We lead the news this week with Robinhood, as they finally announced plans to go public. Large funding rounds continued and the trend of fintechs applying for banking licenses continued. And, of course, we have SPAC news. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

Robinhood files confidentially to go public from TechCrunch – The long awaited Robinhood IPO is getting closer. The popular stock trading app filed confidentially for an IPO so soon we will learn their financials and other metrics.

Revolut submits draft application for U.S. bank charter from Reuters – Leading UK digital bank Revolut has been in the US now for a while and they have showed their commitment to this country (after pulling out from Canada) by applying for a banking license.

FT Partners closes $500m Spac from Finextra – FT Partners have helped several fintech companies with SPAC deals and now they have decided to create their own SPAC.

New York Regulator Finds No Fair Lending Violations on Apple Card Applications from The Wall Street Journal – You may remember the furore in late 2019 when several people, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, complained that Goldman Sachs showed bias in their underwriting of the Apple Card. The NYDFS found no such thing.

Feedzai raises $200M at a $1B+ valuation for AI tools to fight financial fraud from TechCrunch – The biggest funding round announced this week was the $200 million Series D for Feedzai making it the latest fintech unicorn.

Global funds giant Fidelity joins the race for the first US bitcoin ETF from Business Insider – We have lost count of how many companies have filed applications with the SEC for a bitcoin ETF but this is the first one from an industry giant.

Upstart launches new offering to connect borrowers with banks from FinLedger – Upstart was in the news again this week with the launch of their Upstart Referral Network to better connect banks with personal loan borrowers.

America used to be behind on digital payments. Not any more from The Economist – With the growth of digital payments during the pandemic U.S. payments companies like PayPal, Square and Stripe are now world leaders with huge valuations to match.

Plaid accelerator announces inaugural cohort of fintech startups from TechCrunch – Plaid’s accelerator program, called FinRise, has chosen five fintech startups to join its first cohort.

In 2020 Fintechs Raised $44.4 Billion Venture Funding, A Record Amount Excluding Ant Group’s Big Raise in 2018: Research from Crowdfund Insider – Last year was a great year for fintechs looking to raise money, a record year in fact, as shown by the Pitchbook report.

It is a good time to be a fast growing fintech company. We have big funding rounds and record valuations from many of the leaders in fintech in another jam-packed week for news. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

Upstart Posts Strong Results in First Earnings Call and Announces Acquisition from Lend Academy – Upstart is the new fintech darling as they not just reported a blowout quarter in their first earnings report as a public company but raised guidance significantly for 2021.

Altimeter to Lead Plaid Deal After Scrapped Visa Merger from The Information – Speaking of fintech darlings Plaid is looking to raise $600 million at a $10-$15 billion valuation, more than double the price tag Visa put on them in early 2020.

Fintech Stripe Scores Blockbuster $95 Billion Valuation from The Wall Street Journal – Stripe remains the undisputed fintech king in this country, at least when it comes to valuation, with the news of a $600 million round that values the company at $95 billion.

Chime prepares stock market listing as online banking grows from Reuters – To the public markets is where Chime is reportedly headed with the news that preliminary talks have been held with investment banks of a possible $30 billion IPO.

Trading platform eToro to go public via SPAC merger in $10B deal from TechCrunch – While the SPAC mania of a few weeks ago is slowing down there is still one or two big fintech deals announced every week.

Are NFTs the New ICO? Could NFTs be Deemed Securities? A Top Digital Asset Attorney Explains from Crowdfund Insider – NFTs are still the flavor the month so it is good to get the opinion of an experienced attorney to weigh in on some of the unknowns.

Brian Brooks joins blockchain company Spring Labs from American Banker – While the headline is a little misleading – Brian Brooks is joining the board of Spring Labs, not taking a full time job – we have all been wondering where the former OCC head will land next.

Blend Opens Digital Front Door For Banks To Recapture Loan Business from PYMNTS – It was a big week for Blend as they announced the $500 million acquisition of Title365. Here Karen Webster sits down with Blend’s head of Finance for an in depth perspective.

Investors warm to Lending Club, the fintech that became a bank from The Financial Times – Even LendingClub has some positive momentum, ending the week up almost 50% in valuation as investors suddenly see them as a bargain in the frothy public markets for fintech.

CEO Of Fintech Lender Upstart Now A Billionaire After Shares Soar 89% In One Day from Forbes – We will bookend the news this week with another Upstart story. After their blowout earning report their stock rose 89% making CEO Dave Girouard a billionaire.

If you did not know about NFTs (non-fungible tokens) before this week it was hard to escape the news this week. We have three stories below on that topic. And, of course, there is the obligatory unicorn funding rounds and SoFi is buying a bank. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

SoFi is Acquiring a California Community Bank from Lend Academy – SoFi announced this week, that despite already having preliminary approval for a new banking license, they are acquiring a small community bank in Sacramento.

JPG File Sells for $69 Million, as ‘NFT Mania’ Gathers Pace from The New York Times – News of NFTs is everywhere right now with Beeple leading the way as he sells his digital masterpiece for $69 million.

How the NFT Boom Explains Square’s Tidal Buy from Coindesk – More on NFTs as Lex Sokolin thinks that this explains why Square acquired music streaming service Tidal.

NFTs show why banks must focus upon digital asset management from The Finanser – Ok, this is the final word on NFTs for this week but I thought Chris Skinner’s take on where we are going and what it means for banks was really interesting.

BlockFi lands a $350M Series D at a $3B valuation for its fast-growing crypto-lending platform from TechCrunch – Crypto lending platform BlockFi closes a massive round at a $3b valuation, up from a $450m valuation just last August.

Walmart’s Fintech Ambition: A Super App, Not The ‘Bank Of Walmart’ from Forbes – There has been much speculation on Walmart’s fintech ambitions but I think Ron Shevlin has the best take here.

Why screen scraping still rules the roost on data connectivity from FinLedger – Despite the prevalence of APIs today screen scraping is still the primary way data aggregators access and share your data.

Fidelity leads a $376 million investment in Starling, valuing the UK digital bank at $1.5 billion from CNBC – UK digital bank Starling finally joins the unicorn club after a big investment from Fidelity.

Challenger Cheese aims to fill banking gap in U.S.’s Asian, immigrant communities from Banking Dive – It seems that there is a digital bank for every market today with Cheese being the latest focusing on Asian immigrants.

Too many small banks are ‘digital have-nots’: FDIC innovation chief from American Banker – Penny Crosman interviews Sultan Meghji, the new innovation chief at the FDIC, to get a handle on his priorities.

This week had a bit of everything. Departures from the leading big bank fintech initiative, collapse of a fintech darling, another mega-funding round and, of course, SPAC news. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

Marcus Co-Founder Leaving for New Walmart Fintech Initiative from Lend Academy – Omer Ismail was one of the main architects of Marcus and its leader until this week. There is no way he jumps ship to Walmart unless they are brewing something very big.

Long Before Greensill Imploded, Credit Suisse Saw Danger from The Wall Street Journal – They were one of the darlings of European fintech, the kings of trade finance, until the business imploded this week.

Square becomes more reflective of Jack Dorsey the person with Tidal buy from Banking Dive – Square had two big pieces of news this week. They launched their Utah industrial bank and they acquired the streaming service Tidal.

Klarna’s Valuation Triples In Six Months To $31 Billion, Minting Two New Fintech Billionaires from Forbes – The worst kept secret in all of fintech became official this week. Klarna joins the other big three BNPL players with a monster valuation.

Insurance Startup Hippo to Go Public in $5 Billion SPAC Merger from The Wall Street Journal – Of course there is SPAC news. Leading insuretech player Hippo is raising $1.2 billion in a merger with the SPAC run by the co-founders of LinkedIn and Zynga.

Income verification is white-hot right now, and Plaid wants in from TechCrunch – Plaid launches its new income verification product this week called Plaid Income giving lenders verified and permissioned data on income and employment status.

Collectors pay big money for a slice of blockchain basketball action from The Financial Times – If you don’t yet understand NFTs you need to spend a few minutes this weekend learning about them. The NBA is leading the pack here with their Top Shots offering.

Crypto Lender’s Wall Street Ascent Is Born of Wife’s Frustration from Bloomberg – I never realized this was all Angela Ceresnie’s doing. She urged Zac Prince to do something about his love of crypto and boom BlockFi was born. Now a juggernaut with $14b in assets.

‘Change in the air’: Competition to serve unbanked at fever pitch from American Banker – There are many new initiatives that have launched recently focused on the unbanked. It feels like we are finally making inroads here.

The MLA and OLPI Merge to Form the American Fintech Council from Lend Academy – The two leading associations in the fintech lending space have merged to form the American Fintech Council, an organization that will have a powerful voice for the industry in Washington.

Look, no big SPAC news this week! But we do have IPO news, BNPL, digital banking and even Brexit coverage. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

Coinbase Is Going Public: Everything You Need To Know from Coindesk – The first mega-IPO of the year is in the works as Coinbase filed their S-1 this week for their coming direct listing.

More than half of Square’s revenue now comes from bitcoin trading from PaymentsSource – Staying with crypto it was fascinating to see Square’s earnings this week. Square’s Cash App generated $2.17 billion in revenue in Q4, 81% of which was from bitcoin trading (making them a significantly bigger player than Coinbase).

Federal Reserve Financial-Services Systems Disrupted for Hour from The Wall Street Journal – The Federal Reserve payments systems went down for several hours this week reportedly die to operator error.

Fintech Sector Needs Brexit Lift, U.K. Government Warned from Bloomberg – The U.K. released their long awaited report on fintech this week with recommendations for easing visa restrictions for tech talent, new IPO rules, creation of fintech stock indexes and relaxing capital raising rules.

Fintech firm Klarna is raising $1 billion at a $31 billion valuation, sources say from CNBC – A new mega-round is coming for Klarna, the only one of the big four BNPL players (the others are PayPal, Afterpay and Affirm) that is still a private company.

Stripe, Afterpay Join Forces To Expand BNPL To More Merchants from PYMNTS.com – Stripe will be offering a BNPL solution for all its merchants through Afterpay, starting with the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

There Are Banks For Black Americans And LGBTQ Consumers: We Need A Bank For Everyone from Forbes – Ron Shevlin looks at the personalized offerings from many of the new challenger banks and how they are different to what traditional banks are doing.

New FDIC CIO: ‘Technology is the best enabler of banking the unbanked’ from Banking Dive – The FDIC finally has its first Chief Innovation Officer, Sultan Meghji, who among other things will focus on bringing more underserved people into the financial mainstream.

Varo unveils the Varo Believe Program for American to build Credit from IBS Intelligence – Varo launches Varo Believe, a program aimed at helping people build credit through a unique credit card offering and credit monitoring services.

Kabbage Co-Founder Muses On Alt Lending, Fintech Trends, And More from Forbes – Kathryn Petralia, co-founder of Kabbage, talks with Forbes about fintech trends, the small business outlook, and how fintechs will replace banks as the face of money management.

The three hot themes in fintech news this past week were crypto, SPACs and buy now pay later, similar to many weeks so far this year. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

Tesla buys $1.5 billion in bitcoin, plans to accept it as payment from CNBC – We kicked the week off with the big news from Tesla that they had acquired $1.5 billion of bitcoin in January; bitcoin predictably soared on the news.

Mastercard to Support Some Cryptocurrencies on Its Network from The Wall Street Journal – More good news for crypto investors as Mastercard indicated it will support some cryptocurrencies directly on its network as more people are using cards to buy crypto as well as using cards to spend their crypto.

Bitcoin to Come to America’s Oldest Bank, BNY Mellon from The Wall Street Journal – The nation’s oldest bank gives us a trifecta of big crypto news as it announces that it will “hold, transfer and issue bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on behalf of its asset-management clients.”

Mobile bank MoneyLion to go public via blank-check merger in $2.9 billion deal from Reuters – MoneyLion becomes the latest fintech to jump on the SPAC bandwagon as they announced a $2.9 billion deal with Fusion Acquisition Corp.

OppFi is the latest fintech to go public via SPAC from American Banker – Opploans announced a rebrand to OppFi as they will also go public by merging with FG New America Acquisition Corp., an Illinois-based SPAC. (I will have more on this and the MoneyLion SPAC next week).

Ex-SoFi CEO Starts Blank-Check Company to Raise $250 Million from Bloomberg – Mike Cagney has decided to join the SPAC party as he files paperwork with the SEC for Figure Acquisition Corp. I and intends to raise $250 million.

Klarna’s valuation set to triple to $30bln, says report from Fintech Futures – Privately held Swedish BNPL giant is reportedly looking to raise $500 million at a $25b – $30b valuation. They also announced the launch of bank accounts in Germany.

Inside The Billion-Dollar Plan To Kill Credit Cards from Forbes – Good profile on Max Levchin, CEO and co-founder of Affirm, and the early days of Affirm as well as how it became a BNPL juggernaut.

Survey Reveals a Hidden Customer Exodus in Banking from The Financial Brand – An interesting global survey of 56,000 consumers by Bain & Company shows that banks are losing business to their fintech rivals even as they keep their customers’ core checking account.

LoanDepot raises just $54M in downsized IPO from HousingWire – Mortgage lender loanDepot went public this week in a downsized IPO that raised just $54 million after indicating initially they would raise more than $360 million.

While the news this week was dominate by the Robinhood saga there was plenty of important fintech news that happened including a massive new round by the world’s most valuable digital bank. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

GameStop Stock Game Got Stomped from Bloomberg – My favorite take on the Robinhood/GameStop drama from this past week came from Matt Levine. This is a long read but a thorough look at what actually happened this week.

Fintech darling Nubank raises blockbuster $400M Series G at $25B valuation from TechCrunch – It is difficult to overstate the importance of Nubank not just to Brazil but to all of Latin American fintech. To go from 12 million customers in 2019 to 34 million today with zero marketing spend is an incredible achievement.

Plaid launches Deposit Switch to help banks, fintechs compete for direct deposits from Banking Dive – Plaid launched a new product this week that makes it easier and faster for consumers to change their bank destination for paychecks.

Jack Ma’s Ant Plans Major Revamp in Response to Chinese Pressure from The Wall Street Journal – Chinese regulators have told Ant Group they need to become a bank holding company and the fintech behemoth is putting together a plan to do just that.

Coinbase Chooses Direct Listing Route to Public Markets from Crunchbase – Coinbase is eschewing the traditional IPO route in favor of a direct listing.

VCs flood into banking-as-a-service from The Financial Times – The banking-as-a-service/embedded finance segment is one of the hottest segments in all of fintech.

FedNow Details Pilot Program Participants from PYMNTS – Instant payments is on the horizon as the Federal Reserve announced the list of the more than 100 companies that will be participating in the pilot program.

JPMorgan Funds $686 Million in Mortgages Through London Fintech from Bloomberg – LendInvest has closed a £500 million deal with JPMorgan Chase to invest in UK buy-to-let property loans.

Digital Banking: US based Current Says it Helped Consumers Save Over $100 Million in Overdraft Fees from Crowdfund Insider – I am a big fan of companies that help reduce overdraft fees and Current is helping its two million customers do just that.

Small-Business Owners Promised More PPP Loan Application Help from The Wall Street Journal – Yes, the new round of PPP loans is ongoing and it is not surprising that there have been some new glitches.

In was another super busy news week with some major financings. a blockbuster IPO and a merger divorce. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

LendingClub Receives Final Approval for its Acquisition of Radius Bank from Lend Academy – It ended up taking less than 12 months to get approval for the first acquisition of a bank by a fintech lender.

Scoop: Chime’s fee income from Axios – While I saw some dispute on the exact numbers on Twitter, it appears that Chime derives a good chunk of its revenue from ATM fee income.

Plaid launches FinRise, an incubator for underrepresented fintech founders from TechCrunch – Plaid is launching in incubator targeted at startups led by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan Chase should absolutely be ‘scared s—less’ about fintech threat from CNBC – The CEO of this country’s largest bank gave us a quote for the ages about how large banks should think about fintechs.

Monzo founder Tom Blomfield is quitting the digital bank after asking execs for “help” from Sifted – The founder of one of the leading UK digital banks is calling it quits, saying he no longer enjoyed his job.

Fintech Expert Discusses how We can Best Understand 100x Revenue Multiples for Affirm, Checkout.com, Rapyd, Other Financial Tech Giants from Crowdfund Insider – Lex Sokolin shared a Twitter thread that unpacked his reasoning for the crazy high valuations of fintech companies recently.

BlackRock Gives 2 Funds Go-Ahead to Invest in Bitcoin Futures from Coindesk – In yet another sign of more mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency the world’s largest asset manager will allow two of its funds to invest in bitcoin futures.

TransferWise reportedly appoints Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to steer it through LSE float from AltFi – One of the most successful European fintechs is moving closer to an IPO.

PPP Covid-19 Small-Business Aid Reopens With 60,000 Loans from The Wall Street Journal – The PPP is off to a slow start, although that was intentional, as community financial institutions had first go at the relief money.

Goldman’s consumer bank will take longer to break even, CEO says from American Banker – Goldman Sachs reported earnings this week with all kinds of information about Marcus.

In was another super busy news week with some major financings. a blockbuster IPO and a merger divorce. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

Affirm’s IPO Takes Off Like a Rocket Ship from Lend Academy – Affirm had what can only be called a blockbuster IPO this week. It priced at $49, closed the first day (Wednesday) at $97.24 and ended the week at $117 with a valuation north of $28 billion.

Visa Abandons Planned Acquisition of Plaid After DOJ Challenge from The Wall Street Journal – The Visa and Plaid merger, first announced a year ago this week, has been canceled. Probably a good thing for Plaid as they can now explore the oh-so-hot public markets (see above) and they have added 60% more paying customers in the past year.

Checkout.com raises $450 million and reaches $15 billion valuation from Techcrunch – The most valuable fintech in Europe is Checkout.com after their monster funding round (the eight biggest rounds of the week totaled over $2 billion).

Walmart to launch fintech startup with partner Ribbit Capital from Banking Dive – While details are almost non-existent this made big news this week because, hey, it’s Walmart getting into fintech.

What banks, fintechs can learn from Simple’s rise and sudden death from American Banker – One of the very first fintechs, Simple, closed down this week with users being folded into BBVA, that purchased the company in 2014.

OCC Chief Brian Brooks Is Stepping Down Thursday from Yahoo Finance – After a busy eight months in the job, probably the most forward thinking OCC head ever, Brian Brooks, stepped down this week.

Get ready for self-driving banks from the Financial Times – As a parting gift the aforementioned Brian Brooks penned this fascinating op-ed in the FT on the future of banking (spoiler alert: he likes DeFi).

Goldman Sachs Inches Closer to Offering Marcus Checking Accounts from Bloomberg – Details are starting to emerge about Goldman Sachs’ new consumer checking account that will debut later this year with Marqeta powering some of the tech.

Analysis: Digital banks gain U.S. customers during pandemic, thanks to early deposits from Reuters – It was a good last year for digital banks like Chime, Varo and Current that collectively added millions of customers.

Anchorage Becomes First OCC-Approved National Crypto Bank from Coindesk – Crypto custodian Anchorage received preliminary approval for a national trust charter from the OCC this week, the first crypto startup to receive this designation.