Weekly Fintech Newsletter | 2021 #29
Hi, there! Welcome back to another Fintech Weekly Newsletter. In this newsletter, I cover all the major weekly news related to the fintech industry. The newsletter begins with recommended articles, reports, and Fintech maps. Thank you for subscribing!
Sebastian Siemiatkowski described the current BNPL space as a "land grab" after 🇦🇺Afterpay was announced to be acquired by 🇺🇸 Square. Afterward, 🇺🇸 Amazon makes public their partnership with 🇺🇸 Affirm, skyrocketing the laters stock. What will be the next big move in BNPL?
NEWSLETTER
Looking for a regional deep dive? Look no further. In this newsletter Samora Kariuki (Frontier Fintech Newsletter) analyzes the factors behind the growth of Asian super apps and questions whether or not Supper Apps will take off in Africa.
A student of Africa’s economic history will soon note that super-apps in Africa may work out like all other technologies used in Africa, they will be imported (built and designed abroad), but with minor customisations for the local market. Think Unilever but for Super-apps. It seems that the necessary conditions such as VC investments, scientific research and a strong consumer class are not yet present.
PODCAST
Amy Lewin, Deputy Director at 🇬🇧 Sifted, joins Episode 13 of Season 2 of Ridding Unicorns, The Podcast About Growth Startups. In this episode they discuss a range of fascinating topics including the growth of the high speed grocery delivery market, diversity and inclusion, how information on VC news is sourced and the importance of good press coverage for companies that are looking to raise capital.
ARTICLE
🇺🇸 PayPal market capitalization has significantly outpaced payments competitors or its former parent, 🇺🇸eBay, as well as the largest payment networks 🇺🇸 Visa and 🇺🇸Mastercard.
How did PayPal grow its enterprise value so tremendously?
Aakash Gupta’s blog post takes an unconventional approach to telling the story of PayPal’s growth.
Let’s walk through a historical story of the company to take away 8 product growth lessons that should be foundational for any product growth professional.
Furthermore, Paypal is looking into releasing its own stock trading outfit for its American users. PayPal is said to be looking into several options, including acquiring existing trading and investment platform, to take on the likes of 🇺🇸Robinhood and 🇺🇸Square.
PayPal has reportedly already held talks with a number of industry partners but is unlikely to roll out its new venture before the end of the year.
👉 Read more here.
REPORT
Did you know that 55 of the world’s top banks have invested in blockchain and crypto companies? According to new data from Blockdata, a 🇺🇸 CB Insights company, 🇬🇧 Barclays takes the lead with 22 investments into blockchain and crypto companies.
INTERVIEW
The interview recommendation of the week belongs to Marcial González Fraga’s interview with Nathan Schorr, the founder and CEO of 🇲🇽 Flexio. Flexio is a B2B Fintech company from Mexico, focused on building a cash flow management system by helping businesses automate their account payables and account receivables processes.
To put things in perspective, in the past year, in Mexico alone, there were 9 billion invoiced processed, and more than $180b worth of transactions.
FINTECH MAPS
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S FINTECH SPACE
FINTECH SPOTLIGHT
🇺🇸 Amazon is getting into the buy now, pay later space. The e-commerce giant is partnering with 🇺🇸 Affirm for its first-ever installment payments option on the popular e-commerce site.
Affirm’s stock spiked as much as 48% after-hours Friday on the news, adding more than $8 billion to its market capitalization, later settling up around 33%.
Also, I highly recommend you read the following article by Jason Mikula as to the reasons behind the partnership.
Amazon certainly has the technical capability to build its own buy now, pay later offering, or to acquire Affirm. So why partner?
FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
We have seen a lot of FinTech companies go public this year, and some are planning to go public later in 2021 and 2022. Here is a quick round-up of what’s happened in 2021 so far and what will happen in the upcoming months. Link here.
🇺🇸 Razer Inc. reported a record-high revenue of US$752.0 million with 68.0% year-on-year growth in 1H 2021. Link here.
India’s FinTech sector has raised more than $10 billion in the last 5 years while the market is estimated to grow from $31 billion to $84 billion by 2025 with a CAGR of 22%. Link here.
Merchants are planning to expand their offerings to meet the rising demand for options such as BNPL, biometric payments, and cryptocurrencies. Link here.
INVESTMENTS
🇱🇻 Mintos has gotten the green light to transform its business into a regulated financial investment marketplace, with the Latvian regulator granting it the required licenses. Link here.
In 2013 Chad Byers, a co-founder, and general partner at 🇺🇸 Susa Ventures, got a glimpse of the future of FinTech. It was the first time he met Vladimir Tenev and Baiju B., the founders of 🇺🇸 Robinhood. Link here.
Also, shares of 🇺🇸 Robinhood dropped Monday amid several bouts of bad news for the brokerage app. Link here.
OPEN BANKING
🇳🇱 Yolt Technology Services published a report stating lenders could see the time they spend processing the average loan reduce by more than 85% with the adoption of Open Banking technology. Link here.
CRYPTO
Nayib Bukele is preparing for the day that the Bitcoin Law starts to be mandatory, but protests against it are more and more common. Link here.
🇦🇹 Coinpanion enables everyone, without any prior cryptocurrency experience, to benefit automatically from the cryptocurrency market. Link here.
A consortium of leading Ethereum decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and projects announced DeFi for the People, a collaboration of global crypto organizations united by a common goal: bringing DeFi to the 6 billion smartphone users around the world. Link here.
Cuba will now recognize and regulate cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, citing "reasons of socioeconomic interest." Link here.
Visa’s latest report shares insights and observations on the NFT landscape, as well as actionable guidance on how to evaluate and scale NFT opportunities. Link here.
Jack Dorsey is planning to build an open platform to create a decentralized exchange for bitcoin through TBD, his new business venture. Link here.
🇬🇧 Ziglu launched a new advertising campaign in Edinburgh with the slogan ‘Scotland, Your Capital is at Risk’. Link here.
🇩🇪 Solarisbank AG is working with Coinbase to compliantly identify customers in Germany. Link here.
🇩🇪 Scalable Capital has shaken up its stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrency saving plans, lowering fees and reducing minimum investment amounts to €1. Link here.
PayPal announced the launch of a new service enabling its customers in the UK1 to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency with PayPal. Link here.
🇫🇷 Worldline Global and 🇨🇭Bitcoin Suisse AG announce the go-live of their omnichannel crypto payment solution for the more than 85’000 Swiss merchants in the Worldline network. Link here.
PAYMENTS
🇺🇸 Apple Card is the only card issued by 🇺🇸 Goldman Sachs that ranked highest among the Midsize Credit Card segment in the J.D. Power 2021 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction StudySM and received a chart-topping score of 864.1 Link here.
🇮🇪 JustTip has unveiled a contactless device that lets customers in restaurants and coffee shops leave a tip with a tap of their bank card or phone. Link here.
🇺🇸 Till introduced four new features that enrolled landlords can offer their tenants. Link here.
🇮🇩 Kredivo has revealed its market entry into Vietnam through a Joint Venture with family investment office Phoenix Holding. Link here.
🇬🇧 Paysafe Group will be acquiring Germany-based 🇩🇪 viafintech. Link here.
🇺🇸 Visa announced a strategic partnership in Asia Pacific with 🇸🇬 Ascenda, the loyalty technology company. Link here.
🇲🇾 kiplePay, a wholly-owned subsidiary of 🇲🇾 Green Packet, has partnered with Visa to introduce the Kiple Visa Prepaid Card. Link here.
BNPL
🇦🇺 Openpay Group Ltd signed an agreement to deliver its OpyPro business to business (B2B) platform to global information technology company, HP Inc. Link here.
🇦🇺 Afterpay launched a suite of advertising products for brands it works with. Link here.
🇸🇪 Klarna saw its losses increase more than tenfold in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period last year. Link here.
FUNDING, FOUNDERS, MOVERS & SHAKERS
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This ends my weekly digital fintech newsletter. Thank you for reading to the end! If you liked it, I invite you to like, share and/or leave a comment below. You may find more information regarding my newsletter here.
If there is anything else you think I’m missing, please don’t hesitate to reach out by email at bonjour@marcelvanoost.nl.
Let me know if there are any questions or news/insights worth mentioning in next week's newsletter. Until the next!
Regards,
Marcel van Oost
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