Weekly Fintech Newsletter | 2021 #30
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!
API standardization has a significant impact on how the market receives an Open Banking regulation.
In short, better-defined frameworks offer greater structure and clarity during the initial phases of open banking implementation; frameworks improve the developer experience and accelerate innovation, and ensure consistent security models, API documentation, and functionality across banks.
👉Read more here.
FINTECH MAPS
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S FINTECH SPACE
FINTECH SPOTLIGHT
Fintech firm 🇬🇧 Revolut is preparing to launch a ‘buy now, pay later’ feature, becoming a rival of 🇬🇧 ClearPay and 🇸🇪 Klarna.
The company will allow users to spread the cost of in-store and online purchases over a period of time, chief executive Nik Storonsky has said. “Simply a button which you switch on and then your card becomes a buy now pay later product,” the fintech boss told the Evening Standard. “Instead of paying upfront everything, you pay a third, and then in two weeks' time we charge you a third and then another third,” Storonsky added.
👉 Read more here.
FINTECH HIGHLIGHTS
🇺🇸PayPal'sVenmo is set to become an even more formidable player in the payments space in the next several years. Link here.
Open Finance is not just considered to be an extension but the next big step in the fintech journey. Link here.
🇺🇸 Twitter launched its Super Follows feature on iOS Wednesday (Sept. 1), an option that is powered by payments platform 🇺🇸 Stripe. Link here.
Preliminary discussions between Indonesia’s Shariah-compliant peer-to-peer platform 🇮🇩 ALAMI and Turkish officials could result in a new Islamic fintech start-up that serves both countries. Link here.
A compilation of funding deals across the fintech sector worldwide for the week of 30 August – 5 September 2021. Link here.
INVESTMENTS
🇺🇸 Robinhood is developing a feature that would let users access their paycheck two days early as it looks to diversify and expand its offerings beyond trading. Link here.
🇺🇸 TikTok owner 🇨🇳ByteDance is scaling back its fintech business and selling its stockbroking platform in the face of growing scrutiny from the Chinese government. Link here.
OPEN BANKING
Mastercard sees itself as a central player in the open banking regime and is using acquisition in the United States to build data analytics services, including for loan assessment and invoice management, as it moves beyond its traditional focus on cards and payments. Link here.
This week’s launch of Open Banking Excellence’s presence in Brazil could play a key role in the country’s emergence as an open banking stalwart, two executives from instant payments infrastructure provider 🇬🇧 Volt.io believe. Link here.
CRYPTO
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against now-defunct online crypto lending platform Bitconnect Group alleging it defrauded retail investors out of $2 billion. Link here.
Binance has been hit with an investor alert by Singapore’s financial regulator and listed among entities that are unregulated by the body, but which may be wrongly perceived as licensed or regulated. Link here.
“Art, like football, is eternal,” said Lionel Messi in an exclusive interview with ESPN. “Art is also evolving, and digital art (NFT) is another way to connect with the fans." Link here.
The team at coinpass.com is delighted to announce their approval as a registered cryptoassets firm with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (Reference Number 921481). Link here.
🇺🇸 Gemini is thrilled to announce that Brave Software Rewards users can have their Basic Attention Tokens (BAT) seamlessly deposited into a Gemini account through the new Gemini User Wallet. Link here.
PAYMENTS
Financial services, especially those for people who don’t have access to traditional bank accounts or lines of credit, are proliferating in Southeast Asia. Link here.
🇬🇧 GoCardless, a leading fintech for account-to-account payments, today announced a refreshed focus on the Australian and New Zealand market, following 185 percent YoY revenue growth, in spite of the global pandemic. Link here.
Queensland fintech 🇦🇺 Paypa Plane has signed a deal to bring one of the key innovations of the New Payments Platform (NPPA) – pre-authorized real-time payments – to banking next year. Link here.
BNPL
While a flexible payment solution has clear-cut benefits for consumers, retail merchants are also riding the BNPL wave as it offers a slew of business advantages such as an uptick in consumer spend, the opportunity to penetrate a younger demographic thanks to the lower purchase barrier and accelerated sale conversions. Despite being a relatively new category in Southeast Asia, the BNPL space is booming. Based on a study by Mashable SE Asia, the BNPL market cap in the SEA region is set to grow from US$7.3 billion in 2019 to a whopping US$33.6 billion in 2027. Link here.
🇸🇪 Klarna, an international retail bank, payments, and shopping service, and Global-e, a cross-border digital commerce platform, have extended their partnership to provide flexible payment methods to clients across the US, UK, France, Spain, Italy, and Australia. Link here.
Buy-now-pay-later has been the hot fintech trend of the last year and now it seems other alternative lenders are jumping on the bandwagon. Listed alternative lender 🇬🇧Funding Circle UK Circle has announced it is launching its own BNPL solution for small businesses, called FlexiPay. Link here.
Sid Singh’s post on Buy Now Pay Later is a must-read. The goal of his post is to bring together his learnings and highlight the core elements of the industry. "As seen above in the complete market mapping of BNPL players, the whole industry has become a force majeure especially as Covid-19 wreaked havoc on the global economy beginning March 2020 and consumers primarily shifted to online shopping". Link here.
Buy now, pay later outfit 🇳🇿 Laybuy is launching an app that lets UK shoppers pay in installments at some of the world's biggest brands, including Amazon, eBay, ASOS.com, and Nike. Link here.
ASX-listed Zip Co is to fully acquire South African buy now pay later (BNPL) FinTech Payflex as part of its global expansion plans. Payflex is the first and largest BNPL player in South Africa and has grown from a base of just 70 merchants in 2019 to over 1,000 active merchants today. Over 135,000 customers have used Payflex - five times the customer base of 25,000 just a year ago. Link here.
The owner of 🇸🇪 furniture retail giant IKEA has paid $22.5 million for a minority stake in white label buy now, pay later player Jifiti. Link here.
FUNDING, FOUNDERS, MOVERS & SHAKERS
Sponsored Content: Meet fintechs and uncover opportunities that will transform your business! Fintech Meetup (Online, March 8-10) does the hard work so you don’t have to--with 30,000+ meetings for 4,000 participants you’ll get 3 months worth of meetings in just 3 half days! Qualifying banks & credit unions are eligible for FREE tickets. Get your ticket now--prices go up on Friday!
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
Follow me on Twitter, Linkedin, and Telegram.
Discover other newsletters by MVO.