The trend of fintech companies going public is becoming a flood. Several fintechs announced this week intentions to go public alongside many that have already signaled their intentions. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
Fintech Startup Acorns to Go Public in $2 Billion SPAC Deal from The Wall Street Journal – SPACs are still alive and well in fintech with the savings and investing startup Acorns taking the plunge in a $2.2 billion deal.
Aspiration, Backed by DiCaprio and Orlando Bloom, Weighs an IPO from Bloomberg – With the green digital bank’s customer base doubling to 4 million in the past year and ESG top of mind for so many people Aspiration is considering taking the plunge into the public markets.
Fintech Unicorn Stash Is Weighing Options for Going Public from Bloomberg – Rounding out our trifecta of public markets news is Stash, who have hired Goldman Sachs to explore the different options to become a public company.
SoftBank is backing buy-now-pay-later firm Klarna in funding round that values it at over $40 billion from CNBC – Yes, Klarna just raised $1 billion at a $31 billion valuation in March but somehow the BNPL leader is reportedly raising more money at an even higher valuation now.
Visa: Putting $105 Billion Of FinTech Investment To Work For Banks from PYMNTS.com – Visa launched its Visa Fintech Partner Connection marketplace in Europe in November last year to help match fintechs with incumbents and is now rolling this out to the US, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Africa.
Square Takes Aim at JPMorgan With Checking, Savings Accounts from Bloomberg – Digging in to the code of Square’s new iPhone and iPad apps Bloomberg discovered support for both checking and savings accounts, not a big surprise given their new bank started operations in March.
Fed’s Lael Brainard pushes digital dollar as central bank currency race heats up from CNBC – Fed Governor Lael Brainard gave a speech at Consensus this week discussing the benefits of a digital currency saying it could help get money to people more quickly and bring the underbanked into the financial system (full text of the speech is here).
PayPal Wants To Be A Super App from Forbes – Ron Shevlin gives his opinion of PayPal CEO Dan Schulman’s plans to make PayPal a super app similar to what exists in China, arguing that the US will not embrace super apps and they should focus on building out their merchant platform.
Coinbase crypto partner Circle raises $440 million from Fidelity and others from Fortune – Crypto startup Circle has raised $440 million from Fidelity and others in one of the largest rounds ever for crypto and it is also eyeing the public markets.
These are the 2021 CNBC Disruptor 50 companies from CNBC – CNBC is out with their annual list of the most disruptive companies in tech with fintech taking five of the top eight places, led by Robinhood.
