Hello Fintech Friends,

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

Walmart Bought a Finance App and Reduced Fraud Protections. Guess What Happened Next?

The retail giant has long sought to become a financial powerhouse. But after it acquired a neobank called One in 2022, fraud complaints multiplied and customer reviews cratered.

ProPublicaGarrett Yalch

"Walmart has long sought to become a financial powerhouse. But after it acquired a neobank called One in 2022, fraud complaints multiplied and customer reviews cratered."

Visa and Mastercard are pouring money into Africa

From a startup accelerator to funding startups and even investing in telecom companies, the two U.S. giants are steadily increasing their presence on the continent.

Rest of WorldDavid I. Adeleke

"From a startup accelerator to funding startups and even investing in telecom companies, Visa and Mastercard are steadily increasing their presence on the African continent."

And A tale of two stablecoins: PayPal USD's market cap compared to that of Ethena USDe, a stablecoin which allows users to stake their holdings.

☯️ Exits

🤝 M&A - Fintech

• The UK's Anna.Money acquired Cape, an Australian corporate expense management platform.
• Levenue, Europe’s largest revenue-based financing provider, acquired MidFunder, a Swiss competitor.
• Private equity firm GTCR sold off patient and consumer engagement and payment provider RevSpring to healthcare fund Frazier Healthcare Partners.
• Bank-to-bank payment provider GoCardless agreed to acquire Nuapay, an open banking payment platform.
• Trade settlement and execution platform Apex acquired AdvisorArch, a portfolio management company and modern rebalancer for financial advisors.
• Intuit acquired the intellectual property and hired the team from automated revenue reconciliation and financial operations platform Proper Finance.
• PublicSq, a publicly-traded sales marketplace that promotes retailers with conservative values, acquired Credova, a buy-now-pay-later provider for shooting sports and firearms sales, which last year had $15 million in revenue.
• Amadeus, a travel and tourism tech provider, acquired Voxel, a B2B payments solution provider for the travel sector.
• Request Finance, a French platform that enables Web3 companies and freelancers to receive, send and convert cryptocurrency payments, acquired Consola Finance, an Austrian cryptocurrency accounting platform.
• Nordic Capital is weighing a sale of German regulatory software firm Regnology, in a deal which could value the business at up to €3 billion.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

• The Polish financial regulator is selling VeloBank, Poland's tenth biggest bank by assets, and private equity firm Cerberus is the frontrunner to pick it up.
• National Bank of Canada is exploring options including a sale of Cambodia's ABA Bank, which could be valued at more than $2 billion.

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🌎 Fintech Around the World

Not so fast: UK proposes an amendment to their Payment Services Regulations introducing the concept of delayed “Faster Payments”

The Bank of Israel and the future of the Digital Shekel, the Israeli CBDC

The setbacks of the CNBV in the case of Yox Holding

Fintech is sold as the answer to Africa’s problems, but digital money services have downsides which media often overlook

Crypto Gets Blamed by Nigeria for a Real-Life Currency Crisis

📚 Deeper Reads & Features

What has replaced Silicon Valley Bank as start-ups’ favorite banker?

Big banks have seen the most deposits from startups since SVB’s collapse—but there’s one startup in the mix: Mercury

Banks Risk Losing Billions of Dollars in a Few Years

Its numbers declining, the branch is undergoing a remake

Why Direct Relationships Are The Way Forward For BaaS

US regulator says trade groups judge-shopped for credit fee lawsuit

The Definitive History of Private Credit

Fintech Recap: Capital One/Discover, Lineage & NY Fintech Week Preview

A huge wealth transfer means millennials are poised to become ‘the richest generation in history’

The Youths Have Spoken: Wallets Are Uncool. Go Digital.

With Funding Down 70%, Here's What Fintech's High Flyers Are Worth Now

The Billion-Dollar Unraveling Of Ryan Breslow

Eighty Percent of the World’s Stock Options Aren’t Traded Where You Think

Figure Technologies' CEO on "Exchange of Everything"

We crunched the fees of Stripe's 21 products

Chasing Passive Income, Americans Turn to Vending Machines

Buy Robinhood as Crypto ‘Monster’ Cycle Dawning, Bernstein Says

How are Microsoft and HSBC using AI to transform financial services?

US digital dollar is “nowhere near” development, says Federal Reserve chair

A New York community is rallying behind a man who kept an 11-foot, 750-pound alligator in a pool inside his home — where children were invited to swim with the gentle giant.

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