I look at two mental models explaining why and how financial APIs have led to the creation of billions in enterprise value. The driving news is that Square Cash is competing with Robinhood in free trading, powered by trading API company DriveWealth. Last week, we saw that Chime, Robinhood, and Monzo were powered by payments API company Galileo. Should these enablers be worth the billion-dollar valuations of their clients? Are APIs inevitable technology progress? Or are we just seeing venture financing spilling desperately into a rebundling play to find profitability?
There is no question that challenger banks like Revolut, Monzo and N26 have acquired massive amounts of customers; it leads...
Challenger banks Revolut, Starling Bank and Monzo are all reported to be out fundraising; Business Insider reports that Revolut will...
Revolut CEO Nikolay Storonsky says that fintech is just getting started and the best is yet to come; “Fintech is...
I look at how spending $8 billion can either buy you $3 billion of revenue from Ingenico, or the private valuation of Robinhood and/or Revolut. Would you rather have a massive cash-flow machine, or a venture bet on a Millennial investing meme? To articulate this question in more detail, we walk through the impact behavioral finance has had on economic rational actor theories, and why quantitative financial modeling often similarly fails to capture the underlying tectonic plates of industry. It may not be wrong to bet on Millennials. We talk about what identity economics (ala identity politics) means for market value and how to think about generational change.
We look at some of the recent Fintech bundling news that boggle the mind. Neobank Chime just raised a mammoth round from DST Global, valuing it at $6 billion. Figure raised another $60 million round. Goldman is launching a retail roboadvisor. Revolut is offering pensions. Wealthfront is offering mortgages. The world is upside down. We cool down with pictures showing augmented reality implementations in commerce and finance, and finish with an elevated thought about the future.
Revolut is the latest fintech to enter the UK savings market with a new savings account for premium users that...
Mastercard is already working with names like Brex, Revolut and TransferWise; they have also announced programs in order to make...
UK digital challenger bank, Starling, has raised £60 million led by Merian Global Investors; the funds will be used to...
By now we have become almost numb to the giant rounds raised by the challenger banks in the UK. It...




