This past Friday, the Russian State Duma passed a law to create a national payment card system, the Russian news agency Interfax reported. The law took the form of amendments to existing legislation adopted in 2011. The new rules will ensure “uninterrupted transfers of monetary funds within the payment system on the territory of Russia,” …
Russia is setting up its own payment operation and clearing centers to circumvent US-based Visa and Mastercard – and may have its own homemade chip for banking cards as early as next year. According to the Russian business daily Vedomosti, microelectronics developer and manufacturer Mikron Group has high hopes of getting a new chip certified …
Russian-made chips for bank cards could appear in 2015 Read More
Smartfin, a provider of mobile payment solutions in Russia under the brand 2can, has just completed a $5 million Series B round of financing with the participation of previous investors InVenture and Almaz Capital, two major Russian venture funds, as well as investment company ESN Group. The latter, owned by Russian tycoon Gregory Berezkin, has …
Mobile acquiring startup 2can raises $5 million in Series B funding Read More
Last week saw the international turmoil around Ukraine and Crimea affect Russia’s banking system, as the bank card operations of several US-sanctioned Russian banks were blocked by Visa and Mastercard. Seven Russian banks were involved in the suspension, reported Russia Today, citing Timur Batyrev, head of the national payment system department at the Central Bank …
Spanish bank BBVA has acquired Simple, giving Russian fintech fund Life.SREDA its first exit. BBVA paid $117 million for the American innovative banking app, giving Life.SREDA a 180% return on the investment it made in June 2013. Simple, which was founded in summer 2012, helps clients to control their spending and to meet saving targets. …
IQcard, a Moscow-based startup offering multifunction bank cards, has been selected as a winner in the Boundary Buster category of the Paybefore Awards. This annual competition confers international recognition in the industry of prepaid, mobile and emerging payments. The awards are presented by Paybefore, a major industry publication.
IQcard, a Moscow-based startup offering multifunction bank cards, has raised $3.7 million in a Series B round led by Kenges Rakishev, a prominent businessman from Kazakhstan. The startup’s valuation has not been disclosed. Existing shareholders Fastlane Ventures and Direct Group have also participated in the round along with an unnamed “prominent Russian IT entrepreneur,” Fastlane’s press …
Kazakhstani businessman Kenges Rakishev leads $3.7 million round in Moscow startup IQcard Read More
Prostor Capital and Flint Capital have invested $3 million in equal shares in Federal Finance Group, a group of companies developing online financial services. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The group, founded in October 2010, has been backed so far by Russian financial services company Finam, PR director Ekaterina Prikhodko told East-West …
Flint Capital and Prostor Capital invest $3 million in online financial services Read More
LendingClub Corp., the largest U.S. peer-to-peer lender, received a $57 million investment from Yuri Milner’s DST Global and Coatue Management LLC as the company nears an initial public offering. The transaction values LendingClub at $2.3 billion, said two people with knowledge of the deal, who asked not to be identified because the valuation is private. …
US peer-to-peer lender LendingClub said to reach $2.3 billion valuation in DST funding Read More
Earlier this week RocketBank, a Moscow-based banking application startup, announced that it received $2 million in funding from Runa Capital, a Moscow-based fund operating internationally. RocketBank’s application, currently available only on iOS, allows users to complete money transfers that necessitate no bank details of a recipient, simply an e-mail address or e-wallet number – which the …
Runa Capital injects $2 million in mobile banking startup with global ambitions Read More
On September 26-27 in Moscow, the Association of Regional Banks of Russia (ASROS) and Finance Media will organize the 8th annual “Bank Cards and Payment Technologies 2013” conference in partnership with East-West Digital News. For the past seven years, the conference has asserted itself as a leading event on the bank card business and non-cash payment …
The Russian venture fund Life.SREDA revealed last week a $2 million investment in Moven, a three-year-old New York-based banking startup. Moven’s CEO and founder Brett King hopes that the deal, which took place in July, will help his company further upgrade what he calls a “world-class mobile solution to the problem of the next-generation bank account.” In an …
Russia’s Life.SREDA invests in US startup to build “world’s first cardless bank” Read More
