Berlin startup Cashboard raises €3m as German fintech momentum continues
Berlin-based online investment startup Cashboard has raised €3 million (£2.5 million), as Germany’s fintech industry continues to flourish. Cashboard, a marketplace for investment products, has raised the sum from Digital Space Ventures, a $50 million (£40.2 million) fintech fund headquartered in Luxembourg. Existing investors Redalpine Capital and Earlybird also to part in the round. Recent figures showed that investment into German fintech companies outpaced British rivals in the third quarter of the year. UK companies raised $78 million in the third quarter, compared with Germany’s figure of $108 million.German fintech is now on track to attract more investment than British fintech in 2016, according to KPMG and CB Insights, the […]
The Next Phase in Fintech
These are the boom years for Fintech. Between the years 2010 to 2016, investments in the Fintech sector jumped. From $1.8 Billion in Fintech investments in 2010 to an investment of $5.2 Billion in the first quarter of 2016 alone. investments ranged from seed money for Fintech startups to takeovers by traditional banks, to banks’ internal research and development. So far, the industry’s primary focus has been P2P lending and P2P wire transfers, which have enabled dramatically lower wire fees to crowd funding platforms. But as technology in those key areas mature, and as regulation across the world differentiates, a new era has begun to emerge. With that emergence, the […]
London tops fintech index for second straight year
For the second year in a row, London has topped the European Digital City Index (EDCi), a composite index designed by innovation foundation Nesta and the European Digital Forum, according to City AM. The EDCi 2016, published on Friday, ranks European cities by how well they support digital entrepreneurship, and how attractive they are to fintech founders and companies. It is based on 10 core metrics, including skills, access to capital, business environment, digital infrastructure, mentoring, market, and entrepreneurial culture. Here are the results of this year’s index: London still leads. The British capital ranked first out of 60 featured cities both for startups and for “scale-ups,” or young companies […]
Swedish fintech Klarna buys German startup Cookies after bankruptcy
Swedish payment service provider Klarna has agreed to take on the team behind the insolvent Berlin fintech startup Cookies. The Cookies app, founded by former N26 employees Garry Krugljakow and Lamine Cheloufi, aimed to simplify mobile money transfers and was once one of the most hyped up-and-coming German fintech companies. However, management in-fighting led Krugljakow to withhold his consent for raising needed outside funds. Cheloufi expressed his frustration in a blog post: “A distorted relationship is no justification for blocking financing that would ensure the survival of a company and the jobs of the people working there.” To read more, please click on the link below…. Source: Swedish fintech […]
German Finance Ministry Publishes Report on Fintech
The German Federal Ministry of Finance or Bundesministerium der Finanzen, has published a report on the emerging Fintech sector. The document, authored by Prof. Dr. Gregor Dorfleitner and Jun.-Prof. Dr. Lars Hornuf(with the assistance of Matthias Schmitt & Martina Weber), quantifies the emergence of disruptive finance in Germany. The document, correlated data from 2007 to 2015 while preparing a forecast for future market development. Regarding the findings, the document stated; There are a total of 433 Fintech companies with a business activity in Germany. Of these, 346 had active business activity with the remaining 87 companies being inactive or out of business. The authors were challenged to create a “general […]
Coinbase fights IRS efforts to obtain customer records
The largest Bitcoin exchange in the US is resisting the Internal Revenue Service’s efforts to obtain records on customers who traded in the virtual currency over a three-year period. The IRS on Friday filed a request in San Francisco federal court for a so-called “John Doe” summons to compel Bitcoin exchange Coinbase to identify all users in the US who conducted transactions between 2012 and 2015. The “John Doe” summons allows the IRS to obtain information about a group of taxpayers, even when the agency doesn’t know their identities. Bitcoin, which made a name for itself by allowing for anonymous transactions, has gone through its fair share of ups and […]
Central banks look to the future of money with blockchain technology trial
At last week’s fintech festival in Singapore, two announcements illustrate the speed at which the world of digital currencies is moving and how the future of money is set to be reshaped by the forces of technology. First, the Monetary Authority of Singapore – which organised the event attended by 11,000 delegates from 50 countries – said it would trial its own digital currency for interbank payments using blockchain technology. Second, consulting firm PwC unveiled a new platform, called Vulcan Digital Asset Services, to provide banks and governments with confidence to explore cryptocurrencies after they were sent scurrying from bitcoin when it became apparent it was funding part of the […]
Using a credit card rewards app for 4 months made a huge difference in how I view my spending
I’m not great with money. It’s not like I’m a big spender. I don’t really splurge and my payments are timely. But I’m pretty clueless and careless when it comes to personal finance — especially things like credit card rewards programs. I recently tried out Birch, a free service based in Gainesville, Florida that’s meant to help people make sense of perplexing credit card reward programs. “I had a really terrible experience finding a good resource when trying to make sense of credit cards and their reward programs. I felt that a lot of the blog and credit card sites were just sets of confusing tables and lacked any sort […]
