Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
Enova Acquires OnDeck for $90 Million from Lend Academy – Enova, best known for short term consumer loans, is acquiring OnDeck, one the leading online small business lenders, in a $90 million cash and stock deal.
Varo Becomes First Consumer Fintech to Land a National Charter from Bloomberg – Finally…after three and a half years the regulatory journey of Varo to become a nationally chartered digital bank has reached its conclusion.
Affirm Prepares IPO That Could Value Fintech Firm at Up to $10 Billion from The Wall Street Journal – Preparations are at an early stage but Affirm is working with Goldman Sachs on a potential blockbuster IPO possibly before the end of the year.
Intuit Adds Bank Account to Quickbooks Offerings from Lend Academy – The leader in small business accounting announces a new tech-enabled bank account called QuickBooks Cash with a rich set of features and integrations.
JPMorgan Chase partners with fintech start-up Marqeta to launch ‘virtual’ credit cards from CNBC – Marqeta will be providing JPMorgan Chase its virtual card technology that will allow new Chase business customers to use their card immediately instead of waiting to receive a physical card in the mail.
Banks, credit unions pan OCC idea to create charter for payments firms from American Banker – Just like they did with the fintech charter trade groups that work on behalf of banks and credit unions warned the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency against creating a payments charter.
Monzo: Covid:19 casts ‘significant doubt’ on ability to continue operating from Finextra – Leading UK digital bank Monzo released its annual report this week and the numbers were not pretty. The company reported that in 2019 they lost £113.8 million and the fallout from the pandemic casts “significant doubt” on their ability to continue as a going concern.
Tech unicorn Dave admits to security breach impacting 7.5 million users from ZDNet – Popular digital banking app Dave has confirmed it suffered a security breach after a hacker published details of 7.5 million users on a public forum.
The New Stimulus Is The Right Time For Streaming Wages from Forbes – As Congress is debating another stimulus package to help support consumers and small businesses, now is the perfect time for them to support real-time wage access since mailed payments can take months to reach people.
Consumer lender Oportun hits pause on debt collections from American Banker – Fintech lender Oportun is making two changes in response to the pandemic: it is hitting pause on collection efforts and it will cap interest rates at 36%.
