PayPal brings crypto service to Europe🇬🇧; Visa goes NFTs 🤯; SoftBank’s first foray into Africa🔥

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Last week (23-27 August) was a really hot and super exciting week in FinTech. We will look at PayPal's crypto service expansion into Europe; Visa catching the NFT craze; SoftBank's first foray into Africa and other interesting news and developments.

Without further ado, let us dive into what has happened in the financial technology sector last week. Let’s connect the dots.

PayPal brings crypto service to Europe🇬🇧

UK launch🇬🇧 Payments giant PayPal is extending its crypto service to the UK, allowing its customers to buy, sell and hold four different cryptocurrencies on its platform.

Users hence will be able to transact in Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash for as little as £1 ($1.40).

Testing international waters 🌊 The current rollout is the first expansion of PayPal's crypto offering outside the U.S. The process will begin this week and should be available to all eligible customers within the next few weeks.

Still not your coins… 😬 PayPal introduced crypto buying, selling, and holding to U.S. customers last October. Since then, the company has not yet allowed users to move crypto holdings off-platform, though this stance may change - a withdrawal function is reportedly in the works.

✈️ THE TAKEAWAY

Bringing crypto to the Main Street. PayPal is one of the biggest mainstream financial firms to offer cryptocurrency trading. Since the launch in October, the payments giant has been doing a really good job when it comes to crypto, exceeding even their own expectations. Although crypto revenues are still a very small fraction of their total income, the idea is clear - digital assets will probably be one of the key future growth drivers for PayPal in the years to come. Hence, it will be very interesting to see how they will succeed with crypto operations in Europe.

Visa goes NFTs 🤯

The purchase 🤑 Payments giant Visa has bought a female CryptoPunk for around $150,000, taking a step into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as it seeks to learn more about the burgeoning market. CryptoPunk 7610 was bought on August 19, the payments technology company announced Monday.

What is it? 🤔 CryptoPunks, of which 10,000 have been minted, are considered to be the original NFTs. CryptoPunk 7610 is one of 3,840 "female" punks.

The learning curve 👀 Visa's head of crypto, Cuy Sheffield, said in a blog post that the main purpose behind Visa's purchase was to learn more about the growing market. "We think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment and commerce," Sheffield wrote. "To help our clients and partners participate, we need a firsthand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store, and leverage an NFT."

✈️ THE TAKEAWAY

The new type of commerce. NFTs is the new e-commerce, and Visa wants to own it. Online commerce is the lifeblood of card networks like Visa, hence, any new emerging trends in this area should naturally be of their interest. Given the surge in popularity and adoption, NFTs might be a big industry in the future. More importantly, this is arguably the best marketing that Visa could ever do for $150k. Not only everyone is talking about it. Also, it moved the market. Following the news of Visa's purchase, a further 90 CryptoPunks NFTs were snapped up in the next hour for combined sales of around $20M. They continue to grow as we speak. Looks like Visa made a good play, a very good play… 👌🏽😎

SoftBank’s first foray into Africa🔥

FinTech in Nigeria🇳🇬 Giant technology investor SoftBank has made its first foray into Africa, making its first bet in Nigerian mobile payments platform OPay. The firm’s Vision Fund 2 led a $400M funding round for the FinTech company, valuing it at $2 billion and making it one of the most valuable private companies in the continent 🦄

The capital injection from SoftBank also drew participation from existing investors including Sequoia Capital China, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital, and SoftBank Ventures Asia.

The pivot 😎 Founded in 2018, the company started off by providing customers with digital services in their everyday life, from mobility and logistics to e-commerce and FinTech at cheap rates. The “super-app” strategy OPay once had was cut short after its ride-hailing and bike-sharing services were closed down following a government ban in Nigeria and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Right now, it’s the company’s mobile money and payment arm that thrives the most. By simply allowing unbanked and underbanked users in Nigeria to send and receive money and pay bills through a network of thousands of agents.

The growth 🚀 OPay has grown at an exponential rate. Parent company Opera reported that OPay’s monthly transactions grew 4.5x to over $2 billion in December last year. OPay also claims to process about 80% of bank transfers among mobile money operators in Nigeria and 20% of the country’s nonmerchant point of sales transactions. Per Bloomberg, the company’s monthly transaction volumes exceed $3B at the moment.

✈️ THE TAKEAWAY

I’ve said this multiple times, and I will say it again… Africa is the next BIG Thing (especially when it comes to FinTech). Still few understand that. After the latest fundraise, OPay is now bigger than GT Bank, the biggest bank in Nigeria (in terms of valuation). FinTech is growing strong in Africa, and it will only get stronger.

Extra Reads & Quick Bites for Curious Minds🧠

• Adyen’s growth 📈 Adyen saw a 67% increase in processed volume during the first half of 2021, the payments company said in its earnings report. According to the Dutch firm’s letter to its shareholders, Adyen processed 216B euros ($252B) in the first six months of the year. Adyen attributed that growth to three factors. First is the continuous addition of well-known brands to its platform along with minimal churn. Among the newest clients is global delivery giant Just Eat Takeaway. Online commerce still has lots of room for growth 🚀
• Neobank for musicians? 🤔 Nerve has announced one of the first neobanks created specifically for musicians. Nerve’s mobile app merges user experience and financial technologies to help artists build stronger communities and sustainable careers.
• Klarna is dominating the US🇺🇸 Swedish buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Klarna announced that it has doubled its U.S. customer base since June 2020, reaching a whopping 20M customers. The growth has been propelled in large part by the popularity of the Klarna app, which now has 4M monthly active users in the U.S.

Money Moves💸

• Brazil-based online retailer Nuvemshop has become the latest unicorn startup in Latin America, after raising $500M in a recent round of fundraising.
• Pakistan-based e-commerce platform Airlift has raised $85M in its Series B financing round at a valuation of $275M. Airlift operates a quick commerce service in eight cities, including Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad in Pakistan. Users can order groceries, fresh produce, and other essential items, including medicines, as well as sports goods from the Airlift website or app and, have it delivered to them in 30 minutes.
• Travel FinTevh Hopper has raised $175M in a Series G funding round bringing its total raised to date to $585M. 
• Specialized payments platform Paysafe will be acquiring Germany-based viafintech, which offers the biggest bank-independent payments structure in the DACH region (Austria, Germany, and Swizerland). Viafintech operates under the brands Barzahlen/viacash and viacash and offers an alternative to traditional banks.
• B2B tech and services platform Alerzo, based in Nigeria and Singapore, has announced it raised $10.5M in a Series A funding round. Alerzo, which was launched in 2019, works to empower informal retailers with various tools, the report stated. Alerzo customers can order products through phone calls, text messages, or WhatsApp. Once orders are received, Alerzo sends the requests to the right warehouses, where logistics teams deliver to the customer in around four hours.

Continue reading by subscribing to Linas's Newsletter. You will receive fresh news about FinTech with hot takeaways every day.

P.S. You might enjoy my earlier pieces as well:

👉 The Perfect Pitch Deck: How Coinbase Raised Seed Capital and Began Journey Towards $100B Worth Public Company

👉 Cutting Through the Noise: Bitcoin Fundamentals & Why it Was Created

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About: I am a business developer, sales professional, FinTech strategist, as well as Cryptocurrency and Blockchain enthusiast. I'm highly passionate about Financial Technology and Digital Innovation, and strongly believe that it will change the world for the better. Apart from my daily job at a global payments startup where I'm leading the company's expansion into Europe, I'm an active member of the FinTech community and a TechFin evangelist.

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