18
THE MONTH IN NUMBERS
The month in numbers… 200,000… Samsung Pay is now compatible with 200,000-plus Mswipe terminals in India. “This tie-up will
enable us to make Samsung Pay ubiquitous and acceptable at even the smallest and remotest of merchants across the country,” says Sanjay Razdan of Samsung India.
After being made available to early access testers at the beginning of April, the mobile payments service was rolled out across India later that month. Banks onboard include Axis, HDFC, ICICI, SBI and Standard Chartered, with Citibank set to join them in the near future, and the offering works with Mastercard and Visa cards. An interesting addition is support for the Paytm wallet, a smart move by Samsung given the popularity of Paytm in India.
£32 MILLION… Zopa has closed a £32 million funding round as it moves ahead with plans to launch a retail
bank. This was headed up by two new investors, Indian financial services group Wadhawan Global Capital and European VC fund Northzone. It’s Zopa’s first investment round since early 2014, when it pulled in £15 million from Arrowgrass Capital Partners. The venture has now raised over £80 million in equity funding.
During May, it became the first major UK peer-to-peer lender to win full FCA authorisation, although Funding Circle also achieved this soon afterwards. Giles Andrews, co-founder and Chairman, Zopa commented: “Zopa, both individually and as a founder member of the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association (P2PFA), has campaigned for peer-to-peer lending to be a regulated activity for a number of years. We are delighted to receive our full FCA authorisation.”
Late last year, it revealed plans to launch an online-only bank offering Financial Services Compensation Scheme protected deposit accounts to savers and overdraft alternatives to borrowers. It has applied for a banking licence, with the regulatory application process set to take about 15-24 months.
$50 MILLION… LevelUp has
completed a $50 million round which included JPMorgan Chase (who made an initial investment in the US mobile payments venture at the end of 2015), US Boston and CentroCredit Bank. “LevelUp has grown rapidly over the last several years and this funding sets us up to accelerate our growth this year and next,” says Seth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja (yep, you read that right) at LevelUp. “We’re thrilled to have the continued support of our existing investors including Chase and US Boston and great new partners like CentroCredit Bank backing LevelUp.”
The funding follows Chase’s decision to
incorporate LevelUp’s technology into its Chase Pay app, allowing customers to order ahead at restaurants that partner with the company.
$107 MILLION… R3, which runs a FI consortium focussed on blockchain technology, has completed the first
www.ibsintelligence.com © IBS Intelligence 2017
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
