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Marcel van Oost - FinTech News USA
Connecting the dots in FinTech...
👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
In a move towards greater transparency and responsible credit reporting in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) industry, Experian® announced it will now include “pay-in-4” BNPL loan information from Apple Pay Later on consumers’ credit reports, making Apple the first major BNPL provider to fully furnish “pay-in-4” loan information and payment history directly to the credit reporting agency.
📰 ARTICLE
Here is a deep dive comparison by Flagship Advisory Partners:
In North America, 16% of the payfacs registered are new since Mar ’23. However, 5% of the payfacs from Mar ’23 were unregistered by Jan ’24, a 6% annual attrition rate.
In the EU & UK, 14% of the payfacs registered are new since Mar ’23, on the other hand, 12% of the payfacs from Mar ’23 were unregistered by Jan ’24, a 14% annual attrition rate.
💡INSIGHTS
Klarna shrank its net losses 76% in 2023 as the buy-now-pay-later firm makes preparations for one of the biggest IPOs of the year.
The Stockholm-based fintech lost about 400 million kronor in the fourth quarter, having briefly moved into profit in the previous three months, taking its total net losses for the year to 2.5 billion kronor.
Capital One’s proposed acquisition of Discover carries a $1.38 billion termination fee if the board of directors on either side has a change of heart, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings from both companies Thursday.
Discover would also pay the fee if it chooses another buyer, according to the agreement. With that said, the card network can entertain other offers but can’t actively solicit them.
JPMorgan Chase has called its former global chief compliance officer out of retirement to help the bank assert its rights as a major shareholder in Greek payments fintech Viva Wallet, after disagreements between the two firms culminated in dueling lawsuits.
Frank Pearn, who retired as JPMorgan’s top financial and legal risk manager a year ago, joined the Viva Wallet board this week as a nonexecutive director, according to regulatory filings.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🇺🇸 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Investing Platform Webull to Go Public Through SPAC Deal.
⭐️ Orum to offer fedNow instant payments.
Recommended by LinkedIn
⭐️ Cross River wades into investment banking.
⭐️ Afterpay, Block's BNPL platform, begins growing again.
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FINTECH
Green Check Grows its Leading Cannabis Business and Financial Services Marketplace to More Than 60 Providers. The addition of these new partners to Green Check Connect expands access to products and services spanning payments.
eToro CEO considers IPO after scrapped SPAC deal. CEO Yoni Assia told “We definitely are eyeing the public markets,”. “I definitely see us becoming eventually a public company.”
Amdocs and BMC Announce Global Strategic Alliance to Drive Customer Growth Through Connected Digital Ops. The collaboration will leverage Amdocs' position as a leading IT and network services provider to speed up and improve access to service management solutions from BMC.
Treasure Introduces ETFs In Its Actively Managed Cash Management Allocations. The company is delighted to unveil the incorporation of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) into our array of business cash management allocations.
Marqeta and AffiniPay unveil new SMB credit card. A new partnership with AffiniPay, a leader in online payments and software solutions for professionals, was announced. The integrated credit platform will enable the upcoming launch of MyCase Smart Spend.
Introducing Robinhood Retirement For Independent Workers. Robinhood Retirement For Independent Workers will kick off with three inaugural partners: Gopuff, Grubhub, and Taskrabbit.
PAYMENTS
Google is sunsetting the Google Pay app in the US later this year. The company says the move is designed to simplify its payment apps. After the standalone app shuts down in the United States, it will only be available in Singapore and India.
Jack Dorsey's plan to reshape Square. After retaking day-to-day control as CEO of Square last fall, Jack Dorsey, who also heads Square's parent company, Block, surprised analysts with fourth-quarter profits.
OPEN BANKING
Dwolla unveils open banking services. These built-in open banking integrations extend Dwolla’s account-to-account (A2A) offering to include instant account verification, balance checks and fraud mitigation.
CRYPTO
New emails from Satoshi Nakamoto that are made public show that the bitcoin creator warned against pushing bitcoin’s anonymous angle, and warned against labeling bitcoin as an ‘investment’.
DONEDEAL
SEI invests $10m in Tifin. The two firms are also forming a partnership to use SEI's scale and distribution to push Tifin's AI technology to the wealth management sector.
Zūm Rails Raises $10.5M As It Brings Together Open Banking and Instant Payments Capabilities in the U.S. Zūm Rails integrates open banking and instant payments into a single gateway that powers the entire transaction journey.
Stripe Valuation Jumps to $65 Billion in Employee Share-Sale Deal. Stripe is allowing its employees to cash out more stock as the fintech giant continues to put off an initial public offering.
M&As
MOVERS & SHAKERS
BNY Mellon appoints Gary Delaney as international chief information security officer. Delaney will report to Matthew McCormack who leads the Information Security Division within BNY Mellon’s Engineering organisation.
Geoff Seeley Joins PayPal as Chief Marketing Officer. Seeley will be responsible for overseeing the Global Marketing team across PayPal's family of brands, including Venmo.
Prove Identity appointed to the Board of FIDO Alliance. The FIDO Alliance focuses on solving this problem by reducing the world's dependence on passwords. Based on the free and open standards of the FIDO Alliance.
Treasury Prime, a BaaS platform backed by fintech heavyweight QED Investors, has laid off about half the company. Treasury Prime reportedly has struggled with high churn, leading some potential investors to balk at putting money into the company in the current environment.