Top 10 Fintech News Stories for the Week Ending October 30, 2021

The big news this week was around IPOs as two of the largest digital banks inched their way closer to a public listing. Stripe has a big new partnership with Klarna, the DOJ is investigating Visa, and Mastercard cardholders will soon be able to pay with Crypto. Here are what I consider to be the top ten fintech news stories of the past week.

Nubank files to go public from TechCrunch – The world’s largest digital bank, with more than 40 million users, has filed to go public in both the U.S. and Brazil. It is a confidential filing so we have no details yet but it could come before the end of the year.

Chime In Talks To Go Public At $35 Billion To $45 Billion Valuation from Forbes – Just a couple of days before Nubank’s announcement Chime indicated it is inching towards its own IPO, targeting March 2022 for a listing.

Stripe Strikes Tie-Up With Klarna After Frenzy of Rival Deals from Bloomberg – Stripe retailers will now be able to offer BNPL options in this huge win for Klarna in what is their biggest partnership to date.

Justice Department Probes Visa’s Relationships With Fintech Firms from The Wall Street Journal – Part of an antitrust investigation into Visa the DOJ is looking at financial incentives it gave to PayPal and Square.

Mastercard to offer pay with crypto partnership with Bakkt from LendIt Fintech News – The billion Mastercard cardholders will soon have the capability to pay with crypto and earn crypto rewards as a result of their tie-up with Bakkt.

SEC Gets Path to Rein In Stablecoins as U.S. Weighs New Rules from Bloomberg – A new report from the Treasury Department, to be published very soon, will give the SEC significant authority over the regulation of stablecoins which is now a $131 billion market.

Fintech earnings begin before Halloween from LendIt Fintech News – In our new Friday column we summarize the earnings from public fintech companies during the week. This week we cover Enova, Robinhood and LendingClub.

NYDIG acquires British bitcoin startup Bottlepay in $300 million stock purchase from The Block – NYDIG has been on a roll lately and they have acquired British startup Bottlepay, their third acquisition this year. Bottlepay allows users to make small payments and send funds via messages on Twitter, Reddit and Discord.

Mission Lane completes US$320mn ABS transaction from Fintech Magazine – Mission Lane, the subprime fintech credit card company, has completed its first securitization as well as $150m in redeemable preferred equity.

Goldman Sachs is giving hedge fund clients crypto research from data firm The Block from CNBC – This week Goldman Sachs began sending research reports to hedge funds and other institutional clients with the first report providing an overview of DeFi protocols.

Every Thursday the LendIt Fintech News team and a special guest discuss the news of the week live on LendIt TV, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter. We have now made the show available in podcast format – just click on the audio player below.

  • Peter Renton

    Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of Fintech Nexus, the world’s largest digital media 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.