The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | Feb 11th

By Gaia Lamperti

The Weekly Wrap is published every Friday and recaps the week’s main stories and deals, as well as upcoming events and announcements. For Prime subscribers only.

The Big Story

In 2021, UK FinTech investment topped $37.3 billion (£27.5bn), a sevenfold increase up from $5 billion the year before, according to research from KPMG. Dealmaking activity soared in the sector, with Britain emerging as a hub for fintech investment post-Brexit, attracting more investment than the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Over 600 M&A, private equity and venture capital deals were finalised in 2021, up by 27 per cent compared to 2020. The investment total was boosted by a string of high-value deals, with five of the ten largest fintech deals in the EMEA region completed in the UK, according to KPMG data. Standout deals included the multibillion-dollar fundraises by payment processor Checkout.com and banking app Revolut and JP Morgan’s $989m acquisition of wealth manager Nutmeg.

Breaking down between sectors, payments attracted the most funding, making up $52bn investment, up from $29bn the year before. Investment in payments was fuelled by surging interest in areas like Buy Now, Pay Later. A recent study revealed that usage of these services has exploded during 2021 with nearly a fifth of UK adults now using payments services from firms like Klarna and Clearpay at least once a month.

Deals of the week

• GoCardless joins tech unicorns by securing $312 million in a Series G funding round
• Alma completed a €210 million Series C financing round
• Aleo raises $200 million in Series B to expand products and services
• Sardine closes $19.5 million in Series A funding round
• Rewire secures $25 million, aiming to meet financial needs of migrant workers
• Fintern announces the closing of an £8 million Series A funding round
• Binalyze announces securing $10 million in a seed funding round

Be on the lookout for

Apple introducing Tap to Pay on iPhone. The new capability will allow millions of merchants across the US, from small businesses to large retailers, to use their iPhone to seamlessly and securely accept payments via Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets using their devices and with no additional hardware or payment terminal needed.

But some are not too convinced. “While this is a good move, the impact will be limited because the solution only enables face-to-face payments,” said Karl MacGregor, payments company Vyne’s co-Founder and CEO. “It isn’t a multi-channel solution that includes e-commerce. It’s a great use case for sole traders and SMEs, but it is not a transformative initiative – all payments powered by ApplePay remain at the mercy of the card schemes and their ability to increase their already high transaction fees at any point. Therefore, businesses will still be held hostage by scheme fees and challenging practices.”