Mintos Notches €5 Million In Series A Funding; Monzo Teams With PayPoint For Deposits

Welcome to The Axis, your late look at payments news from around the world. Coverage includes Mintos‘ €5 million Series A raise. In addition, Singapore’s CoinPip is rolling out a crypto-to-fiat service, and the U.K.’s Monzo is collaborating with PayPoint to enable users to make deposits into their accounts through retail locations.

Digital loan marketplace Mintos, which is based in Latvia, has notched €5 million in Series A funding, Crowdfund Insider reported. With the funds, the FinTech company plans to provide customers with debit cards and IBAN accounts. The idea behind the IBAN accounts is to enable users to receive a salary in their accounts, as well as send and receive payments in general.

Mintos CEO and Co-founder Martins Sulte said, according to the outlet, “Soon, everybody with their own IBAN accounts will be able to give the account details to their friends, companies or customers to get paid, to pay using a debit card and to continue using Mintos for investing in loans around the globe and earning great returns.”

And in Singapore, the CoinPip platform is rolling out a system to enable users to tap into digital currencies for mass payments or remittances, Yahoo! News reported. With the system, users would be able to take in payments through cryptocurrency and convert those funds to fiat currency. At the same time, some CoinPip accounts will have the ability to buy and sell digital currency.

As the company said in a press release, “the inclusion of cryptos into the payment system is ultimately geared toward bringing blockchain and digital currencies closer to the mainstream.” In addition to the crypto upgrades, the platform is also rolling out registration and security enhancements.

On another note, the U.K.’s Monzo is working with PayPoint to help customers make deposits into their accounts at 28,000 stores, Crowdfund Insider reported. With the collaboration, users will be able to deposit a maximum of £300 per transaction into their accounts at PayPoint locations. Monzo CEO Tom Blomfield said, according to the outlet, “our goal is to give our customers more convenience and control over their money. And by partnering with PayPoint, Monzo customers will be able to pay cash into their accounts at shops that are easy to access and open when they need.”