Your Daily FinTech Podcast - June 26th, 2022

Sign up for my Daily Fintech or Daily Digital Banking Newsletters here. Check out my latest podcast episode below: Welcome to another episode of our Daily Fintech Podcast. THE NEWS HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY IS Revolut has picked Ireland as the first market to launch its buy now, pay later product that will see it go head-to-head with the likes of Klarna and other FinTechs in the rapidly growing area of lending. JUST IN: Ant Group, the financial services arm of Alibaba Group, will apply to become a financial holding company, possibly this month. ALSO: Swiss luxury watchmaker Hublot announced on June 21 that it would release 200 new limited-edition watches that will also be available for online purchase using chosen cryptocurrencies through BitPay. FURTHERMORE: US-based Flagstar Bank has suffered a data breach that has hit over 1.5 million customers. WHAT ABOUT FUNDING ROUNDS AND INVESTMENTS? Hokodo has just raised over €37.8 million in Series B funding. Finhay has secured a US$25 million Series B round co-led by Openspace Ventures and VIG. Lista  has raised over US$ 5.1 million in a recent funding round led by Singaporean VC firm Openspace Ventures. StrideUp has raised £280m in funding to bring a new shared ownership mortgage product to the UK’s first-time buyers. Octopus Ventures launches its first-ever pre-seed fund of £10m. Dastgyr Technologies raised $37 million in the country’s largest-ever Series A funding. Wibond (YC W22) raises US$6 million in a financing round. Colombia-based Pandas, which focuses on offering Asian-origin inventory to micro-businesses in Latin America has nabbed $6.3 million in the largest pre-seed funding in the region. Bank of America has built on its partnership with iCapital Network by making a strategic investment in the alternative investment platform. WHAT ABOUT CRYPTO? Crypto lender BlockFi announced Tuesday it had received a $250 million revolving line of credit from crypto exchange FTX to help bolster its balance sheet.