FinTech Futures

Top five news stories of the week.... 1. S&P Global to acquire With Intelligence for $1.8bn 2. Shawbrook confirms plans for London IPO, aims for November listing 3. Commonwealth Bank of Australia migrates SAP core banking platform to AWS cloud 4. Goldman Sachs agrees to acquire Industry Ventures in deal worth up to $965m 5. Former Klarna UK chief Alex Marsh promoted to Salad Group CEO https://lnkd.in/emGGwyC9

At FinTech Futures, we know that it can be easy to let funding announcements slip you by in this fast-paced industry. That’s why we put together our weekly In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) funding round-up so you can get the latest funding news. > Estonia's Creditstar Group lands $10m facility  > US start-up Parallel launches with $2.3m seed funding > Tipping fintech Grateful bags £1.5m seed round > Form3 lands backing from Nationwide and BlackRock > FX fintech Tenora lands Macquarie Group-led funding round https://lnkd.in/eHQ_Srg5

Upgrade, Inc. raises $165m Series G at reported $7.3bn valuation Upgrade co-founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche says the new equity capital will be used to "keep developing new products and expand distribution to achieve our goal of helping more mainstream consumers get the banking and credit products they need today". https://lnkd.in/eUZTSG_3

The US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) conditionally approves Peter Thiel-backed Erebor Bank for national charter Erebor Bank will offer lending and deposit products to technology companies in the digital assets space. https://lnkd.in/eahtDyMQ

Raymond James acquires majority stake in #investmentbanking firm GreensLedge GreensLedge was founded in 2008 by managing partners Jim Kane and Brian Zeitlin and specialises in securitisation advisory and structured credit services. https://lnkd.in/eK5QGWcx

UBS hires J.P. Morgan analytics chief Daniele Magazzeni to lead #AI strategy According to UBS's group chief operations and technology Mike Dargan, Magazzeni will optimise the bank's use of "traditional, generative and agentic AI capabilities to transform our end-to-end operations". UBS has implemented several major AI schemes this year, which the bank terms "Big Rocks". These initiatives have generated more than 300 active AI use cases across the organisation. https://lnkd.in/eRyJw2tK

UnionDigital Bank partners iProov for authentication upgrade UnionDigital previously collaborated with Callsign for digital identity verification technology when launching its banking app in 2022. Under the agreement, UnionDigital has implemented iProov's Dynamic Liveness and Express Liveness solutions. Dynamic Liveness uses patented flashmark technology to verify users' faces during high-risk transactions and new device log-ins, while Express Liveness provides face authentication for routine customer interactions, such as transaction limit increases. https://lnkd.in/ei_N_ruk

CUBE buys Germany's Kodex AI to add agentic #AI capabilities to RegPlatform With Kodex AI's acquisition, Cube claims it is creating the "industry’s first unified compliance, risk and #agenticAI platform". Founded in 2022 by CEO Thomas Kaiser and CTO Claus Lang, Kodex AI leverages specialised #generativeAI agents to help financial institutions identify relevant regulatory updates and reports, analyse requirements, and complete other regulatory tasks up to a claimed 95% faster. https://lnkd.in/efhFeZFr

Blockchain, crypto and digital currencies were a hot topic at global payments conference Sibos this year, as 12,000 participants exchanged ideas on the future of banking. Among them, ING’s Floris Lugt who shared insights with FinTech Futures on digital asset strategy drawing on our experience with blockchain over the last nine years.

Campfire, the enterprise resource planning (ERP) start-up founded by former Invoice2go VP John Glasgow in 2023, has raised $65 million in a Series B funding round led by Accel and new investor Ribbit. ✒️Tyler Pathe has the story ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/eQPDvKvf #FinTech #StartUps