{"id":3008,"date":"2021-07-28T12:53:44","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T11:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platinumgroup.io\/2021\/07\/28\/uk-fintech-news-round-up-the-latest-stories-28-07\/"},"modified":"2021-07-28T12:53:44","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T11:53:44","slug":"uk-fintech-news-round-up-the-latest-stories-28-07","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platinumgroup.io\/2021\/07\/28\/uk-fintech-news-round-up-the-latest-stories-28-07\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Fintech News Round-up: The Latest Stories 28\/07"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n UK innovators attract record levels of Venture Capital Investment<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The research published today using data supplied by PitchBook,<\/strong> recorded more than \u00a36.5billion invested into fast growth UK businesses in Q2 21. A strong COVID-19 vaccination programme and greater business confidence in the post-Brexit environment, resulted in 708 deals being completed in Q2 21, up 7% on the previous quarter.<\/span><\/p>\n Fintech and healthtech businesses attracted the largest deals in Q2 21, including a $500million (\u00a3360million) raise by B2B payments firm SaltPay<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n Bina Mehta<\/strong>, Chair of KPMG UK<\/strong> and Head of the firm\u2019s UK Emerging Giants Centre of Excellence said<\/span>: \u201cThe UK has demonstrated resilience and adaptability in attracting overseas investment in a post-Covid<\/a>, post-Brexit era, which is likely due in part to the maturity of our scaleup ecosystem.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhilst it is our established late stage businesses that are attracting the big investment, Angel investors and university incubators are playing an increasing role in developing strong and active programmes in the regions, which attribute to our diversity and growing number of disruptive scaleup businesses. It is great to see that early stage businesses are starting to attract the funding they need in order to scale. Supporting our early stage businesses will be crucial in order to continue to develop our ecosystem and maintain our global position as leaders in innovation.\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n UK retail banks miss out on potential savings worth \u00a36billion<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n UK retail banks stand to save \u00a36billion simply by reviewing the contracts they have in place with third-party vendors. This is the claim made by Strategic Resource Management (SRM) Europe<\/strong> and comes shortly after the Kearney Retail Banking Radar reported that European banks must reduce costs by over \u00a325billion in order to become profitable within five years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n David Royle<\/strong>, managing director UK, SRM comments:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThird-party contracts are a huge proportion of banks\u2019 operational costs<\/a>, but where vendors have entire teams permanently negotiating and renegotiating their contracts day in day out, banks will typically only review their contracts once every few years, with little point of reference to comparative data. This leads to a negotiating imbalance and sub optimal contracts.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThose banks have historically been fixated on reducing headcount and branch cuts as a means of balancing the books. In doing so, they ignore the real issue: they are continuing to pay their vendors too much. IT costs alone, including core processing, payment providers, automation, and digital platforms have increased a staggering 80% since 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDespite being so-called strategic partners, and regardless of their business alignment with the bank, it is in every vendor\u2019s best interest to keep the banks paying as much as possible, for as long as possible. We want to change this in the UK market.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n NewDay launches Bip the UK\u2019s first digital only credit card<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n NewDay,<\/strong> a UK provider of accessible credit, has launched Bip<\/strong> \u2013 the first completely cardless consumer credit proposition in the UK.<\/a> Bip has been designed around the customer, offering a fully digital credit experience that is simple to use, fully transparent on costs and with the customer in complete control.<\/span><\/p>\n With no physical card, Bip customers can apply and have access to appropriate credit within minutes. Bip is available via the App Store and Google Play \u2013 and can be added to the digital wallet of the user\u2019s mobile phone. Just like a traditional card, it can be used anywhere\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Sharvan Selvam<\/strong>, Commercial Director at NewDay said<\/span>: \u201cWe worked with our customers all the way through the design, testing and launch of Bip. It is a proposition designed to make credit easy to access, simple to use and, importantly, puts the customer in full control.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Watford FC paid in cryptocurrency, as part of new sponsorship deal<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Premier League football club Watford FC<\/strong> said their new shirt sponsor has paid in cryptocurrency.<\/a> The news comes as the football club previously featured the bitcoin logo on their shirts, as well as being one of the first English football clubs to offer bitcoin as a payment option.<\/p>\n Paul Roach<\/strong>, Co-Founder of crypto wallet and payments platform Zumo<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe may be early on in the crypto game, but this is just one more sign of crypto making it onto the big stage. It\u2019s great to see crypto finding this level of mainstream adoption, and we can surely expect to see a lot more of these kinds of deals in the business-to-business arena.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSports is a hot space for the crypto industry,<\/a> and we\u2019re starting to see a lot of high-profile sponsorship deals across football, rugby, and Formula 1 to name just a few. Clearly, crypto and sports is something that\u2019s not going away.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n UK financial institutions spend an average of \u00a3374k each year on preventing financial crime<\/strong><\/p>\n Financial crime<\/span> prevention costs UK financial institutions an average of \u00a3374k every year, according to <\/span>new research from the global legal business, DWF.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The survey of 300 financial crime decision makers working in the financial services sector in the UK, also found that on average, organisations spent \u00a353 annually on financial crime defence<\/a> for each customer relationship they have. Moreover, they refused an average of \u00a390,240.77 and exited an average of \u00a390,869.52 worth of UK customer relationships for financial crime reasons during the last 12 months.<\/span><\/p>\n Andrew Jacobs<\/strong>, head of regulatory consulting at DWF, said: <\/span>\u201cIn a climate where businesses are being held to account on their Environmental, Social and Governance approach by investors, clients, employees and society more broadly, it is important for financial services business to make sure that they are considering evolving parameters, so that governance is robust and their control framework remains alive to new risks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Fintechs turn to partnerships to offer market leading savings accounts to their retail clients<\/p>\n<\/p>\nEach week, we take a look at some of the latest fintech news in the UK. This week, banks miss out on potential savings worth \u00a36billion, Watford FC is paid in cryptocurrency and the UK\u2019s first digital only credit card launched.<\/em><\/h4>\n