Maybe Better's next SPAC will go better (TWIF 3/12)

Kirill Vselensky perches on a cornice in Moscow as Dima Balashov gets the shot.

Hello Fintech Friends,

I'm not sure whether I'm the only one feeling this way, but my default expectation with many products today (airlines, banking, Quickbooks, etc.) is that they won't work as planned. Delays, accidental charges, bugs - which can only be resolved through byzantine customer service flows - seem to be the default setting, with little incentive to prioritize quality because competitive products are just as error-prone.

Customer rage is the final boss of shareholder primacy.

Public consumer-facing companies continually skimp on or cut quality to optimize for earnings beats; shareholders happy; customers mad but with no place to go.https://t.co/ZaDUt3sk7m
— Nik (@NikMilanovic) March 9, 2023

It makes it that much more exciting when I do encounter products in the wild that create small positive surprises or moments of delight.

I wish more companies internalized omotenashi, rather than shipping MVPs and moving on:

"Of course, there’s more to omotenashi than direct customer service. If you’ve ever found a toothpick packaged along with the disposable wooden chopsticks you received at a convenience store, that is part of it. Have you ever watched a bakery worker slipping an ice-pack into a box beside the cake slice you’ll be carrying home? That’s more than a good service. When you receive a wet towel to wipe your hands with before ordering at a restaurant, then you’ll know that fantastic hospitality is included in almost every aspect of Japanese life."

Elsewhere, I hope you'll join me and the Unit team for a conversation on growing startup revenue via embedded finance on April 4th.

👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!

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

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☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

Fintech SPAC Aurora Acquisition Corp. extended the deadline to complete its merger with struggling digital mortgage lender Better for the third time, to September.

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Indian fintech unicorn Slice acquired a 5% stake in Indian bank North East Small Finance for $3.42 million.
Indian payments and API banking company Cashfree Payments, announced its strategic acquisition of Zecpe, a one-click checkout company.
Coinbase acquired institutional crypto asset manager One River to expand further into non-retail investing.
Weavr, an embedded finance orchestration provider, acquired open banking platform Comma Payments.
Italian buy-now-pay-later unicorn Scalapay acquired payment institution Cabel IP.
Global payments platform Airwallex was able to expand into the Chinese market via its acquisition of Guangzhou Shang Wu Tong Network Technology, an online payments company.
Binance US was cleared by a judge to purchase the assets of distressed crypto lender Voyager, despite the complaints of an ornery SEC that future regulatory action may be pending.
Australian financier ColCap acquired an 80% stake in UK digital mortgage lender Molo.
Orion Innovation acquired London-based banking implementation company for financial institutions Banktech Software Services.
UK embedded banking platform Railsr is reportedly closing in on a sale and will go into bankruptcy proceedings.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

Fifth Third Bank announced its acquisition of national health system payments firm Big Data Healthcare.
Mortgage origination platform Black Knight and prospective acquirer Intercontinental Exchange agreed to sell Black Knight’s Empower loan unit to avoid antitrust concerns.
Accounting firm EY is going through internal infighting over spinning out its tax business.

Yale has a perpetual bearer bond from the Dutch government from 1648 that pays 2.5% interest, they go to the Netherlands every few decades to collect the back interest.

It’s the oldest security still generating payments. pic.twitter.com/4JCLtJJ4cx
— stephen balaban (@stephenbalaban) March 6, 2023

“Lower-income consumers are forced to pay higher prices on the goods they buy, but they rarely receive any benefit from rewards programs, according to the Federal Reserve, which has been tracking the distributional effects of card rewards. Its December 2022 report estimates an… https://t.co/VbAH0r4iFM
— Sar Haribhakti (@sarthakgh) March 9, 2023

This week for the Fintech Frontlines Series, we highlight Lilac Bar David CEO of @hellofromLili which provides digital banking services for small businesses and freelancers. Lilac is a serial entrepreneur founding the first challenger bank in Israel, Pepper, as well as Lili. pic.twitter.com/rHiQHdHJYr
— This Week in Fintech (@twifintech) March 9, 2023

My piece this week explores how a patchwork of Asian economies from Hokkaido to Gujarat stacks up as an alternative to China for global manufacturers.

Whether it works in practice is a test of both cross-border business and a nascent geopolitical order.https://t.co/BqPDFenpm6 pic.twitter.com/ViRA48sa33
— Mike Bird (@Birdyword) February 21, 2023