Welcome to your daily FinTech news!
- In the Middle East, North Africa, and Pakistan (MENAP) region, exponential growth in the e-commerce market is fueling the rise of newer methods of paying, with buy now, pay later (BNPL) arrangements, in particular, emerging as the new favorite payment method. A survey of more than 13,000 consumers in MENAP conducted by Checkout.com, a payment solution provider supporting businesses, found greater penetration of BNPL arrangements in MENA (24%) than in the UK and Europe (23%) in 2021. Link here.
- Last week, €230m was raised across 17 FinTech deals. Link here.
- The SPAC merger between Israeli fintech unicorn Pagaya and EJF Acquisition Corp. is set to be completed this week despite the many question marks surrounding the combination. EJF announced on Friday afternoon that its shareholders have voted to approve its combination with Pagaya at a valuation of $8.5 billion. Link here.
- Payment solutions startup PayGlocal Technologies has raised $12 million in a Series B funding round led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from Sequoia Capital India and BEENEXT. This is the startup's second fundraise in the last six months. In December 2021, the fintech company had raised $4.9 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital, along with investors including BEENEXT, Jitendra Gupta, and Amrish Rau. Link here.
- mewt has raised $4.6 million ( ₹35.8 crore) in a seed funding round led by global fintech investor Quona Capital. “Mewt is on its way to redefining merchant QR payments in India the same way Square in the US has done for point-of-sale terminals," noted Rishabh Jain. Link here.
- Verimatrix, the leader in powering the modern connected world with people-centered security, announced that albo, one of Mexico’s fastest-growing fintech innovators, selected App Shield hosted on the Verimatrix Secure Delivery Platform to shield its sensitive code and customer data with proven protections against potentially harmful cyberattacks. Link One in three UK-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) who sought access to finance were denied in the last year, according to new research from Yolt, Europe’s rapidly accelerating smart payments and data enrichment platform. This resulted in an estimated £3.7bn lost in potential funding for UK SME’s. Link here.
- Australia-based Latitude Financial Services has terminated its deal to acquire humm group’s buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) unit. In what was described as a mutual agreement, digital payment player Latitude and Humm agreed to terminate the acquisition of Humm Consumer Finance (HCF), the BNPL unit, according to filings to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) Friday. Link here.
- Mazepay, the Danish fintech platform that simplifies long-tail procurement and B2B payments, has been granted a pan-European payments institute licence by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority, enabling it to handle transactions on behalf of companies to pay suppliers’ invoices directly. Link here.
- MoneyGram International has partnered the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) with to initiate the rollout of its crypto-to-cash service that is now available in key remittance markets, including Kenya, the U.S., Canada, and the Philippines for the first wave of users. Link here.
- Venture capital firm True Global Ventures 4 Plus (TGV4 Plus) has announced the closure of a $146 million funding round earmarked for a wide range of Web3 projects — highlighting investors’ continued interest in crypto despite an ongoing bear market. Link here.
- FROST has launched to the general public after initially opening its app to its first wave of users. More than 16,000 people signed up to receive early access to the new e-money offering, which aims to give users greater control over several typically time-consuming financial tasks. Now, everyone in the UK can download the app and sign up for Frost. Link here.
- The Bank of Ghana has launched GhanaPay, a common mobile wallet open to the country's financial services sector. The wallet is open to banks, savings and loans companies, and rural and community lenders, enabling the industry to pool resources and reduce the cost of developing and testing new technologies. Link here.
- Revolut, one of the UK’s most valuable fintech companies, is axing its free trading for its most premium monthly subscription plan. Users of its Metal subscription package pay £12.99 per month for a number of benefits including unlimited trading at zero commission but, according to the company, this will end next month. Link here.
- Samba Bank Limited Pakistan, a fully owned subsidiary of one of the largest banks in the Middle East (Saudi National Bank), has officially gone live with SmartVista Card Management & Middleware system after partnering with BPC Banking Technologies to complete the first stage of its cross-vertical digital banking transformation. Link here.
- Currencycloud, the experts in simplifying business in a multi-currency world, have announced that they have been granted an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC). The granting of the licence means that Currencycloud can now offer its full suite of services to Australian businesses. Link here.
- Griffin, the UK-based Banking as a Service firm, has appointed Adam Moulson as interim CEO while current CEO and co-founder David Jarvis is on parental leave. "The Board has every faith in Adam's ability to lead the firm as it continues to grow and pursue its strategic goals," said the Chair of the Board, John Weguelin. Link here.
This ends Your Daily Fintech News. Let me know if there are any questions or comments. Until the next!
