Joanne Dewar

Monzo Bank's strategic masterclass in a changing economic landscape In a time when many FinTechs are tightening belts, #Monzo is taking bold steps forward. Their latest valuation increase to $5.9 billion via a secondary sale shows more than just strong investor confidence—it’s a showcase of strategic foresight. Key Highlights: 🔸 Enhancing Liquidity: By opting for a secondary sale, Monzo is bolstering its financial flexibility without diluting its valuation. This sets the stage for expansion, product innovation, and entering new markets (Europe and the US) with confidence. 🔸 IPO Preparation: These moves mirror public market transactions, allowing Monzo to both test investor appetite and educate the market about its unique growth potential ahead of any IPO ambitions. 🔸 Market Timing: Monzo’s valuation boost in favorable market conditions reflects financial prudence, setting a strong baseline for future rounds. As FinTech continues to face economic volatility, Monzo's strategic positioning proves that with the right moves, opportunities abound. Read the full blog: https://lnkd.in/dgdNHRBN #CInnovation #FintechInsights #FintechInnovation #FinanceInsights #BankingRevolution #DigitalTransformation #BankingInnovation #FinancialGrowth #Finance #Banking #NeoBanking #FinancialServices #Fintech #BankingNews #TechInFinance #FinancialNews

8

Financial Conduct Authority Confirms Anti-Greenwashing Guidance and Proposes Extending Sustainability Framework Sacha Sadan, Director of Environmental, Social and Governance, FCA, said: “Confirming the new anti-greenwashing guidance and our proposals to extend the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and investment labels regime are important milestones that maintain the UK’s place at the forefront of sustainable investment. Our good and poor practice anti-greenwashing examples will help firms market their products in the right way. We continue to work closely with the ASA and CMA to address greenwashing. “Consumers care about investing in products that have a positive impact on the planet and people. That’s why we want to boost the integrity of the market and ensure people can make informed decisions about how to invest their money.” https://lnkd.in/efFqsgrR #fintech #finance #banking #paytech #payments #fintechnews #paymentsnews

2

Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) turned ripples of finance into waves of change for individuals, businesses and social enterprises across the UK. They provided opportunity and built resilience for disadvantaged communities and those excluded from mainstream finance. In 2023 their lending hit a record high of £287 million: CDFIs now operate at 31 times the scale they did in 2003, when the sector lent £9.2 million. Their achievements reflect their ability to fill widening needs for the right finance at the right time. Here’s what CDFIs achieved in 2023: - Supported 4,546 start-ups and SMEs with £102m of loans. - 12,135 jobs were created or safeguarded. - 99% of businesses had been declined by another lender. - 371 social enterprises were supported with £119m of loans. - Households saved £29m in interest repayments compared to high-cost lenders. - CDFIs lent £66m to 85,208 individuals. - CDFIs identified a total of £601m of unclaimed benefits for 143,050 customers. Read more about CDFIs’ impact, plus lots of customer stories in: https://lnkd.in/eWSFydQ2 Responsible Finance #RipplesToWaves #ResponsibleFinance #CDFIs

21

1 Comment

Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs) have turned ripples of finance into waves of change for businesses and social enterprises across the UK. They provided opportunity and built resilience for disadvantaged communities and those excluded from mainstream finance. In 2023, their lending hit a record high of £287 million: CDFIs now operate at 31 times the scale they did in 2003, when the sector lent £9.2 million. Their achievements reflect their ability to fill widening needs for the right finance at the right time. Here’s what CDFIs achieved in 2023: 🤝 Supported 4,546 start-ups and SMEs with £102m of loans. 💼 12,135 jobs were created or safeguarded.  ⭐️ 371 social enterprises were supported with £119m of loans. Read more about CDFIs’ impact, plus lots of customer stories in Responsible Finance's latest impact report, out today: 👇 https://lnkd.in/eWSFydQ2 #RipplesToWaves #ResponsibleFinance #CDFIs #SocInv #SocEnt #Charity #Funding #Investment #SocialInvestment #HeritageImpactFund

9

#Fintech #VCNews: 🎉Gideon Valkin, former Monzo Bank and ClearScore leader, investor, and entrepreneur, has just launched Andrena Ventures! 🌟 📈 It is a $12 million solo GP fund, supported by tech’s top founders and #VC leaders. 💼💰 👍 The fund has already reached its first close, with plans for a final close later this year. 📆 💡 This fresh fund aims to back Europe’s most promising #fintech founders, empowering the next wave of tech giants at pre-seed and seed stages. 🌐 Also, Gideon has also announced the fund’s inaugural #investment in Nustom, an #AI-powered software-building startup. 🚀 More details on Andrena Ventures and its mission: https://lnkd.in/g-DsJvdY #venturecapital #vcfunding #news #technews #uktech #investment #fundingnews #technology #investment Sayula Kirby Taavet Hinrikus Sten Tamkivi Filip Felician Dames Christian Meermann Sophia Bendz David Haber Firat Ileri

76

10 Comments

Marion King, OBL Trustee, commented: "Last month, we published Open Banking Standard v4.0, the first major release for several years, which has been developed collaboratively with the entire ecosystem.   The Standard has laid the foundations for a thriving open banking ecosystem which benefits 9.79 million active users and is worth more than £4 billion to the UK economy. OBL will continue to maintain and update the Standard to ensure it is robust and able to support the future development of open banking.” Find out more > https://lnkd.in/ec_2yJTm #OpenBanking #OpenBankingStandard #TechInnovation #Fintech #Innovation #FAPI #ISO20022 #OpenBankingEcosystem

17

The UK's open banking movement has laid a strong groundwork for its global adoption, but the question lingering is how the country plans to build on these solid foundations to ensure the next phase is a success for all. Open banking has already driven competition, improved access to credit, and given customers more control over their data. But there's more work to be done to create a sustainable ecosystem and unlock new use cases. Looking ahead, the UK is eyeing a shift towards "open finance" - expanding the open data model beyond banking into areas like mortgages, pensions, and insurance. This could drive greater financial inclusion and innovation but will require a robust regulatory framework to encourage broad industry participation. The foundations are in place, but building the next chapter of open banking's success story will require ongoing collaboration between government, regulators, and industry. #openbanking #openfinance

2

The National Payments Vision for FinTech ⭐ We have submitted our input to HM Treasury as part of its work on developing a National Payments Vision (NPV), which is due to be published by the summer. We outline why the NPV needs to set out an ambitious agenda to help deliver the next generation of payment experiences for merchants and consumers, building on the successful innovation and competition that FinTech has helped bring about. The UK should be the world leader in digital wallet payments, with a digital payments ecosystem that supports and enables a diversity of payment methods and providers, underpinned by competition where the consumer has choice and control and can easily use different payment systems, methods and providers with ease and with confidence in an equivalent level of consumer protection. This trusted, competitive, digital, interoperable ecosystem can enable: - Improved productivity for UK merchants and businesses - Better outcomes for customers and citizens  - Increased  growth and inward investment for the UK payments industry  - Greater strategic autonomy and resilience for the UK economy and society   Our paper examines FinTech’s role in the payments landscape, how the government can implement, deliver and review the NPV’s progress, and key aims that the NPV should include to support the FinTech sector, such as: ⚙️ Account to Account payment method: The NPV should prioritise the development of a new major payment method to compete with card payments, powered by Open Banking.  📜 Regulatory support for innovation and competition: Deliver a regulatory framework that allows different digital payment methods to compete on a level playing field. 🏗️ National Payments Architecture (NPA): A recommitment to deliver NPA and its strategic objectives, with a clear roadmap and timeline for implementation, and an ambition that is cloud-native. 🌍 Interoperability: The NPV should set out a roadmap for working towards interoperable payment systems, domestically and globally. See link to the report 👉 https://lnkd.in/eAinjhYg #FinTech #InnovateFinance #DigitalPayments #FutureofPaymentsReview #NationalPaymentsVision #Paymentstrategy #UKFinTech #Payments Paul Worthington | Adam Jackson | Jago Corry

30

Our CEO Julia Streets on our joint report with Whitecap Consulting and  Innovate Finance: “Amongst a brilliant second day at IFGS, it’s great to see interest growing in the Scaling UK Regional FinTech report, which we launched this morning at #IFGS2024. We had no expectations on where this data would lead us, but we knew it would shine a light on the community of FinTech scaleups outside of London and the South East who work so hard to bring the next wave of innovations to keep the UK at the forefront of global FinTech innovation. The report has a wealth of data and learnings from entrepreneurs and some fascinating conclusions, including: - Firms with female founders achieved over 30% more turnover growth than those with male only founders - yet only 16% of firms had a female founder. - More than half of FinTechs had more than one founder; the average age of all founders is 38 years old. - The more founders, the higher their revenue growth rate. ➡️ Register today  to download the full report and access all the data and insights. https://lnkd.in/eskzJGvC #FinTech #FintechScaleUp #Regionalfintech  #UKInnovation #IFGS2024 #IFGSis10 ➡️ Register today  to download the full report and access all the data and insights. https://lnkd.in/eskzJGvC #FinTech #FintechScaleUp #Regionalfintech  #UKInnovation #IFGS2024 #IFGSis10

29

A great report from Whitecap Consulting, Innovate Finance and Streets Consulting, worth a read! https://shorturl.at/bhrN7 Head are a few interesting stats from the report: 1. More than half of FinTechs had more than one founder, and the more founders, the higher their revenue growth rate. 2. On average, B2C firms that obtain funding achieved double the revenue and employee growth of B2B only firms. 3. 9 out of 10 firms that attended an accelerator went on to raise funding.

3

How have 250 regional FinTechs successfully scaled, and what do we need to do, to create more firms like them? Our CEO Julia Streets on stage at #IFGS2024 now with Julian Wells from Whitecap Consulting for the Report Launch: Scaling UK Regional FinTech. #fintech #scalingfintechUK

62

6 Comments

We are delighted to hear the new Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Tulip Siddiq MP commit to publishing a National Payments Vision (NPV) ⭐ Our submission to HM Treasury in the Spring focused on how the UK can be the world leader in digital wallet payments: With a digital payments ecosystem that supports and enables a diversity of payment methods and providers; underpinned by competition where the consumer has choice and control and can easily use different payment systems, methods and providers with ease; with confidence in an equivalent level of consumer protection. This trusted, competitive, digital, interoperable ecosystem can enable 👇 💷Improved productivity for UK merchants and businesses 🧑‍🤝‍🧑Better outcomes for customers and citizens 📈Increased growth and inward investment for the UK payments industry 🛡️Greater strategic autonomy and resilience for the UK economy and society See link to the report here 👉https://lnkd.in/eAinjhYg #DigitalPayments #FutureofPaymentsReview #NationalPaymentsVision #VoiceOfUKFinTech Adam Jackson | Megan Jenkins

25

In the latest impact report from @Responsible Finance CDFIs lent a record £287m, filling gaps in finance for vulnerable households and viable businesses and social enterprises that are not able to access mainstream finance. CDFIs have grown from lending of £9.2m in 2003 to operating at 31 times this scale in 2023. Since 2003 CDFIs have lent a total of £3.3bn and supported 848,000 customers. You can find out more about CDFIs’ impact in the @Responsible Finance Impact Report: https://lnkd.in/eWSFydQ2 #RipplesToWaves #ResponsibleFinance #CDFIs

1

🎧NEW PODCAST ALERT: Increase CEO Darragh Buckley on a Tech-Enabled Future for Community Banks → https://lnkd.in/eZnNKVUW Community banks face a tech revolution. Explore the challenges & opportunities with Increase CEO and Founder Darragh Buckley, who has a unique perspective and novel ideas. Hear his thoughts on how smaller #banks can survive & thrive in a changing landscape. #podcast #innovation #APIs #fintech

6

Thanks for sharing our news FF News | Fintech Finance!

3

City AM covers Innovate Finance's newly launched FinTech Plan for Government and the FinTech Investment Landscape H1 2024 in today’s paper 📊 Rt Hon Rachel Reeves’ Treasury pledges to "embrace" the FinTech sector, recognising its potential to deliver £328bn for the UK economy over five years and support the UK's mission to achieve the highest sustained economic growth in the G7. Our plan outlines actions for the first 100 days to bolster growth, innovation, and financial inclusion.   Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance, comments: "We want to embrace FinTech as the future of financial services – driving innovation, boosting investment, and harnessing its potential to support financial inclusion and the wider economy." - 📣 🔗 Read the full CityAM article: https://lnkd.in/dSY5P7Zi 🔗 Discover the FinTech Plan for Government: https://lnkd.in/dNPm9nd3 🔗 Explore the FinTech Investment Landscape H1 2024: https://lnkd.in/dX_hqGF4 #VoiceOfUKFinTech #H1InvestmentReport #SmartData #FinTechForGood #FinTechPlanForGovernment #H1InvestmentReport #SmartData #FinTechForGood #FinTechPlanForGovernment

99