Hi all, Julie here. Fresh out of acupuncture for the first time in a few weeks and feeling like a better version of myself. Highly recommend if you haven't tried it. And if any of my Austin friends have a good acupuncturist to recommend, let me know 🙏

Stash Gets Cash

Personal finance app Stash announced a $125M funding round led by Eldridge. Along with the funding round, Stash said it saw its customer count grow to 5M and assets under management reach $2.5B. Aimed at making it easier for people to save and invest, Stash made a name for itself as an app that allows anyone to invest in low fee ETFs with as little as $5. It has since expanded into other products, such as a debit card and checking/savings like accounts. In the coming weeks, Stash plans to launch a product called Smart Portfolios, where customers can build their own diversified portfolios to be managed by Stash.

PayPal News x2

In a filing on Friday, PayPal said it received a “Civil Investigative Demand” from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “related to Venmo’s unauthorized funds transfers and collections processes, and related matters.” There have been a few stories, both during and prior to the pandemic, questioning some of the tactics Venmo uses around debt collection.

For instance, the WSJ had a story about Venmo threatening to dispatch debt collectors on users who overdraw their accounts, even when those users are victims of scams.

In other news for PayPal, the company said that as of April 1, it is closing down its domestic payments business in India after failing to gain traction. The payments giant entered India four years ago and is a payment option for more than 300,000 merchants in the region. It will continue to enable sales for Indian businesses internationally. The move comes as tech giants, as well as local players like PayTM, compete for the region. PayPal, however, is seeing impressive growth elsewhere, like its new crypto offering and buy now pay later services.

China, Regulation and Fintech

Chinese giant Ant Group has agreed on a restructuring plan with its country’s regulators, according to Bloomberg. The move will make Ant a financial holding company subject to capital requirements similar to those for banks. These measures come after months of tightening restrictions from Chinese regulators on fintech companies in the region. The move most notably derailed Ant’s plan to go public in a $37B offering.

Robinhood Sees Complaints, and User Growth, Soar

The Federal Trade Commission received more than 100 Robinhood-related reports from January 24 through February 2, compared to seven the week before. At the same time, Robinhood added well over 1M customers the same week, with one report estimating it added 600,000 on Friday alone. So basically: a bunch of customers were pissed and might have left, but Robinhood almost certainly gained more than it lost.

Eli Polanco of Nivelo and Cokie Hasiotis of Lasgna live near me and we went on a lovely masked walk this week. It was most definitely a highlight.

Today's job postings are from our friends at Get Clair, a startup that gives employees "earned wage access," which is essentially a micro loan for wages the employee is going to get paid for on pay day.

1. ​Director of Customer Service, Clair: Clair is looking for a forward-thinker to help build out its newest department. You'll join a fast-growing team and instantly be placed in a position to set standards and practices for a new customer service department that will need to scale to serve hundreds of thousands of users in the next year. Clair is looking for someone who has experience scaling & managing customer call centers, working with Voice of the Customer Programs, managing others, and working in a fast-paced organization.
2. ​Manager​, ​Growth Marketing, Clair: Clair is also looking for a Growth Marketing Manager to join its team. In this role, you'll work to leverage its partnerships with workforce management, payroll, and freelancing companies to grow its user base in novel, creative ways. This isn't a traditional PPC advertising role; it requires employing creative guerrilla tactics and effective partner communication. While your primary KPI is its number of users, you'll also get to work alongside other teams to increase conversion at all stages of the funnel. Ideally, you should have prior experience operating in a B2B2C company and be prepared to think outside of the box for all your campaigns.

That's all for this week in Fintech Updates! Tune in tomorrow for FTTea with Cokie to get her thoughts on brokerage startup Public's recent move to stop using payment for order flow and start accepting tips for trading stocks instead. I'm excited to hear what she has to say since she's been a user of the platform for awhile and really understands the company and its value proposition well. Hits your inbox at 10am ET!

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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