General News

February 4, 2021 @ 5:04 pm By JD Alois  |  

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is taking some heat from various politicians as fingers look for somewhere to point blame. Social Democrat Scholz, along with his deputy Joerg Kukies continue to deny responsibility for the collapse of Wirecard AG (WDI.F), a Fintech that was once… Read More

February 4, 2021 @ 10:56 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

  PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL) announced this week the release of its fourth quarter and full-year 2020 results. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, PayPal reported that 2020 has the strongest performance in the payment platform’s history, with Total Payment Volume (TPV) being $936 billion, growing 31%… Read More

February 3, 2021 @ 9:03 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

NPR’s Ailsa Chang recently covered the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) expected role in conducting an investigation into the Reddit / social media takeover of Wall Street. SEC Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee commented on the agency’s role in looking into the matter. The… Read More

February 3, 2021 @ 12:11 pm By JD Alois  |  

FINRA’s 2021 Report on Examination and Risk Monitoring Program mentions several current topics including digital assets and “game like” trading. According to the report, Exam Findings regarding digital asset trading has uncovered shortcomings when it comes to investors using digital asset marketplaces. To quote the… Read More

February 3, 2021 @ 9:20 am By JD Alois  |  

Investors Bancorp, Inc. (NASDAQ: ISBC) has announced that Kim Wales and John E. Harmon, Sr. have been elected to its Board of Directors. Wales is well known in the Fintech and crowdfunding sector having been an early advocate for online capital formation and engaged with… Read More

February 3, 2021 @ 7:50 am By Omar Faridi  |  

HM Revenue and Customs revealed on February 3, 2021, that Open Banking service provider Ecospend has been selected to build-out its digital payments infrastructure. In September 2020, HMRC had placed a £3 million contract out to tender in order to upgrade the group’s bank transfer… Read More

February 2, 2021 @ 10:54 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Decentralized Oracle network developer Chainlink (LINK) has joined the UNESCO Global Education Coalition in order to advance or promote smart contract education internationally. Chainlink confirmed on January 29, 2021 that it has now joined the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Global Education… Read More

February 2, 2021 @ 12:28 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Banks in Venezuela are reportedly issuing debit cards for US dollar-denominated accounts, according to a report from Reuters which cited sources familiar with the matter. There’s now a group of Venezuelan banking institutions that have been providing debit cards to customers who maintain accounts in… Read More

February 1, 2021 @ 11:02 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

UK’s PensionBee, an online pension provider, had introduced a new product, allowing self-employed savers to easily set up a pension “from scratch.” Its reportedly an offering that may work quite well for sole traders, which is why Starling Bank confirmed that it has added PensionBee… Read More

February 1, 2021 @ 3:55 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

Oveo.io, a Denmark-based SaaS management platform, has secured €1 million through its pre-seed funding round from various angel investors. Founded in 2019, Oveo.io seeks to help modern IT and finance teams gain company-wide visibility into software speed and utilization. “Our SaaS Management Platform give modern… Read More

February 1, 2021 @ 3:19 pm By JD Alois  |  

Senator Elizabeth Warren has sent a letter to the US Securities and Exchange Commission demanding answers to several questions regarding the heightened volatility pertaining to the recent short-squeezes ostensibly created by Redditors focusing on hedge funds with heavy short positions. Senator Warren said the price… Read More

February 1, 2021 @ 3:18 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

CHAOS, a Finland-based proptech startup, recently raised €1.5 million through its latest investment round. According to CHAOS, the round was led by Swedish investment firm Nidoco, with participation from  Kai Keituri, Tapio Heikkilä, and Stefan Lindberg (林渤方). Founded in 2017, CHAOS describes itself as an urban forecasting… Read More

February 1, 2021 @ 10:12 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Crypto Broker AG, which is the Crypto Finance Group‘s brokerage, has reportedly been issued a license to serve as a securities house along with a bilateral trading facility by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA). After this license has gone into effect or become… Read More

February 1, 2021 @ 8:20 am By Samantha Hurst  |  

Mastercard announced over the weekend that it has teamed up with Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) to launch new enhanced regional cybersecurity efforts through the “Cyber Forward” program. According to Mastercard, Cyber Forward is to build secure digital ecosystems through public-private partnerships. “The Global Cyber Forward program… Read More

January 31, 2021 @ 2:22 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Alchemy Pay has introduced a $500,000 Payment Ecosystem Incentive Fund in order to accelerate development in the blockchain-focused payments sector. Alchemy Pay, which claims to be a pioneer of the world’s first hybrid fiat and crypto payment system, notes that the digital currency space has… Read More

January 31, 2021 @ 2:15 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Digital asset exchange Kraken has confirmed that it has added support for Flow (FLOW) trading which was introduced on Wednesday (January 27, 2021) at around 15:30 UTC. At the time of the launch, only FLOW tokens that had been earned via staking rewards were tradable…. Read More

January 30, 2021 @ 10:12 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) has revealed that their organization and the University of Cambridge Judge Business School are teaming up with the Inter-American Development Bank, which works to improve lives of people in the Latin America (LatAm) and the Caribbean region. We… Read More

January 30, 2021 @ 5:25 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The European venture capital markets managed to perform reasonably well last year, even though there was a significant slowdown in funding or financing following the COVID-19 outbreak (during Q1 2020 and also leading into Q2 2020), Crunchbase data confirms. Funding provided to European startups during… Read More

January 30, 2021 @ 3:02 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Divvy, a modern payment and expense management platform for businesses, which notably secured $165 million through its Series D funding round, making it one of only 14 Fintechs this month to raise a mega-round ($100M+ or more) in January 2021, notes that during the last… Read More

January 29, 2021 @ 2:20 pm By Samantha Hurst  |  

  UK banking group NatWest announced on Thursday an additional £1 billion in funding to help support female-led businesses in the UK recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. NatWest reported that the goal is to ultimately help female entrepreneurs to scale and grow and builds on the… Read More