One of the biggest questions the crypto and blockchain communities have yet to answer is when would these technologies reach...
In this conversation, Max Friedrich of ARK Invest, Will and Lex break down Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO.
Ant, a spinout from Alibaba and the parent of Alipay, one of China’s leading payments companies, filed papers to IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Max, Will and Lex dig into Ant’s business, from the origins to today, discuss growth opportunities and potential headwinds and explore the multi-faceted relationships between Ant and other big tech companies and national governments.
We cannot understate how impressive Ant Financial has become, connecting 700 million people and 80 million merchants in China, with payments, savings, wealth management and insurance products integrated in one package. The company also highlights the likely road for traditional banks — as underlying risk capital, without much technology or client management.
This week, we look at:
The financial model behind Monzo, and comparisons to Revolut and Starling
How the Eastern super apps inspired the marketplace model, and why that success is hard for neobanks to replicate
Paths from losing $100 million per year to break-even and enabling digital assets and other financial products
Facebook Financial forming to take over payments and commerce
The pandemic has helped many fintech firms prove their worth even if there has been a fair share of down...
Payments fintech Marqeta’s valuation could reach as high as $8bn when the company goes public in early 2021; the company...
In this conversation, Will and I break down a few important pieces of recent news. MetaMask, the crypto wallet, hit 1 million month active users in yet another sign of the acceleration of retail adoption.
Square’s market cap is now equal to that of American Express, and the former also announced it has purchased $50 million of Bitcoin with its balance sheet. What do these pieces of news mean?
Greenwood Financial launched, a neobank led by Andrew J. Young, a civil rights legend, Killer Mike, a rapper and activist, and Ryan Glover, founder of Bounce TV network. How much scope is there for financial services for affinity groups instead of traditional geographical or product coverage areas?
This week, we look at:
PayPal and Square being larger than Bank of America and Goldman Sachs
The SoftBank $4 billion in tech oligopoly call options, and why people feel uneasy
Uniswap vs. SushiSwap, and Bitcoin vs. Litecoin, and why these forks felt wrong
How understanding signalling can help make better decisions
In this conversation, we break down recently published annual reports from Revolut, Starling and Monzo, three of the leading European digital banks. There are some fascinating insights to be drawn from the documents, especially in the context of the broader global fintech market. This is rich subject matter, and we surely didn’t cover everything.
The current pandemic has shaken our world in ways most of us could not even imagine and fintech companies have...
Square has been one of the best performing fintech companies during the pandemic and their stock has risen to record...