Issue #341 - Between Adoption and Rejection December 9th, 2021

Jason Mikula, the publisher of Fintech Business Weekly, talks about Apple’s new digital driver’s license. The company is dealing with many states to get permissions, so the document will be available also in a digital version, ready for the driver’s license feature that the company will launch in 2022.

The French fintech Lydia, which started as a P2P payment application and expanded its services to offer loans and savings products, raised $100 million in a Series C funding round, collecting investments from companies like Tencent, Accel and Dragoneer.

Mollie is one of the best payment service providers in Europe, named by Glassdoor as one of the best fintech companies to work for. The company announced the opening of a new Centre of Excellence in Maastricht (Netherlands) that will allow Mollie to launch new departments.

Visa seems to appreciate cryptos, and the company will continue working on the mainstream adoption of digital currencies: the payment giant announced a new set of consulting and advisory services that will help its clients join the crypto world.

BIS, the Bank for International Settlements based in Basel, said that decentralized finance (DeFi) should pay more attention to regulations, before becoming even more popular and linked with traditional finance.

According to Atomico’s State of European Tech 2021 report, Europe is becoming stronger in the tech space - and the UK plays a fundamental role. But there are still differences between Northern and Southern Europe.

Ron Shevlin covers the new study from Morning Consult: the fastest growing brands are fintech firms, and their success depends especially on Gen Z’s choices. Houses, cryptos and BNPL services are among the top interests of this generation.

Fintech firms have frictionless signing-up processes and don’t make it hard to get a neo-bank account. But these same characteristics, which make fintech companies so appealing, are also the reason why frauds are more common among these companies than among traditional banks and financial services providers. How to improve security?

Alex Kreger, founder of UXDA, highlights an interesting point: digital economy is not succeeding because people can be involved more easily - if compared to the traditional economy - but because it is based on the Experience Economy.

Thailand, one of the most developed banking markets in Asia, is also one of the countries that most use digital banking services, according to McKinsey’s Personal Financial Services 2021 survey. What will happen with the widespread adoption of 5G, which will allow even faster and engaging services?

Globant, the company focused on helping firms with the digital transition, announced the launch of Reinvention Studios, a model that will allow the company to consolidate its technological solutions and knowledge to further help businesses.

Finverity, the supply chain finance platform, and Abu Dhabi Global Market cooperated to launch an API that provides real-time access to credit data stored within SMEs. This will make it possible to reduce the number of SME loans rejected because of the lack of financial data.