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Hi all, Julie here.

So many exciting developments! First: we’re hosting an event with Green Dot later this month here in Austin, where they just moved their HQ to! Sign up here. FTT+ members will get first dibs since space will be limited.

Second, I’m hosting an event with Matt Harris and Stephany Kirkpatrick the following day! This one is online and open to everyone. Just be sure to sign up here so you stay in the loop!

Lastly, next week we start a four part podcast series on fintech and couples finances! It feels like 2020 and 2021 are poised to be big years for this topic, so you know we had to get involved :) Subscribe to Tux Time so you don’t miss it!

Wise x Google

New partnership alert: Google is working on international money transfers with Wise and Western Union for users of its U.S. payments app. This means that people using Google Pay in the US can transfer money to app customers in other countries. The first two that will be available are India and Singapore, but there are plans to expand to the 80 countries available via Wise, and 200 via Western Union by the end of the year. This is the latest in a series of moves from Google over the last couple of years to ramp up its game in the payments space. It’ll be interesting to see if the move was too little too late, or right on time.

Better SPAC

SPACs aren’t dead...yet. Better, the mortgage startup, is planning to go public via a SPAC. It wasn’t that long ago that Better was taking a giant check from SoftBank either. One interesting thing that caught my eye in the deck was that there are a lot of other products that Better wants to get into. Credit cards, auto loans, personal loans and more. That’s very different from the Better we know today.

Brex Adds Crypto

Apparently everyone needs to add crypto to their rewards programs now, whether it’s for consumers or businesses. Brex announced it is going to let customers redeem rewards points in either Bitcoin or Ether. Tbh I’m only interested if it’s Doge or Tron. In an interview with The Block, Brex Co-CEO Henrique Dubugras said that points often just sit unused, so he figured companies might as well have the option to let the points appreciate (or depreciate). I feel like this is also a signal that companies need better rewards offerings, and users need to get better at using those points?

Index Backs LatAm’s Pomelo

Pomelo, the fintech-as-a-service startup for LatAm, announced a $9M round led by Index Ventures. Like some startups in the US, Pomelo is building an infrastructure platform that will allow companies in LatAm to launch virtual accounts and cards. By the sounds of it, the situation is much worse in LatAm than it is here in the US. According to Pomelo, it can take more than a year to launch a prepaid card. Sounds like there is definitely product market fit, now the question is whether Pomelo can execute. It has a slew of former executives from Mastercard, Google LatAm, and Mercado Pago, so I can see why Index wanted to back this firm. Will be one to watch!

More LatAm Funding With Divibank

Apparently it was LatAm funding week and I missed the memo. Divibank announced a $3.6M round of seed funding led by Better Tomorrow Ventures. The startup is a data-driven financing platform aimed at giving businesses access to non-dilutive capital to finance their growth through revenue-share financing. While it’s still only about a year old, the company says it’s signed on more than 50 clients. While it will look at opportunities to expand beyond Brazil, it sounds like this funding is going to be used to hire and launch new products and services in the region.

Chime x DJ Khaled x Spot Me

The DJ has nothing to do with the Spot Me increase from my knowledge. If he did, they obviously should have advertised in Another One. But anyways, two things on Chime. 1: the Spot Me feature now goes up to $200. 2: try to “spot them” in this music video.

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​Head of Engineering at Ensemble - Ensemble is a Fintech platform designed to help co-parents manage shared finances for their children more easily. Its first product is an expense tracking app for the 50M+ divorced parents who currently send text messages back and forth each month to track shared expenses that fall outside of child support. Ensemble is looking for a driven, empathetic, and impact seeking Head of Engineering eager to get in on the ground floor of a well funded seed stage startup with top-tier VCs (Lerer Hippeau, Citi Ventures, TTV Capital, etc.) and be an integral part of the company's success. The Head of Engineering will be responsible for recruiting and motivating an engineering team, shaping its long-term technical strategy, and partnering cross functionally to execute on its roadmap and meet its growth milestones.

Feature a job with Fintech Today:

Have you just raised a new round of financing and made hiring a top priority? Good news! Fintech Today has launched a self serve job board at jobs.fintechtoday.co. From this page, you’ll be able to select if you would like to post your job on our feed for 1, 2 or 4 weeks. You’ll also have the option of featuring your role in the Fintech Today newsletter. Over the first few days, we have seen nearly 2,000 users interacting with our platform. With limited availability, post your job today!

Lots of hiring and board news this week from members of our community:

Gig Wage: hired Robert Belskey as its VP of Finance. Robert previously worked at Bloomberg and JPMorgan. He went to UofM as well, which I will let slide ;) (I went to MSU).

Marqeta: Amy Chang, a technology executive, advisor and board director to more than a dozen companies, and Gerri Elliott, Cisco’s EVP, Chief Customer & Partner Officer, have joined our board of directors.

Nubank: Lots of additions to Nubank’s board. Jackie Reses, Luis Alberto Moreno, Daniel Goldberg and Dr. Anita Sands are getting board seats. Quite the roster.

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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