Fintech News Issue #277 July 30th, 2020

Aritra Chakravarty, founder of London-based online accounts and investments provider Dozens, admits it’s a tough time to be seeking up to 15 million pounds ($19 million) for a start-up.

During a turbulent year when cryptocurrencies have outperformed just about every other major investment category, traders in digital-asset markets are getting even greedier.

Fintech startups are revolutionizing old industries with new technology. But the most successful brands in this category are and will continue to be those that recognize the importance of human-powered service.

Instead of receiving a plastic version in the mail, JPMorgan Chase commercial cardholders will be able to spend immediately in mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, or Samsung Pay.

The COVID-19 pandemic has sent shockwaves rippling through the global economy, threatening the progress that the Banking & Capital Markets Industry (BCM) had made in regaining consumer trust and improving society’s perception of the industry after the Global Financial Crisis and subsequent Great Recession.

UK fintech funding declined for the first half of 2020 by 39% compared with the same period in 2019, according to Innovate Finance. UK fintechs raised $3 billion in H1 2019, but that dropped to $1.84 billion in H1 2020.

For several months this year, banks across Hubei province, an area home to 60 million people, shut their doors to retail customers. Most people in the region did not notice.

Fintech start-up TransferWise is now valued at $5 billion following a secondary share sale, the company announced Wednesday, highlighting increased investor appetite for online payments amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The word Fintech (short for "Financial Technology") was first recorded in the 1980’s in the Sunday Times. However it was only until the financial crisis of 2007-2008, that the usage of the term became more widespread.

In 2010 it accounted for just four per cent of venture capital investment in the UK. A decade later, this figure has risen to 28 per cent, with a record $4.9bn of capital investment landing in the UK in 2019 — a year-on-year increase of more than a third.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need to reduce the world’s reliance on central points in the financial system – facilitating value creation everywhere and supporting trade from periphery to periphery, not just from hub to hub.

An interesting op-ed by Leah Callon-Butler in CoinDesk this week got me to change my mind about something pretty fundamental.