Welcome back to The exchange, where we take a look at the hottest fintech news of the past week. If you want to get The Interchange straight to your inbox every Sunday, head over here to sign!
What a year
This is the last edition of The Interchange for 2023 — it’s hard to believe the year is almost over.
It’s been an eventful 12 months, even if funding has been tight. We’ve seen a bunch of M&A activity (read about it here , here , here , and here ), BNPL making a comeback (sort of), new fintech-focused venture capital raises (Flourish and Vesey), some startup shutdowns ( Daylight is an example) and more layoffs than we’d like.
And, remember when FedNow launched in the US in July? Then there were 35 financial institutions on the list, and five months later, more than 330 of them are on the network.
It’s never a dull day in the world of fintech. For a broader look back, stay tuned before the end of the year for a deeper dive into the top fintech stories we covered.
Until then, we wanted to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to all of you, our readers, for supporting us throughout the year. We know you have a plethora of fintech newsletters to choose from, so the fact that you signed up and keep coming back means the world to us.
As we head into 2024, we wish you and your families a wonderful holiday season and a new year filled with much love, peace and happiness. We are grateful to you. — Mary Ann and Christine
Weekly news
Christine reported layoffs at Bolt, an e-commerce and fintech company that was once the subject of a federal investigation. The company, through a spokesperson, confirmed that the one-click checkout company has laid off 29% of its staff. In an emailed statement, a Bolt spokesman said the company made the cuts to drive Bolt to “an operating model optimized for sustainable growth and efficiency” so it could be built “with the speed and agility that required for the next phase of our business. .” We’ve been following Bolt for years, and this new round of job cuts is the latest in a handful of layoffs starting in 2022. In May 2022, Mary Ann reported that at least 185 employees, or a third of its workforce , it was probably Bolt, which provides software to retailers to speed cash registers, has raised about $1 billion in venture-backed funding overall and was once valued at $11 billion.
Mary Ann reported on some high profile executive departures this week. He gave the news that Credit Karma Co-founder Nichole Mustard would be leaving after more than 16 years with the company. Mustard’s decision to step down marks the third known high-profile executive departure at Credit Karma in 2023. She then wrote about how Open door Co-founder Eric Wu is leaving the fintech real estate company after 9 years to return to his startup roots. It’s worth noting that Wu has invested in startups during his time at Opendoor. According CrunchbaseWu has backed dozens of companies, including Airtable, Scribe, Roofstock and the now-defunct Zeus Living.
On TC+, Jacquelyn Melinek wrote about the fact that while Robin HoodIts foray into crypto isn’t necessarily new, the company is still trying to expand its efforts there — even to groups that have typically shied away from the platform. “I think crypto has always been made by very technical people and for technical people,” said Johann Kerbrat, general manager of crypto at Robinhood. The Chain Reaction podcast. “At the end of the day, I think customers, when they’re using encryption, they don’t really care what the protocol is underneath it? What network are you using? They just want the thing to work.”
Other items we read
Google Pay will add BNPL options in early 2024 (In October, Apple made Apple Pay Later available to all users in the United States, after initially rolling it out to a limited number of users in March.)
Visa acquires Brazilian fintech Pismo in $1 billion deal (See TechCrunch’s coverage of how the Pismo/Visa acquisition came about in the first place.)
Dallas-based Apex Fintech Solutions is filing for an IPO in its second public offering
Melio makes payments in real time
HR technology platform Checkr advances payments for gig workers
Deel launches a compliance hub
Pay off partners with Green Dot to enable cash bill payment
Klarna plans to replace workers with artificial intelligence to increase profitability
Neobank’s new chatbot Dave achieves 89% resolution rate, CEO says (Visit here to read a Q&A Mary Ann conducted with founder Dave in March.)
Financing and mergers and acquisitions
As seen on TechCrunch:
SumUp raises €285m more in growth funding to weather fintech storm
Comun channels local banking approach to serve Latino immigrants
British International Investment backs India’s Aye Finance with $37 million in funding
Hyperplane wants to bring artificial intelligence to banks
Kapital secures $165 million in equity and debt to provide financial visibility to LatAm SMEs
Prevu’s home selling process credits home buyers with cash back rebates
Seen elsewhere:
Stairs Financial platform launches to help first-time homebuyers
Waste management payment company CurbWaste raises $10 million
Fintech startup Pontera raises $60 million and plans more hiring in Israel
In January, Series B funding of $12 million closes
Necto raises $8 million in seed funding
HSBC supports Aii’s decarbonisation grant fund
E-commerce lender SellersFi secures credit facility led by Citi
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin
