FinTech
Digital payments alone could become a $100 trillion industry, according to PwC. And that’s just one component of the global Fintech industry. This channel tackles the lenders and buyers, the obstacles and achievements, and the trends and trend makers leading the ongoing technological evolution in global finance.
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Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) has launched its Crypto app in the European Union (EU), allowing eligible customers to engage in crypto trading with the added incentive of earning Bitcoin rewards. Customers stand to receive up to 1 BTC as a reward when signing up and can earn an additional 1 BTC for each successful referral. The platform claims to be the sole custodial crypto platform in the EU offering customers a percentage of their trading volume back every month, paid in Bitcoin.
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More Stories on FinTech
FinTech: Spend Management Fintech Divvy Nabs $165M In Series D Round
Big-name, new investors such as Hanaco, PayPal Ventures, Whale Rock, and Schonfeld participated in Divvy’s latest investment round. Previous investors such as NEA, Insight Venture Partners, Acrew, and Pelion also chipped in, catapulting the leader in spend management to unicorn status.
Alternative Investments: Simplify Asset Management Launches Four New Disruptive Technology ETFs
Four new ‘bleeding edge’ ETFs are on the anvil from Simplify Asset Management. Founded by Paul Kim and David M. Berns, Ph.D., the firm’s new thematic ETFs focus on firms that have important technological or cultural edges and provide meaningful concentration to their stock price.
FinTech: Fintech And Ecommerce Billionaire Jack Ma Maybe Missing
Media chatter surrounds Jack Ma’s whereabouts after his controversial anti-establishment remarks at a Shanghai forum in late October.
FinTech: China Mounts Anti-Trust Probe Into Alibaba In Regulatory Crackdown
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announced Thursday an investigation into Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) allegedly monopolistic practice of barring its merchants from selling on competing e-commerce platforms. Merchants must agree to sell their products only on the behemoth’s online shopping platform.
FinTech: Large Chinese Fintechs Stop Taking Online Deposits For Banks
On Friday, the Jack Ma-controlled Ant Group’s Alipay platform, which offers an impressive array of financial products to its customers, removed online deposits that it was accepting on behalf of several banks. The reason – regulatory restrictions.
FinTechs: Call For Regulating Australian Buy-Now-Pay-Later Fintechs
In an article titled “Fintech Risk in 2021,” Halverson warns of heightened fintech risk in 2020 following free central bank “helicopter” money, overenthusiastic private equity and venture capital firms, and exuberant stock markets. In particular, he points to fintechs offering buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) products that have captured consumers’ fancy and encouraged them to increase their indebtedness.
FinTech: Chinese Regulators Keep Up Rhetoric Against (Very Large) Fintechs
The barrage of regulatory voices against the “fintech-that-shall-not-be-named” continues. In the latest call to hobble giant fintechs such as the Ant Group, former finance minister Lou Jiwei said regulators should restrict the number of banks that they can partner with.
Venture Capital: Brazilian Lender Creditas Raises $255M To Fuel Expansion
Brazilian fintech and lender Creditas announced Friday fundraising of $ 255 million led by impact investor LGT Lightstone. This fifth Series E round valued the start-up at $ 1.75 billion, more than double the valuation of $750 million it secured last year in a D round.
FinTech: Aussie “Buy Now Pay Later” (BNPL) Openpay Launches In The U.S.
Openpay (ASX: OPY), which calls itself a highly differentiated player in global BNPL, announced its US launch on Wednesday. The ASX-listed company already operates in Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Venture Capital: ABN AMRO Boosts Venture Arm’s Firepower By €50M
ABN AMRO has bolstered the cash arsenal of ABN AMRO Ventures, its venture arm, with an additional fund infusion of € 50 million. Last November, the bank topped up capital at the fund by € 50 million, taking it to € 100 million.
FinTech: GoCardless Within Kissing Distance Of Unicorn Status
GoCardless, a British fintech that processes direct debit and recurring payments for business customers, has raised $ 95 million in a round led by Bain Capital’s venture capital arm. The latest round valued the start-up at $ 970 million, a hair’s breadth away from the coveted unicorn benchmark of $ 1 billion.
FinTech: IBM, GoDaddy Snap Up Fintechs
There’s been a spate of acquisitions of fintechs in the past month. IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced Tuesday its purchase of Montreal-based fintech company and payments platform, Expertus Technologies Inc. Meanwhile, web platform provider GoDaddy swooped on Poynt payments services.
FinTech: MassMutual Seals Deal To Acquire Fintech Platform Flourish From Stone Ridge
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, or MassMutual, announced Monday that it agreed to acquire Flourish, a fintech platform, from Stone Ridge Holdings Group. Flourish is a digital platform that provides various products and services to more than 350 RIAs that manage more than $ 600 billion of assets. Flourish Cash is the only cash management platform developed specifically for financial advisors and their clients.
FinTech: Mastercard, Visa, Discover Suspend The Use Of Their Cards on Pornhub
A Bloomberg report said Discover (NYSE: DFS) had joined Mastercard (NYSE: MA) and Visa (NYSE: V) in blocking the use of its cards on adult-content site Pornhub.com. A New York Times earlier this month created an uproar when it alleged Pornhub of showing videos of child abuse and rape. Pornhub has denied that it permits material on its website depicting child sexual abuse.
FinTech: London-based Fintech Checkout.com Floats Venture Arm
Launched in 2012, fintech startup Checkout.com tripled its valuation to $5.5 billion in June 2020 when it collected $150 million in a Series B funding round. That round brought up its aggregate funds raised to $380 million and the available cash on its balance sheet to over $300 million. Add profitability (Checkout has been in the black since founding) to the mix and you have a very well-funded startup indeed. It’s therefore not surprising that Checkout is now investing in other fintechs.
FinTech: Revolut Launches ‘Pockets’ to Help Consumers Manage Spending
Revolut continues to add new features to its banking app as it steps up its efforts to be present in the entire financial life-cycle of its consumers and become a super app. Pockets, its latest innovation, allows consumers to organize bills and earmark money for their payment. The amount leftover in the main account is what’s free to use for spending.
FinTech: Are NeoBanks Finally Turning Around? Revolut Breaks Even
Revolut has staged a sharp recovery from the depths of the virus pandemic and its debilitative effect on revenues, breaking even in November. That’s encouraging, given that the neobank tripled its losses in 2019 compared to 2018. Further, during 2020, customers’ reduced spending took a swipe at Revolut’s income from card interchange fees. Nevertheless, Nik Storonsky, the digital challenger bank’s CEO, said as recently as August that the bank would break even this year. He just might deliver on that promise.
FinTech: More Heat On Chinese Fintechs From Guo Shuqing
Chinese fintechs should hunker down to face a tougher regulatory environment. Speaking at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Guo said the authorities were concerned about the power wielded by China’s large fintech companies and that “timely and targeted measures to prevent new systemic risks” were on the anvil.
FinTech: Singapore Grants Digital “Full-Bank” (DFB) Licenses To Grab+Singtel And Sea
In a first for Singapore, it awarded licenses to operate digital full banks in the island nation to Sea Limited (NYSE: SE) and a consortium of Grab and Singtel (SGX: Z74). The two full-license winners, tech-heavy giants all of them, can now offer the whole range of banking services including customers’ banking accounts, deposits, debit and credit cards, and other services to both retail and corporate customers.
FinTech: Stripe’s New ‘Treasury’ Product Offers Bank Accounts To Its Platform Partners
Stripe launches Stripe Treasury in major expansion of financial services offering for platform partners
Fintech: Monzo Scores £60M Funding In Another Down Round
The latest funding round valued Monzo, the U.K. neobank, at £1.2 billion, marginally lower than the £1.25 billion valuation in the June funding, according to TechCrunch. Investors in the current round included new entrants Deliveroo and Stripe investor Novator, Kaiser, and TED Global. Existing investor Goodwater also participated.
FinTech: Top Chinese Regulatory Watchdog Airs Fintech Concerns
In an article in a newly released book from the central government explaining the country’s economic priorities and development plan for 2035, Guo warned of a disturbance in global financial markets if the United States stepped up its strategic containment and rivalry with China. Given this circumstance, China is taking steps to address financial vulnerabilities that could stem from fintech giants such as the Ant Group.
FinTech: Dubai’s Fintech Hive and Israel’s Fintech Aviv Reach Landmark Agreement
The United Arab Emirates and Israel signed the Abraham Accords Peace Agreement: Treaty of Peace, Diplomatic Relations, and Full Normalisation in September. The momentous agreement signaled a new era of peace and cooperation between the UAE and Israel. On Monday, there was news of another landmark agreement, this time between DIFC FinTech Hive, the largest financial technology hub in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA) region, part of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Israel’s FinTech-Aviv.
FinTech: Hippo Insurance Gets $350M Funding From Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance
Hippo, the home insurance unicorn, announced Tuesday an investment of $350 million from Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, Limited, a subsidiary of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, Inc. In July, Hippo raised $150 million in a Series E round worth $150 million that valued it at $1.5 billion, post-money.