“A South African startup that’s building software infrastructure for the continent’s growing fintech sector has raised $21 million in a round led by New York’s Spruce House Partnership . Other new investors in Cape Town-based Stitch include PayPal Ventures , TrueLayer and Village Global. The company plans to use the cash to expand into new markets and products, co-founder & Chief Executive Officer Kiaan Pillay said in an emailed statement.”

“Payments processor Global Payments said Thursday it’s putting its Netspend unit back on the sales block, reprising an effort reportedly made in 2020 when it put a $2 billion-plus price tag on the prepaid debit card business. The Atlanta-based company aims to sell the consumer side of the Netspend business, and plans to keep the business-to-business assets as it refocuses on corporate clients, the company said in a Thursday press release that also announced fourth-quarter earnings.”

“Apollo Global Management Inc. is nearing a deal to acquire the point-of-sale terminal business of European payments company Worldline SA for close to $2.3 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The proposed deal is the latest bet on the continued growth of digital payments. The New York-based buyout giant would acquire hardware that allows consumers to use their mobile phones and payment cards to make purchases. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital payments over cash among both consumers and businesses.”

“BigCommerce (Nasdaq: BIGC), a leading Open SaaS ecommerce platform for fast-growing and established brands, today announced the acquisition of Quote Ninja, Inc. (dba B2B Ninja ), a premier enterprise software solution providing leading business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce capabilities for merchants of all sizes. A longtime BigCommerce partner, B2B Ninja is a best-in-class quoting solution, and the acquisition furthers BigCommerce’s ability to deliver powerful ecommerce functionality to B2B merchants.”

“Sardine , the fraud and compliance platform for fintechs, today announced $19.5 million in Series A funding from Andreessen Horowitz, NYCA, and Experian Ventures to enable companies to protect customers from financial fraud. Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Angela Strange joins XYZ’s Ross Fubini on the Sardine board of directors. Funding comes amid strong growth and company momentum. Since its launch last Spring, Sardine now powers over 50 customers, including some of the largest neobanks (Brex and Chipper Cash), fast growing crypto exchanges (FTX, Luno, and Bakkt), and global NFT and crypto platforms (Abra, Transak, MoonPay, and Candy Digital).”

“U.K. financial technology startup GoCardless raised $312 million in new funding to speed up its expansion in open banking across products and geographies. The company was valued at $2.1 billion in the deal, more than double the figure investors gave it during a funding round in December 2020, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.”

“The Central Bank approved the purchase of 40% of the Brazilian  C6 Bank by the US bank  JP Morgan Chase . The operation, announced in June 2021 , had already received approval from CADE (Administrative Council for Economic Defense). The information is from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.”

“Sky News has learnt that Railsbank, which provides digital banking services to financial services and other consumer-facing companies, is working with bankers on plans to raise roughly $100m in new funding. FT Partners, the prolific fintech-focused investment bank, has been mandated to work on the round, according to investors.”

“Ebanx SA , a Brazilian financial-technology firm backed by Advent International , delayed its U.S. initial public offering because of recent market volatility. The company, which eventually may seek a valuation exceeding $10 billion, isn’t planing to go public in the first half of this year as previously expected, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.”

“Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Finxact, Inc., developer of the cloud-native banking solution that is powering digital transformation throughout the financial services sector.”

“Bold , a technology company working to enable financial access to electronic payments in Colombia, has raised $55 million in a Series B funding round led by Tiger Global Management.”

“Africa-focused payments startup PalmPay raised a $100 million Series A round last year. TechCrunch spotted this news in Partech Africa’s latest end-of-year report on venture capital investments in Africa.”

“Venture capital firm Founders Fund has led a new investment in Ramp, a corporate credit card and spending management software startup that is less than three years old, at an $8 billion valuation, including the investment, said two people familiar with the matter.”

“Tribal , a B2B payments and financing platform for emerging markets, has raised $60M in Series B funding led by SoftBank Latin America Fund .”

“Amount, a banking technology provider offering account opening, loan origination and BNPL financing solutions, announced today the acquisition of Linear Financial Technologies (“Linear”), the premier SMB loan and account origination platform. Linear’s solution set is complementary to Amount’s retail banking and BNPL solutions for consumer loans.”

“Today, Square launches its first integration with Afterpay, providing “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) functionality to sellers using Square Online for e-commerce in the United States and Australia. The integration will enable Square sellers to offer Afterpay’s BNPL experience to their customers, helping them attract new shoppers and drive incremental revenue. This product integration becomes available at the same time Block, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) announces it has completed its acquisition of Afterpay.”

“Chargebee , the leading subscription management platform, today announced the closing of a $250 million investment round co-led by Tiger Global and Sequoia Capital, along with returning investors including Insight Partners, Sapphire and Steadview Capital…Chargebee manages revenue operations for subscription-based businesses ranging from early-stage startups to larger enterprises, including Freshworks, Calendly, Doodle and Pret a Manger. Through simple and seamless integrations, Chargebee captures the entire revenue lifecycle from first interaction to the closing of the books each month, empowering teams to make business growth decisions with confidence.”

“Silvergate Capital Corporation (“Silvergate”) (NYSE: SI) today announced that it has acquired intellectual property and other technology assets related to running a blockchain-based payment network from the Diem Group (“Diem”), further investing in its platform and enhancing its existing stablecoin infrastructure. Silvergate is uniquely positioned to leverage this technology to further solidify its position as a leader in the digital currency industry.”

“SumUp is considering raising new money in a funding round that could value the U.K. payments company at about 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.  London-based SumUp could seek more than 500 million euros from investors, the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. A fundraising of that size could make SumUp one of the most valuable startups in the U.K.”

“NALA , a Tanzanian cross-border payments company that recently pivoted from local to international money transfers, said Thursday it has raised $10 million in a new fundraising round. The seed round is coming almost three years after NALA secured a seven-figure pre-seed round led by Accel in 2019. In that time, NALA built a mobile money service in East Africa and scaled it to more than 250,000 users.”

“The fintech firm is riding on a boom in cross-border commerce by Chinese sellers operating on foreign platforms. Founded in 2015, PingPong collects payments for Chinese exporters selling through services such as Amazon.com Inc., Shopify Inc. and Shopee, a unit of Singapore’s Sea Ltd., its website shows. PingPong is used by more than a million merchants for cross-border, value-added tax and supplier payments, according to the website.”

“Western Alliance Bank today announced it has completed the acquisition of Digital Settlement Technologies, DBA Digital Disbursements, the leading digital payments platform for the class action legal industry. Joining forces with Digital Disbursements, which enables the seamless integration of a customizable pay menu into settlement claim forms and other payment selection websites, positions Western Alliance as the leading digital payments platform for the class action market and broader legal industry.”

“The Diem Association, the Meta Platforms-led enterprise that was looking to issue a new, user-friendly stablecoin, is selling its technology to Silvergate Capital for $200 million, The Wall Street Journal reported , citing an unnamed source. The California bank, which serves blockchain companies, had agreed last year to partner with Diem in launching a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin. The agreement was supposed to breathe fresh air into a struggling project, which Meta Platforms had kickstarted under the name Libra in 2019 when the company was still called Facebook.”

“SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced its intent to acquire a majority stake of Taulia, a leading provider of working capital management solutions. The move is aimed at giving companies better access to liquidity and improving their cash flows. The acquisition further expands SAP’s Business Network and strengthens SAP’s solutions for the CFO office.”

“Private equity firms Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, Siris Capital Group LLC and Advent International Corp have made competing offers to acquire MoneyGram International Inc (MGI.O) , according to people familiar with the matter. The Dallas-based company embarked on a review of its options after Madison Dearborn offered $10.50 per share in cash to acquire it, the sources said. Advent had also expressed interest last year in taking over the company, the sources added.”

“The financial-technology startup backed by Walmart Inc. said it plans to purchase two small firms and launch under a new brand. The firm, helmed by two former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executives, will buy Even Responsible Finance Inc., which is used by employers to offer workers their paychecks early and counts Walmart as a large customer. It will also buy ONE Finance Inc., a financial-services mobile app known as a neobank that allows users to manage money and apply for a debit card or other services that come with lower fees than traditional banks typically charge.”

“Paystone announces the acquisition of Canadian Payment Services (CPS), one of the fastest growing providers of Canadian merchant services. This acquisition is the sixth addition to Paystone’s burgeoning portfolio of acquisitions, having acquired five other businesses in the past two years including Montreal-based DataCandy and Vancouver-based NiceJob.”