MasterCard and Facebook Messenger have teamed up to bring Nigerian small businesses digital payments and banking; 98 percent of Nigerians use cash when transacting with businesses; businesses message a Masterpass QR bot on Facebook Messenger to help enable QR code payments; the partnership is then supported by Nigeria’s Ecobank and Zenith Bank by setting up those businesses with accounts at the banks; the biggest hurdle in a partnership like this is the consumers or small businesses cannot transact with one another and so adoption is slow, though the partnership hope to solve that issue. Source.
News Roundup
This page contains an archive of the Global Newsletter summaries and the weekly fintech news roundups.
Every day the Fintech Nexus news team scours the globe for the most important stories of the day to include in our daily newsletter.
Then every Saturday we bring you our weekly news roundup of the top 10 fintech stories of the week with commentary from Peter Renton.
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The deal is probably the first of its kind as two pension...
Here are the most read news stories from our daily newsletter today:...
Glint is based in London and today revealed their product offering; it is a multi-currency account, app and card that lets users store money in gold; funds are converted back to fiat currency at the point of payment for those who choose to store their money in gold; the company is regulated by the FCA. Source
Andy Stewart, managing partner at Motive Partners, says fintechs are overvalued in the current market environment; speaking at the UK International Fintech event in London, Stewart says the over valuations are a result of success in the market and confidence from venture capital investors; Stewart cautions investors to watch for buzzwords including machine learning or blockchain that can enhance the value proposition of the solution but may be overvaluing a company's value overall; Stewart's Motive Partners launched in 2017 and is seeking to raise $1 billion. Source
During the week I share the latest marketplace lending news on Twitter as it...
Lend Academy talks with Prosper's CEO David Kimball in their podcast; David Kimball was previously CFO and became CEO in December; he talks about some of the company's challenges in 2016; provides details on the platform's investors, origination volumes and financing controls; he also discusses the firm's $5 billion investment deal and how it is affecting the business. Source
The Series A fundraising included both debt and equity capital; investment was led by K2 Venture Capital with participation from STI Financial Group and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper who made his first investment in an Indonesian startup; firm will use the funds to expand its lending and build its technology with plans for adding new research and development centers for machine learning and algorithm design; platform provides short term micro-loans of between US$75 and US$350 for a maximum of 30 days. Source
The House of Representatives has passed Supporting America's Innovators Act (HR 1219); the bill will provide increased access to capital for small businesses; among its provisions are changes to the number of investors in a venture capital fund and incentives for rural entrepreneurship. Source
ProShares and VanEck have both decided to withdraw their ETF filings with the SEC; VanEck filed for an actively managed Bitcoin Strategy ETF and ProShares said it was launching a suite of bitcoin ETFs; neither company responded to requests for comment; it is widely believed that bitcoin ETFs are the next step for the new currency. Source.