FinTech Daily News – Edition 104, 28.11.2017

FinTech Daily News

by Florin Oprea

Edition 104, 28.11.2017

Deals, Investments & M&As

Fortress Backs $120m Capital Raising By MoneyMe

James Eyers – Australian Financial Review

Global credit investor Fortress Investment Group will invest $100 million in debt capital to support MoneyMe’s consumer lending growth as the fintech considers an initial public offering in early 2019.Fortress’s investment is part of a $120 million asset-backed securitisation deal, which also includes a $20 million bond, issued by Evans & Partners, which was oversubscribed.

Balderton Capital Closes New $375M Fund To Invest In Series A-stage European Startups 

Steve O’Hear – TechCrunch

More VC money sloshing around Europe: In what was probably one of the worst kept secrets in European VC, London-based Balderton Capital is announcing a new $375 million fund. The new fund — the firm’s sixth — will target startups anywhere in Europe at mostly Series A stage, with the occasional seed deal or Series B investment, in addition to follow ons.

Global Fintech Startup TreasuryXpress Closes US$5 Million Funding From MEVP And Others

Sindhu Hariharan – Entrepreneur

TreasuryXpress, an on-demand treasury management solutions provider, has closed a Series B investment of US$5 million from an investor consortium that includes Middle East Venture Partners , iSME Capital, The Luxury Fund, and others.

DNT: TreasuryXpress aims to “make financial technology accessible to companies of all sizes”.

Fintech Firm Ovamba Moves Into African Commodities Exports

Shannon Manders – Global Trade Review

Ovamba, a fintech firm that uses blockchain and other new technologies to connect investors with African SMEs, has facilitated a €30mn deal for the purchase and export of cocoa for Cameroonian commodity marketing company Producam.

Payments

Cash Is Still King In Europe Despite Contactless Revolution

Tom Ball – Computer Business Review

Cash proves to be unshakable at the point of sale, with a majority using it in countries including Germany and Austria.With modern, mobile payment alternatives on the rise globally, it may be a surprise to some that there is no sign of cash being displaced any time soon at the point of sale.The position held by cash is fortified, with a commanding 79% of point of sale transactions being conducted in the traditional manner in 2016. In contrast, just 19% of POS transactions were made using cards.

DNT:  Hmm, this European Central Bank statistics raise some question marks about the contactless payment infrastructure in EU and also about the payment behaviour of the europeans. Seems that a cashless society is still far.

WorldRemit Launches Digital Money Transfers To South Korea

Business Wire

WorldRemit has expanded its remittance service to South Korea.WorldRemit’s mobile-first, digital model allows hard working migrants to send money to South Korea in a few taps, directly from their phones or via the website – without the need to visit or stand in line at a bricks and mortar agent.

DNT: In June, WorldRemit enabled digital money transfers from Singapore.

Lending

Swedish Payment Services Firm Klarna Posts Profit Rise

Reuters

Swedish online payment services firm Klarna reported sharply higher revenues and earnings for the first nine months of 2017. Klarna said in a statement its sales rose 24% year-on-year to 3.16 billion Swedish crowns ($382 million) in January through September while net earnings climbed 75% to 349 million.

DNT: Pretty good result for the tech unicorn. Recently, Klarna announced a partnership with PPRO Group in order to enable Payment Service Providers and to offer credit-based payments through PPRO’s payment hub to European merchants, risk-free – details here – Deals, Investments & M&As Section. Back in September, Klarna acquired german online payments company BillPay – details here, Deals, Investments & M&As Section as well.

NZ Regulator Issues P2P, Crowdfunding Stats

Finextra

The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) today published its first statistical report on peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding in New Zealand.The data shows $259.9 million is currently loaned to individuals and $29.5 million loaned to businesses through peer-to-peer lending in the year ending 30 June 2017.A total of $74.2 million was raised from investors through crowdfunding, including wholesale investors, in the same period.

Superannuation Lending To Corporates Is Worth Fostering

Australian Financial Review

Australian superannuation funds have been heavily weighted to the familiar asset class of Australian shares. That needs to be reviewed as superannuation fund assets head toward $3 trillion of Australian savings. At the same time, Australia’s banks are being lumbered with post-GFC requirements to hold much more capital against their lending in order to protect depositors. That’s making it less profitable for them to lend to business borrowers for fixed terms of more than five years or more. The risk capital rules make it much more profitable for the banks to lend to property.

Insurance

Japan Insurer Sompo Sets Up Fintech Base In Tel Aviv

Reuters

Property-and-casualty insurer Sompo has set up a fintech hub in Israel, becoming the first Japanese insurer to do so in a country where it hopes to tap local expertise in digital and cyber-security technologies.

DNT: Sompo is one of Japan’s top three property and casualty insurers.

Retail banking

Embattled Banks Wake Up To Embrace Fintech

Chen Meiling – China Daily

Lenders invest heavily as online financial firms make rapid strides. Chinese banks have begun giving more importance to financial technology, or fintech, in order to become more competitive as internet-based companies are taking rapid strides in the field, industry insiders said.

Punjab National Bank To Sell 6% Stake In Housing Finance Arm

Ankit Doshi  – VC Circle

India’s second-largest lender by assets Punjab National Bank Ltd will sell 6% stake in its housing finance arm through an offer for sale.The two-day share sale in PNB Housing Finance, which counts private equity firms Carlyle Group and General Atlantic as its backers, will begin on Tuesday, PNB said in a stock exchange filing.

FinTech People

Via Mondovisione – Banking And FinTech Industry Heavyweight Chris Skinner Becomes Shareholder In Meniga

Via Efinancialcareers – Citi’s ex-head of equity derivatives, Imraan Moola, joins AI fund manager Q2Q Capital

Via Forbes – The latest dive in the stock price of China online lender Qudian at the New York Stock Exchange has knocked CEO Luo Min from the ranks of the world’s billionaires.

Latest Developments & Agreements

After The Fastest German IPO In 15 Years, Leading FinTech Group Naha Enters the Blockchain

EconoTimes

Naga is currently working on several different projects, including a social network for stock traders, a virtual item exchange platform, a currency exchange app, and a trading application.

DNT: Recently, Naga launched a token pre-sale. The fastest german IPO in 15 years occurred in March, this year. Naga completed  its IPO at the Frankfurt stock exchange in July.

Regulation

New EU Rules Increases Competition And Security Between Banks And Fintech

Huw Jones – Independent

EU Fires Starting Gun For Banks Vs. FIntech Fight Over Payments

Huw Jones – Reuters

The European Commission approved rules to increase competition and toughen up security in how people pay for goods and services across the European Union, pitting banks against financial technology firms. The rules flesh out an update to the bloc’s payment services law and are among the most disputed in recent financial regulation, sparking intense lobbying as banks and fintech firms clashed over access to customer data.

DNT: Good. Let’s hope that this new set of rules will indeed offer better payment services to consumers and eliminate security breaches and data leakage.

Accelerators & Hubs

Lagos Is Set To Overtake Nairobi As Africa’s Startup Capital

Yomi Kazeem – Quartz

As Africa’s tech startups and their founders go about creating disrupting industries or, in some cases, building new ones, they’ve typically tended to mushroom across three major ecosystems: Nairobi, Cape Town and Lagos. But over the past year, Lagos’ claim as the continent’s startup epicenter has gained currency. For starters, it’s the continent’s most valuable ecosystem with its startups typically raising far more in early-stage funding.

Analysis

Fintech Keeping Banks, Insurers On Their Toes

Kabelo Khumalo – Independent Online

The rise of Fintech has forced South Africa’s banks and insurance companies to look at their value propositions, to meet the demands of changing consumer behaviour. Digital solutions, low-cost operating models and supply-chain integration have moved to the top of the bank’s’ business agendas, with non-traditional players pursuing various aspects of these trends, enabling them to provide their customers with in-house banking solutions.

Opinion

Fintech Energizes Real Economy

Chen Jia  – China Daily

Chinese financial technology or fintech firms are expected to lead industry innovation and facilitate growth of small and medium-sized enterprises or SMEs in the Asia-Pacific region, said an executive of a leading Chinese fintech company. Tang Ning, founder and CEO of Beijing-based CreditEase, said tremendous development opportunities await fintech firms as well as peer-to-peer or P2P lenders in the next decade despite a stricter regulatory environment.

 

FAO: Florin Adrian Oprea, Editor-in-chief FinTech Daily News

DNT: Decebal Nicolaie Todarita, Editor FinTech Daily News