FTT Update: This Newsletter Needs Help Pronouncing Zepz
Hi all, Julie here.
Fun weekend in the VerHage-Greenberg household. Planted a Fig tree, Jordan biked 30 miles, and I took a Disney class on Peloton. Highly recommend (we also have an FTTCrew hashtag that you should join). Capped it all off by catching a pretty sunset in Austin last night with a few friends at dinner.
Today's Partner, Socure
Real talk...Is your current IDV provider helping or hurting your growth?
Socure’s leading digital identity verification and trust platform is the essential technology for companies seeking a competitive edge in customer acquisition—enabling them to say yes to every good consumer instantly while reducing risk online.
Over 500 top enterprises (including 100+ of the largest fintechs) use Socure to achieve up to 98% instant verification across all ages and demographics, up to an 85% reduction in fraud rate, and much more.
See why Socure could be your new secret weapon to rapidly verifying consumers, reducing risk, and supercharging customer and revenue growth.
Don't wait until it's too late. Schedule your free assessment & demo here.
Company News
Robinhood Gets Mixed Analyst Ratings
With about a dozen Wall Street firms initiating coverage of Robinhood, the bulls and the bears were pretty evenly split. Goldman gave shares a “Neutral” rating and a $56 price target, while Mizuho gave shares a “Buy” and a $68 price target. The biggest concerns for the bears?
Uncertainty around the sustainability of retail trading levels, PFOF, and cross-selling other offerings including the checking and savings product, retirement investing and more.
Funding and Deals
Chime Acquiring Charlie
This deal makes a lot of sense. Chime tends to have customers that are more middle class than someone like SoFi or Goldman. Charlie helps people climb out of debt and manage financial health. That sounds like something Chime customers are probably asking for help with. Excited to see the products they build together!
SoftBank Bets On OPay
SoftBank’s second Vision Fund has made its first African bet, and of course it’s in fintech (since everything is fintech). Vision Fund 2 led a $400M funding round in OPay at a valuation of $2B. The Nigerian company’s mobile money and payment arm is the current hot spot, helping unbanked and underbanked users in Nigeria send and receive money and pay bills through a network of thousands of agents. Parent company Opera reported that OPay’s monthly transactions grew 4.5x to over $2B in December last year, and OPay says it processes about 80% of bank transfers among mobile money operators in Nigeria and 20% of the country’s nonmerchant point of sales transactions.
Meet Zepz (Can Someone Tell Me How To Pronounce That?)
Ummm, why are all these FX focused companies changing their names? I did not sign up for this! In other news, WorldRemit/Zepz also announced that it raised $292M in new funding that values the company at $5B.
More Latam Funding
Brazilian proptech QuintoAndar has raised an additional $120M at a $5.1B valuation in a round led by Greenoaks Capital and China’s Tencent. The startup focuses on long term rentals, helping tenants connect with landlords, as well as home buyers with sellers. And since fintech is so hot right now, it said it plans to offer mortgage, title insurance and escrow services in the future. Anyone know more about what the real estate market is like in Latam? Ping me! I’d love to dive into this a bit more.
Together With Financial Venture Studio
What do companies like Point, Flex, Dave, Reserve Trust, and Digit have in common besides being some of today’s fastest growing and most valuable businesses? They are all part of Financial Venture Studio’s portfolio. The good news? Her's your invite to sit with them.
FVS is accepting applications for Fall 2021 cohort. If you’re building an early stage startup, apply now to build the future of financial services.
Crypto Watch
FTX and Berkeley
FTX is making some big bets on sports marketing. The crypto exchange signed a 10-year deal for $17.5M with the Cal Golden Bears for a newly rebranded FTX Field. This comes after it signed a deal with the Miami Heat for FTX Arena. SoFi and Chime have also done some sports marketing like this. Who else in the fintech space am I missing? And no, Super Bowl ads don’t count.
Visa Makes An Interesting Purchase
File this under the list of things we didn’t expect to read today: Visa has just announced that it purchased a CryptoPunk NFT for $150K in Ether. Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa, wrote in a blog post that “we think NFTs will play an important role in the future of retail, social media, entertainment and commerce. To help our clients and partners participate, we need a firsthand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store and leverage an NFT.”
The Fintech Today job board has exploded with nearly 30 amazing roles added. If you want to have a role featured or are a job seeker, click here! There are now a total of 62 roles posted from Dwelling, Rize, Eco, Treasury Prime and more.
Share Fintech Today, get exclusive rewards!
Have friends who'd love our newsletter too? Give them your unique referral link (below) and the first 5 people to refer 5 new subscribers will win a FTT hat this week!
PS: You have referred 0 people so far
|
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.
Thanks for reading! If you loved it, tell your friends to subscribe ;)
113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
Older messages
FTT Update: This Newsletter Is Applying to Host Jeopardy
Friday, August 20, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. First off, huge thanks to NYC Fintech Women for the feature this morning! Honored to be sitting alongside a bunch of other amazing females in our space. Let me know who else you
FTT Guest Post: How Major Fintech Companies Are Embedding DeFi 🚀
Thursday, August 19, 2021
Hi all, Natalie here. I'm a Partner at Lightspeed based in the Bay Area, and I love working with fintech and crypto founders. The other day, I was thinking about the first time I heard about
FTT Update: This Newsletter Loves Irony More Than Jamie Dimon Does
Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. Exciting announcement for you! Starting in September, I'm going to be launching a Policy Podcast with Plaid's John Pitts! Very much excited to dive into this space as a
FTT Update: This Newsletter Is Searching For Its Valuation Too
Monday, August 16, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. Right after I sent out the newsletter on Friday, Jordan and I went to meet up with FTT Community Member Will White! For those that don't know Will, I highly recommend you
FTT Update: This Newsletter Could Get Messi
Friday, August 13, 2021
Hi all, Julie here. I got to catch up with Sandy Kemper of C2FO last week. I'll never forget the first time I met this guy from Kansas City. He came into Bloomberg HQ wearing cowboy boots and
You Might Also Like
The Simple Solution Worth Billions to Walmart and Amazon
Thursday, March 28, 2024
The following is a third-party sponsored message. It should not be considered a recommendation or endorsement by HS Dent Publishing. Dear Investor, In warfighting, there's a saying: "Amateurs
Markup matters: monetary policy works through aspirations
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Tim Willems and Rick van der Ploeg Since the post-Covid rise in inflation has been accompanied by strong wage growth, interactions between wage and price-setters, each wishing to attain a certain
🇯🇵 Japan's latest low
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Visa and Mastercard cut merchants some slack | Japan's yen hit a 30-year low against the US dollar | Finimize TOGETHER WITH Hi Reader, here's what you need to know for March 28th in 3:14
‘Out of the blue’ correction
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Bloomberg Evening Briefing View in browser Bloomberg With a number of market watchers warning of a bubble, traders are increasingly on the lookout for signs of the cliff's edge. But if you ask
🗺️ Your guide to a finance mega-trend
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Plus, “money dysmorphia” and how to choose between a 401(k) and IRA. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
How to keep your crypto gains more secured
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Don't risk losing your savings to hackers. ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Issue #231: Why some people don’t have bank accounts
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
plus speed puzzling + the quad God ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Harry's Take 3-27-24 Expecting a Deeper Recession
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
image Harry's Take March 27, 2024 Each Recession Since 1990 Has Been Deeper The 1990 recession was small and shallow. The great Baby Boom economic explosion began in 1983, anticipated by the 1982
Another reason to care about investment taxes
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Alex Kontoghiorghes Do lower taxes lead to higher stock prices? Do companies consider tax rates when deciding on their dividend pay-outs and whether to issue new capital? If you're thinking '
👀 Tesla's latest buddy
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Cocoa future prices just broke their own record | The world's biggest EV battery maker chatted up Tesla | Finimize TOGETHER WITH Hi Reader, here's what you need to know for March 27th in 3:14