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The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | July 4th

By Gaia Lamperti

July 04, 2022

  • APIs
  • EU
  • Europe
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Monday

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

New crypto regulation from EU

The Council Presidency and European Parliament have settled on the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) proposal; ruling that crypto-asset service providers will require authorisation to operate in the EU. This new regulatory framework will set standards across the industry to protect investors and consumers, ensuring financial stability while enabling innovation and growth. The regulations will help protect consumers from fraud and scams, as crypto-asset service providers will be liable if they lose assets and fail to protect investors’ wallets. The European Banking Authority (EBA) will form a public register of non-compliant crypto-asset providers.

Following this agreement, the European Central Bank (ECB) is expected to issue a strong warning to eurozone countries about the pressing need to harmonise regulation across the crypto industry, according to the Financial Times. The ECB is concerned about fragmented national regulations, as full implementation is set for 18 months after becoming law in 2023.

Fintech M&As

Delhi-based e-commerce platform Pine Labs is acquiring Bengaluru-based API firm Setu, with a $70-75 million deal. The acquisition will help Pine Labs to strengthen its online payments and lending platform. “Setu’s offerings, including the interface for account aggregator, open network for digital commerce and open credit enablement network framework made Setu an attractive bet for us,” Amrish Rau, the company’s CEO, said during a press briefing last week.

Paytech firm GoCardless is set to acquire Latvia’s Nordigen, an open banking data provider, whose open banking connectivity offers the “widest” coverage in Europe to over 2,300 banks in 31 countries. Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless, said the acquisition will allow them to “offer open banking-as-a-service to any developer, partner or fintech”. The deal is expected to close later in the summer but further terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. GoCardless has been investing in its open banking strategy in the past few months, tipping it to be a market worth “over $400 billion”.

Where us the buzz

Meta announced it will officially close all accounts on its digital wallet launched last October, Novi, on the 1st of September 2022 and advised all users to withdraw their funds “as soon as possible”. The move follows the downturn in crypto trends which suggests an upcoming crypto winter. Multiple crypto firms, such as BlockFi, Coinbase, and Bitpanda, had to lay off multiple employees for the same reason.

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