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Hi all, Julie here. I’m currently buried under a bunch of stuff in my Toyota Rav4 on the way to Austin. No Toyota didn’t sponsor this newsletter, nor did the amazing Roadway Moving Company that we used, but I can’t recommend either of them enough.

Anyways, while I'm driving across the country, you should read this newsletter and check out the job postings we have from Affirm and Orum today.

Robinhood Confetti

I think we all saw this one coming: Robinhood announced in a blog post that it would no longer greet users with confetti after they trade. The move comes as the company has filed to go public and Congress/regulators expressed concerns over the gamification on the app. Now if only Ian and I could figure out a way to have confetti populate your computer/phone whenever you opened our newsletter…

Goldman Offering Bitcoin to Clients

Goldman Sachs is close to offering its first investment vehicles for Bitcoin and other digital assets to clients of its private wealth management group, according to CNBC. The bank aims to begin offering investments in the emerging asset class in the second quarter. It’s unclear what vehicles the bank will ultimately choose, but it may offer Bitcoin investment funds, similar to those that Morgan Stanley recently announced, as well as other ways to invest. Goldman is currently in the process of securing approvals from regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the New York Department of Financial Services.

HighRadius Funding

Old school companies are in again! HighRadius, which specialises in AI-powered order-to-cash and treasury management software, has hit a $3.1B valuation off the back of a $300M Series C funding round led by D1 Capital and Tiger Global. The Houston-based startup provides its integrated platform for accounts receivables and treasury management to more than 400 firms, including Citi and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Afterpay Launches Virtual Card

If you’ve been following the Buy Now Pay Later space closely, you’ll know that figuring out how to expand these options to in-store POS has been a bit tricky. While consumers are definitely warming up to the idea of using these options online, doing it at a cash register is more challenging. That’s where virtual cards come in. Australian BNPL giant Afterpay is stepping up its move into in-store payments through the introduction of a contactless virtual card offering. To make an in-store purchase, customers hit the card icon in the Afterpay app, activating the card and then add it to Apple Pay or Google Pay. As with online Afterpay purchases, customers can pay in four installments, without any fees or interest.

PayPal Users Can Pay With Crypto

PayPal customers in the US can now pay at millions of online merchants around the world with a select group of digital currencies. Users can select Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum or Bitcoin Cash as a payment option. PayPal’s feature will be converting the user’s crypto holdings into a fiat currency. While there are no transaction fees, buying something with crypto is a taxable event. The option will automatically appear in the PayPal wallet at checkout for customers with sufficient cryptocurrency balance to cover an eligible purchase.

Beam Is Shut Down By FTC

Mobile savings app Beam has been shut down for good under a tentative settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The company took a major hit last year after a CNBC report found that dozens of customers were unable to get money out of their accounts. As a result, Beam is banned from operating a mobile banking app or any other product or service that can be used to deposit, store, or withdraw funds. The company has been ordered to refund approximately $2.6M in customer deposits and interest.

Chinese Debut Disappoints

Speaking of going public, Chinese fintech firm Bairong fell in its debut in Hong Kong. The disappointing debut comes amidst a global selloff in China’s tech sector. The artificial intelligence-powered platform closed 16% lower on Wednesday, making it the worst debut among IPOs exceeding $500M in Hong Kong in three years. Will be interesting to see how Coinbase, Robinhood and others that go public in the US in the coming weeks fair.

Walgreens Bank Account

Walgreens is the latest retailer to get into the fintech space, launching its own mobile and online bank account in partnership with InComm Payments and Meta Bank. The account comes with a Mastercard debit card and mobile spend tracking features and is set to be available in the second half of 2021.

*Our sponsorship calendar for Q2 is nearly full! To learn more about sponsorship opportunities email jordan@fintechtoday.co

Two job postings today from well known companies in our space:
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1. ​Machine Learning Engineer at Orum: Orum is building frictionless financial infrastructure to move money faster & smarter. It's a team of fintech veterans from the likes of LearnVest, N26, Stash, and Square backed by some of the best names in fintech, including Bain, Homebrew and Inspired Capital. It's looking for several key Machine Learning Engineers to not only scale ML models across large-scale data sets and distributed systems, but also to take on the pivotal role of defining our data systems architecture. If you’d like to play a part in crystallizing the vision of a world where the movement of money is real time and fully automated, the team would love to hear from you!
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2. ​Strategic Partnerships Manager - New Partnerships at Affirm: This role is responsible for identifying and executing new partnerships to help Affirm expand distribution and grow its merchant and consumer networks exponentially! This person will have extensive experience autonomously generating new business, navigating partnerships, a deep payments expertise, and will work cross-functionally to identify, structure, and execute some of Affirm’s largest and most strategic deals.

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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