Hi all, Julie here. Hope everyone had a chance to relax this weekend. I know it's hard given everything going on right now, but that's also when it's most important. That's why my weekend involved minimal TV news and lots of cuddles with my dog.

The News

Walmart Creating a Fintech with Ribbit

"Let's go do that fintech thing everyone's talking about" -some digital transformation executive at Walmart.

Shortly beforing sending out this newsletter, Walmart announced that it will be creating a fintech startup with the help of Ribbit Capital (backers of Robinhood, Coinbase, Credit Karma, Affirm and more). A few months ago, I was talking to someone about how we will be able to walk into a Walmart, Apple, or another retailer and get a mortgage. This is yet another step closer to that. Walmart has data on millions of customers, many of which do not have a bank account. That's a big opportunity! The press release didn't give much detail on what it will be offering or a name for the company. If you have any details, let me know ;)

Affirm's IPO Boost

Speaking of Affirm, surprise surprise, it boosted its price target for its IPO slated for this week. In a new filing, the payments giant said it plans to sell 24.6M shares priced at between $41 and $44 each, raising as much as $1.08B from the sale. This could also give it a valuation of more than $10B depending on where it falls within that range. Robinhood traders, get ready!

Fintech and Trump

As we mentioned last week, both Shopify and PayPal removed Trump related accounts following the attack on the US Capitol. Over the weekend, Stripe (which has backing from Josh Kushner) will no longer process payments for Trump's campaign website. People close to Stripe told the Wall Street Journal that the move was taken because the President violated its policies against encouraging violence.

SPAC for Bakkt

On Monday, the digital asset venture launched by Intercontinental Exchange in 2018 said it's going public via a merger with the SPAC VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings. It's expected to have a valuation of $2.1B after completing, and as part of the deal, Bakkt is raising an additional $532M from VPC’s funds and a concurrent capital raise.

Bakkt said it plans to use the funding to support development and marketing of the Bakkt App. In case you didn't know (which I didn't), Bakkt is creating this app with the goal of allowing people to easily manage their holdings of various digital assets (like, not just Bitcoin, but Starbucks giftcards or my Delta loyalty points).

The company said that more than 400,000 people preregistered for the app, which is expected to have a wider rollout around my birthday in March, so feel free to send me all the digital gifts. Just like people think the sky is the limit for Bitcoin, Bakkt seems to think the same for this app, saying it will reach more than 30M users in the next five years. Dream big, my friends.

N26 Goes to Brazil

Ian when I told him N26 is launching in Brazil: "Is there anywhere they won't go?"

It does seem like N26 is the most hungry when it comes to global expansion of its services. TBD on if that's the right strategy. It seems like it's probably a lot of work to get familiar with regulations across the globe? Let alone figuring out how consumer needs vary by country? I just write a newsletter though, so what do I know. Obviously challenger banks have demand in Brazil given how well NuBank has done. But why would someone choose N26 over the one that's already ammased millions of customers? Tweet me your thoughts.

More Neo Bank News

UK challener bank Revolut has applied for a banking license in the country. The company said this was a necessary step to be able to add all of the services that it wants to, creating a “financial super app” (that line made me LOL too).

I'm all for being able to offer as many services as possible, but I think there is a huge difference between doing it yourself or doing it via partnerships. While getting a license might be the best path for some, I think it would be a huge mistake for others.

Community Highlights​
On Saturday, you received an email from Cokie with her predictions for 2021. One of my favorites was number 19: "The future of work is empathy." She went into even more detail on Twitter, so you should check that out here. It's been fascinating to see how work life balance and other aspects of our lives have changes over the past 12-months. But it's also been interesting to see what companies and people care about change as well.

On another note, we've talked about the weird stuff going on with China, Alibaba and Jack Ma. The situation just keeps getting weirder, but community members Nik and Justin are on top of it.

Career Corner

My inbox is overflowing with fintech jobs, but here are two we're highlighting today!

1. ​Partner Manager, Even Financial: Even is looking for someone to develop and grow long-term, strategic relationships with its current Financial Institution partners. In this position, you will serve as the owner for multiple partnerships, focusing on retention and growth, and delivering successful solutions corresponding to client needs.
2. ​Research Analyst, FinRegLab: The team is looking for highly motivated individuals to join our team as research analysts. In this role, you would help with core activities such as managing empirical experiments concerning data and technology innovations, researching emerging market issues, and engaging a wide range of stakeholders about potential evolution in public policy and business practices.

That's all for today. Be sure to check your inbox again on Wednesday for the latest news.

Julie VerHage is the co-founder of Fintech Today, where she focuses on editorial content and brand. Prior to joining, she was Bloomberg’s first fintech reporter, covering Robinhood from before it was a billion dollar company, breaking the news that Plaid was acquiring Quovo, and interviewing executives on Bloomberg TV and at several large conferences.

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