Global

September 24, 2023 @ 10:24 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Metro Bank’s ‘Scam of the Month’ for September 2023 is a warning to drivers about the influx of second-hand car scams “as approximately a million drivers take possession of their new 73 licence plate cars from September.” Purchase scams can take many forms; “with the… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 10:23 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Smart Pension, one of the UK’s workplace pension providers, announces its investment in the AMX-DWS Global Low Carbon Stewardship Fund. The fund is a new low-carbon global equity index strategy that “offers innovative stewardship voting capabilities, being one of the first pooled funds to offer… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 10:21 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Starling Bank is raising the interest rate on its 1-Year Fixed Saver from 5.25% to 5.53% AER/Gross. Effective from Thursday 21 September 2023, Starling Bank customers “choosing the Fixed Saver will receive a return of 5.53% on balances of £2,000 – £1 million locked in… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 10:18 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The “chill” in startup fundraising is having major ripple effects on startup employee compensation, according to a comprehensive update from Carta. Startups on Carta collectively raised “about $28 billion through the first half of 2023.” That was less than half of the total funds “raised… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 10:05 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Pitchbook introduces their research series: Country Snapshots in which they provide an overview of macroeconomic and microeconomic trends in various regions spanning both private and public markets. Here is what Pitchbook highlighted for Q2 in France: Contrary to VC, PE deal value in France “came… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 10:02 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Payhawk, the global spend management platform, announces ‘Payhawk Green’, the new platform features to help companies make more sustainable decisions related to company spending. The features are “available to all customers at no additional cost.” Payhawk Green will help companies make more sustainable decisions related… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 9:38 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) has registered as a cryptocurrency exchange and custodian wallet provider with the Bank of Spain. This registration will allow Coinbase to offer their full suite of products and services “to retail and institutional users in Spain, all in compliance with the national legal… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 8:07 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

The Payments Association, a United Kingdom-based payments organization, presented its report, Navigating the rising cost of living: Payments innovation as a game-changer at Parliament last week. The report identifies three groups of people newly at risk of financial exclusion and provides recommendations for building a… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 7:09 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Hitting their Covid lows, tech M&A deal volume dropped to its lowest level since 2020, according to a report from CBInsights. The CBInsights report also reveals that risk-off strategic acquirers are the primary drivers of “a slowdown in tech M&A activity.” The report further notes… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 3:47 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Nagad, a Mobile Financial Service (MFS) provider in Bangladesh, is on the verge of launching a digital bank. The company expects to receive its license from the Bangladesh Bank, the country’s central bank, in the coming months. Sadaf Roksana, co-founder and executive director of Nagad… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 2:58 pm By Michael Wong  |  

Deepcoin Labs, a venture capital firm with a specialization in blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and digital assets, has been granted the “Proprietary Trading in Crypto-commodities” registration by the Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC). This recognition coincides with the unveiling of a $10 million fund, explicitly earmarked to… Read More

September 24, 2023 @ 12:33 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Nation-state cyber threat activity will push the boundaries of war exclusion language, warns cyber risk analytics specialist CyberCube. In a report examining selected nation-state cyber hot zones to gain insight into the potential cyber (re)insurance impacts of future cyber wars, CyberCube monitors these hot zones… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 6:20 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

During August 2023, Debitum says that it continued to implement the platform’s long-term development plan. Last month: the change in ownership of Debitum was announced (expect more details soon). As noted in the update from Debitum, Ukrainian asset management was “restructured and announced new investment… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 6:18 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

In 19 months of the war (since February 24, 2022), PeerBerry business partners Aventus Group and Gofingo Group have, in total, “repaid PeerBerry investors €45.52 million or 90.64% of the total outstanding war-affected obligations.” Compared to other war-affected platforms, PeerBerry claims that it is the… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 6:14 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

UK Finance recently commented on the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA)’s account access and closure report. According to UK Finance: “Freedom of expression is vitally important and today’s report from the FCA makes clear that accounts are not being closed because of political beliefs or other… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 6:12 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Nubank (NYSE:NU), which claims to be one of the world’s largest digital financial services platforms, has just completed one year of its adherence to Open Finance (a system that allows customer data sharing among financial institutions with consent) and is “positively impacting its customers’ financial… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 6:02 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The growth that kickstarted in July has continued into August, “with increases across the board,” the team at Bondora noted. Loan originations, as well as investment product funding, “totaled over €15M each in August. Cash recoveries and collection efforts also increased to over €1M.” Bondora… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 1:11 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) has reportedly invested more than £32m into building more than 400 new social homes in the north east of the country last year, the team at UK’s Blend Network has noted. Blend Network, a development finance lender, says it’s… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 11:15 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Exabeam, a global cybersecurity firm that created New-Scale SIEM for advancing security operations, and a 2023 Google Cloud Technology Partner of the Year for Security – Analytics, announced it is expanding its partnership with Google Cloud in “the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) models… Read More

September 23, 2023 @ 10:57 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Berlin-based fintech Upvest provides the Frankfurt-based Banking-as-a-Service provider Raisin Bank, one of Europe’s service banks, with its Investment API infrastructure for brokerage, custody and settlement. With Upvest, Raisin Bank lays the foundation “to provide its existing and future customers with new products.” The cooperation with… Read More