Citi is building Bridges (TWIF 9/17)

- Kaamran Hafeez, New Yorker

Hello Fintech Friends,

I'll be in SF next week with our friends at Core Innovation Capital, i80Group, Pacific Western Bank, and Method. Drop by if you're in town 👇

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Had a great time with @twifintech at their FinTech Formal in NYC supporting @MakeAWish along with our @HALOConsulting1 team. We kept it very professional. #fintech pic.twitter.com/kXrjxzKMlK
— Patrick Bulmer (@PatrickBulmer) November 17, 2022

Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below. (👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!)

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📖 Read of the Week

The Financial Health Network put out their Financial Health Pulse® 2023 U.S. Trends Report.

A few interesting (and concerning) findings -

The share of Financially Vulnerable Americans grew to 17% in 2023 from 15% in 2022.
Workers at businesses with less than 100 employees were Financially Vulnerable twice as often as those working for businesses with 500 or more employees.
Black and Latinx Americans disproportionately experienced an increase in financial vulnerability.

☯️ Exits

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Citi spun out Bridge, a small business lending startup that was incubated at the bank, by selling it to commercial lending service provider Foro.
Broker-dealer Cetera is acquiring wealth and tax planning firm Avantax for $1.2 billion.
Compound, a financial and tax advisory service for tech executives, will be acquired by Alternativ Wealth, a digital RIA, to form Compound Planning.
Financial API and security specialists APImetrics and Contxt announced that they will merge.
Prepaid payments provider Recharge announced its acquisition of Startselect, a European digital gift and gaming cards company.
Point-of-sale lending software provider Versatile Credit received a strategic investment from PSG.
Financial consulting company Capgemini announced that it will acquire the Financial Crime Compliance (FCC) division of Exiger.
Financial advisory firm Ashton Thomas will be acquired by RedBird Capital Partners’ wealth management platform company.
UK financial solutions provider Alpha Group will acquire an 85% stake in Cobase, a multi-banking platform that allows users to view all their balances and transactions in one place, from ING.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

The UK's Co-operative Bank is taking bidders for an acquisition with an October first round deadline.
Blackstone will combine its internal credit and insurance businesses into one.

Surprising result of embedded finance: more partners will turn into bitter competitors due to "embedded arms race".

How it develops:
1. Companies A+B have complementary products.
2. Company B launches a new embedded feature that competes with company A's main product. Adding… https://t.co/RGkb4DyIDw
— Itai Damti (@itaidamti) September 14, 2023

One of our SaaS tools has an "AI" feature that mysteriously only works during business hours in the Philippines https://t.co/UkL6aN8xgS
— Christian Keil (@pronounced_kyle) September 14, 2023

1/ Alza launched yesterday and color me excited. Immigrants are our neighbors, classmates, co-workers, fellow congregants and friends. But too many policy makers, and too many policies make it hard for them, especially in banking. https://t.co/rtjJp2KjWL via @techcrunch
— Matt Janiga (@regulatorynerd) September 14, 2023