Lloyds Bank continues its fintech roll

It’s fascinating to watch the convergence of banking and fintech: many of the fintechs that featured in Lafferty events and reports in recent years have been or will be acquired by major banks. The latest is Curve, the digital wallet, which is reportedly in talks to be acquired by Lloyds Bank. “The fintech has raised more than £200m in equity since it was founded, including around £40m raised last year,” reports Finextra. “For Lloyds, the attraction of Curve is that it allows the bank to create a smartphone-based wallet that can bypass Apple Pay fees. Lloyds already has stakes in some fintechs, including banking-as-a-service platform ThoughtMachine, and has reportedly made the expansion of its tech capabilities a strategic objective. According to Sky News, Lloyds Banking Group is in advanced discussions with Curve over a deal in the region of £120m. A deal could be concluded as early as September, according to sources cited by Sky.” Curve allows its customers to retroactively move payments between cards inside four months of payment, and it also offers CurveFlex as a built in buy now pay later service. Curve issues one physical card which can virtually represent all of a customer’s cards.