Softbank pumps £510m into finance firm Greensill that could kill off payday lenders
Japanese conglomerate Softbank is set to inject another £510million into British online finance firm Greensill as part of plan to launch a new service that aims to wipe out controversial payday loans. City sources said Greensill, set up by former Morgan Stanley banker Lex Greensill, is in advanced talks to buy FreeUp, a technology company that should enable the firm to offer ordinary workers early payment of their wages. SoftBank’s Vision Fund, led by maverick entrepreneur Masayoshi Son, is pouring in more than half a billion pounds to support the expansion strategy. Sources said the deals could be announced as soon as this week. To read more, please click on […]
Utrecht-based Rabo Frontier Ventures invests in UK fintech and banking company Tide
Rabo Frontier Ventures, Utrecht-based strategic investment venture fund, has invested in the mobile business platform Tide in a Series B investment round. This investment round was led by SBI Group and Augment. Notably, the RFV deal was structured through an SPV that is managed by Anthemis Group, a major early-stage investor in Tide and one of the most active fintech investors. Jeroen van Doornik, Partner at RFV, said: This investment in Tide will generate valuable insights regarding innovation and development in SME banking and further allows us to work together with Anthemis and alongside existing investors such as LocalGlobe. The funding will help Tide substantially increase its share of the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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: 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 […]
