How Crowdfunding is becoming regular investing
A decade ago, an entrepreneur wanting to raise cash pretty much had to have rich relatives or pals, or gain entry into the clubby world of venture capital. Sure, that entrepreneur could take it to the web, asking people to make their own relatively small investments, but that was considered less than respectable – the digital version, perhaps, of panhandling. My, how much has changed since 2009. Now crowdsourcing is not only the hip way to raise money, but is pretty much expected to be part of the overall fundraising process. And one person who has helped in that shift is Jeff Kelisky, CEO of Seedrs, a crowdsourcing platform where new businesses […]
London Fintech Yordex adds smart cards to suite of software
UK fintech Yordex is making it simple for fast-growing companies to control business spend by adding company cards to its smart spend management solution, giving businesses complete visibility and authority over their current and future finances. Expense management currently takes up a disproportionate amount of time and money within most organisations; on average, it costs in excess of $20 in people power to process every invoice or expense claim, while expenses only account for less than 6% of total company spend. In addition, firms struggle to get a real-time picture of their financial health, as their existing software platform only provide a historical view of spend. It takes an average […]
UK pumps £10 million into the Kenyan Fintech scene as it aims to increase financial inclusion for low-income and underserved consumers through technology
The Lord Mayor of the City of London Peter Estlin, on Thursday announced £10 million (Sh1.154 billion) of UK Aid support towards the Catalyst Fund during a visit to Nairobi. His visit comes ahead of the first UK-Africa Investment Summit next year, which will bring together businesses, governments and international institutions to encourage investment in a range of sectors, including fintech. The Catalyst Fund supports business development and investor opportunities for early stage fintech companies in emerging markets. With support from the UK Department for International Development, the Catalyst Fund will help connect a further 30 local fintech companies with international investors and mentors, including Kenyan fintech companies. “Today’s announcement […]
Scotland attracts £37m investment in fintech over the past decade
Fintech in Scotland has attracted nearly £37m in investment over the last 10 years with an emerging ‘ecosystem’ which brings together start-ups, large firms, universities and the public sector, said the Scottish Government. Scotland is now a key location for many international firms, such as J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, NCR, Ingenico and Avaloq. J.P. Morgan’s European Technology Centre in Glasgow is a key strategic technology hub with 1,300 employees.Deloitte’s 2017 Global FinTech Hubs Federation report highlighted Edinburgh’s high concentration of key elements, and outside London and the South East, Scotland has the most complete financial and business services industry cluster in the UK. Economy Secretary Keith Brown has been […]
FinTech Scotland announces partnership with FinTechNZ
Last week, FinTech Scotland announced its first partnership with New Zealand fintech hub, FinTechNZ. According to the Scotland hub, FinTechNZ is The New Zealand Financial Innovation & Technology Association. It is a working group focused on delivering economic growth in New Zealand through financial innovation. Slightly older than FinTech Scotland they have a member base of just more than 100. It also works closely with the New Zealand government to offer guidance on policies and regulations. While sharing more details about the partnership, FinTech Scotland stated it is looking to develop a network with other international hubs and several reasons have motived the organization in doing so, which are the […]
Temenos to create financial technology powerhouse as Fidessa agrees takeover
The boards of Temenos and Fidessa have reached an agreement on the terms of an all-cash takeover of the UK-based trading technology supplier in a transformational deal for the Swiss core banking vendor. Under the terms of the transaction, Fidessa shareholders will be entitled to receive £35.67 in cash for each Fidessa share, a 36.9% premium to the firm’s closing price of £26.05 on 16 February. Shareholders will also be entitled to receive and retain a final dividend and a special dividend in respect of the year ended 31 December 2017 together amounting to 79.7 pence in aggregate per Fidessa share. The transaction, which is expected to close in the […]
Fintech Raisin crosses the channel to offer services to UK Savers
Savings marketplace Raisin has launched in the UK. The Berlin based Fintech has been expanding across the European continent but today they have crossed the British Channel to offer their services to UK savers. Raisin provides an interesting service that leverages technology to help savers to save more. Users of their site can shop around for higher interest rates on their money – regardless of their geographic location. Working alongside its first partner bank BACB, Raisin.co.uk offers savers the convenience of a single registration process to apply for multiple savings products. Raisin reports that it is currently on-boarding additional UK banks to the platform and will build a marketplace with […]
UK start-ups attract record £8.27bn investment
UK start-ups raised more money in equity investment last year than ever before, new research shows, as foreign investment cash flooded into the country. Data from the research firm Beauhurst, which specialises in tracking growth businesses, shows UK start-ups picked up £8.27bn worth of funding during 2017, more than twice as much as in 2016. Last year was also a record year for megadeals, with no fewer than 29 companies attracting investments of more than £50m. These businesses were led by Improbable, which raised £389m from the Japanese technology investor SoftBank Capital, and Farfetch, which raised £313m from the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com. Other large funding rounds included TransferWise’s raise […]
