This Week in Fintech (9/11)

Hello Fintech Friends,

Hope everyone is enjoying the condensed week back. Last call for the fintech geo deep-dives, which have 83 attendees and presenters signed up.

Please find a (shorter) week of fintech and banking news below.

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Quote of the week

“Amazon and Square are two of the few public companies taking financial inclusion seriously. These companies view financial inclusion as an opportunity to increase their user base and revenues as well as financially empower low-income consumers.”

Don Richard, Coin Labs (source)

Open role spotlight

Orum is hiring a Senior Product Manager - Payments and Money Movement in their New York office.

Read of the week

In A neobank stack, N26 product lead and former Funding Circle PM Giorgio Giuliani breaks down the services that underlie core parts of neobank and lender architectures. It’s an interesting summary of the different solutions, which provide banking channels, financial crime tools, ledgers, identity services, treasury management, API layers, and more.

Financial Services & Banking

Product Launches

National Australia Bank launched an interest-free credit card to compete with BNPL and Standard Chartered launched installment payments for UAE Amazon customers.

Mastercard launched a platform to help central banks test digital currencies.

Other News

Credit Suisse announced that it will build a neobank challenger to N26 and Revolut, and convert many of its branches into ‘digital bars’. Visa and Paypal partnered to offer real-time payments. Mastercard and Square partnered to help SMBs in the Falkland Islands accept card and digital payments.

Jane Fraser will become the first woman CEO of a US bulge-bracket bank next year, when she replaces Michael Corbat at Citigroup.

JP Morgan is launching an internal probe into its employees’ misuse of stimulus and unemployment benefits. Lloyds Bank in the UK is cutting 865 jobs as part of its restructuring. Visa is being investigated in Europe over its fintech rules.

Fintech

Product Launches

Google launched the revamped Google Finance interface to make investing information more accessible for everyday investors.

Trackstar launched to use machine learning to improve credit scoring.

The Long Term Stock Exchange opened for business.

SMB neobank Mercury launched Mercury Raise, to connect startups raising seed rounds with investors. Starling Bank launched its Kite debit card with parental controls for kids. Hong Kong neobank Mox launched to users this week.

Other News

Square is open-sourcing its crypto patents. UK fintech Marketfinance teamed up with Ebury to provide stimulus loans to Ebury’s SMB customers. Yotta Savings comes out of stealth. Stripe redid its hosted Checkout tool.

Online collections agents are increasingly shaming Kenyan borrowers as digital loans outpace traditional ones in growth. Egyptian digital payments firm Fawry has grown 300% since March, reaching a $1 billion valuation.

Multi-currency app Mode plans to list on the London Stock Exchange to raise £7.5 million. Swiss financial infrastructure provider SIX extended its fintech incubator to Spain.

German credit scoring fintech Kreditech went out of business.

Financings

Dutch payments startup Mollie raised a €90 million Series B.
B2B payments company Melio raised an $80 million Series C.
Singaporean cross-border payments startup Thunes raised a $60 million Series B.
Money laundering prevention software EverC raised a $35 million Series B.
Indian investing app Groww raised a $30 million Series C (or a $21.4 million Series B?).
Deel, a payroll compliance platform for international teams, raised a $30 million Series B.
Mexican B2B payments company Oyster Financial raised a $14 million seed round.
Singaporean thin-file credit scoring solution CredoLab raised a $7 million Series A.
Sumsub, an identity verification platform for financial services companies, raised a $6 million Series A.
Salaryo, a freelancer and startup financing platform, raised $5.8 million.
It was announced that Klarna is planning to raise up to $500 million at a $10 billion valuation.
UK savings app Chip launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise up to £10 million.

Exits and M&A

Empower Retirement, the retirement planner that previously acquired Personal Capital, announced it will acquire Mass Mutual for a ceding commission of $2.35 billion.
Canadian fintech Lightspeed POS announced it will IPO on the NYSE this year.
Credit and collections software provider Collenda acquired receivables management solution S4Dunning.
Dutch core banking product Ohpen acquired cross-border mortgage and loan platform Davinci.
Citi, JP Morgan, and State Street made a strategic investment in capital markets software Capitolis.
Providence Strategic Growth made a strategic investment in Canadian payroll software Wagepoint.

SPACs

Victory Park filed for a $200 million IPO for its SPAC, VPC Impact Acquisition.
FinTech Acquisition IV, led by The Bancorp, filed for its $200 million IPO.