UK financial services firms leading the way on automation October 14, 2019 Financial services firms in the UK are integrating robo-advisers into their ranks faster than their global competitors in a bid to harness the technology to retain customers – or poach new ones, new research has found. While 37 per cent of UK financial services firms surveyed have implemented robotic processing automation (RPA) – a technology [...]
Revolut in bid to raise £1.2bn and become Europe’s most valuable fintech firm October 12, 2019 Fintech firm Revolut is seeking to raise £1.2bn from its investors in the coming months. The British-Based payment firm has hired investment bank JP Morgan to arrange a £395m equity raise and issuance of a £790m convertible loan, according to Sky News. Read more: Martin Gilbert to step down from Stand Life and join Revolut [...]
Checkout.com expands to new London headquarters as revenue surges October 9, 2019 Online payments startup Checkout.com is set to hire 100 members of staff and relocate to new Old Street offices as it unveiled a sharp rise in revenue for the year. The British fintech unicorn will triple its office space with a new 63,000 square feet location near the capital’s Silicon Valley roundabout, having outgrown its [...]
Rising Risk (Part II): Tech bubble take two October 9, 2019 | City Talk In this second instalment of a two-part article, Sebastien Canderle says many tech start-ups are deploying a bagful of tricks to massage their numbers I have already laid out my thoughts here on CFA Institute Talk on the topic of the innovative financial engineering for which many buyout experts have become associated – for example, [...]
Tide secures £44.1m in ‘one of the largest ever’ fintech series B funding rounds October 7, 2019 Fintech company Tide has raised £44.1m in its first round of Series B equity funding in a bid to increase its business banking market share. Read more: Scottish fintech paysend closes £8.5m series B round Tide announced it had secured the funding yesterday in what it is calling “one of the largest ever” series B funding [...]
Kaspi.kz IPO: Kazakh fintech postpones London float October 7, 2019 The London float of Kazakh fintech group Kaspi.kz has been postponed due to “unfavourable market conditions” in the technology sector. Read more: Fund veteran Martin Gilbert leaves Standard Life Aberdeen to join Revolut The initial public offering (IPO) was set to be the largest by a Central Asian company on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) [...]
Augmentum Fintech backs German tech rental platform October 1, 2019 London-listed investment fund Augmentum Fintech has led an €11m (£9.8m) funding round backing German technology rental firm Grover. Augmentum invested €6m in Grover – which offers consumers flexible subscriptions to products including smartphones and laptops – the fund’s first investment in Germany. Read more: Augmentum Fintech to double in size as it seeks £150m fundraise [...]
Fintech star Revolut’s losses double to £33m as it splashes cash to expand October 1, 2019 Losses at fintech behemoth Revolut more than doubled to £33m in its latest financial year, as it ploughed money into a massive expansion. Revenue rose 354 per cent year on year to £58.2m in 2018, according to accounts filed today. However the cost of sales rose 247 per cent, meaning the fintech recorded a loss [...]
Funding Circle investors face four month wait to withdraw cash September 28, 2019 Funding Circle is conducting an internal review after it was revealed investors are having to wait more than 16 weeks to withdraw cash. The peer-to-peer platform told The Times it was “exploring a range of options” to tackle the problem delaying investors from selling their loans in its secondary market. Funding Circle has around 80,000 [...]
Ecommerce needs a new approach to fraud prevention September 26, 2019 In 2018, global ecommerce sales reached £2.27 trillion – a staggering number, and an 18 per cent increase over 2017. That growth will continue, as ecommerce reaches new markets and consumers become more comfortable with shopping online. It’s a huge opportunity for retailers, but there’s a risk that threatens to hold it back – fraud. Ecommerce purchases [...]