Your Daily FinTech News - June 19th, 2022

Welcome to?your?daily?FinTech?news!

NEWS HIGHLIGHT

• Three months after announcing it would make a big push into software and enterprise, FinTech giant Brex is apparently abandoning the very segment it started out to serve – SMBs. Startup customers report that they got notice they would be booted off the platform on August 15. TechCrunch article by Mary Ann Azevedo . Link here .

FINTECH?NEWS

• Provenir , a global leader in AI-powered risk management software for fintech, today announced its first customer in Brazil: Provu , a fintech specializing in payment and personal credit, based in S?o Paulo. Link here .
• Building on its record-breaking Series B investment, SEON Fraud Fighters has hired Matt Davies , formerly VP of Customer Marketing at Splunk as its new Chief Marketing Officer in a move that highlights the company’s marketing-first approach to business development. Link here .
• Klarna is considering raising fresh funds at a significantly lower valuation than it achieved a year ago. The Swedish firm is in talks with investors about a deal that could value the company at around $15 billion. Link here .
• Cleo , which was founded by Barnaby Hussey-Yeo in 2016, has raised $80m in new capital from investors including Sofina , a listed tech investor which has backed companies such as Typeform and Graphcore. Link here .
• Check out The Paypers Who’s Who in Payments Report 2022. Link here .
• Qatar’s award-winning FinTech Payment Processing Startup CWALLET has successfully closed its Pre-Series A investment Round at $875,000 (QAR 3,193,750) led by MBK Holding W.L.L, with participation from Angels.qa , the CWallet founders, and local angel investors. Link here .
• CapIntel , a financial technology company serving financial advisers, has raised $11.0m in a Series A financing round led by New York-based FinTech Collective. Link here .
• Israeli-founded fintech startup Rewire , the first digital wallet designed specifically for economic migrants, has “hit a key growth milestone” after acquiring Imagen Cards , a provider of pre-paid card solutions for migrants in Israel. Link here .
• In the modern world of tech and startups, profitability is becoming a rarity. Often, companies are more focused on growing and taking up market share at the expense of solid financial health. Link here .
• Destaxa , a payments platform that operates as a two-sided marketplace for payment acquirers and offline merchants in Brazil, announced it has raised a $3.1 million seed round. Link here .
• The payments giant Visa has launched its first crypto cards in the Latin America region – and will debut its new products in Brazil and Argentina via a number of new partner firms. Link here .
• Fintech company Addi recently carried out “a mass layoff”, but when approached by Bloomberg Línea the company declined to confirm the exact number of redundancies. Link here .
• Facio is a pioneer in credit solutions that can have a particular impact in Brazil: payroll loans through automatic debit. Link here .
• Mastercard has certified NymCard , a plug-and-play banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider, as a Principal Mastercard Issuer in the UAE. The milestone announcement marks the first time a fintech in the UAE is licensed to issue cards by Mastercard. Link here .
• Nuula , a Fintech company focused on providing small businesses the tools and the capital they need to succeed, announced its launch in Canada. Link here .
• With summer firmly upon us, Lisbon’s tech scene is beginning to heat up as it welcomes the launch of Plug-and-Play Finance provider, Weavr.io , to Portugal. Link here .
• Payment orchestration platform APEXX Global is helping Ryanair - Europe's Favourite Airline to ‘transform’ the airline’s legacy payments infrastructure. Link here .
• Pngme (We're Hiring) has partnered with Kenya-based fintech Lipa Later Group , according to the official press release. Link here .
• Apple 's entry into the buy now, pay later (BNPL) space isn't keeping Affirm founder Max Levchin up at night. Link here .
• Robinhood Markets Inc. shares slumped to a fresh low, giving the beleaguered brokerage a market value that’s less than the cash on its balance sheet. Link here .

DIGITAL BANKING?NEWS

• Monzo Bank is introducing:?? disco pink, ?? sunshine yellow, ?? juicy green. These are three limited edition colors inspired by their original hot coral card. Link here .
• New American Express credit cards were made from a retired Boeing 747. The metal cards are made from Delta ship 6307, which flew more than 68 million miles before retiring in 2017. Link here .
• Minna Bank , Ltd., Japan's first digital bank, has recorded over 1 million downloads of its mobile banking app and more than 400 thousand accounts have been opened in its first year of commercial operations since May 28, 2021. Link here .
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia has selected market-leading SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu as the technology foundation of its next-gen digital mortgage brand, Unloan . Link here .
• Tell Money , the fintech solution that delivers innovative and rapidly deployable open banking services for banks and other account providers, has partnered with Toqio , the fintech SaaS platform that enables organizations to build and launch fintech propositions. Link here .
• Digital banking platform Revolut said it was launching a streamlined version of its app in Sri Lanka, Chile, Ecuador, Azerbaijan and Oman, allowing customers to transfer money to over 50 countries using more than 30 currencies. Link here .
• Fintech lender Uncapped has acquired Sugar , a specialist finance provider to the makers of gaming and digital apps. The acquisition gives Uncapped a foothold in the gaming and apps market, giving it access to more companies that could benefit from funding opportunities on the Uncapped platform. Link here .
• A group of local investors joined together on Tuesday to apply for a license from the Financial Regulatory Authority FRA in Egypt to establish the first company to operate in the field of Investment Banking through the use of FinTech, which will be called Exits.me . Link here .
• What does the data say about the state of VC in 2022? ?? Dealroom.co report “Allocate state of VC 2022”. Link here .

This ends?Your?Daily?Fintech?News. Let me know if there are any questions or comments. Until the next!

Regards,

Marcel van Oost

marcelvanoost.com

?? Join our Slack Community! ??