While it is not yet a wave, fintech consolidation is starting to pick up. And yesterday we learned of another deal, this one in the investing space.
While this deal was telegraphed a few months ago there was an official announcement yesterday. Leading investment fintech Yieldstreet is acquiring the real estate platform Cadre.
Two years ago, before the crypto meltdown of 2022, stablecoin issuer Circle announced that it was going to go public via SPAC at a $9 billion valuation.
But then, you know, 2022 happened (Celsius, 3AC, Luna, BlockFi, FTX, etc). So plans were quietly shelved in December of that horrible year for crypto.
Today, Klarna announced an interesting new global partnership with Uber.
Klarna is now a payment option for Uber users in the U.S., Germany and Sweden. Interestingly, Klarna is not offering its typical Pay-in-4 payment method. Instead, this is for the Pay Now option that allows users to pay in full with their Klarna account in one click.
Anyway you slice it, we have not been doing a good job in stopping money laundering.
It is estimated that we only catch 1-2% of all illicit money flowing through the banking system. Yet as an industry, we spend many billions of dollars in this fight.
It’s almost a year since those fateful few days that toppled the crypto king from his throne, and at last, Sam Bankman Fried’s trial is over.
With the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried in the spotlight last month it is easy to forget that there is still the massive FTX bankruptcy that has to be sorted out.
The next step in that process has now been revealed in the form of a proposal. At this stage, it is just a proposal that must be approved by creditors before it can go to the bankruptcy judge. But the major creditor and consumer groups have agreed to the plan outline.
Zelle has started refunding imposter scam victims, after years of banks questioning their responsibility to do so.
In June of last year, Robinhood announced it was acquiring the credit card startup X1.
Today, we learned about the fruits of that transaction: a new Gold Card from Robinhood.
There is never a dull moment in the Banking-as-a-Service space. Treasury Prime is the latest company to make news in the space.
For the past two decades, the investment banking ecosystem in fintech has been dominated by one player: Steve McLaughlin's FT Partners. Now, that is not to say that other investments have not done deals. The really big deals are often done by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, or JPMorgan Chase.