This Week in Fintech: 20 Apr-26 Apr 2019
Preamble (#TWIF)
Every week on Saturday, I publish a short article summarising the key events of the week from the Fintech segments from across the world.
In order to keep a balanced view on the segment, I capture happenings that drive our hope and counter that with a few not-so-happy events as well to allow us to be wary of the hype. In the final section, I capture key fintech investment rounds of the week.
Fintech: The Bright Side
Fintechs show off their latest product innovations and investments this week
- T-Mobile, in a big move, has launched its Money checking account for users across the US. No minimum balance requirements, attractive APYs, easy integration with various wallets and more – the telecom player has put forth a strong first step.
- Fintech brokerage firm Robinhood has applied for a national bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). This development promisingly hints at soon to come new features such as cash management, checking and savings accounts.
- On Monday, Visa unveiled its latest digital initiative Visa Next which will allow issuers and issuer processors to build and test new products, complete with beta application programming interfaces (APIs). The initial beta APIs on offer will help those within the Visa ecosystem to create digital cards on demand and add digital services.
- Affirm, a financial services company led by former PayPal CTO Max Levchin, is spinning out a new independent company focused on B2B commerce. Resolve, takes Affirm's 'buy now, pay later' approach and applies it to business purchasing.
- Tencent’s latest investment is in Argentinian mobile banking startup Uala. The startup’s Founder Pierpaolo Barbieri said that the Chinese company would help Uala develop its app, among other things.
- UK banking group NatWest announced on Wednesday the launch of its new biometric fingerprint card. NatWest reported that customers may now use their fingerprint to verify transactions above the ￡30 contactless limit, increasing security and ease of use.
Fintech: The Dark Side
Regulatory scrutiny and shut downs bring dark clouds for some fintechs this week
- Online lender Prosper was fined $3 million by the SEC for misleading retail and other investors via miscalculated and materially overstated returns.
- British digital bank Revolut is at risk of losing its European banking licences amid fresh questions over its alleged links to the Kremlin.
- SoFi is facing scrutiny after a report from the Wall Street Journal that the firm forced clients of its robo- advisor into its two new free ETFs with no management fee.
- Coinnest, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in Korea, made an announcement that it is going to shut down its operations in the midst of some financial, admin and legal problems.
- US P2P lending pioneer Lending Club has closed the doors on its in-house small business lending operation. However, it seems to be helping out its clients via partnerships with similar lenders.
Fintech: Fuel the tank
- German digital payments provider, Wirecard took the cake this week by announcing its $1B funding from Softbank.
- UK challenger bank Masthaven aims to significantly increase lending to SMEs and consumers, following the completion of a successful $78M funding round.
- Bengaluru-based digital lending startup ZestMoney raised $20 million in fresh funding led by fintech investor Quona Capital.
- Brazilian consumer loan marketplace FinanZero secured $11M in series B funding, while QR payment firm Citcon raised $5m to grow globally.
- Samsung invested $2.9M in hardware cryptocurrency wallet startup Ledger.
- Financial data startup Intrinio raised $5M and B2B payments provider EnKash raised $3M.
See you next Saturday, with more fintech trends!