Mastercard snaps up Vocalink giving banks a £700m windfall July 21, 2016 Mastercard has snapped up a majority stake in Vocalink, the payments processor that probably handles your salary payment, in a £700m deal giving the biggest UK banks a windfall. The deal comes after the UK regulator urged banks to sell their stake in Vocalink, the system which governs trillions of payments in the UK, from bacs salaries to [...]
Peter Thiel’s just plunged more cash into this fintech startup July 20, 2016 Renowned investor Peter Thiel is ploughing more cash into a fintech startup he first invested in earlier this year. Retail banking platform Deposit Solutions has raised €15m in a new funding round from top investors, valuing the firm at €110m. In addition to Thiel, the Hamburg-founded fintech firm landed investment from another prior investor, FinLab, [...]
Santander’s added $100m to its fintech venture fund July 18, 2016 Santander is ploughing a further $100m (£75.3m) into its venture fund to invest in fintech startups around the world. The cash doubles the bank's UK-based venture investment fund, Santander InnoVentures, which has already invested in blockchain startups Ripple and Digital Asset Holdings. “A deeper investment in our fintech fund represents Santander's success in investing in disruptive new technologies that will help [...]
MPs call for post-Brexit digital plan – or risk UK’s fintech success July 18, 2016 The UK's position as a world leading centre for fintech is at risk if the government fails to address the issues facing the £20bn a year industry as a result of the vote to leave the EU, a leading group of MPs have warned. The government must act now to stop investor confidence in the UK's tech and [...]
Another fintech startup – MarketInvoice – shakes off Brexit with millions in new funding July 18, 2016 Peer-to-peer lender MarketInvoice is another startup shaking off Brexit with a new multi-million pound round of funding as it nears the £1bn lending milestone. The London firm has raised £7.2m, led by Polish venture capital and private equity firm MCI Capital through its TechVentures Fund with further cash coming from existing investor Northzone, which boasts previous invesmtents in Spotify [...]
Blockchain startup claims funding “milestone” and big name board members July 15, 2016 London-based blockchain startup Setl has named two new high-profile board members after closing its first private funding round. Rachel Lomax, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England, and Ed Richards, the former chief executive of broadcast regulator Ofcom, have joined ex-Barclays chairman Sir David Walker on the board. Setl also said it would be [...]
It’s a myth that VCs and crowdfunding platforms are at war. If you’re raising money, your focus should be on the following July 14, 2016 As equity crowdfunding evolves, the view is that there’s a war underway between venture capitalists and platforms targeting retail investors – as both vye for the best deals. But in reality, the scene remains peaceful. As a VC firm, we view crowdfunding as a complementary finance channel that can find additional and strategic capital for appropriate [...]
How are the alternative finance industry and the $1.6 trillion wealth management market approaching each other? July 14, 2016 If you use an independent financial adviser or wealth manager, they’ve probably never mentioned P2P lending. This might seem strange: there’s been a lot of talk of how the peer-to-peer industry is “moving mainstream”, and volumes reflect that. In 2015, the online alternative finance industry in the UK grew to £3.2bn – an 84 per [...]
How artificial intelligence, peer-to-peer technology and blockchain are changing the insurance industry forever July 14, 2016 Just as fintech is transforming the banking world, “insurtech” has set its sights on the insurance industry. There are firms like Trov, which provides insurance on-demand and enables consumers to catalogue insured belongings. Buzzmove uses home removals data to create a new distribution model for insurance – people are more likely to renew or buy [...]
Telematics will make you safer and save you money – by disrupting the disrupters July 14, 2016 Telematics – the technology for collecting and analysing driver behaviour – has been transforming the face of car insurance for a long time. Now it is set to play a key role in how people engage with market disrupters such as Uber and Zipcar. These new entrants give people a great deal of flexibility in how [...]