Future of Fintech | Edition #76 – July 2023
Summary of fintech news from 27th June to 3rd July
Hey there, fintech fanatics!👋
Ready to jump into another amazing Tuesday? We're back with the latest edition of our Future of Fintech newsletter. This week we have got hot trends coming in from Asia, Australia and Latin America.
But hold up! Before we plunge into last week's fintech trends, we've got a super cool report on the UK’s challenger bank OakNorth’s playbook - just for you!
The meteoric rise of OakNorth in the world of fintech has unveiled an extraordinary business model that goes above and beyond the norm. This visionary bank is not only an embodiment of profitability, scalability, and exponential growth but also stands head and shoulders above other challenger banks in the UK and digital banking titans across the globe. OakNorth's mission to build a cutting-edge, tech-first institution has made it one of the UK's leading SME powerhouses. Plunge into the pages of "OakNorth's Challenger Bank Playbook" to unravel the mysteries behind its phenomenal growth.
Get set to embark on an exhilarating financial odyssey with a taste of #Edition76, a unique mix that fuses finance with groundbreaking innovation.
Here's the TL;DR
Fintech firms flex their muscle all over the globe as Pleo and Yapily extended their partnership to expand into Europe and adopt VRPs. And, Revolut launched a robo-advisor service in the United States.
In an effort to expand fintech access to diverse segments - Belvo and FICO teamed to expand credit access in Brazil via Open Finance. Not just that, Singlife partnered with Aspire to offer SMEs greater access to financial services.
The fintech frenzy last week thrived on enhancing payments as SAP and Visa collaborated to simplify B2B payments for APAC enterprises. At the same time, Bitfinex launched P2P services in Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela.
Acquisitions continue to make it to the headlines - Visa acquired Pismo for $1B to enhance its footprint in Latin America. And, Socure acquired ID Verification company Berbix for $70.
Not just that - Tata Motors Finance Limited partnered with Fiserv to advance its digital strategy. Also, Tegro NFT20 Exchange raised seed funding from Polygon at a $100M valuation.
For the longer read, let's get going –
Embrace the marvels of Open Finance where fintech innovators reveal cutting-edge open banking services, from seamless data sharing to empowering payments.
iuvity, a cloud-first digital banking and open service platform provider, partnered with MX Technologies to enable secure data sharing and financial account aggregation within iuvity’s digital banking platform. Through this partnership, iuvity's clients will be able to offer their customers a more secure and reliable data-sharing experience and power insights to help them achieve their financial goals.
Aptech, a provider of customizable financial-management software for single hotels or multi-property/multi-brand enterprises, integrated with Plaid to achieve seamless and secure access to thousands of financial accounts for financial reconciliation.
Last week's Digital Finance realm was a dazzling display of launches and licenses, with fintech players harmonizing and joining forces to unleash innovation across every segment of the market.
Qonto, a European financial solution for SMEs and the self-employed, launched a financing platform designed to help German customers invest in suitable financing offers for their business growth.
London fintech Zepz launched a neobanking product for US-based migrants called Sendwave Pay - which makes sending money to Africa simpler. Sendwave Pay provides an opportunity for customers to build cross-border wealth and recognises the demand for a product that better serves customers’ needs than a standard bank account.
Prepare to be enchanted by the marvels that lie within the captivating realm of Embedded Finance, where fintech pioneers harness the power of innovation to conjure an array of embedded services.
London-based Weavr launched an Embedded Finance Cloud to enable financial institutions to create and distribute embeddable financial products. Weavr Embedded Finance Cloud is delivered in Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) form, which allows financial institutions to rapidly deploy it over their existing core banking and payments systems.
Brazilian fintech Dock launched Responsible Credit Solutions on its proprietary Dock One platform. It aims to enable businesses to offer an array of flexible, customisable credit and loan products to their customers in a way that encourages responsible financial decision-making.
In the realm of Fintech infrastructure, innovation is king! Fearless fintech players upskill and unleash - catering to diverse segments with unparalleled freshness.
Financial software applications and marketplaces provider Finastra completed testing and certification for the FedNow Service, the Federal Reserve’s instant payment service. With Finastra’s certified connection to the FedNow Service, financial institutions can offer instant payments in an easy and expedited manner.
Fraud prevention platform Sardine launched SardineX, an industry-wide, independent consortium to curtail payment fraud by bringing together established financial institutions and emerging fintech organizations to establish trust across multiple payment rails.
Embrace the eco-centric universe of Green Finance, where fintech regulators don their gears and seize the front seat in the race towards sustainability.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore Exchange (SGX), and the Secretariat of the Climate Data Steering Committee (CDSC) collaborated on providing stakeholders worldwide with access to important climate transition-related data.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a letter to banks and companies, outlining a series of market integrity concerns related to the sustainability-linked loan (SLL) market, which could delay the development of a practical net zero transition financing tool and raise the risk of greenwashing.
Step into the thrilling realm of DeFi, where adventurous players laboured relentlessly to forge a web3 world that embraces technology and innovation.
Magic Eden integrated with the BRC-20 token standard. This expansion leads the NFT marketplace into Bitcoin-based NFT creation, giving creators the ability to create new NFTs on the Bitcoin protocol and allowing users to trade BRC-20 NFTs.
AlloyX, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that aggregates tokenized credit, launched a liquid real-world asset (RWA) vault product after closing a $2M pre-seed funding round.
Some other happenings in the fintech universe 🪐
Looking for some bite-sized fintech headlines to snack on with your tea? Get ready to indulge in some yummy fintech goodness!
Scapia raised $9M in a seed round led by Matrix Partners India, with participation from Tanglin Venture Partners, Binny Bansal’s 3STATE Ventures, and notable angel investors like Keki Mistry.
Mortgage rate fintech Sherlok raised $3.4M to help mortgage brokers get better home loan deals for their clients.
Fraud detection startup Unit21 raised $45M in Series C funding to support the growth of the Fintech Fraud DAO consortium.
Finance automation company Ramp acquired customer support startup Cohere.io to bring generative AI to finance.
And that's a wrap 👋
We hope you enjoyed this edition of the Weekly Fintech Brew!
If you're hungry for more FinTech insights, check out some of our other work at WhiteSight.
Our latest publications include –
OakNorth: A blueprint for profitable growth in digital banking
WhatsApp says hello to the banking & payments world in emerging markets
If you're someone who likes to read think pieces, you will likely love our monthly blog, Fintersections, where our team members analyse the convergence of FinTech with the world.
FinTech research is in the WhiteSight DNA, so if you'd like to get in touch for features, sponsorships, and content marketing services, reach out to us at hello@whitesight.net.
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