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The Fintech news over the last four weeks has been largely centered on payments with some of the biggest names in this sector making significant moves with partnerships and new tech development. As an indication of the recent level of activity, not included on our list of headlines in this space are ‘Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square has finally launched in the UK’ and ‘Samsung’s New S8 to Adopt Facial Recognition for Payments’. First up is some celebratory news for Monzo. Monzo, a UK digital-only challenger bank, granted full banking license With Monzo rarely out of news over the last few weeks they have achieved one of their most significant milestones yet. With current accounts and lending now within their sights this also consolidates a new benchmark for the Fintech sector as a whole. Following on from their latest successful crowdfunding round on Crowdcube, Monzo are planning to roll out current accounts to small numbers of people over the next few months. WeChat partners with London payments firm as it gears up for UK expansion One of the leading payments stories of the month has to go to Chinese messaging giant WeChat. With a reported 850m monthly active users they are now partnering with London payments firm Tramonex as WeChat prepare for UK expansion enabling growing numbers of Chinese visitors to make payments within the app without needing to use foreign currency. TransferWise partners with digital-only Starling Bank TransferWise have teamed up with Starling Bank whose customers will benefit from foreign currency payments at the real exchange rate with only “a small upfront fee” the same as the GBP pricing in the TransferWise app. “People will now be able to send money internationally using the real exchange rate and knowing upfront what the costs will be, all within their current account. That’s a real first for British consumers.” Google Ventures launches first European fintech investment More on cross boarder payment news. GV, Google’s venture capital arm announced their first investment in a European Fintech company, participating in a $25m investment round into five year old UK startup Currencycloud who provide cross border payment services for online businesses. This highlights previously reported shifts in their interests towards Fintech. Bank of England sets up Fintech Community; runs blockchain and AI trials The Bank of England’s Fintech accelerator programme has launched a new community forum for innovation talks and proof of concept trials to explore the use of AI and distributed ledgers. The latest proof of concept trials include an AI application from MindBridge, and a cross-border payments pilot with Ripple. The BoE accelerator aims to work with third party tech firms to provide new solutions to bank operations and wider market applications.