South African mobile FinTech firm Zoona has raised $15m in a round led by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a division of the World Bank Group.

Japanese tech giant Rakuten is acquiring the assets of Belfast and San Francisco-based startup Bitnet to launch a blockchain research lab.

US payments processor and card reader Square is inching further into the European market with a series of three job openings highlighting the company’s expansion plans.

Online credit marketplace Camino has raised $2m in a new round of venture funding. The investment was led by Collaborative Fund and Hunt Holdings with Comcast Ventures and Impact America also contributing.

Personal investments firm Lancai has raised ¥180m ($27m) in a Series B round of funding from Chinese online video firm LeEco.

Transaction confidentiality is one of the key issues banks have with blockchain technology, a new report by Greenwich Associates shows.

Enterprise software developer Chain has joined forces with the Initiative for Cryptocurrency and Contracts (IC3) to advance blockchain development.

Danish online trading tools developer Tradeworks has raised almost DKK 3.5m ($500,000) from Singaporean investors and a local institution.

Small business lending platform BizFi has reached a new milestone in its 12-year history having provided more than $1.8bn in SME loans to date.

PayPal is making further moves into the B2B payments space through a partnership with SME accounting platform Xero.