support Managers.

Neobanks push into wealth.

As it becomes harder for Europe’s neobanks to acquire new customers, they are trying to make more money from the users they’ve already got. Last week, Monzo launched its new "Monzo Investments" product, which allows customers to invest as little as ￡1 in a selection of funds picked by US asset manager BlackRock.

Countingup the business account that automates accounting and tax, has announced the appointment of Tom Platt as Chief Executive Officer. He joins from TotallyMoney, where as Chief Operating Officer he helped the purpose-led fintech launch a category-leading consumer finance app, secure successive rounds of funding, and scale to more than five million customers in the UK.

INSTANDA the globally renowned no-code insurance platform provider, has accounted the appointment of Kevin Gaut as their new CTO. He was previously the CTO at Finova and had notable tenures at SSP and Legal & General. At INSTANDA, he will be pivotal in driving the platform and ecosystem strategies for the Group.

Clear Street, a New York-based independent prime broker, today announced it has expanded its technology leadership team with the appointment of Jonathan Daplyn as Chief Information Officer (“CIO”) and Hari Godbole as Managing Director and Vice President of Engineering, as they look to build the future of financial infrastructure.

• UK-based Renew Risk which offers risk modelling and analytics for things like offshore wind farms, has raised ￡1.7m in seed funding.?
• Ireland's Kayna Innovation which provides embedded insurance infrastructure, has raised €1m in pre-seed funding from FTI Delta and MiddleGame Ventures
• MESH which helps people manage their digital assets, raises $22 million.
• Berlin-based carbon accounting startup Plan A has raised a $27m Series A extension round, led by US VC firm Lightspeed
• Payflow (YC S21) , the Barcelona-based fintech which helps companies provide on-demand salaries, has raised €20m from BBVA Spark ,?the VC arm of the Spanish bank. It says it's gearing up to enter a big new market in Latin America soon...?
• London's HyperJar , a money management app and card service, has raised a $24m Series A. The round was led by Susquehanna?Private Equity Investments, LLLP, and includes the?Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan.
• French fintech Swan raised €37m in a Series B round led by Lakestar last week — and its CEO Nicolas Benady says he hopes the startup will be to financial services what Amazon has been to ecommerce.

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That's a wrap for this week! I hope you enjoyed it and don't forget to subscribe ??