Dear Subscriber,

In today’s newsletter, Aaron Harris, partner at the legendary Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator, talks about opportunities to improve financial services, picking winners and why he’s excited about insurance.

In France, mobile payments are getting a big boost as Aldi France partners with Verifone to instal 3,200 contactless terminals across 900 stores, whilst Apple Pay teams up with Orange Cash and Oberthur Technologies works with a retail payment operator and a regulator to roll out mobile payments across the country.

Finally, as a refresher, don’t forget to take our Payment Acronyms quiz before next Wednesday’s follow-up. Be warned, it won’t be a walk in the park!

Enjoy!

The hype might be soaring around fintech right now, but investing in the financial services of tomorrow is nothing new for legendary Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator (YC). From PayTextMe in its first batch over a decade ago, to the likes of Stripe, LendUp and WePay, Y Combinator has invested in some of the world’s most promising financial tech companies.

Aldi France has teamed up with Verifone in a partnership that will see the latter provide Group Aldi’s 900 French stores with 3,200 payment devices designed to accept all cashless payments including contactless and mobile wallets.

No matter what happens following the fallout from Britain voting to leave the European Union, PSD2 is still going ahead as planned. Here is an infographic that charts PSD2 from its nascence three years ago and looks towards the future and its implementation.

The payments industry absolutely loves its acronyms: PSD2, HCE, NFC, ECB. But what do they all mean? If you think you know, then this is the quiz for you!