The biggest news of this week actually broke on Sunday afternoon when we learned that Square was buying Afterpay. This is the biggest M&A deal in the history of fintech and was covered extensively in the mainstream press. Not to be outdone Affirm announced an important deal of its own. The big infrastructure bill working its way through Capitol Hill could have major implications for crypto and Mike Cagney’s Figure has merged with a traditional lender. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
The First All-Fintech Megadeal: Square is Buying Afterpay from LendIt Fintech News – Square is one of the fintech pioneers, Afterpay is one of the largest BNPL players and soon they will be one. It is a shot across the bow for credit card companies as BNPL continues its rapid ascent.
Square’s Afterpay acquisition proves Jamie Dimon is right to fear ‘increasingly smaller role’ of Wall Street from CNBC – Such a big story deserves a second article, this one about what the deal means for the BNPL space and the impact on banks.
Apple, Affirm to Join on Buy Now, Pay Later for Canadian Purchases from Bloomberg – There was more BNPL news this week as Affirm and Apple announced that they would offer a BNPL option in Canada for customers wanting to finance Apple products.
Crypto community slams ‘disastrous’ new amendment to Biden’s big infrastructure bill from TechCrunch – An addition to the infrastructure bill has resulted in a huge lobbying effort on the part of the crypto industry with a joint letter to Congress from some of the big names in the industry.
Figure merges with mortgage lender Homebridge from FinLedger – Figure continues to move fast, announcing this week they are merging with 28th largest mortgage lender in the country, a company that originated $26.4 billion in mortgages in 202o.
OCC conducting review of overdraft policies, acting comptroller says from BankingDive – The acting head of the OCC said during Senate testimony this week that the bank regulator is conducting a review of bank overdraft policies.
CEO Reveals Plans for LendingClub’s Unique Fintech+Bank Model from The Financial Brand – CEO Scott Sanborn reveals some of LendingClub’s plans for its 3.5 million members as it seeks to take advantage of owning a fully licensed digital bank.
India’s BharatPe valued at $2.85 billion in Tiger Global-led $370 million funding from TechCrunch – The biggest funding round of the week went to India’s BharatPe as they seek to move from enabling digital payments for offline merchants to become a full service digital bank.
Rapyd raises $300M on $8.75B valuation as fintech-as-a-service continues to boom from TechCrunch – Financial infrastructure continues to be a hot area of fintech as the rise of UK-based Rapyd demonstrates. Their $300m Series E comes just six months after they raised the same amount in a Series D while their valuation has more than tripled.
S.Korean Digital Bank Kakao Soars To Biggest Lender In Epic Trading Debut from PYMNTS.com – The leading digital bank in South Korea went public this week in a blockbuster debut and at one point was the most valuable bank in the country.
