Chinese credit card management firm, 51 Credit, has raised $84 million in Series C+ funding from Harvest Capital and Yintai Group, this is soon after they secured $310 million from Series C funding; the fundraising will help the company establish its own investment fund targeting fintech companies; in total the firm has raised $444 million in equity capital; according to Sun Haitao, 51 Credit CEO, the fund will be launched within a year, and will focus on asset management, data and credit services. Source
PayPal has announced new capabilities that allow for international person-to-person payments in 30 countries with Siri; PayPal's Siri iPhone users can direct international payments to individuals using voice activated prompts; the solution evolved from Apple's iOS 10 operating system; the new offering is part of a focus by PayPal on mobile, a category that reported a 56% growth rate in the third quarter of 2016. Source
iZettle has raised 60 million euros ($63.46 million) in a Series D funding round and hired a new chief financial officer; the firm is now valued at more than $500 million; says an initial public offering is one scenario it is considering for its next growth phase; the payment processing firm is comparable to US-based Square, offering card readers and credit financing for merchants; iZettle is based in Sweden and provides its service in 12 markets with market transactions led by the UK. Source
PYMNTS.com provides insight from MoneyGram CEO Alex Holmes on the Ant Financial merger; the merger represents a strategic deal that Holmes says will significantly benefit the industry and the shareholders of both companies; both companies are leading payment providers with MoneyGram offering global payment processing capabilities and Ant Financial seeking to expand on its market position in payments through Alipay in China; "We are going to see, when this deal goes through, those capabilities getting built out between our two organizations in a much more robust and dynamic way," said Alex Holmes. Source
Swedish startup Klarna has acquired BillPay in a transaction that's expected to strengthen its payments business throughout Europe; the estimated price is approximately 60 million British pounds ($75 million) and Klarna was last valued at $2.25 billion in 2015; both Klarna and BillPay have been closely compared to PayPal; with the new acquisition the majority of Klarna's business will now be focused in Germany; Klarna has been focusing on business in Germany, acquiring Cookies in October 2016 and Sofort in 2013, both German companies; the acquisition of BillPay will help increase cross-border payment transactions; according to Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, "Germany is one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world, and we are delighted to have strengthened our position here with this acquisition." Source
Square's CEO, Jack Dorsey, explained on this week's earnings call why he puts its subsidiary, Caviar, on a silver platter; Square's payment-handling service is used by many restaurants, while Caviar's food delivery-enabling platform allows those restaurants to reach a customer base eating at home; the key for Dorsey is cross-selling services that grow their customers' businesses, even if the synergies aren't apparent at first bite; on CNBC's Squawk Box the day after the earnings call, CTO Sarah Friar said that Square has been "executing on all cylinders." Source
Off the recent news about Stripe's fundraising round, payment companies across the board are seeing growth and increased investor interest; Adyen BV, WePay, PayPal and Square are just a few of the other, well positioned names who are benefiting from the sector wide growth; Square's stock price rose on news of the Stripe fundraising; as online lenders have struggled, payment firms have only continued a pattern of growth, even more evident by the recent holiday sales numbers that showed 109 million people shopped online, more than the 99 million who went to the stores. Source
A white paper from Juniper Research projects mobile wallet transactions to increase to $1.35 trillion globally in 2017, an annual increase of 32%; the data shows that the Far East and China are currently accounting for most of the market transactions with growth specifically from Alipay and WeChat; PayPal and Apple are also noted as leading market providers; in the European market the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is also expected to be a factor supporting near-term growth in mobile wallet transactions. Source
Adyen reported an 80% increase in 2016 payment transactions with transaction volume of $90 billion; the growth was attributed to partnerships with Uber, Spotify, Airbnb, Booking.com, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn; growth is expected to continue in 2017 with contributions from new in-store payment services which it expects to grow to 50% of its business; the firm also says the European Commission's Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) will help improve business for Adyen. Source
PayPal has announced the acquisition of TIO Networks for $233 million; TIO Networks is a bill payment management company and PayPal plans to integrate with its kiosks for bill payment at local merchants; the integration is part of an initiative to reach more underserved bank customers. Source