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Hi all, Julie here.

I recorded a podcast with TheZebra CEO Keith Melnick this week, and it was fascinating to hear how Covid has impacted the business. While a lot of people used to shop for insurance in person and through agents, it’s safe to say that online marketplaces are having a moment. Definitely tune in. All our episodes are only ~20 minutes so they’re super easy to get through. I’m recording with Alto CEO Eric Satz right after I’m done writing this too, and I’m stoked to hear his thoughts on all things Roth IRAs after the Thiel story from ProPublica this week. This episode will air Monday.

Today's Partner, Laika

Compliance has become a requirement to sell upmarket. Every modern company needs reports like SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA to prove that their business is credible, established, and ready to protect proprietary or personal information.

But realistically, maintaining an effective compliance posture is time-consuming. Even for experienced professionals, navigating the landscape of security and privacy can take a significant amount of research and effort. From SOC 2 to ISO 27001 to HIPAA, PIPEDA...the list goes on, more and more companies are leaning on compliance firms to help with regulations that are rapidly growing.

Laika helps businesses comply with thousands of requirements from regulators, auditors, security teams, and enterprise partners all around the world. With their hybrid software-and-expert approach, Laika takes charge of your entire compliance posture comprehensively.

​Check them out​

Robinhood Restricts IPO Flipping

This is a good move since access to these shares will be limited, but I’d assume a lot of Robinhood users don’t hold trades for a long time either. While it’s not a hard and fast rule, if users sell within the first 30 days of trading, they will likely be limited from participating in future offerings.

"We won't prevent you from selling shares you get through the IPO Access program...However, if you sell IPO shares within 30 days of the IPO, it's considered ‘flipping’ and you'll be restricted from participating in IPOs for 60 days."

SoFi, which also launched a similar product, restricts this as well.

Visa Buys Plaid Competitor

We all knew something like this was coming. Our very own Michael Jenkins was way ahead of the game on this too with his post on Plaid’s European competitors in February. The Visa-Tink deal is valued at north of $2B for 10-year-old the Swedish startup (it had a valuation of around $800M in December). Tink also boasts PayPal, Klarna, NatWest, BNP, Nordea and SEB among its customers (PayPal is also an investor). The open banking market looks a lot different in Europe than it does in the US, with screen scraping heavily restricted since ~2018, it’s going to be interesting to see how a big guy like Visa coming in changes the dynamics. Check out Michael’s piece for a great primer.

Deserve Raises New Round

Credit card startup Deserve announced a $50M funding round led by Mission Holdings, Mastercard and Ally Ventures. The company said it wants to use the funding to continue modernizing the credit card stack, and enable the industry to launch and scale credit card programs quickly through modern APIs. Deserve’s enhanced underwriting provides flexibility to partners that extends beyond FICO scores and leverages income and employment data to improve approval rates and credit performance. TLDR: Deserve wants to reduce credit card churn and enhance the underwriting process.

Crypto Watch

Gemini and Carbon Emissions

By now we all know there is a debate on whether Bitcoin is bad for the environment. Gemini is now promising to offset its carbon emissions. The company announced it has joined Climate Vault (a non-profit founded at the University of Chicago) to remove nearly 350K tons of Bitcoin-related CO2 from the atmosphere.

Bakkt Launches Debit Card

Bakkt announced a fully virtual debit card with Visa. The “Bakkt Card” will let customers use their Bitcoin and cash balances to purchase everyday goods and services online or in-store wherever Apply Pay or Google Pay are accepted.

Alipay Launches In-App NFT Sales

It has been WEEKS since we’ve reported on anything NFT, so here’s our monthly quota. Alipay, which is one of China’s largest payment service providers, now allows users to purchase NFTs directly from the app. The only catch is that users must pay with fiat currency (renminbi), which is due to the limitations China has recently enacted on financial institutions and their ability to transact cryptocurrencies. The digital assets will be stored on the AntChain, which is an enterprise blockchain used to issue NFT tokens and certificates. This is further proof that China remains bullish on blockchain technology, especially as it works to build out its own central bank digital coin - the digital yuan.

In its one month of existence, the Fintech Today job board has had nearly 10,000 views and 300 applications submitted. Whether you’re looking to break into fintech, or an experienced operator, head to jobs.fintechtoday.co for some amazing opportunities.

Also, if you’re like so many others in our space and hiring like crazy, Fintech Today Jobs is the perfect place to have your role seen by quality candidates. Head on over and click on “post a job” to get started today. If you're looking for a new gig, check out roles from companies like Spruce, Stripe, Square, and Ramp :)

Congrats to Fintech Today subscriber and friend David Haber on being named the next General Partner at a16z! Excited to see the deal you lead at the firm and what themes you dive into.

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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