The information you need to start your day, from PaymentsSource and around the web:
Going public
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will lead London-based fintech TransferWise's upcoming IPO, which is expected to be one of the U.K.'s largest listings in the next year.
The IPO could value TransferWise as high as $5 billion, according to
Reaching out
Data aggregator Plaid has launched a program for fintech developers from underrepresented groups. Called FinRise, it is seeking startups founded by Black, Indigenous and People of Color with a particular focus on firms that manage transaction and consumer data.
The incubator will accept up to five post-seed and pre-Series B startups with projects in testing, reports
The interest in financial data is in line with Plaid's business model. Both
An added Twist
Australian buy now/pay later firm Zip has invested in Czech BNPL app Twisto.
The round was about $20 million, with other investors including Finch Capital, ING Bank, Velocity Capital and Austrian insurance firm Uniq.
Twisto allows consumers to pay for purchases in a single click, and adds bill pay and NFC point of sale payment support, in effect embedding BNPL in a larger mobile wallet, explains
Cardless
European bank and payment technology outsourcer Contis has signed a partnership with Pin4, a fintech that supports digital access to ATMs.
The combination will allow people to use their phones to access a network of ATMs without pre-registration or a plastic card. The ATM network in the U.K. includes 12,000 Cardtronics machines.
Contis and Pin4 are positioning the partnership as a pandemic play, adding the ATM service can embed with Contis' community and credit union bank technology division to enable contactless service for Contis' client base.
From the web
TECHCRUNCH | Friday, January 22, 2021
A string of recent events in China’s payments industry suggests the duopoly comprising Ant Group and Tencent may be getting a shakeup. Following the abrupt call-off of Ant’s public sale and a government directive to reform the firm’s business, the Chinese authorities sent another message this week signaling its plan to curb concentration in the flourishing digital payments industry.
TECHCRUNCH | Thursday, January 21, 2021
Regulators may still want to imply Bitcoin is merely a tool for criminals, but for many middle-class users, it’s proving to be a lifeline.
REUTERS | Friday, January 22, 2021
A global chip shortage is choking the production of machines used to "mine" bitcoin, a sector dominated by China, sending prices of the computer equipment soaring as a surge in the cryptocurrency drives demand.
More from PaymentsSource
Many financial institutions have made initial moves into real-time payments via P2P services, and the use cases will jump over time, says Fiserv's Matt Wilcox.
Virtual worlds, built for gaming or social interaction, are still trying to turn their digital economies into something real. Crypto regulation could be a hurdle.
With COVID-19 vaccines set to be rolled out to tens of millions of people across the U.K. in 2021, the government has announced that anyone who experiences severe side effects as a result of this mass vaccination campaign will be eligible to receive compensation payments under a relatively little-known program that has existed since 1979.
Discover Financial Services CEO Roger Hochschild keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Digital financial services platform Wari is working with Lycaremit to add low-cost fund transfers across Europe, Africa and the Middle East to its network.
The Bank of France will shut down more than a third of its cash handling centers by the end of 2022 as the Covid-19 pandemic accelerates a decline in the use of notes and coins.
There’s a dynamic balance between the innovation and resiliency benefits of the messy, creative ferment of many smaller competitors, and an oligopoly or monopoly’s scale economies, says Intrepid Ventures' Eric Grover.
The fast-growing buy now/pay later industry is drawing scrutiny from legislators and regulators who fear it could become predatory.
Lydia is working with several partners to turn its P2P app into a platform that provides a variety of unrelated financial services.
European digital investment platform Bitpanda is launching its first plastic product, a Visa debit card that combines currency, cryptocurrency and precious metal assets into one card.
ByteDance, owner of short video sharing platform services Douyin (China) and TikTok (U.S.), has reportedly launched a payment service for the 600 million users of the Douyin platform.
China proposed measures to curb market concentration in its online payment market, potentially dealing another blow to financial technology giant Ant Group and its biggest rival Tencent Holdings.
