Welcome to FinTech Monthly for October 2016 – your monthly round up of the top financial technology news. In this episode, we have the £21m Series C round received by Iwoca, the partnership between Chinese firm Alipay and Verifone, the FinTech 100 list and more.
Also, Jonathan Chamberlain from Gowling WLG spoke to us about potential issues for the gig economy following Theresa May’s review of employment practices and the recent Uber ruling.
This month, we filmed from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Innovation Lab.
Investments
London-based SME lender Iwoca closed an impressive £21m Series C round led by Prime Ventures. Iwoca plans to use the funds to keep developing its proprietary data platform, expand across Europe and secure new partnerships.
Aire, a London-based credit score provider for those without a credit history announced the closure of a $2m funding round. The startup is also now regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Verifone and Alipay
Payment solutions firm Verifone has partnered with Alipay, the top Chinese mobile payments provider.
The partnership will allow Alipay to expand its mobile payment app service into the US, enabling Chinese consumers to pay with the app when travelling in the states.
Paym
New figures show over £300m has been sent using Paym. The UK mobile payment service enables people to send and receive funds straight to a current account using just a mobile number.
Over 5.8 million transactions have been made using the service since it launched in 2014.
Consumer-friendly FinTech
The US consumer finance agency released a report on consumer-friendly FinTech products, marking the agency’s first overview of the rapidly expanding industry.
The report outlined the types of FinTech products and services that it would encourage, with a particular focus on those that can help consumers who don’t have bank accounts or are under financial strain.
FinTech 100
FinTech Innovators, a collaboration between H2 Ventures and KPMG FinTech, has published its FinTech 100 list for 2016.
The report found the UK is second only to the US, with UK FinTech firms occupying 13 of the top 100 spots. The UK also holds a spot inside the top 10, with Atom Bank coming in 6th.
That’s all for this month’s roundup. Visit our FinTech news channel for more and subscribe now to receive future FinTech Monthly videos to your inbox.