Tearsheet's top financial services and fintech stories this week

After this week's briefing for PR and marketing folks, Tearsheet is turning its attention to our upcoming Acquire Conference and Awards Program. We're bringing together the top banks and payment companies to discuss the attributes of successful branding, marketing, product, and customer service in today's market. -- Zack Miller, editor

Understanding quantum computing’s potential in financial services with Goldman Sachs’ Will Zeng and IBM’s Stefan Woerner

As popularity of teen banking grows, competitors differentiate in marketing and monetization (exclusive for Outlier members)

With launch of cloud point of sale, Mastercard powers an ecosystem to take on Square

Rho launches Rho AP to help its SMB customers streamline invoices and payments

“They make me want to do better,” A day in the life of Georgia Hanias, CEO and founder of Ecology Media

Deep Dive: Stripe (exclusive for Outlier members)

‘Stickiness to old products necessitates creating new asset management firms’: Arca’s Rayne Steinberg

BankMobile likely to be first of many to go public this year

Watch Tearsheet's briefing for PR and marketing professionals

This Wednesday, Tearsheet’s editorial and programming leaders addressed an audience of hundreds of marketing and PR professionals on its plans 

Editor-in-Chief Zack Miller spoke about organic opportunities to get coverage for your company, Tearsheet’s editorial calendar, what types of stories and trends Tearsheet will be reporting on, and how to successfully pitch a story to a Tearsheet reporter.

CEO Aaron Singer described Tearsheet’s programs designed to help fintech firms and vendors grow, the calendar for Tearsheet’s events and awards programs, Tearsheet’s studio and capabilities around creating and distributing content for your firm or clients and other paid opportunities to promote your company to the Tearsheet community.

Plaid moves on after Visa deal falls through

Plaid to double European staff after Visa deal falls through (Bloomberg) (Members of Tearsheet's Outlier Program receive short, impactful stories like this daily as part of their membership)

• Plaid plans to double its size in Europe after its planned $5.3 billion merger with Visa fell through. 
• Plaid will increase its European staff from 40 to about 80 as it gears up for growth there.
• The data aggregator is building out product features and considering expanding into new parts of the continent. 
• Plaid has more than 4,000 customers including the likes of Microsoft and Google, and has attracted top-tier investors including Goldman Sachs.
• Visa and Plaid scrapped their deal after facing a prolonged antitrust fight with the U.S. Justice Department, which argued that the card giant wanted to buy the fintech to eliminate an emerging threat to its business.
• Plaid said it's strategy hasn't changed since the merger was dropped -- the company is still looking to  build out its client base among fintech firms and technology companies developing their own financial services offerings.

What we're reading

TransferWise picks Goldman and Morgan for upcoming IPO (Sky News)

China tightens grip on homegrown fintech firms after Ant debacle (Bloomberg)

Community banks embrace fintech for second round of PPP (The Business Journal)

A look at the fintech industry and contactless point-of-sale startups (PitchBook)

Will Walmart become another "friendly neighborhood banker"? (The Financial Brand)

Pornhub now accepts XRP, DOGE, BNB and USDC (Coindesk)

Robinhood revamps its educational resource hub (Crowdfund Insider)

Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is departing the challenger bank, says he's 'struggled' during the pandemic (TechCrunch) 

Marcus deposits at $97 billion as 2020 ends (PYMNTS)

LendingClub receives final approval for its acquisition of Radius Bank (Lend Academy)

Janet Yellen says cryptocurrencies are a ‘concern’ in terrorist financing (Coindesk)

PPRO nabs $180M at a $1B+ valuation to bring together the fragmented world of payments (TechCrunch)

Walgreens expands financial services with Synchrony partnership (Mobile Payments Today)

Goldman Sachs to take over General Motors' credit card business (Bloomberg)

Coinbase to overhaul tech to prevent future outages (The Block)

Goldman Sachs to enter crypto market ‘soon’ with custody play: Source (Coindesk)

Inside Revolut's bid to become a bank (Sifted)