The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | Nov 15th

By Gaia Lamperti

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

Spotlight on digital identity

Socure, the identity verification company providing services to 12 of the top 15 banks in the US, has raised $450 million from investors in its Series E round, bringing the company’s valuation at $4.5 billion. Its new valuation makes Socure the highest-valued private company in the identity verification space, according to the firm. The company is planning to use the funds to enhance its services and expand across the entire identity verification lifecycle with online gaming, cryptocurrency and e-commerce marketplace clients.
The View: “In the last two years, there’s been tremendous e-commerce growth, and fraud has grown at the same rate, we are seeing a shift to digital. We see this shift sustaining over a long period of time.” – Johnny Ayers, Founder and CEO at Socure

Apple is reportedly asking states in the US to partially pay for people to use its iPhones as digital identification cards, holding states accountable for the authenticity of the programme’s identity verification,  according to a report by CNBC. The company requires states to maintain the systems to issue and service credentials, hire project managers to respond to Apple inquiries, and push for the adoption of the new feature among other government agencies, all at taxpayer expense.
The View: “It’s like a vendor relationship, which makes no sense to me because it’s the states that have the monopoly on what they’re giving to Apple, they could presumably negotiate a much more equal contract.” – Jason Mikula, Tintech consultant who obtained some of the contracts on CNBC.

Latest in BNPL

FCA-regulated, London-based BNPL FinTech Zilch has scored a $2 billion valuation after its latest funding round, becoming the fastest company to reach the “double unicorn” status ever, within just 8 months. The $110 million Series C funding round was led by Ventura Capital and Gauss Ventures, with existing investor Goldman Sachs also participating. The company is now working on the rollout of its services in the US after securing a lending license in California earlier this year.
The View: “Similar to what Zoom did to skype, Zilch will continue directly serving customers and allowing them to pay over time anywhere for anything. This strategy has proven to be far more scalable so far in the UK and we are excited to bring it to the USA very soon.” – Philip Belamant, CEO & Founder at Zilch

Payments giant Mastercard is expanding its BNPL programme with a series of partnerships with the likes of American Airlines, CSI, Fiserv and Tsys. Its BNPL offering allows Mastercard’s customers such as banks, lenders, FinTechs and wallets to offer payment in instalments options across their acceptance network. Among the others, the latest round of announced partnerships includes Barclays US, Fifth Third, FIS, Galileo, Huntington, Marqeta, SoFi, and Synchrony.
The View: “The program’s unique, open loop model provides lenders, merchants and consumers alike the ability to enjoy the benefits of BNPL purchasing, with the security and consumer protections they’ve come to expect from Mastercard.” – Craig Vosburg, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard

Where’s the buzz

Starling Bank is holding its mainstream rival Barclays in check and announced that aims at overtaking the banking giant within 5 years as the digital lender also gears up for a stock market float. According to Starling’s Founder and Chief executive, Anne Boden, that is a“very realistic” timescale to surpass the Big Five player and more than double its 7% share of the small business market. Starling Bank has already more than doubled its small business market share in less than 18 months.

“The extraordinary experiences of the year 2020 made it clearer than ever that our competitors are now Lloyds, Barclays et al,” Boden said. Barclays, which she said has around a 15% share of the market, is “now firmly in our sights,” she added.