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 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 […]
Weiss has issued its first cryptocurrency ratings, ranking Ethereum above bitcoin
The securities ratings firm is the first to give a rating to cryptocurrencies. Weiss Ratings has ranked Ethereum as “better” than bitcoin, as well as the EOS coin in its first cryptocurrency ratings. Bitcoin received a C+ rating from the firm, due to the fact that its network has some serious bottlenecks which have resulted in long transaction delays and fees. Weiss acknowledged bitcoin’s core developers were looking to address these issues, with the likes of the Lightning network, however it noted that there is no immediate mechanism for promptly. Ethereum’s B rating was received due tot he fact it benefits from more readily upgradeable technology, with a development team […]
CoinShares announces two new flagship funds
CoinShares Group, the group behind the first bitcoin and ether exchange traded notes (Issued by XBT Provider AB) and the team behind the world’s first regulated bitcoin strategy (GABI), is announcing two new flagship crypto investment funds. The two funds: CoinShares ‘Active’ Fund – a multi-coin, alpha-generating, active strategy; and CoinShares ‘Large Cap’ Fund – a passive, large-cap, basket fund; represent a natural evolution of market approaches based on the current trajectory of the crypto-asset economy. This announcement follows the group’s October launch of the first Ether Tracking, Exchange Traded Products on Nasdaq Stockholm. These ETPs now comprise more than $350M of assets less than 4 months post launch. “As […]
Fintech investment thriving in the UK
Financial technology, or fintech, is thriving in the UK, with many start-ups leading innovation across the country. With new advances in fintech it is increasingly easy to check your balance on the go, or to utilise contactless technology wherever you may be. It’s developing at such a rate that technologies such as paying with your phone or fingerprint technology at a checkout will soon become the norm. How much is it growing in the UK? A report from UK Fintech said that industry investment had increased by over 50% each year since 2008. To put things in perspective this is twice as much growth as in the Silicon Valley, which […]
Fintech: Why It Matters So Much to Your Investment
Fintech is a term that combines two words; Financial and Technology. It means emerging financial services that are fast expanding to include inventions in financial literacy, retail banking, education, investing, and cryptocurrencies. While fintech was initially only applied to conventional technologies that were applied to back-end established clients and financial institutions, the term now refers to how to people operate their enterprises ranging from double-entry accounting to currency invention. Notably, financial technology has grown explosively as mobile internet revolution advances. Facts about Fintech and their applications today In their latest report, Accenture established that international investment in fintech blast through the roof in just a couple of years. From $ […]
Vantiv seals $10 billion Worldpay acquisition
Vantiv Inc. agreed to acquire U.K. payments processor Worldpay Group PLC for about GBP8 billion ($10.4 billion) in cash and stock, one of the biggest deals in the fast consolidating sector. The tie-up, according to a joint statement Wednesday, will create a trans-Atlantic payments processing giant with a combined market value of more than $20 billion. The companies disclosed their negotiations last month as the Ohio-based Vantiv appeared at the time to ward off a potential rival bid from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. The combined entity will be called Worldpay. Payments businesses are under pressure to join forces in part to cut costs as greater regulatory scrutiny and rising […]
