Happy Friday!
In this edition:
Fintech Can Help Fill Climate Resilience Gaps in Emerging Markets
Accelerating the Fintech Revolution: How Blockchain will Change Finance Technology Forever
Getting Brokers to Engage with Fintech is Difficult
Mobile Money Dominates Fintech Investment in Africa
Fintech & Sector Funding Trends in Europe
Democratizing Finance with DeFi and Crypto: Future Says Podcast.
FinTech Can Help Fill Climate Resilience Gaps in Emerging Markets.
The fuel crisis spreading across Europe and Asia highlights the weather related vulnerabilities faced by global energy systems. As wind and solar falter under intermittency, power generation has defaulted to gas, where demand is being squeezed by early-autumn heating and late-summer electric cooling needs across Eurasia. The resiliency of energy supply chains is being put to the test-and failing.
Accelerating the Fintech Revolution: How Blockchain will Change Finance Technology Forever.
Fintech, like many other tech-oriented industries, is constantly evolving. There are new finance apps that are seemingly cropping up on a daily basis, offering bold new approaches to the managing and processing of payments. While this industry has been constantly growing, the arrival of blockchain technology threatens to bring an unprecedented level of disruption to finance technology.
Getting brokers to engage with fintech is difficult.
Virgin Money has called on brokers to be more open to financial technology as it admitted engaging brokers with its own new tech has been tricky.
Mobile Money Dominates Fintech Investment in Africa.
Financial technology, colloquially referred to as “fintech,” is accelerating financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa—a region that traditionally suffers from limited access to formal financial services, such as credit, insurance, and banking. While in recent years the opportunities made possible by this technology have opened doors for many in the region—especially low-income households—users of fintech are utilizing the tool in more and more sophisticated ways, as seen in a recent paper by Financial Technology Partners, a boutique investment banking firm, which reveals promising investment trends in the African FinTech industry.
Fintech & Sector Funding Trends in Europe.
Funding to Europe-based fintech companies in H1'21 surpassed 2020’s full-year total. Europe-based fintechs raised a record-breaking $12.8B in H1'21, nearly 1.5x higher than in all of 2020. In Q2’21 specifically, deal activity fell by 8% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) to 148 deals, while funding grew by 30% to reach a record $7.2B, driven by companies raising more mid- to late-stage mega-rounds.
Democratizing Finance with DeFi and Crypto: Future Says Podcast.