Home

paytech

Latest

paytech

Embedded Finance monetization / commercial paytech venture capital

·Jan. 18, 2021

Explaining ~100x revenue multiples for Affirm, Checkout, Rapyd, and other fintech companies using systems theory

This week, we look at:

Over $1 billion in raises announced last week, and over $10 billion in Fintech company value creation: Checkout.com with $450 million at a $15 billion valuation, Affirm more than doubling after its IPO to $30 billion, lending enabler Blend raising $300 million, and payments enabler Rapyd raising $300 million.
A systems theory framework that explains the stocks and flows of goods and services, and what monetization strategies are available to fintechs
How transactional models are thriving and creating 50-100x revenue multiples

Read Full Story

acquisition digital lending Embedded Finance IPO / SPAC paytech

·Jan. 15, 2021

Who wins and loses in the Plaid/Visa divorce, and the $10 Billion in new Fintech SPACs (Spakkt and Spofi), with Will Beeson

In this conversation, Will Beeson and I break down a few important pieces of recent news — the SPACs for SoFi and Bakkt, and Plaid/Visa falling apart.

SoFi is going public with a SPAC deal worth over $8 billion. A few things we touch on in detail: (1) this is still largely a lender, (2) there is a gem of an embedded finance play called Galileo that SoFi owns, and (3) the multiple is a little over 10x T12 revenues, which is not crazy expensive, but not cheap.

Speaking of Galileo and finance APIs, we transition to Plaid, and how it is is not going to be one of the networks in Visa’s network of networks. Who wins and who loses in the equation? And last, we cover the Bakkt SPAC of over $2 billion and our view on its future.

Read Full Story

big tech digital lending Embedded Finance paytech

·Dec. 7, 2020

Who are the customers of Embedded Finance, and what do they reveal about Stripe, Affirm, DriveWealth, and Green Dot?

This week, we look at:

Embedded finance as a growing theme with the $10B Affirm IPO and Stripe's launch of Treasury
The customer types that each of these firms is attempting to convert into their product, and what this tells us about economic growth
A framework for understanding the emerging value chain of digital finance, and the role of platforms and marketplaces

Read Full Story

big tech digital lending digital transformation Investing mega banks Open Banking paytech roboadvisor super app

·Nov. 23, 2020

Google has come to Banking. What does that mean, and what should we do about it?

Google has done it. In a massive update to Google Pay, the company highlighted exactly the direction of travel for high tech, fintech, and the global banks. It has articulated a vision for competing with Apple Pay and Ant Financial. Let's walk through the features.

Read Full Story

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

Read Full Story

Crypto neobank paytech

·Oct. 12, 2020

The Harvard Endowment and alternative assets, Square buys $50MM of Bitcoin, Killer Mike launching a Bank and Akon building a $6B smart city

In this conversation, Will and I break down a few important pieces of recent news. MetaMask, the crypto wallet, hit 1 million month active users in yet another sign of the acceleration of retail adoption.

Square’s market cap is now equal to that of American Express, and the former also announced it has purchased $50 million of Bitcoin with its balance sheet. What do these pieces of news mean?

Greenwood Financial launched, a neobank led by Andrew J. Young, a civil rights legend, Killer Mike, a rapper and activist, and Ryan Glover, founder of Bounce TV network. How much scope is there for financial services for affinity groups instead of traditional geographical or product coverage areas?

Read Full Story

big tech China Investing IPO / SPAC paytech

·Sep. 21, 2020

Is Ant Financial the best Fintech in the world? Let’s analyze the IPO!

In this conversation, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest, Will and Lex break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO.

Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Max, Will and Lex dig into Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments.

We cannot understate how impressive Ant Financial has become, connecting 700 million people and 80 million merchants in China, with payments, savings, wealth management and insurance products integrated in one package. The company also highlights the likely road for traditional banks — as underlying risk capital, without much technology or client management.

Read Full Story

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.

Read Full Story

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.

Read Full Story

decentralized finance Embedded Finance paytech philosophy

·Jun. 29, 2020

Wirecard’s collapse hurts Fintech & Crypto start-ups, like Lehman and Enron burned the economy

This week, we consider the impact of financial infrastructure collapse and who really gets hurt through the lens of Wirecard, Enron, and Lehman Brothers. Yes, there are investors in the entity that will lose value. But there are also clients and counterparties of Wirecard, like Curve, Revolut, and Crypto.com. In the case of Lehman, there was a $40 trillion derivatives notional amount that took twenty years to wind down. We also consider the most recent $500,000 hacking in DeFi of an automated market maker to see if there are common threads to be drawn between the two worlds.

Read Full Story