Augmentum Fintech plc (LSE: AUGM) (“Augmentum” or the “Company”), one of Europe’s leading fintech venture capital investors, announces an investment of £5.3 million in UK based fast-growing mobile-only current account provider Monese.
Augmentum is participating in this £46 million Series B fundraising alongside Kinnevik, PayPal and Avios, all of whom are investing in Monese for the first time.
Biometrics boom
No longer the preserve of the military and secret service, biometrics is one of the hottest and fastest growing sectors in the world. With the technology used across a variety of sectors - banking and finance, retail, healthcare and government - and with cybercrime on the rise, it’s little wonder experts predict the biometrics market will be worth $50bn by 2024.
Customers travelling with Singapore Airlines (SIA) can now have the added flexibility of saving their mobile boarding pass on Google Pay, the digital wallet platform and online payment system developed by Google.
With this new initiative, customers can simply produce their boarding pass, which is saved to Google Pay, and proceed straight to the boarding gate after clearing immigration formalities.
Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich) has launched the Zurich Innovation World Championship, its new global competition to collaborate with the brightest and best start-ups and entrepreneurs in the insurtech space.
Alternative Investment Fund Manager Olymp Capital (AIF) today announces the launch of the first European investment fund to cover the entire blockchain and crypto asset ecosystem. The fund, managed by Olymp Capital, will include blockchain-related Private Equity, Initial Coin Offering (ICO) activity and a fund-of-fund activity centred on crypto hedge funds. The fund accepts investment both in fiat and crypto currencies (eg bitcoin, ether).
Clickatell (www.Clickatell.com/products/transact), an authorized WhatsApp Business Solution provider, is proud to announce that United Bank for Africa (UBA) will be going live with their Chat Banking solution – Leo on WhatsApp.
At times the financial industry can seem like one of those immutable pillars of the economy. Its not like the retail industry, which in little more than a decade, has radically changed its focus from bricks and mortar to digital – with all the logistical and marketing issues associated with it. Nor, is it like travel and hospitality which has been forced to reform due to price comparison sites, peer review, and convenient booking platforms. Save for sporadic innovations like ATMs, chip and PIN and online banking, the fundamentals of banking remain reasonably unchanged.
Reference is made to the joint press release by Thales (Euronext Paris: HO) and Gemalto (Euronext Amsterdam and Paris: GTO) dated 27 March 2018 in relation to the launch of the recommended all-cash offer by Thales for all the issued and outstanding shares of Gemalto (the "Offer"), the publication of the Offer Document, and the joint press release of Thales and Gemalto dated 10 August 2018 in relation to the further extension of the Acceptance Period. Terms not defined in this press release will have the meaning as set forth in the Offer Document.
On 2 July this year Nordea entered into an agreement to acquire all shares in Gjensidige Bank. The acquisition has now been approved by the Norwegian Competition Authority.
- The approval takes us one step closer to realising our acquisition of Gjensidige Bank, says John Sætre, Head of Personal Banking at Nordea in Norway.
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