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big tech China digital lending digital transformation paytech

·Jul. 31, 2020

Growth of brand banking, tragedy of OnDeck vs. Kabbage, and the Indian Fintech war between WhatsApp and WeChat

The fintech world is not taking the summer off. New developments are coming fast and furious, from fundraisings to product launches to government intervention.

Banking for brands startup Bond raised $32 million to capitalize on the exploding trend of B2B2C banking.

Samsung Money launched, leveraging SoFi’s infrastructure. As SoFi again seeks a national banking charter, they could become the de facto leader in this space.

Kabbage and Intuit launched small business bank accounts as extensions of their already deep relationships with SMBs.

And WhatsApp is trialing all sorts of financial services in India just as Chinese fintech super apps are being banned from the country.

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Embedded Finance neobank paytech

·Jun. 12, 2020

Varo’s $240M and Marqeta’s $150M Rounds, Should Digital Banks Lend? and Fintech Gets Meta

Today, we talk through a few recent events that are indicative of what’s important in fintech right now.

Varo raised $241 million in preparation to start operating under its own banking license later this year. Is a banking license an asset or a liability if you’re a digital bank?

Marqeta is reportedly now valued at $4.3 billion, as banking-as-a-service continues its mature.

And LA-based fintech Stackin’ raised $13 million to scale its messaging-based offering designed to help Gen Z find the right fintech. What should we make of this?

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Crypto DAOs decentralized finance Investing Metaverse / xR paytech

·Dec. 3, 2021

Origins of Metamask’s 20 million Web3 users, with co-founder Dan Finlay

In this conversation, we chat with Daniel Finlay – a former Apple software developer, co-founder and co-lead developer on MetaMask – a non-custodial Ethereum wallet, allowing users to store Ether and other ERC-20 tokens and make transactions. Further. With the growth of DeFi and NFTs over the past year, MetaMask has increased in prominence as an entry point for novice users. So much so that its user base is now over 20 million monthly active users.

More specifically, we touch on how Dan went from teaching kids to code to having an app rejected by the Apple App Store to MetaMask, the philosophy behind e-government, questioning the role and job of software engineers, how crypto wallets compare to neobanks, and so so much more!

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digital lending entrepreneurship neobank paytech

·Jun. 19, 2020

How to Build a $3.5B Profitable Digital Bank with Tinkoff

Oliver Hughes is the CEO of Tinkoff Group, one of the world’s most successful digital banking groups with over 10 million customers. This is one our most interesting conversation to date, full of fantastic operating advice.

Tinkoff is publicly listed with a $3.8 billion market capitalization, which brings clarity to its operating model in a time when many noteworthy consumer digital banks are pursuing customer acquisition at the expense of profitability.

Oliver has led Tinkoff through three financial crises, and brings experience and perspective to the current COVID crisis. This is a fascinating discussion about unit economics in digital banking and winning business models with a CEO with thirteen years of experience in this space.

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digital lending neobank paytech

·Aug. 14, 2020

Millions of users and millions in losses — analyzing neobanks Monzo, Starling, and Revolut

In this conversation, we break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks. There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market. This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything.

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Crypto Investing IPO / SPAC paytech stablecoins venture capital

·Jul. 11, 2021

The fundamentals of Circle’s $4.5B SPAC, Robinhood’s IPO, and the $30B of fintech venture capital

Last quarter, fintech funding rose to $30 billion, the highest on record. $14 billion of SPAC capital is waiting to take these companies public. Robinhood and Circle are about to float on the public markets, via SPAC and IPO. In this analysis, we explore the fundamentals of both companies, as well as the unifying thesis that explains their growth.

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Embedded Finance neobank Open Banking paytech

·Nov. 10, 2021

Plaid’s payments ecosystem & Affirm’s decoupled debit card reveal embedded finance Trojan Horse

In this analysis, we want to update the discussion of card networks, money movement, and the potential existential threat — or perhaps evolution — to existing infrastructure. It continues the thread on articles like Is Plaid cheap at $5.3 billion for $500 billion Visa? and Marqeta's $300MM of revenue & Ethereum's $20B in ann. transaction fees highlight opportunity and industry structure, and Who are the customers of Embedded Finance, and what do they reveal about Stripe, Affirm, DriveWealth, and Green Dot?, and more generally in this research section. We map Plaid’s progress in building out a payments ecosystem, and highlight Affirm’s debit card product powered in a novel manner through open banking. The analysis visualizes a likely evolution of the space with the introduction of Web3, and highlights a couple of early symptoms.

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artificial intelligence chatbots & other robots Crypto digital lending paytech regulation & compliance

·Jun. 30, 2021

Building the best payments fiat to crypto onramp, with Ivan Soto-Wright of MoonPay

In this conversation, we have a really cool conversation on fintech, crypto assets, payments and all the things around it with Ivan Soto-Wright, the CEO and Co-founder of MoonPay.

More specifically, we discuss Liability-driven Investment (LDI), the proliferation of AI in personal finance to drive sound decision-making, innovation in finance is following the same trajectory that resulted in VOIP for the telecommunication industry, the geographical maze of crypto KYC, payment networks, and crypto payment processing.

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central bank / CBDC China Crypto macroeconomics paytech

·Nov. 9, 2020

Will the Blockchain Economy run on Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Central Bank Digital Currency?

This week, we look at:

The Bitcoin money supply being worth as much as the M1 of several countries
The Visa/Plaid deal DOJ anti-trust filing and the PayPal integration of Bitcoin
Understanding Central Bank Digital Currencies in the context of card networks, payment processors, and digital economies
Chinese CBDC and how it could relate to stopping the $34B Ant Financial IPO
How a CBDC ecosystem is like an operating system, rather than a payment rail

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digital transformation Embedded Finance mega banks Open Banking paytech

·Aug. 13, 2021

Treasury Prime CEO Chris Dean on Banking-as-a-service, embedded finance, and the evolution of FinTech API infrastructure

In this conversation, we chat with Chris Dean, who is the Founder & CEO at Treasury Prime. Previously, Chris was the CTO & VP of Engineering at Standard Treasury, which was acquired by Silicon Valley Bank for an undisclosed amount.

More specifically, we discuss all things banking-as-a-service, FinTech APIs, embedded finance, and the general evolution of the FinTech banking industry over the last decade.

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