Being a direct-to-consumer fintech can be expensive and difficult.
The path to profitability is often a long and winding one, so we have seen several companies pivot to B2B in the last year or so.
Stripe has, for some time, been one of the leading fintech companies globally when it comes to scale.
But the numbers it revealed today in its annual letter are truly staggering. It processed $1 trillion, around 1% of global GDP, through its platform in 2023. It crossed that milestone just 15 years after it was founded.
In the kickoff to the Holiday shopping season, consumers are spending, with retail sales up 1.1% and e-commerce sales up 8.5% according to Mastercard SpendingPulse.
Fintech infrastructure is still hot. As earnings season wraps up, we heard from nCino yesterday as they reported on their fiscal first quarter, which ended on April 30.
The long-awaited new overdrafts rule from the CFPB was unveiled today.
Since Rohit Chopra took over as head of the CFPB in 2021, they have made it clear that they were going after overdraft fees and this proposed rule is the culmination of those efforts.
You could say Banking as a Service is under siege.
The number of severe enforcement actions BaaS banks received skyrocketed in 2023 to 13.5% of the total. When you consider there are probably only around 100 banks out of 4,800 that are involved in banking as a service, you can see why this number is disturbing.
UK digital banking pioneer Monzo reported its financial results for the 2023-24 fiscal year today.
The numbers are impressive. Total revenue was £880 million for the year, more than 2x the £356 million from the previous year.
In June of last year, Robinhood announced it was acquiring the credit card startup X1.
Today, we learned about the fruits of that transaction: a new Gold Card from Robinhood.
It has finally happened. More than a decade after receiving the first spot bitcoin ETF application the SEC gave its approval yesterday.
While this was widely expected, it wasn't a slam dunk as demonstrated by the tight vote: 3-2 in favor with SEC Chair Gary Gensler providing the deciding vote.
Today, Google has announced a pilot program with Affirm and Zip to bring BNPL natively into the Google Pay wallet.
Consumers continue to choose BNPL as a payment option and its popularity continues to grow, particularly during the holiday shopping season.