Daily Fintech Podcast - February 16th, 2022

This podcast episode is sponsored by Sokin. Sokin is the trusted global FX payment provider for some of the world’s leading brands. With Sokin Premium you can send and receive unlimited international payments for one fixed monthly fee. Market beating rates, no commission, hassle-free. Sign up for my Daily Fintech or Daily Digital Banking Newsletters here. Check out my latest podcast episode below: 💫 News Highlight: Chime was the most downloaded US mobile banking app in 2021, with 12.8 million downloads, up 16% from 2020. ⚡ Just in 11Onze became the first community fintech in Europe, to introduce a new tool to combat inflation and the accompanying loss of purchasing power: investing in gold bullion. ⭐ Also, ComplyAdvantage announced that Novo has selected the company’s award-winning Transaction Monitoring solution. 👉🏻 Furthermore, MoneyHash gets $3M to build a super-API for payment operations in Africa. MoneyHash sits on top of payment providers and offers its infrastructure as an extension of companies’ product backend. 🪙 Crypto – Dara, Uber CEO said that Uber users will be allowed to pay fares in digital assets without disclosing an exact date. He added that there are “conversations all the time” about cryptocurrencies within the firm. 🧐 Insights: Robinhood’s path to go global is likely through crypto, says chief brokerage officer Steve Quirk. 💰 Funding rounds & investments: - Neo.Tax announced that it has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by Infinity Ventures. - Micruity Inc., a San Francisco, CA-based platform that powers annuities inside 401(k) plans, closed $5.1M in seed financing. - Novus has closed its crowdfunding round after reaching a total of over $3 million, successfully beating its initial target of $1.2 million by over 250%. - According to the BlackFin Tech overview by Romain Grimal, last week, an impressive €716m was raised across 17 deals. 🪂 New Launches & Features: Split Payments is now available in the US on iOS and Android phones through the chat app Messenger. 😎 Movers & Shakers: Money management app Plum has appointed a former Monzo Bank and Deliveroo executive (Phu Ly) to oversee its product offering as it launches a US stocks investment product. 💼 Opportunities: H20 Capital Innovation (H20) aims to be the go-to fund for pre-seed investments in Latin America.