Hi all, Julie here.

New Year, new newsletters from Fintech Today. Along with my premium Sunday newsletter (subscribe here), you’ll now be hearing from me on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a roundup of news and other highlights from the fintech space and our community. I’m really looking forward to talking with you guys far more often, and continuing to learn more about this rapidly expanding area of the world! And don’t worry, Cokie is only moving to Saturday, where she’ll be writing her weekly rant, per usual, as well as giving you a sneak peak at what we’re writing about behind the paywall.

The News

Bitcoin

Even though we don’t talk about Bitcoin that often, I think it’s important to point out that after closing out 2020 with a huge run, Bitcoin is still surging to start the new year. As of the time I am writing this Monday morning, it's at $32,000. There’s not much news to back the surge, though we all know what retail traders piling into some stocks did last year. I’d assume the same thing is happening to Bitcoin, along with a bunch of thoughtbois bragging about how much money they made on it on Twitter.

*Editor’s note: I own ~$500 worth of Bitcoin.

Current and Chime first to send stimulus checks

After being two of the first banks to offer customers their stimulus checks from the government earlier in 2020, Current and Chime did that again with stimulus round two. In fact, according to its press release, “Current received the payments before 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, less than three hours after the U.S. Treasury announced the funds were being issued and is making all funds fully available to all members immediately.” Chime customers will get their checks quickly as well, and in the meantime, the firm is offering a chunk of its members access to higher “Spot Me” limits so they can overdraw on their debit cards.

Venmo's new feature

Early Monday morning, Venmo announced that some users will now be able to cash checks on its platform. According to the press release, Venmo’s new feature will allow users to cash checks straight from the Venmo app, without needing to visit a bank or physical check-cashing location. This move is yet another in the way of Square's Cash App and PayPal's Venmo becoming more like Challenger banks, and younger generations continue to move towards these digital experiences for their financial needs, and even older generations continue to wade in as Covid continues to force people to stay at home (or go to Tulum and pretend Covid doesn't exist, apparently).

Marcus adding on to its product suite

It’s been a long time coming, but Goldman’s Marcus will be branching out of lending and savings accounts and begin offering customers an investment account in the first quarter of 2021. Customers will need $1,000 to open an account, called Marcus Invest, and will pay an annual management fee that is yet to be announced. As of now, it sounds like customers will choose among three model portfolios composed of ETFs from Goldman and outside providers.

JPMorgan acquisition bets on travel rebound

In the last week of the year, JPMorgan announced that it is acquiring one of the biggest third-party credit card loyalty operators, cxLoyalty Group. Credit cards rewards programs have had to make some big changes this year, as travel rewards became much less enticing. The Amex Platinum card that I have, for instance, had to add streaming service credits, cell phone credits and other perks since the card had been largely geared towards travelers before the pandemic. JPMorgan’s Marianne Lake told CNBC that the firm believes people will be hungry to travel again in the near future, and that this acquisition will give card members better experiences once their back in the air.

Lemonade lockup expiration

In one of the first tests for one of several fintech companies that went public in 2020, Lemonade only fell slightly from its all-time high as insiders were allowed to sell in a lockup expiration. Something I didn’t realize before diving deeper into this story? Lemonade was the best performing IPO of 2020, trading more than 350% above its July 1 IPO price.

*Note: this is for companies with debuts above a $300M valuation.

More IPOs in 2021

With Lemonade passing this test, and markets looking to keep moving higher as stimulus continues, expect the IPO rush to keep on going. Some big ones in our space that are likely: Affirm, Coinbase and Robinhood. Still waiting on that Stripe IPO….

Community Highlights​
Our very own Cokie got engaged over the holiday! Huge congrats to her as well as Amanda from VGS who also has some extra bling!

In terms of companies in our space seeing milestones, check out HMBradley, Affirm, Chime and a few of our other members that are featured in the Forbes Fintech awards for titles such as most interesting newcomer and best product. Congrats guys!

Career Corner

Pretty much every company in our community seems to be hiring these days, but here are two interesting job postings from TrueAccord that just popped up.

1. ​Director, Business Development. Ideal for mid-senior level folks that are looking to create partnerships. This role is responsible for identifying, evaluating, pursuing, and overseeing the implementation of initiatives that enable new sources of sustainable revenue growth for TrueAccord.
2. ​Community Engagement Manager. This person will work a lot with the user research and product teams to serve customer needs through individual and group activities, rewards programs, and other models of engagement. You’ll improve customer’s financial resilience and ability to stay out of debt, while also improving TrueAccord’s brand awareness.

Tux (my mini golden doodle whom you will come to know and love) is very excited about the future of our premium content. As subscribers heard from Ian and me yesterday, we’re adding new writers, increasing the number of newsletters we’ll be offering, and covering a wider range of topics and geographies (all still within fintech). Hope you guys are ready! Talk soon, Julie.

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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