Global

December 10, 2019 @ 8:07 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Centana Growth Partners, a growth equity company primarily focused on contributing to the future of financial services, has finalized a $375 million investment round, called Centana Growth Partners II, L.P. (“Fund II”). The funds raised will be used to further expand the company’s current investments… Read More

December 10, 2019 @ 7:48 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Transferwise, a leading cross-border money transfer service, has recently revealed that it has integrated its payments system with the Facebook Messenger. The integration will allow users to perform foreign exchange transactions over the widely-used chat service. While not a huge announcement it is more indicative… Read More

December 10, 2019 @ 2:35 am By Cali Haan  |  

South Africa’s Reserve Bank (Sarb) is drafting new rules to prevent cryptocurrencies from undermining currency controls in the country, IOL reports. The rules will come into effect in the first quarter of 2020, Sarb deputy governor Kuben Naidoo told journalists last week. South Africa’s financial… Read More

December 10, 2019 @ 1:51 am By Cali Haan  |  

The SEC is seeking to depose UK citizen John Hyman, whom Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has identified as “Telegram’s chief investment advisor.” The SEC believes Hyman brokered many of the private deals that helped Telegram raise $1.7 billion USD from 171 investors in two sales of GRAM… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 11:09 pm By JD Alois  |  

Depending on the jurisdiction, big tech is moving into financial services at various speeds. In China, big tech already dominates much of the Fintech landscape from payments, to lending, to Wealthtech to savings. It’s all there. In the US, there is a constant, pensive shuffle… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 1:49 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) blockchain-powered cloud-based service Microsoft Azure has added new tokenization and DLT-enabled data management services. The Redmond, Washington-based multinational technology company formally announced the introduction of Azure Blockchain Tokens and a blockchain data manager tool in a blog post published on December 6…. Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 12:09 pm By JD Alois  |  

UK based Smartlands will be tokenizing its own equity selling a 3.5% equity stake in the platform, according to a note from the company. Smartlands is a digital security issuance platform that claimed earlier this year to have tokenized the first property investment in the… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 9:27 am By JD Alois  |  

Last week, P2P property lender Landbay announced it would no longer accept retail money as it moved away from the peer to peer lending model. Managing P2P investors is simply too costly for the amount of money raised. Over time, institutional money pushed out smaller… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 9:02 am By JD Alois  |  

The race to compete with emerging Fintechs is compelling most all banks to up their game. This is good for the consumer. Better service and lower costs (hopefully). If traditional banks want to survive ongoing iterations and a willingness to change is vital. Today, NatWest… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 8:47 am By Omar Faridi  |  

StudentFinance, a Fintech firm launched by the founders of Uniplaces, recently revealed that it had secured €1.15 million (appr. $1.27 million) in seed funding led by Seedcamp, a Revolut and Transferwise investor, which are two of Europe’s largest Fintech companies. Mustard Seed Maze also took… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 7:37 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Some of Hungary’s financial institutions might be forced to exit the market as they may not be adequately prepared to continue to compete with challengers from the Fintech industry. Traditional institutions are also facing increasing pressure due to declining revenues from a consistently low-yield environment,… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 5:00 am By Jonathan J. Attia and Thibault Verbiest  |  

We have deliberately chosen to limit our presentation, for pedagogical reasons, to the four fundamental periods represented by the emergence of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Libra and CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currency) because no other event (derived or similar project) has had such an impact on the… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 2:01 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Lelystad, Netherlands-based Givt, an online giving solution, has raised over €650,000 (appr. $718,000) from 205 investors via a crowdfunding campaign it launched in October 2019. At present, Givt’s campaign stands at around 108%. The crowdfunding is expected to last until the end of this year…. Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 1:49 am By JD Alois  |  

A report by global consulting firm AT Kearney recently addressed the emergence of digital challenger banks. Published last week, and authored by Simon Kent and Danil Makarov, the research states that  challenger banks are “already mainstream” and if old school high street banks don’t wake… Read More

December 9, 2019 @ 12:04 am By Omar Faridi  |  

Banking software developer Temenos (SIX: TEMN) revealed on December 3 that the Egyptian National Post Organization (ENPO) has chosen its cloud-native, cloud-agnostic Temenos T24 Transact, which is described as “the next generation in core banking.” ENPO has also selected Temenos Infinity, an omnichannel online banking… Read More

December 8, 2019 @ 9:09 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Igor Senra and Leo Mendes, founders of online payments company MOIP, which was acquired by WireCard in 2016, have raised $10 million in order to help fund the operations of a new company, called Cora. Senra and Mendez developed their first business by providing services… Read More

December 8, 2019 @ 6:26 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Ukraine’s government has reportedly approved the nation’s final draft of a new money laundering law that applies to virtual assets (or cryptocurrencies) and virtual asset service providers (VASPs), according to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines. The Rada, the country’s legislative body, released a… Read More

December 8, 2019 @ 6:18 pm By JD Alois  |  

Switzerland based Fintech Incubator & Accelerator F10 has set up a new office in Singapore to expand its reach in the world of Fintech. Singapore is a well established Fintec hub due to the exceptional support by the Singaporean government and financial regulators. F10 said… Read More

December 8, 2019 @ 6:00 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

StorkCard, a debit card service provider developed specifically for parents, has introduced a new service it calls “the world’s first” current account designed to assist parents in “baby-proofing” their savings. The joint account is referred to as “StorkCard Village.” The London-headquartered company will offer a… Read More

December 8, 2019 @ 5:50 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Wamda has reportedly made an investment in United Arab Emirates (UAE)-headquartered Fintech firm FlexxPay. The social impact company offers various benefit solutions to workers, which are available for businesses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Wamda’s latest investment is part of FlexxPay’s… Read More