​

Hi all, Julie here.

Somehow, Jordan rode 110 miles and climbed 12k feet cycling on Saturday. Max Levchin would be proud.

On another note, I'm now the proud owner of julieverhage.eth. I have no idea what this means, but I do know that gas fees make no sense. I'm just hoping for some sort of airdrop now that helps me pay back the $175 I paid for my domain.

Today's Partner, ComplyAdvantage

Challenger and neobanks are redefining how consumers worldwide access and interact with their money. But how can a digital bank structure and build an AML program that can scale with its business? This new report from ComplyAdvantage, based on interviews with digital banks and global experts, is a hands-on guide for compliance teams in the sector. Download today!

Company News

Amazon Might Be Leaving Visa

Amazon is considering shifting its popular co-brand credit card to Mastercard as tensions continue with Visa, according to Bloomberg. Amazon already banned Visa cards in the U.K. starting next year. This would be a huge win for Mastercard, as Amazon’s co-branded credit card is one of the largest in the industry. This might also just be a way to get better terms from Visa. Analysts at KBW said they expect the dispute to be resolved, but that it’s not a good sign. “It is clearly not a positive development that Amazon is trying to change consumer behavior, thereby validating investor fears related to open banking and other emerging alternative forms of payments,” they wrote in a note. I’ll be watching this one closely for its broader implications.

Funding and Deals

More African Funding

Kenyan fintech startup Cellulant is planning another round of fundraising, according to Bloomberg. CEO Akshay Grover said in an interview that it was considering raising as much as $150M by the first quarter of 2022. Today, Cellulant says it helps conduct $1B of transactions every month, according to Grover. Other African fintech companies including Chipper Cash and Flutterwave are seeing crazy growth as younger people want more digital experiences but the financial infrastructure kinda sucks. I'm fascinated by all things African fintech.

Opportun Buys Digit

Fintech lender Opportun announced plans to buy Digit, an online banking platform. In a press release, the company said the move is meant to help it offer an “unmatched neobanking platform with A.I.-driven lending, saving, investing, and banking capabilities tailored to the needs of hardworking people.” Oportun had applied for a bank charter late last year and decided to withdraw the application, partly because of the potential Digit deal. The company’s CEO said it plans to resubmit the application, but there’s no tentative date as of now. In the meantime, Opportun will pay about $212.9M in equity and cash for Digit, which will continue to be led by its founder and CEO Ethan Bloch, with all employees joining Oportun. Founded in 2013, Digit has about 600k paying members and uses AI to help consumers figure out how much money they can stash into savings without making it hard to pay bills.

Mexican BNPL

When we think of BNPL, we often think of the US, Europe and Australia thanks to Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay. However, it’s far broader than that. Just a few months after securing a $5M seed round, Mexican BNPL startup Aplazo has announced a $27M round led by Oak HC/FT. The company plugs into a merchant’s payment process, online or offline, and enables users to purchase items and pay in five equal installments without needing a credit card. For Mexico in particular, the offline component is crucial, as the firm says that 95% of purchases are still made offline in the region. Much like other BNPL startups, the merchant is charged a fee to use the tool, but customers are not, and Alplazo takes on the risk of installment payments and chargebacks.

Zero Hardware Payments

SMBs in many parts of the world have plenty of access to hardware that can help them accept several forms of payments. In emerging markets, that’s not always the case. Fintech startup Nomod is helping these SMBs bypass the card terminal by providing a platform to accept card payments on their phone with no extra hardware. And of course, the company has garnered a good amount of interest and is announcing a $3.4M seed round at a $50M valuation. The broader plan is to help merchants with account access, cards, local payment networks and lending. Since officially launching in March 2021, Nomod has acquired ~4,500 merchants and its total processed volume has grown 11.5x and is on an annualized run rate of $7M.

Crypto Watch

SEC Looking At BlockFi

BlockFi is being scrutinized by the SEC over its popular staking product that pays customers high interest rates for lending out their digital tokens. The SEC review focuses on whether the BlockFi accounts, which tout annual yields as high as 9.5%, are akin to securities that should be registered with the regulator, according to Bloomberg. States including New Jersey and Texas have already taken action against BlockFi, questioning whether it’s marketing illicit financial products that lack bedrock consumer protections. While this adds to its list of legal woes, it has large backers behind it including Bain Capital, Tiger Global, Paradigm, Kenetic and Galaxy Digital.

Paradigm’s New Fund

Speaking of Paradigm, the crypto VC firm started by Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam and former Sequoia Capital partner Matt Huang has closed a $2.5B venture fund. I’ll save you the time and let you know that that’s the largest crypto fund ever (previous was a $2.2B crypto-centric fund from a16z). Other than BlockFi, some of its most high-profile investments include FTX, Coinbase, Maker, and Uniswap.

Together With Fintech Meetup

An Online Event that Delivers Real Results? Hell Yeah! Fintech Meetup’s meetings-only format is focused on just one thing--getting you the opportunities you need to drive your business forward. With 30,000+ meetings, you can fill your pipeline, create partnerships, close deals, get funding, find investment targets, make announcements (and many other use cases).

Who’s coming? Everyone. Meet with 3,000+ participants from:

• Fintechs including Akoya, Alliance Data, Alloy, Alviere, Argyle, Autobooks, Azimuth, Botdoc, Certa, Checkout.com, Dave, FISPAN, MANTL, Nuance, Nymbus, Revolut, Ripple, Signal Intent, Sila, Socure, Synctera, Urban FT (to name just a few!)
• Banks including Bank of America, Citi, Federal Reserve, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Santander, Wells Fargo & more
• Networks including American Express, Discover, Mastercard & Visa
• Investors including Bain Capital, General Atlantic, Mosaik Partners, Next Level, Point 72, Vestigo Ventures & more
• Plus Credit Unions, CUSOs, Community Banks, Tech Cos and more!

Online, March 22-24. Qualifying Startups get special startup rate tickets, qualifying Banks & Credit Unions eligible for FREE tickets. Get Your Ticket!​

​Senior Software Engineer at Moov

​Developer Advocate at Moov

Two awesome remote roles for the job board today. Moov is empowering innovation by helping platforms and creators build payments solutions with ease and speed. The team believes that every software is becoming a payments company, and by equipping developers with the best tools we can tackle complex problems together.

First up: Senior software engineer. In this role, you'll be on the front end of next-generation financial products, owning the full release lifecycle from feature development to public and hosted release.

Next, a brand new role for the company as a developer advocate. Here, you’ll identify external opportunities to engage audiences to build awareness, excitement, and engagement around Moov OSS libraries and integration capabilities. You will build and maintain a strong and credible presence in the developer community by writing technical blog posts, demos, and documentation for Moov's SDKs and APIs. Reporting to our Director of Ecosystem Partnerships you will be a key part of our company’s success and will be part of a rapidly scaling company.

If either of these roles sound like the right fit for you, apply above!

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! https://sparklp.co/d848d352 PS: You have referred 0 people so far ⚡️ Powered by SparkLoop

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.

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205