Welcome to?your?daily?FinTech?news!
- Venture funding to Black-founded startups in the U.S. was $324 million in the second quarter of this year—a steep drop from prior quarters when investment to those companies had just started to show hopeful signs of progress. Link here.
- A Turkish fintech firm, Param, reached a valuation of $200 million in its first investment round. According to a statement by Param, the round is subscribed by institutional investors CEECAT Capital, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Alpha Associates, and Revo Capital. Emin Can YILMAZ, founder and CEO of the firm, said Param has grown three times last year. 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.
- Attempting to rival the likes of Wise and Revolut, a new fintech has landed, founded by Robinhood early employees Neeraj Baid and Patrick Kavanagh. The American ex-pats arrived in London and spotted what they saw as a gap in the market: a foreign exchange service without the markups. Enter Atlantic Money. Link here.
- Wayflyer, the Irish tech unicorn, has added a new credit line to its portfolio as part of plans to issue up to $2.5 billion in credit to clients this year. Scaler, the new product, will provide funding lines to large e-commerce businesses, meaning those with annual revenues of $20 million or more. Link here.
- Narmi closed a $35 million Series B funding round co-led by Greycroft, NEA and Picus Capital, bringing Narmi’s cash raised to date to ~$60 million. “Given the worldwide shift toward digital and growing user expectations, we felt that a solution needed to be made to meet the challenges of tomorrow,” Nikhil Lakhanpal, co-founder, told TechCrunch in an email interview. Link here.
- This month, the South American country of Brazil unveiled a legislative bill that would allow cryptocurrency to be used as a payment method and prevent users' private keys from being used by the country's judiciary. The proposed bill was introduced by Brazil's Federal Deputy Paulo Martins and awaits discussion in the Chamber of Deputies in Brazil's legislature. Link here.
- Crypto users want to be able to communicate on-chain in a crypto-native manner, without having to use web2 solutions like Gmail, Telegram, or text messages. A number of motivations are driving the need for this product. Some people want to do this because they feel the security of the web2 platforms is not strong enough. Link here.
- USDC issuer Circle Internet Financial is set to issue a fully-reserved, euro-pegged stablecoin from the United States called Euro Coin (EUROC). Available from 30 June, Euro Coin will be a regulated, euro-backed stablecoin issued under the same full-reserve model as USDC, which currently has over $54 billion in circulation. Link here.
- How Are Neobanks Regulated? As consumers flock to neobanks, federal regulators are keeping a closer eye on consumer protection and the lack of direct oversight of these fintechs, with some, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), already advocating for stricter oversight. Article by Sheetal Parikh. Link here.
- GCash (Mynt - Globe Fintech Innovations, Inc.) announced that it now has over 60 million registered users and more than five million merchants nationwide. Link here.
- The “airasia Super App” has rolled out its e-wallet “airasia pocket” to create a seamless in-app payment experience that is available to all of its users in Malaysia. Link here.
- Opening a business bank account should be fairly easy, but after seeing firsthand just how hard it was, Salomón Zarruk Valencia and Sebastian Ortiz Vásquez decided they didn’t want another Latin American business to run into the same kind of difficulty. What they came up with was Mono (YC W22), which means “monkey” in Spanish, a fintech company that provides corporate or business accounts for startups in Colombia. Link here.?
This ends?Your?Daily?Fintech?News. Let me know if there are any questions or comments. Until the next!
