FinTech Meetup: Will I Find You There?

Hey FinTech Fanatic!

It’s been a few weeks since I landed in the US—why leave my hometown? Because FinTech, of course. (Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon!)

Next Monday is just around the corner, which means FinTech Meetup is almost here. It’s shaping up to be an incredible opportunity for networking (and yes, some partying too 😉). My friends at Caliber Corporate Advisers made a solid list of all the best parties—here’s where I’ll be:

• Kicking off the night at the Cambr Happy Hour (co-hosted by This Week in FinTech), followed by a stop at the Sardine X Pipe Happy Hour—will I see you there, Simon Taylor and Jon Lear?
• Next, I’ll head to Fin & Juice, where I’m excited to reconnect with my friend and event organizer, Harvey Hudes, before finishing the night at Synctera & Hawk After Dark.

Still figuring out where to go? The Financial Revolutionist has compiled here a helpful guide to the top networking events, happy hours, and exclusive gatherings where industry leaders connect.

Will I find you at FinTech Meetup?

Scroll down to get your daily dose of the latest FinTech industry updates 👇

Cheers,

Marcel

Time is running out! Get your ticket to the best event in FinTech.

BREAKING NEWS 

🇺🇸 Ryan Breslow is back as CEO of FinTech Bolt, after years of controversy. Bolt shared a communication that recently went out to investors in which Breslow wrote that “following a challenging few years”, he had been reinstated as Bolt’s CEO with “unanimous approval” of the board of the one-click checkout company.

INSIGHTS

➡️ Two-thirds of banks team with FinTechs on cross-border payments. This integration signals a trend in the banking industry where collaboration with FinTech firms is becoming a key strategy for driving innovation. 62% of banks are actively exploring partnerships with FinTechs to elevate their cross-border payment solutions. 

FINTECH NEWS

🇮🇱 Papaya Global and Sumsub partner to provide clients with AI-powered fraud prevention and customer verification, while maintaining speed, accuracy, and regulatory compliance. The partnership ensures compliant payment transfers for companies and their workforce throughout the world.

🇸🇬 Revolut Singapore pushing ahead with aggressive plans to cater to more users. Raymond Ng is gearing up to expand beyond the FinTech firm’s current offerings of remittances, payments and investments, as he pushes on with his mission to simplify people’s financial lives.

🇬🇧 Curve unveils money movement tool. With Curve ReFi, overdraft interest can be avoided or reduced, and credit card balances can be shifted between cards to lower cost credit cards, freeing up cash and decreasing interest payments, offering customers full control over their money.

PAYMENTS NEWS

🇵🇱 Mollie is now available to Polish businesses. With Mollie, Polish customers can use well-known payment methods such as BLIK and Przelewy24, as well as integrate with dozens of e-commerce platforms. This aims to provide companies with tools that will allow them to focus on what's most important - growing their businesses.

🇺🇸 CFPB drops lawsuit against US banks over alleged fraud on Zelle. The agency dropped the case against JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. along with the parent company of the consumer payment network Zelle with prejudice, meaning it cannot be reopened.

🌎 emerchantpay expands LatAm footprint with enhanced local acquiring capabilities in Brazil and Mexico. This strategic enhancement empowers merchants with higher acceptance rates, optimised cross-border transactions and more competitive pricing, ensuring a seamless payment experience for businesses operating in the region.

🇰🇼 Visa launches Tap to add card in Kuwait, enhancing the ease and security of adding cards to digital wallets. The solution eliminates the cumbersome process of manual entry, a common source of errors and a vulnerability exploited by fraudsters seeking to compromise sensitive card information. 

🌍 Alipay+ expands collaboration with Whale Cloud. Businesses will have access to digital wallet solutions with marketing tools, risk management systems, and financial service technologies. The collaboration aims to offer a super app solution for an open ecosystem for digital services.

REGTECH NEWS

🇩🇪 BaFin fines Deutsche Bank €23mn for string of regulatory lapses. Germany’s financial watchdog has fined the bank over a series of violations of the country’s securities and payments laws, the latest sign that Germany’s largest lender is struggling to move past its history of regulatory lapses.

🇺🇸 PayPal scammers adopt Docusign API to con customers. The program allows 'customers' to send emails that come from genuine Docusign accounts, and they can use templates to impersonate reputable companies. Users are notified of an 'unauthorised' transaction and given a contact number for security and refunds.

DIGITAL BANKING NEWS

🇰🇷 Kakao Bank CEO wins fifth term, eyes global expansion. Yun Ho-young reappointment will be finalized at a shareholders’ meeting on March 26. Yun’s current term expires on March 28, and upon approval, he will serve for another two years.

🇵🇰 Mastercard signs strategic collaboration with Mashreq to support its launch as a digital bank in Pakistan. This collaboration will introduce innovative digital propositions to individuals and businesses to bolster the digital economy, accelerate digital payment adoption, and drive financial inclusion.

BLOCKCHAIN/CRYPTO NEWS

🇺🇸 SEC announces Crypto Task Force staff. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce stated that the Crypto Task Force demonstrates deep expertise and a strong commitment to identifying, with the help of other skilled staff across the Commission and interested members of the public, workable solutions to complex crypto regulatory challenges.

🇬🇧 BVNK launches embedded wallet that unifies fiat and stablecoin payments. The wallet brings together fiat, crypto and stablecoin payments, with direct access to leading blockchains and local and international payment schemes. Continue reading

🇨🇭 Sygnum expands its off-exchange custody platform to include Deribit. This integration enables traders to hold their assets in a regulated bank with institutional-grade security, while conveniently accessing the world’s largest crypto derivatives exchange’s deep liquidity.

PARTNERSHIPS

🇺🇸 Prommt and Chargebacks911® announce new partnership. Monica Eaton, founder and CEO of Chargebacks911, stated that the partnership combines two exceptional technology solutions, enabling merchants to manage their remote payments and online transactions with confidence.

🌍 Bespin Global and Ozone API join forces to offer cloud-based open banking solutions. The partnership will enable seamless, end-to-end compliance for financial institutions with minimal operational burden, while also providing the tools necessary to move beyond compliance when they are ready. 

🇬🇧 Flagstone teams with Alloy for automated onboarding. The partnership allows Flagstone to approve new applications within seconds, without impinging on the highest standards of security and compliance, and integrate global data partners into a single dashboard.

🇨🇴 Payoneer partners with Bancolombia’s neobank Nequi. Users will be able to transfer their dollars and euros from Payoneer to Nequi and receive them in Colombian pesos in a matter of minutes. Payoneer will enable Nequi users to bring euros through the Nequi platform for the first time. 

🇵🇰 Payoneer partners with Meezan Bank. Under the partnership, Meezan Bank customers can link their Payoneer accounts to the bank’s mobile banking app to make real-time withdrawals in multiple global currencies directly into their Meezan local receiving accounts. 

🇳🇬 Flutterwave signs deal with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria. Under this partnership, both will collaborate to provide MSMEs with seamless and secure digital storefronts, payment solutions, enabling them to accept payments from customers worldwide.

🇵🇹 Walletto integrates MB WAY as an option for improved payments. This addition to Walletto’s acquiring services aims to allow businesses to offer faster, safer, and more efficient payment experiences to their customers. Read more

🌍 Viva.com and Extenda Retail unite to advance cloud-native all-in-one retail & hospitality solutions in Europe. This partnership aims to provide retailers with the latest cloud-native warehouse-to-payments technology. Continue reading

🇺🇸 TradingView adds Indonesian broker Gotrade to partner list. The firm aims to remove barriers to the US stock market, enabling Indonesian investors to trade confidently. With 600+ US stocks and fractional shares, clients can invest from $1.

🇦🇪 Emirates NBD to introduce the Visa Commercial Pay-Mobile Module. This initiative aligns with the UAE Government’s vision of digitalizing payments while at the same time providing a distinctive and unique proposition to Emirates NBD’s clients to enhance payment efficiencies, enabling security, automation and reconciliation through tokenized credentials.

🇸🇬 Thoughtworks partners with GXS Group to accelerate digital bank launch. Through their collaboration, the firms have created a smooth and highly secure digital banking mobile platform. This platform serves as the basis upon which GXS Group has established its range of retail and business banking offerings.

DONEDEAL FUNDING NEWS

🇬🇧 Quantexa raises $175M, boosting valuation to $2.6BN. It will use the funds to improve its tech, create new partnerships and alliances, deepen its presence in North America, and pursue selected M&A opportunities. Continue reading

🇺🇸 Grain emerges from stealth with $50M to help any business hedge against FX volatility. The startup is emerging from stealth with a product that it says will let finance teams at companies of any size better understand and be more responsive to FX changes by hedging transactions. 

M&A

🌏 Airwallex signs definitive agreement to acquire CTIN Pay. The acquisition expands Airwallex’s existing licences across major Asia-Pacific (APAC) markets. This move deepens the global reach of Airwallex’s financial infrastructure, aiding Vietnamese merchants in their overseas expansion and facilitating international businesses to enter the Vietnamese market. 

🇬🇧 Behavox acquires market analytics firm Mosaic Smart Data. The software has been working to integrate the capabilities of Mosaic into its suite of enterprise risk and compliance solutions. This suite includes an electronic communication surveillance offering called Quantum, an AI-powered knowledge and policy management system. 

🇺🇸 Morningstar and PitchBook jump into private credit portfolio monitoring with Lumonic acquisition. The Lumonic acquisition follows consolidation among software and data providers keen to serve private markets with end-to-end investment solutions.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

🇨🇦 Mastercard tasks new leads with steering innovation and strategy. Erin Elofson will lead Mastercard's operations in Canada as Division President and Janet George has joined as Executive Vice President of AI, focusing on AI integration across Mastercard's services. These changes are aimed at enhancing Mastercard's global growth and technology-driven offerings. 

🇺🇸 Former Congressman Patrick McHenry joins equipifi as a Senior Advisor. McHenry provides the team with strategic policy and regulatory guidance as the FinTech prepares to scale bank-provided BNPL programs to all U.S. consumers. Read more

🇬🇧 CAB Payments appoints James Hopkinson as CFO. Mr Hopkinson has worked for over 25 years across global banks and emerging markets, FX and payments, and has also experience driving business transformations. Before that, he was Group CFO of ClearBank. 

🇬🇧 Fiinu bolsters leadership team with strategic appointments as plugin Overdraft® Project Advances. The company has appointed Dr. Feyzullah Egriboyun as Group CFO, Timo Rinne as Head of Technology, and Albert Owen III as Head of Operations. These strategic appointments are aimed at supporting the development and launch of Fiinu's Plugin Overdraft® platform in the UK.

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