A new dawn for fintech M&A (TWIF 11/17)

@lavitalenta

Hello Fintech Friends,

No time to read the newsletter this week?

Catch up with all the best fintech news in our weekly pod, with a rundown of everything you missed:

Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below.

(👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!)

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📖 Reads of the Week

A Deep Dive into Pay by Bank and Open Banking | Nacha

Editor’s Note: This podcast was recorded prior to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) final rule on Personal Financial Data Rights, issued under Section 1033 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act.On the surface it sounds really familiar: Pay your bills online, directly from your bank account. But what makes pay by bank different and how does open banking facilitate this process?

Nacha

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

Klarna filed for a widely anticipated 2025 U.S. IPO, aiming to strengthen its presence in the global market, which could value the buy-now-pay-later provider above its implied $14.6 billion valuation. Yahoo Finance

The Fed just published its latest payment report. No major news, but a few things caught my eye:

- Mobile wallet, P2P and money transfer transactions all skyrocketed from 2018 to 2022.

- Contactless was almost 20% of all in-person payments. Still low relative to other markets.… pic.twitter.com/ON9AXtknzh
— Davi Strazza (@davistrazza) November 15, 2024

a lot of fintech "shitcos" that went public in the ZIRP era and were completely left for dead are quietly having MONSTER years, many up 600%+ pic.twitter.com/BT9cEZWHPC
— Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi) November 8, 2024

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Coinbase acqui-hired the Utopia Labs team, signaling a focus on expanding its ecosystem. Axios
SIX Group agreed to acquire Aquis Exchange, enhancing its trading platform capabilities. Finextra
Solaris offloaded its Engage business in the UK to Suits Me, streamlining its operations. Finextra
Kaiko acquired Vinter, targeting the European crypto ETP market. Reuters
Bitwise acquired Ethereum staking service Attestant, boosting its assets under management to $10 billion. CryptoSlate

It's been very difficult to build fintech companies over the past two years. Regulators pulled banks back, rates went up, and venture capital was scarce. All three of these factors are changing (for different reasons) but the result is, we're about to enter a fintech boom.
— Dimitri Dadiomov (@dadiomov) November 9, 2024

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

Lightyear Capital acquired the assets of financial auditor Schellman & Company to support its next phase of growth. Business Wire
Stonepeak agreed to buy private credit investor Boundary Street Capital, advancing its AI investment initiatives. Reuters | Stonepeak
Blackstone backed Brigade with a $300 million investment in private credit CLOs. Reuters
ACA Group acquired financial compliance firm FinOp Consulting to expand its regulatory services. ACA Global

I want to believe in stablecoins so badly but I haven’t heard a good argument for how companies will handle KYC, sanctions screening, and (most likely) invest in fraud prevention for consumer use cases while preserving access and low costs. What am I missing?
— Jareau (@jkwade) November 14, 2024