Dear Subscriber,

Today’s newsletter is all about funding, European expansions and American roll-outs.

In the UK, Crowdcube, which recently powered challenger bank Mondo’s crowdfunding campaign, has raised in £8 million in a mixture of venture capital and money raised from 3,700 investors through its own crowdfunding platform.

Turning to Europe, Chinese mobile payments giant Alipay is continuing its expansion into the continent with a partnership with Ingenico that will allow the 450 million Alipay users to use the app in more stores.

Across the pond in the US, MasterCard is saying that it is finally making progress with the roll out of chip cards as now 80% of consumer credit cards in the country have chips installed. However, recent card fraud data suggest there is still quite a way to go.

We round off the newsletter with a blog about the question that is on everyone’s minds recently: Is financial regulation holding back innovation in the UK?

Enjoy!

The UK crowdfunding space is getting a boost this week with news Crowdcube has raised in £8 million in a mixture of venture capital and money raised from 3,7000 investors through its own platform.

Haunted by the mistakes of 2008, financial regulators decided to introduce more stringent regulations to lessen the likelihood of a double-dip recession. But this is now leading to growing concerns and begging the question – is regulation stifling innovation within the financial services industry?

Alipay, the Chinese payment platform with 450 million users run by Ant Financial, is partnering with Ingenico to embed its technology into Ingenico’s in-store payment gateways across Europe.

The US shift to the EMV standard is making progress, according to MasterCard, which said that 80% of its consumer credit cards now contain chips. This marks an 88% increase in adoption since the October 1st 2015 shift deadline.