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Hi all, Julie here. I’m getting ready to fly for the first time in over a year tomorrow. Will report back on how weird the airports are for those of you yet to revisit them. I have latex gloves, sanitizer and will of course be double masking.

The fact that I haven’t flown in a year also got me thinking… The last time I flew, interest rates on my checking and savings accounts were way higher. It feels like almost everyone has gone from upwards of 2% to less than 1% as the Fed lowered interest rates during the crisis of the past year. Today’s newsletter sponsor though, OnJuno, is still holding strong at a 2.15% interest rate. More on them below :)

Square Buys More Bitcoin

Square reported earnings on Tuesday, but many of us didn’t pay as much attention to revenues and cash flows as usual because something else overshadowed it. The company is doubling down on Bitcoin, recently buying another $170M worth at an average cost of ~$51K. Reminder that Square was one of the first companies to start adding Bitcoin to its balance sheet as CEO Jack Dorsey is a fan of the digital currency. Will other companies jump on board? Or will it just be the likes of Dorsey and Elon Musk that are making the big moves? That’s the big question.

Klarna Readies for IPO

The OG Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider, Klarna, is a highly anticipated IPO in the coming months. A new article from Reuters says that rather than take the traditional IPO path or going public via a SPAC, Klarna is looking to use a direct listing. Since the company has already raised a significant amount of funding in the past year (with more expected any day now), it wouldn’t need more capital from a traditional IPO and a direct listing makes sense. Klarna is also a fairly recognizable brand name, which has been helpful for previous direct listings such as Spotify. If Affirm’s IPO is any indication of how this would do, I’d expect to see some nice gains in the first day of trading.

Toast Makes An Epic Comeback

Speaking of going public, payments company Toast is planning an IPO that could value it at $20B, according to the WSJ. While Klarna ruled out a SPAC, Toast has not. This is a crazy turnaround from where Toast was about a year ago when the pandemic was just getting started. I remember hearing about a sizable layoff at the company as revenues were declining with restaurants and others that use its payments hardware were shutting down. On top of its core point-of-sale offering, Toast also has a payroll processing service, email marketing capabilities, and lends to restaurants through Toast Capital. Toast said its revenues started to rise again last summer as restaurants transitioned to takeout and outdoor dining.

AfterPay Inks Deal With Stripe

More BNPL news. AfterPay, which has been publicly traded in Australia for a while now, has entered into a new deal with Stripe. Merchants using Stripe’s payment services will now be able to add in the ability for customers to pay via installments. With the reach of both Stripe and AfterPay on their own, this deal could be a nice growth engine for both companies.

Petal's New Debt Facility

Credit card startup Petal, which raised a $55M round late last year, has secured a $126.6M debt facility backed by Silicon Valley Bank and Trinity Capital that will help the company expand its credit card programs. With the help of machine learning, Petal aims to expand credit access and help people rebuild their credit scores. Petal added that it now has more than 100K approved cardholders, and around 70% of Petal’s card users have little to no credit history.

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​Great thread from FTT member and Astra Co-founder Gil Akos here on an exciting announcement from his company. The Astra platform for transfer automation is officially off the ground. Now, users can leverage the Astra API to easily add powerful routines to products so that users can move money automatically between bank accounts. TLDR: One step closer to self driving money!

FTT friend Jareau Wadé of Finix texted me a couple of nights ago with not one, but three exciting announcements from the company coming out this week.

• Finix has brought on three senior/C-level executives renowned tech companies
• It has now raised more than $100M in funding
• It allocated 10% of its most recent funding for Black and Latinx investors

If you want to read more about this news, here’s a link to the press release.

That's all for today's post. Premium members will hear from FTT Expert Charley Ma tomorrow when he dives into Marqeta's business model, and everyone will hear from me again on Friday to wrap up the week. See you guys soon!

Julie VerHage-Greenberg 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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