Institutional Investment & Trading

Standard Chartered is planning to establish a UK-based cryptocurrency brokerage and exchange for clients in the UK and Europe.

UK commission-free stock trading app Lightyear has raised $1.5m from a pre-seed funding round.

While Covid-19 continues to haunt us, the FinTech industry continues to rake in millions of dollars. Neobanks and cybersecurity companies were the top-scoring sectors to raise investment among the 42 rounds that FinTech Global reported on last week.

A Bank for International Settlements (BIS) survey has found US citizens trust banks more than FinTechs, government agencies and Big Data to protect their personal data.

A Greenpeace-led report has found UK banks and assets managers were responsible for 805m tonnes of CO2 in 2019 – making it the ninth largest carbon emitter worldwide.

UK open banking platform TrueLayer has partnered with Spanish FinTech HeyTrade to launch a new digital trading app in Spain.

With Trade Republic netting $900m and four startups earning the horn among 46 rounds, last week proved to be a great week in terms of FinTech investment, particularly for stock trading apps enterprises.

SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund led a $10m Series A round of funding into Zoe Financial, a digital marketplace for people to find and hire vetted independent financial advisers.

Pre-wealth management platform Secfi secured a second investment facility from Serengeti Asset Management for $150m.

German stock-trading app Trade Republic raised $900m in Series C funding which valued the company at over $5bn - a figure that soared from $600m from last April.