The biggest story of the week came out late Friday with the Amazon-Affirm deal. Of course, there was big funding news and Nubank inches towards the most anticipated IPO of the year. We have more developments in the anti-overdraft movement and Visa is getting into NFTs. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
Amazon strikes a deal with Affirm, the buy-now-pay-later provider from The New York Times – This is huge. We found out late Friday that the world’s largest online retailer is partnering with Affirm in what will be the biggest BNPL partnership ever.
Buffett-backed Nubank to seek IPO valuation of over $55 bln from Reuters – If this becomes a reality it would be pretty cool. The largest bank in Brazil, Itau Unibanco, is valued at around $55 billion, Nubank is said to be seeking a similar valuation for their upcoming IPO.
Ramp raises $300M at a $3.9B valuation, makes its first acquisition from TechCrunch – All the way back in April Ramp raised $115 million at a $1.6 billion valuation. Now, it is August, which is a long four months, so of course, their valuation is up 2.5x and they a cashing a much bigger check.
Robinhood competitor creator DriveWealth raises $450 million funding round from FinLedger – Speaking of huge rounds, the biggest of the week goes to DriveWealth, proving that the stock trading craze is showing no signs of abating.
New York cracks down on bank overdraft fees. Will OCC, CFPB follow? from American Banker – We covered the New York overdraft law last week and it is continuing a trend that is bearish for overdraft fees. Now, there is movement at the federal level, too.
Visa Buys a CryptoPunk NFT from LendIt Fintech News – Visa has purchased a CryptoPunk NFT of a mohawk pixel art woman for $149,000. The NFT market has had a hot summer and Visa is not standing on the sidelines anymore. No word on if they paid via Visa card…
US Fintech Unicorn Brex Introduces Venture Debt, a Product Providing Access to Debt Financing from Crowdfund Insider – Brex has been known mostly for their credit cards and cash management accounts are taking on a new line of business: venture debt. This will compete with the likes of Silicon Valley Bank and ClearCo.
The world’s second-largest stablecoin is undergoing a massive change from CNBC – So, once upon a time Circle’s USDC stablecoin was backed 1:1 by dollars in a bank account. Then it was only 60%. Now, it is going back to 1:1. At least it is better than Tether…
Klarna bets on further growth as U.S. gives boost to transactions value from Reuters – Klarna reported some Q2 numbers this past week (even though they are still a private company) and they are CRUSHING it in the US, growing from 3 million to 20 million users in the past year. Total volume was $20 billion globally in Q2, up from $12 billion a year ago.
The ABCs of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) from LendIt Fintech News – This week we hosted, what I thought, was a brilliant webinar on the state of CBDCs that included experts from the USA, Europe, and China. The video replay is open to everyone.
