Digital Banking | 2022 #10
Weekly news up to Monday, March 7th, 2022
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Business payments FinTech Zeller is claiming unicorn status less than a year after launching following a $100 million Series B capital raise.
The Melbourne startup has again looked offshore for capital with US VC Headline leading the round supported by local industry super fund Hostplus.
Founded by former Square exec Ben Pfisterer and Dominic Yap, the fintech has now raised $181 million, including a $6.3 million seed round in June 2020.
“With the accelerated displacement of cash, we have seen in-person card payments experience unprecedented growth,” Pfisterer said.
“Yet over 9 million Australians transacted online last financial year, so it’s critical that businesses can accept payments wherever their customers are. Delivering the tools to accept payments and get a complete view of their business, be it in-store or online, is our first step into seamless omnichannel commerce.”
👉 Read the full article here.
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📰 ARTICLE
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said disconnecting Russian banks from the SWIFT messaging system may bring “unintended consequences” that include third parties finding ways around the penalty.
“What countries do you hurt? What people are going to do workarounds?” Dimon said Monday in an interview with Bloomberg LP Television.
The CEO was referring to bad players and others finding workarounds, not his own firm, according to a company spokesperson. Dimon said sanctions, by contrast, are “very targeted, very specific, very clean.”
👉 Read the full article here.
💬 INTERVIEW
“I wouldn’t say that he’s Monzofied Generation Home but he has certainly played a really important role in helping me in my management of the company,” says the CEO of husband and wife-founded proptech Generation Home.
Will Rice, CEO of Generation Home, is speaking about Tom Blomfield, the Monzo and GoCardless founder, who remerged last year on the board of Generation Home.
Blomfield was said to be blown away by Generation Home’s proposition of allowing mum and dad to be on the mortgage of first-time house buyers, enabling them to borrow more money.
👉 Read the full interview here.
💡INSIGHTS
Financial information is still delivered through a gendered lens. In this gender bias that exists, men are more likely targeted with articles related to investments.
Eventually, women’s financial education is lagging behind in all aspects.
London-based Your Juno is a financial education platform, which is focused on the financial empowerment of women and non-binary people.
👉 Link here.
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NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🌎 DIGITAL BANKING HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ In light of the current situation Sberbank has taken the decision to withdraw from the European market. Link here.
⭐️ Following the recent aggression against Ukraine, Santander has been working to support the response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis, as well as acting to ensure Santander complies with the imposed sanctions against Russia. Link here.
⭐️ Grasshopper has relaunched its digital banking platform as part of a renewed focus on start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Link here.
⭐️ Sokin, the next-generation payments provider, is set to disrupt India’s $87bn remittances market by giving the 18 million Indian migrants living outside their homeland access to 51% cheaper global money transfers. Link here.
⭐️ Message from ZEN.COM Founder and CEO Dawid Rozek: Let’s act together – that’s the only way we can help. Link here.
UK 🇬🇧
Revolut and IRIS, a human resources software giant, have struck a partnership to bring early salary access to thousands more Brits. In a move that comes over a year after Revolut first introduced an early salary feature for users, the partnership will allow companies using the HR system IRIS Cascade to access ‘on-demand pay’. Link here.
GoHenry is boosting its proposition with the launch of a Junior ISA, as it looks to school more children in responsible investing. Link here.
EUROPE 🇪🇺
German digital banking powerhouse N26 will be structurally ready for an IPO by the end of the year and could list as early as 2024. CEO Maximilian Tayenthal told CNBC that the company will soon be ready to go public but added that it is "not stressed" to do so "anytime soon" because the private markets have "proven to be incredibly liquid". Link here.
Estonian property lending platform EstateGuru is gearing up for a huge expansion into the German market, laying the groundwork through a partnership with Raisin DS. Link here.
Innovative Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) integrator AAZZUR has expanded its partnership with the leading embedded finance experience platform Railsbank. Link here.
Payments provider LHV UK announced a partnership with Estonian fintech Tuum (formerly Modularbank) to secure the core banking infrastructure for its UK operations. Link here.
Mastercard and Visa have blocked multiple financial institutions from their payment networks in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Link here.
Ali Niknam, founder & CEO at bunq, an Amsterdam-based challenger bank, has offered to help Ukrainian refugees by offering them safety and shelter in Bulgaria and Georgia, and by subsequently helping to bring them to the Netherlands on an HSM visa. Check a list of initiatives taken by the global (Fin-)tech community to support Ukraine. Link here.
Payhawk raised an additional $100m to extend its Series B round to $215m. The Series B extension was raised at a valuation of $1 billion, making Payhawk the first-ever Bulgarian company to achieve unicorn status. Link here.
Europe’s biggest loan marketplace Mintos has taken the “next steps to protect investors”, and is excluding all loans from Russia and Ukraine from its main market. Link here.
USA 🇺🇸
A version of the below message was sent to all employees from the Operating Committee at JPMorgan. “We are heartbroken to witness the tragic and growing humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Our thoughts are with the innocent civilians who are suffering, and those individuals and families in neighboring countries and around the world who have been impacted.” Link here.
Bank of America will roll all of its product lines into one app that is slated to roll out in December, according to American Banker. The bank’s main app will incorporate retail banking, investing, and mortgage services, giving users a single location for all of their financial needs. Link here.
US challenger Finch is set to launch this year, billing itself as a banking and investing platform that enables customers to earn investment returns directly on their account balance. Link here.
ASIA
BigPay, a Capital A venture company and digital bank aspirant, announced the launch of its fully digital loans issued by “BigPay Later”, a wholly-owned subsidiary within the group and a digital money lending license holder. Link here.
Maybank announced that it has launched its digital home financing solution “Maybank Home2u” on its MAE app that is capable of providing approvals within 10 seconds and is available to both existing and new customers. Link here.
Singaporean neobank IN Financial Technology (INFT) has fully acquired MyCash Money, a money transfer company focused on migrant workers, for an undisclosed sum. Link here.
MIDDLE EAST
Qatar FinTech Hub (QFTH), founded by Qatar Development Bank (QDB) to support the growth of the FinTech industry in Qatar, is inviting all entrepreneurs and FinTechs from Qatar and around the world to apply to its fourth Hackathon. Link here.
If you are a fintech startup and have over 100 questions send me an email, maybe I can answer a few.