Revolut CFO resigns following money laundering controversy

This hasn’t been a good week for challenger bank Revolut . The company, which offers digital banking services and is valued at $1.7 billion, confirmed today that embattled CFO Peter O’Higgins has resigned and left the business. The startup and O’Higgins have been under pressure after a Daily Telegraph report that revealed that Revolt switched […]

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Nigerian fintech firm TeamApt raises $5M, eyes global expansion

Nigerian fintech startup TeamApt has raised $5.5 million in capital in a Series A round led by Quantum Capital Partners. The Lagos based firm will use the funds to expand its white label digital finance products and pivot to consumer finance with the launch of its AptPay banking app. Founded by Tosin Eniolorunda, TeamApt supplies […]

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SoFi founder Mike Cagney’s new company, Figure just raised another $65 million

Figure, a 13-month-old, San Francisco-based company that says it uses blockchain technology to provide home equity loans online in as little as five days, has raised a whole lot of money in not a lot of time: $120 million to date, including $65 million in fresh funding from RPM Ventures and partners at DST Global, […]

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Sebastian Thrun initiates aggressive plan to transform Udacity

“I’m a fighter. I believe in our people, I believe in our mission, and I believe that it should exist and must exist.” Sebastian Thrun is talking animatedly about Udacity, the $1 billion online education startup that he co-founded nearly eight years ago. His tone is buoyant and hopeful. He’s encouraged, he says over an occasionally […]

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Alibaba’s Ant Financial buys UK currency exchange giant WorldFirst reportedly for around $700M

Ant Financial, the financial services behemoth affiliated with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has made its first big move into Europe. It’s acquired London-headquartered payments company WorldFirst in a deal that sources tell us is valued at around $700 million. (That price would also line up with multiple reports from December claiming the two were in […]

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The plot to revive Mt. Gox and repay victims’ Bitcoin

It was the Lehman Brothers of blockchain. 850,000 Bitcoin disappeared when cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox imploded in 2014 after a series of hacks. The incident cemented the industry’s reputation as frighteningly insecure. Now a controversial crypto celebrity named Brock Pierce is trying to get the Mt. Gox flameout’s 24,000 victims their money back and build a […]

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Many popular iPhone apps secretly record your screen without asking

Many major companies, like Air Canada, Hollister and Expedia, are recording every tap and swipe you make on their iPhone apps. In most cases you won’t even realize it. And they don’t need to ask for permission. You can assume that most apps are collecting data on you. Some even monetize your data without your knowledge. […]

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Plaid expands financial service API to include all US banks

Plaid, developers of financial services APIs, has been helping developers connect an app to a major US bank account for several years, but today they expanded that API to include all US banks, including smaller banks that might not have as advanced technology. The product in question is called Auth. Prior to today’s announcement, this […]

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Chat app Line injects $182M into its mobile payment business

Japanese messaging app company Line is pumping 20 billion JPY ($182 million) into its mobile payment business as it tries to turn things around following a challenging year in 2018. The company announced the infusion into Line Pay, a subsidiary that it fully owns, in a filing which stated that the new capital is “necessary […]

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Japan’s “Society 5.0” initiative is a roadmap for today’s entrepreneurs

Mark Minevich Contributor Share on Twitter Mark Minevich is a digital fellow at IPSoft. Japan, still suffering the consequences of its ‘Lost Decade’ of economic stagnation, is eyeing a transformation more radical than any the industrialized world has ever seen. Boldly identified as “Society 5.0” Japan describes its initiative as a purposeful effort to create […]

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Step targets teens and parents with a no-fees mobile bank account and Visa card

A new mobile banking startup called Step wants to help bring teenagers and other young adults into the cashless era. Today, cash is used less often, as more consumers shop online and send money to one another through payment apps like Venmo. But teenagers in particular are still heavily burdened with cash — even though […]

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India’s largest bank SBI leaked account data on millions of customers

India’s largest bank has secured an unprotected server that allowed anyone to access financial information on millions of its customers, like bank balances and recent transactions. The server, hosted in a regional Mumbai-based datacenter, stored two months of data from SBI Quick, a text message and call-based system used to request basic information about their bank […]

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