Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
Ex-SoFi CEO’s company Figure seeks national bank charter from Banking Dive – Mike Cagney keeps pushing the ball forward. Figure is applying for a bank charter to try to consolidate its compliance efforts.
Better.com snags $200 million in series D funding for $4 billion valuation from FinLedger – Mortgage lender Better.com has grown tremendously this year, funding $2.5 billion a month in loans in October, and now they have a bigger cash war chest in their run up to a potential IPO next year.
Why PPP fraud hit fintechs harder than banks from American Banker – The full story of PPP fraud is still yet to be written. As Penny Crosman points out more fraud has been detected from fintech lenders but is this because fintechs are better at identifying fraud or did the fraudsters attack fintechs more than banks?
This fintech-focused VC firm just closed a $75 million debut fund; backers ‘came out of the woodwork’ from TechCrunch – Sheel Mohnot, formerly of 500 Startups and Jake Gibson, co-founder of NerdWallet, have started a new early stage venture firm, Better Tomorrow Ventures, with a $75 million initial fund.
Prize-linked savings accounts get a boost from flood of new deposits from American Banker – I am a big fan of anything that can get people saving more so the deposit growth numbers from credit union savings program, Save to Win, are worth highlighting.
Federal Lawsuit Points to Payments’ Future from The Wall Street Journal – Whether or not the Department of Justice is successful in stopping the Visa acquisition of Plaid, it could well change the financial services landscape forever.
Fintech Unicorns Flywire And AvidXchange Are Planning To Go Public In 2021 from Forbes – Two well established fintech companies are have been growing fast in 2020 and looking to go public next year.
BBVA and Prosper partner to offer digital home equity lines from American Banker – Prosper has been partnering with BBVA on home equity loans for quite some time but now they have installed Prosper’s software for all HELOCs resulting in 14 days faster closing times.
DV01 Report: Online Consumer Lending Continues to Head Towards Normalcy from Crowdfund Insider – dv01 continues to produce their biweekly reports on marketplace lending sharing that originations are continuing to grow while repayment rates also increase.
US Representatives Rip OCC, Brooks for ‘Excessive Focus’ on Crypto from CoinDesk – Six members of Congress penned a sharply worded letter to Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks for his focus on crypto and fintech.
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.