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.”
Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of LendIt Fintech, the world’s first and largest digital media and events company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series. Peter has been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, CNBC, CNN, Fortune, NPR, Fox Business News, the Financial Times, and dozens of other publications.