Fintech funding from venture capital funds topped US$8.3 billion in the second quarter of the 2019 calendar year, boosted by a record number of $100 million-plus equity rounds. According to a report prepared by technology market intelligence platform CB Insights, these "mega-rounds" were largely to established, late-stage fintech startups.Challenger banks continued to pick up multi-million-dollar rounds to fuel international expansion and customer acquisition: 2Q19 saw challenger banks raise US$649 million across 17 deals. Funding is on track to see a further $1 billion-plus deployed to challenger banks, the report predicted. The CB Insights report identified 48 VC-backed fintech unicorns world-wide, worth a combined $187 billion. In 2Q19 there were seven new fintech unicorn "births": Marqeta, Bill.com, Carta, Lemonade and Checkout.com in the US, Ivalua in the UK, and Liquid in Japan.The CB report also noted that there were two more unicorns added to the list in July 2019: Hippo in the US (with a $1.0 billion valuation) and Australia's Judo Bank, with a valuation of US$1.4 billion. "Valuations continued to grow in 2Q19 as many companies preferred to raise private financing over going public," the report asserted.Challenger banks aside, fintech deals in 2Q19 dropped 22 per cent on a quarterly basis and declined 23 per cent compared to the same quarter last year. Despite the drop-off in deals, funding to VC-backed fintech companies grew 24 per cent over the first quarter of this year.The report did, however, choose to sideline many of the customer-related stats from India and China on the basis that fintech startups in those countries "have mass scale in part due to larger population sizes". Other notable points from the CB Insights Global Fintech Report:•    The UK fintech market has been the most buoyant in Europe in 2019, as funding surged to a new quarterly record of $892 million on the back of a series of mega-round deals to unicorns including Monzo, Greensill, and Transferwise, along with new unicorns Ivalua and Checkout.com. This was despite fewer funding deals going ahead in Q2 (just 33, down from 42 in 1Q19).•    As time to market decreases, more fintech firms are pushing into banking products. By way of example, "banking as a service" is becoming "a bigger trend on corporate earnings calls as banks look to reinvent models". The report cited Steve Streit, Green Dot founder and CEO, who claimed his US-based bank "invented BaaS".•    Although regtech deals and funding dropped off in 2Q19, with just 19 deals attracting $311 million in funding from VC investors, in Europe the rise in regulations has allowed challengers such as Monzo, N26, plum and canopy to take early advantage of open banking API rules. •    Payday advance funding apps have emerged as alternatives to payday loans or overdraft fees. For example Dave charges $1 per month to advance up to $100 per payday, and brigit charges $10 per month to advance $250 at a time, both apps operating without credit checks or interest charges.•    In the increasingly crowded field of insurtech, funding remains