Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week (in no particular order).
Wirecard: the timeline from the Financial Times (free to all) – Detailed timeline of the history of Wirecard and the spectacular fall of one of Europe’s (formerly) most valuable fintech companies.
Zopa primes credit card as long-awaited full banking licence granted from AltFi – It has been a long, hard road that started in 2016 but Zopa finally has a full UK banking license.
OnDeck Capital in high-stakes talks with creditors from American Banker – These are challenging times for small business lender OnDeck as the company tried to stay afloat.
With the PPP Fintech Comes of Age from Lend Academy – Fintech lenders reacted quickly to the PPP and have helped save millions of small business job.
Digital investing platform for women, Ellevest, expands into banking from TechCrunch – Ellevest becomes the latest fintech company to launch a bank account with a no-fee debit card and FDIC-insured savings account.
The Tiny Bank That Got Pandemic Aid to 100,000 Small Businesses from The New York Times – Great profile of Cross River Bank and how they became the fourth largest bank lender in the country for PPP loans.
Mastercard To Buy Financial Data Provider Finicity For $825M from PYMNTS – The M&A door remains open with Mastercard acquiring real time data provider Finicity for $825 million.
Checkout.com, the UK payments startup, raises another $150M, now valued at $5.5B from TechCrunch – London-based checkout.com, an API-based payments platform, became one of the most valuable fintech companies in Europe with this latest round.
Dear Monzo, Starling and co; We’re still a long way off the perfect neobank from Sifted – We are still a long way from seeing a perfect digital bank. It should have unified payments, simple access to credit and a robust savings and investment tool.
Regulators update Volcker, swaps and rate-cap rules from American Banker – While there are three updates in this article the one that is of most interest to fintech is about the Madden Fix. The FDIC issued a final rule, which applies to state nonmember banks, that reaffirmed the doctrine of “valid when made.”
