Welcome to this week’s Europe weekly news roundup, where we bring you a quick overview of the latest developments in finance, payments, retail, e-commerce and more across the region.
Launches
In a series of launches this week, Innovate Finance introduced the Unicorn Council for UK Fintech (UCFT), a coalition of UK-based fintech unicorn founders. The initiative is aiming to accelerate growth in the UK fintech sector by providing key policy recommendations to the government and ensuring the country maintains its global position over the next decade.
Viva.com unveiled a new credit solution that addresses cashflow issues for businesses. It does this by offering transparent capital based on merchant acquiring data, with instant loan disbursement. Merchant Advance has been made available initially in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain, with plans to expand the solution across Europe.
Finally, SurePay launched bulk check functionality on its UK Confirmation of Payee (CoP) portal, allowing corporations to verify up to 10,000 records in Excel format. This promises to increase efficiency and security in financial transactions, offering comprehensive validation for diverse financial needs.
Partnerships
Among this week’s collaborations, NayaOne, a digital transformation platform, teamed up with Smart Data Foundry, a leading AI-simulated synthetic data provider to help drive digital transformation in the financial services sector. Through the integration of Smart Data Foundry‘s aizle synthetic data sets into NayaOne’s Digital Sandbox, the collaboration is aiming to enhance secure data access while supporting financial innovation.
Croos-border payments continues to be a hot topic with UK-based payment services provider TerraPay joining Alfardan Exchange to improve remittances in Qatar. Meanwhile, Fimple, a firm which specialises in core banking and financial solutions, has partnered with CR2. The deal enables them to introduce advanced digital onboarding, transaction capabilities, and customer engagement tools through CR2’s BankWorld platform, ultimately enhancing the way banks engage with their clients.
Funding
In funding news, Portugal-based Ubirider successfully closed a $1.95 million seed round to help further advance its end-to-end Mobility-as-a-Service platform. The platform serves both transport operators and travelers is poised to disrupt the mobility fintech market.
On a larger scale, British digital bank Monzo secured $430 million in a fresh funding round led by CapitalG, the independent venture arm of Google parent company Alphabet. HongShan, a Chinese venture capital firm that separated from Sequoia Capital last year, also participated, along with existing backers Tencent and Passion Capital. Monzo intends to use the funding to relaunch its services in the U.S. and accelerate its overall expansion plans.
