The Weekly Wrap: all you need to know by Friday COB | Feb 4th

By Gaia Lamperti

February 04, 2022

Bank
Climate Technology
Cryptocurrencies

The Weekly Wrap

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

Visa users made $2.5 billion in payments with crypto-connected cards during the company’s fiscal quarter ending Dec 31. That timeframe only saw 70% of Visa’s crypto volume for all of fiscal 2021, the company said. The payments giant continues to lean in the crypto space aiming to improve areas such as connectivity, scale, consumer value propositions, reliability and security for crypto offerings to continue growing.

“To us, this signals that consumers see utility in having a Visa card linked to an account at a crypto platform. There’s value in being able to access that liquidity, to fund purchases and manage expenses, and to do so instantly and seamlessly,” Visa’s CFO Vasant Prabhu said in a CNBC interview.

Up to date, more than 65 crypto platforms and exchanges, including Coinbase and BlockFi, have partnered to issue Visa credentials, and more than 100 million vendors in the Visa network are also now accepting Visa crypto payments, the company added.

In December, Visa formed a global crypto advisory practice to help other financial institutions develop their cryptocurrency businesses as demand for crypto products continues to grow across verticals.

Deals of the week

Chargebee raises $250 million to meet demand from subscription and SaaS businesses
Wayflyer hits unicorn status after raising $150 million
Bold announces $55 million Series B investment to drive transformation
Interchecks announces $16 million Series B financing
Tiger Global invests $15 million in Indonesian FinTech Ayoconnect
LemonEdge announces a $4 million funding round led by Blackstone
Wise Platform enters 2022 with seven new partnerships

Be on the lookout for

HSBC‘s funding in green tech. The group will allocate $100 million to power green technology projects as part of the Breakthrough Energy Catalyst network, an initiative founded by Bill Gates, which supports the decarbonisation of high-carbon sectors. The project will focus on four critical climate technologies: direct air capture, clean hydrogen, long-duration energy storage, and sustainable aviation fuel.

February 04, 2022