GoKawiil
Tech News
A fintech founder recounts how, in 2022, her savings and investment app showed strong growth metrics even as investor interest cooled and fundraising slowed. She argues that traditional growth dashboards can mask underlying fragility, and outlines five key indicators—including payback period and customer retention—that better reveal whether a business can withstand financial pressure.
A product commentary argues that consumer financial apps repeatedly default to building generic 'document hub' and 'notifications centre' features to satisfy internal stakeholders and legacy compliance needs. The author says these features start simple but balloon into complex, Google Drive- or Gmail-like systems requiring ongoing maintenance and security work. The piece frames refusing to build such features as one of the most important product decisions a team can make.
Revolut, valued as Europe's most valuable startup, disclosed customer information to an individual who fraudulently claimed to represent a government agency. Hundreds of accounts were affected by the breach, which stemmed from the bank's own verification failure rather than a hack of its systems.
India's National Payments Corporation announced that starting October 15, merchants will pay a 0.4% fee on UPI transactions exceeding ₹2,000, capped at ₹300 for payments of ₹75,000 or more. Consumers will still use UPI for free, and small merchants earning up to ₹100,000 monthly through UPI, along with transactions of ₹2,000 or less, are exempt. Certain sectors like railways, telecom, insurance and fuel will instead pay a flat ₹5 fee on larger transactions.
Revolut confirmed it handed over sensitive customer information after receiving fraudulent data requests sent from what appeared to be a legitimate government agency email domain. The exposed data reportedly included names, birth dates, addresses, phone numbers, ID documents, and possibly verification selfies and transaction histories. The company says only a limited number of customers were affected and that it has since blocked the fraudulent email address and alerted authorities.
Fast Company's Best Workplaces for Innovators 2026 awards recognized six companies in the financial services and fintech category, with two of the winning firms based in San Francisco. Judges selected the winners based on innovation practices within their workplace cultures.
Pan-African venture firm Ventures Platform has closed an oversubscribed $83 million Fund II, nearly double its $46 million debut fund from 2022. The firm will now invest across Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt in addition to Nigeria, writing checks up to $3 million in fintech, healthcare, SaaS, and AI-driven startups over the next three to four years.
Fiat Ventures announced it is unifying its growth consultancy, previously known as Fiat Growth, with its venture investing arm under one new brand called FGV Capital. Alongside the rebrand, the firm closed a $35 million second fund focused on fintech's overlap with AI, healthcare and commerce, backed by LPs including Reinsurance Group of America, MassMutual and Bank of America. General partners Marcos Fernandez and Drew Glover said the two businesses will remain operationally separate despite sharing a brand.