Fintech funding round-up: 24 April 2017
All killer, no filler. That’s Banking Technology‘s motto when it comes to reporting. Here is our latest fintech funding round-up, featuring Token, Ongo, National Bank of Canada (NBC) and a bunch of venture capitalist firms.
Token, a US-based open banking platform provider, has raised $15.7 million in Series A funding from major investors including Octopus Ventures, EQT Ventures, OP Financial Group, Plug And Play Ventures and Digital Currency Group.
The money will be used to expand in Europe to help banks “generate new revenues” from the upcoming Payment Services Directive (PSD2) regulation. PSD2 will require banks to grant account access to a variety of customer-permitted third party service providers for the purpose of payment initiation and retrieving information.
Token positions its offering as “a turnkey PSD2 compliance solution” that “offers programmable money capabilities, empowering banks to create revenue from a number of high-value business cases including e-commerce checkout, B2B payments, bill pay, and many more”.
Token was founded in 2015 by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch and ex global CTO of Citigroup Yobie Benjamin. It opened an office in London in 2016 and inked partnership agreements with Fidor Bank and the aforementioned OP Financial Group.
National Bank of Canada (NBC) has purchased a 22% stake in digital payments service Ongo.
Ongo’s digital wallet supports P2P money transfers, B2B payments, bill payments, cash-in and top-up services.
Ongo was launched in 2016 by investment vehicle Ronoc, which specialises in emerging markets, in association with Myanmar Oriental Bank. It is currently operational in Yangon, Myanmar. The company hopes to expand countrywide and internationally, attracting one million people over the next three years.
Ongo employs 300 people, with plans to grow to 500 by the end of this year.
