Hi all, Julie here (don't worry, Cokie will be back next week),

This time next year, I might be starting my newsletters with hi “y’all” though. Earlier this week on Twitter, I mentioned that my husband and I are thinking about moving to Austin when our lease in Brooklyn is up at the end of March. We both still love it here, so we won’t be slamming it like some people have, but we’re also ready for a change of pace and some extra square footage.

One of the most surprising things I found out when I sent out my tweet asking for people’s thoughts on Austin, and something that really sold me on the place as a founder, is that apparently there are a lot of fintech companies and employees based there. And of course, a ton of tech folks more broadly. We’d thought about other cities like Nashville and Charleston, but while there might be some tech presence there during Covid, those cities are much less likely to hold onto it. Austin was already a mini tech hub before the San Francisco exodus.

Obviously, Ian is not moving there as well, so we won’t be based in the same city. This is something we’ve both talked about a lot. And while it’s not the way we’d like to have it, we’ve literally built Fintech Today while only meeting in person once in March the week before everything shut down. Having done that, I feel a bit more comfortable about permanently being in different cities, especially once flying is safer and we can do mini meetups. Austin is also much closer to LA than NY is, so that helps.

There are also pros to this arrangement as well. This would allow us to host Fintech Today meetups in different localities really easily and continue to build up our community. I’m sure both of us would have trips back to NY, Ian can handle LA and SF, and I could handle Austin along with some trips to SF at times as well. I think I win though since who’s gonna turn down talking about ACH, BaaS and KYC over tacos or Texas BBQ?!

*Franklins, if you want to sponsor an FTT BBQ event, hit up Jordan@fintechtoday.co.

**If you want to sponsor an FTT newsletter or event but aren't Franklins, also email Jordan@fintechtoday.co.

Would love other founder’s thoughts on this! And please let me know if you are based in Austin or know someone that is! Would love all the advice since my husband and I have only been there once before.

Premium Sneak Peek

I don’t know about you guys, but the start of 2020 feels like forever ago. It was the last time I was on a plane, my last time in San Francisco, my first (but hopefully not last) time boxing with Ken from Credit Karma and grabbing Sweetgreen with Chris from Chime. It was also around the same time that Visa said it was going to acquire Plaid, Morgan Stanley said it was buying E-Trade, Intuit was buying Credit Karma, LendingClub acquired Radius Bank, and more. I had totally forgotten how crazy the first couple of months of last year were until Charley Ma reminded me in his post for us this past week, where he covered the first half of 2020 and what these big events meant for our space (he’ll be diving into the second half in a couple of weeks). So the next time someone tries to tell me that the first few weeks of 2021 have been crazy, I’m going to remind them how crazy 2020 was as well.

This coming week, John Collins is going to be diving into DC for us, giving us a big picture look at the impacts fintech will see from the Biden administration and Brian Brooks leaving the OCC.

Stay tuned! And if yu haven't signed up for our premium newsletter yet but you want to hear from me, Charley, John and other writers that we are adding on in February, you can do so here.

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Have a great weekend!

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.