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Hi all, Julie here.

The newest episode of Tux Time is out with Katie Perry from Public! Check it out to hear us dive into the world of sports marketing and how/why fintech is suddenly more involved. Also on the topic on podcasts, John Pitts of Plaid and I recorded our second episode yesterday and it’ll be out next week. Check out our first episode here if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet :)

Reminder: we launched a new product for students! For $5/month, students can now get access to all newsletters, certain Slack channels in our Community, Q&As with founders, and more. Feel free to ping me if you have any questions, and sign up here if you wanna get started!

Today's Partner, Payitoff

Put down your NFTs for a sec, this is important

46M student loan borrowers re-enter repayment at the same time in early 2022 - a first in financial services history. The "Student Loan Tsunami" will bring devastation to American account balances, spending and credit scores.

The bad news: while there are a ton of existing federal programs available for your customers, the application process is unbearably tedious and easy to get wrong. This makes it prohibitive for the average borrower to do without the right tools, despite the fact that 47% of all borrowers financially benefit from them.

The good news: with Payitoff, you can bolt on full service student loan management in under 10 minutes, save the average user $240 / month on their next student loan payment, all while increasing spend, ADB, LTV and improving DTI.

Think of them as FEMA for your customers with student debt. Book some time with Payitoff today to see its tech in action and see how you can surf the tsunami instead of being washed away in it.

Company News

Apple Is Frustrating Banks

When Apple Pay launched (nearly a decade ago already….), it was able to get big banks like JPM, Capital One and Bank of America to agree to pay fees that would allow their cardholders to pay by iPhone. In the ~8 years since, some banks have grown unhappy with the costs, especially after Apple introduced its own credit card with Goldman in 2019. Now, some of the banks are nudging card network Visa to change the way it processes certain Apple Pay transactions, which would trim the fees that banks pay to Apple. Sounds like Visa is gonna move ahead with it too, though Apple and Visa are still in discussions. TLDR: banks currently pay a fee when customers use Apple Pay. The new system wouldn’t apply for automatic recurring payments such streaming services. Also worth noting: banks don’t pay fees to Google for its wallet.

Target Partners With Affirm and Sezzle

It was a very good week for my shares of Affirm, which surged 20%+ on the back of Target announcing a deal to start offering its customers the online lender’s installment loan service for purchases of over $100. Likewise, it announced that it’ll also offer shoppers smaller rival Sezzle’s service as well. All in time for that holiday rush. Speaking of BNPL, check out Ohad Samet’s post for us earlier this week with his argument for why it’s more than just a feature.

Funding and Deals

Car Equity

Mark Cuban backed Otto announced $4.5M in a seed round of funding. The Dallas-based startup aims to allow people to tap into their vehicle’s equity for access to credit.

The mobile platform it’s building will hope to allow customers to borrow against their vehicles at the same interest rate as standard credit cards (but without fees or overdraft charges). Also interesting, Otto won’t force people to submit FICO scores. I would say go check this out and let me know your thoughts, but it’s not set to launch until 2022. As of now, Otto says the interest rate it charges will vary, but the upper limit is 24%. It also said that it chose vehicles since it’s one of the most common and largest assets that underserved people own. It’s also one that people really don’t want to get taken away, making the loans slightly less risky than other asset classes might be.

Paytm’s IPO

India’s Paytm might be locking in some massive investors for its IPO soon. Bloomberg is reporting that the fintech giant is in talks with sovereign wealth funds and financial firms to become anchor investors in its upcoming initial public offering. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Singapore’s GIC are among those weighing bidding to participate in the IPO, as well as global financial firms such as BlackRock and Nomura. The company is considering seeking a valuation of around $20B to $22B based on initial investor feedback. For those that are less familiar with the company, it started out in payments but has since expanded into banking, credit cards, financial services and wealth management. It also supports India’s financial payments backbone, the Unified Payments Interface and has the biggest market share of India’s merchant payments. There are more than 20M partners in its network and its users make 1.4B monthly transactions. That’s….a lot.

Shopify In 30 Minutes

We all know that millennials, Gen Z and more aren’t the most patient of folks. Perhaps that’s why investors were interested in backing Mexico-based PideDirecto. The company says it’s building a platform that will enable local businesses in LatAm to sell directly to their consumers and deliver orders in less than 30 minutes. The company announced $5.25M in seed funding led by JAM FUND, with participation from Soma Capital, Acacia Ventures, Kube VC, Flexport, and Y Combinator. The company says it now has roughly 1,000 brand clients and has processed more than 500,000 orders after launching a year ago. PideDirecto charges customers like a SaaS model, with pricing starting at $1,900 a month, which includes delivery service and marketing tools.

India’s Slice Gaining Investor Interest

The startup scene in India isn’t slowing down, and it sounds like Slice has a lot of VCs calling it up. The fintech startup, which is attempting to expand the market for credit cards in India, is reportedly in talks with Tiger Global to lead a $100M+ round of funding, with Insight Partners, Ribbit Capital and Greenoaks, also taking a long look. Despite hundreds of millions of bank accounts in the nation, far fewer have credit cards. Slice has made it easier for more people to get a card and have an easy signup process. It’s now emerging as one of India’s largest card-issuing firms. The company also recently said that it issued 110,000 cards last month and has more than 3M registered members(average age of 27).

Crypto Watch

Public.com Dives Into Crypto

Speaking of Public, the social brokerage app is getting into crypto. Coins available at launch will include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ether, Dogecoin and more. It will be powered by Apex, and due to the volatility that comes with crypto, Public is going to have reminders on crypto pages so investors *have been warned* before making any decisions.

US Bank Crypto Custody

US Bank has launched a safekeeping custody service for institutional investment managers, with a focus on investment firms with private funds in the US or Cayman Islands. Bitcoin is the launch coin but other cryptocurrencies will be rolled out soon. Nydig is the first crypto sub-custodian announced in the bank’s network of providers. Regulated banks were only granted approval to offer custodial services in July of last year, so this is still a new era, and custody is certainly of growing importance as larger investors enter the space.

Together With Fintech Meetup

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​VP of Banking Products, Dave:​

Backed by Mark Cuban, Norwest Venture Partners, Financial Venture Studios, and plans to go public by the end of 2021, it’s safe to say Dave is a growing company with a growing impact. It is looking for a VP of Banking Products to lead its banking products line. You should have a track record of success in hiring, coaching and empowering product teams. Critical to your success will be your ability to build productive collaborative relationships not only within product development with Design and Engineering, but also with Data, Marketing, Product Marketing, Business Operations, Member Success, Compliance, People, Legal and Risk. You will be responsible for setting the long-term strategy of your product portfolio, while also leading your team through the near-term strategy, execution and performance against your objectives and KPIs. You should also understand the difference between product feature delivery teams and empowered product teams, and strive to foster the latter - an empowered product team culture. If this sounds like you, apply in the link above!

Congrats to FTT Expert Jenny Johnston on the new gig! So proud of you :)

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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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