Happy New Year everyone. It was a relatively slow first week of the year as far as fintech news goes. Leading off the news was Dave going public via SPAC, Petal closed a big funding round, my 2022 fintech trends, China’s CBDC will work with WeChat and the credit bureaus are bringing BNPL loans into the fold. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.
Dave challenger bank goes public through SPAC from LendIt Fintech News – The first fintech company to go public in 2022 is Dave, the challenger banking app with 10 million members,
Petal nears unicorn status with fresh $140M in capital to upend ‘broken’ traditional credit system from TechCrunch – The first big funding round of the year goes to Petal, the pioneer in cash flow underwriting. The $140 million Series D values the company at $800 million.
The seven 2021 fintech trends that will shape 2022 from LendIt Fintech News – My annual look at the trends that will shape fintech in the coming year.
China’s digital currency comes to its biggest messaging app WeChat, which has over a billion users from CNBC – WeChat Pay is the most popular payment method in the world, and rather than fight them the Chinese government has decided to make their digital currency available for use within the app.
Experian, TransUnion bringing buy now/pay later loans into credit reports from American Banker – The major credit bureaus will soon have a uniform way to report BNPL payments, bringing more transparency to the burgeoning sector.
PayPal Is Exploring Creating Its Own Stablecoin as Crypto Business Grows from CoinDesk – A developer discovered hidden code inside the PayPal app that shows they are working on creating their own stablecoin. The company confirmed they are exploring the idea.
Fintech founders accuse Starling’s Boden of trying to stifle innovation from Finextra – The CEO of Starling Bank in the UK is in hot water with her fellow fintech executives for calling out open banking initiatives as a failure.
Goldman-backed digital bank Starling boycotts Meta over scam ads from CNBC – Starling Bank was also in the news this week over their decision to boycott advertising on Facebook and Instagram over concerns about scam ads.
Crypto ‘Winter’ Slows Volume on Some of the Biggest Exchanges from Bloomberg – It was not a good first week of the year for crypto investors as most of the major cryptocurrencies lost at least 10% of their value in light trading.
In What Could Be A Watershed Movement, A Multibillion-Dollar Fintech Company Bolts Into A Four-Day Workweek from Forbes – Fintech unicorn Bolt is moving to a four-day workweek after a three-month pilot that showed increased worker productivity.
Every Thursday the LendIt Fintech News team and a special guest discuss the news of the week live on LendIt TV, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We have now made the show available in podcast format – just click on the audio player below.
