The big funding news this week was Digital Currency Group’s $10 billion valuation after a $700 million secondary sale – a deal that made mainstream news.

That’s because the conglomerate owns some of the biggest players in cryptocurrency, including Grayscale Investments, a large digital asset manager with about $55 billion in assets under management; Foundry, a financing and advisory company focused on digital asset mining and staking; and Luno, a digital asset exchange and wallet operating in major and emerging markets. Grayscale Investments has filed to turn its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust into an exchange-traded fund, which is a fund that trades on a stock exchange.

The group of investors for the secondary sale was led by SoftBank Group Corp., which bought shares from the company’s existing backers. CapitalG, the growth fund of Alphabet Inc., GIC Capital and Ribbit Capital also participated.

Philippines’ unicorn Mynt raises $300M

Mynt, the Philippines-based digital financial solutions provider behind the GCash payment services app, raised $300 million in funding this week, bringing its valuation to more than $2 billion. It is the country’s only fintech unicorn.

The round was led by Warburg Pincus, Insight Partners and Bow Wave Capital, one of Mynt’s existing investors. Itai Tsiddon, Amplo Ventures, Globe and Ayala also participated.

Mynt boasts more than 48 million users – nearly half the Philippines’ population.

“This is further proof that our growth and achievements have not gone unnoticed. We have been able to continuously expand by introducing game-changing innovations while improving our profitability profile,” said Martha Sazon, Mynt president and CEO. “We are excited about our new partnership with Warburg, Insight, Itai Tsiddon and Amplo, as they each bring strategic value to our team in the pursuit of our vision towards finance for all.”

Mynt offers financial services that include credit, savings, insurance, loans and investments. Assets under management for its GSave product have grown to more than 180 million, up from $99 million in 2020.

Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Fuse and other banking partners, Mynt also offers credit to its users on the back of its proprietary trust and scoring platform, GCredit. In addition, Mynt piloted GLoan, a cash loan product that allows qualified users to borrow as much as P25,000, or $493.88, with repayment spread over 12 months. The digital financial solutions provider is looking to launch “buy now, pay later” products within the year.

Korea’s largest payment app’s value more than doubles in IPO

Korea’s largest mobile payments app, Kakao Pay Corp., more than doubled in value during its initial public offering (IPO) in Seoul, Bloomberg Mercury reported Tuesday. The fintech is backed by Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co.

The online payments service raised $1.3 billion after surging more than 150% in early trading on Wednesday, after an introduction price of 90,000 won or $75.89, Bloomberg reported. The IPO came on the heels of a regulatory crackdown on platform companies that led to the startup postponing its listing by two months after Korean authorities ordered revisions to its prospectus.

Deals

BofA launches account validation for fraud prevention

The $3.03 trillion Bank of America on Oct. 28 launched a fraud prevention service for its corporate and public sector clients. The solution, called Account Validation, allows clients to verify the status of an account and authenticate the account owner before initiating an electronic credit or debit payment via automated clearing house (ACH), wire or real-time payments.

Account Validation is supported by Early Warning Services, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based fintech that provides identity, risk and payment solutions to financial institutions. Early Warning is owned by seven U.S. financial institutions, including Bank of America.

The fraud prevention solution can respond to clients’ inquiries in near real-time and helps companies comply with the NACHA WEB Debit Account Validation rule, Bank of America said in its announcement.

It also can help prevent misdirected payments, which occur when a payee inadvertently provides an incorrect account number.

Levo Credit Union chooses AI-powered platform for credit decisioning

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools are finding their way into financial institutions of all sizes, it seems. The $408.8 million Levo Credit Union announced Monday it will leverage AI-powered platform Scienaptic Systems to perform credit decisioning.

It’s another credit union win for Scienaptic, whose clients also include the $3 billion Spokane Valley, Wash.-based Numerica Credit Union, $4.4 billion Richland, Wash.-based Gesa Credit Union, $2.1 million Denver-based Credit Union of Colorado and $125.8 million Northern Hills Federal Credit Union, based in Sturgis, S.D. Several of these credit unions recently participated in a Scienaptic-sponsored webinar on AI’s use in lending.

Scienaptic will allow the Sioux Falls, S.D.-based credit union to make faster loan approvals, reach more members and increase loan approval rates, according to a release about the deal.