Dear Subscriber,

What a newsletter we have for you today! Starting in Germany, we take a look at the recent data to paint a clear picture of the country’s payments landscape. With nearly 80% of all transactions being made in cash are German payments going digital any time soon? If so, what must be done to help the process?

Zooming out of Germany, we take a quick look at Europe as a whole and pick out five what we think are the most-interesting stories across the region right now.

Not content with a fintech snapshot of a continent, we take a look at the fintech of the world! Global investment in private fintech companies added up to $5.7 billion in the first quarter of the year, according to a new report on fintech VC trends published jointly by KPMG International and CB Insights.

Our final story is about a humanoid robot who starts working at a Pizza Hut at the end of the year. MasterCard came up with the first commerce application for SoftBank’s humanoid robot ‘Pepper’: taking orders and processing payments at Pizza Hut. No word on when Skynet will be up and running…”

Enjoy!

Whilst in the UK digital payments have already overtaken cash transactions in 2014 and we’re actually spending £1.5 billion a month using contactless cards, nearly 80% of transactions in Germany are still made in cash. However, recent findings from TSYS and Wirecard suggest things could be about to change.

There’s a huge amount going on in the European payments and fintech startup space right now, which is great news for the industry but makes staying on top of everything challenging at best. With that in mind we’ve picked out five what we think are the most-interesting stories across the region right now.

Following a ‘significant pullback’ in the final quarter of 2015, fintech funding in 2016 got off to a very strong start, buoyed by several massive Chinese deals.

This week, MasterCard came up with the first commerce application for SoftBank’s humanoid robot ‘Pepper’: taking orders and processing payments at Pizza Hut.