👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Amazon has chosen to renew a deal allowing JPMorgan Chase to issue the tech giant’s flagship rewards credit card, ending months of heated negotiations.
The Amazon Prime Rewards card was one of the industry’s most highly coveted co-brand deals, a rare prize because of the massive scope of Amazon’s loyalty program, with its estimated 150 million U.S. members, according to people with knowledge of the talks.
While JPMorgan has issued Amazon’s card since it was little more than an online bookseller two decades ago, that didn’t stop Amazon from soliciting bids to replace the bank in mid-2021.
American Express and Synchrony were among the issuers involved in discussions, and Mastercard had hoped to displace Visa as a payments network, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about the private process.
👉 Read the full CNBC article here.
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📰 ARTICLE
Mosaic, which aims to change the way CFOs of high-growth companies operate, has raised $25 million in a Series B round of funding led by Founders Fund.
Bijan Moallemi, Joe Garafalo, and Brian Campbell started San Diego-based Mosaic in 2019 after meeting at Palantir Technologies, where they worked on building out that company’s finance organization as the company grew to 2,500 people and over $750 million in revenue.
The trio moved on to other senior finance roles at companies such as Piazza, Axoni, and Everlaw before teaming back up to create Mosaic.
👉 Read the full Techcrunch article written by Mary Ann Azevedo here.
💡INSIGHTS
Klarna is best known for riding the crest of ‘buy now, pay later’ wave but its booming open banking business is its new move.
In the past year, the company has stealthily created a dedicated unit devoted to open banking, including doubling its bank connectivity in the past year from 6,000 to 15,000 banks making us the largest bank aggregator in the world.
👉 Read the full Altfi article written by Daniel Lanyon here.
🎤 PODCAST
The podcast recommendation of the week belongs to MoneyLion’s series of Women Who Roar and their interview with Mary Ann Azevedo, Senior Reporter at TechCrunch.
In their episode, they tackle topics like female founders, the world of FinTech journalism, and how to get ahead in your career! Join the conversation with three female FinTech professionals and Mary Ann Azevedo, Senior Reporter for TechCrunch.
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NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
🇺🇸 NATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Dave is doubling down on its cryptocurrency plans after receiving a new $100 million investment from crypto exchange FTX. Link here.
⭐️ Cross River, a US provider of core infrastructure and embedded technology to fintech and crypto companies, has raised $620 million in a round co-led by Eldridge and Andreessen Horowitz. Link here.
⭐️ Can Klarna be Open Banking's game-changer? Link here.
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DIGITAL BANKING
Outgo, a Seattle, WA-based provider of a banking solution for freight carriers, raised $3.4M in funding. The round was led by Neo and PSL Ventures, with participation from Bezos Expeditions, Dan Lewis, Jason Droege, and Jason Davis. Link here.
Flyp Financial, creators of the mobile banking app “Flyp,” today officially announced the availability of their app in both Google Play and App Store. The app, which offers a series of banking features including a gamified rewards program, is now live and available to download for the public. Link here.
VC FUNDS
PAYMENTS
Modern Treasury, a San Francisco, CA-based software platform for companies of all sizes to move money, raised $50m in the second close of its Series C funding round with a valuation of more than $2 billion. Link here.
Payfare Inc., announced the expansion of its collaboration with Visa in the U.S. After obtaining its Visa Ready for Fintech Enablers certification and expanding its platform with Visa SavingsEdge in 2021, Payfare will now add Visa Direct1 to its platform to help facilitate real-time payout experiences for gig workers. Link here.
Kale, a New York-based startup, is taking a different approach to influencer marketing. It works with loyal customers of a brand who generally have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers, rather than going for creators with hundreds of thousands—or millions—of followers. Link here.
PayTrace was recently acquired by North American Bancard. North American Bancard processes more than $45 billion in transactions annually for hundreds of thousands of satisfied merchants. PayTrace is becoming their preferred gateway solution for all merchant types. Link here.
BNPL
Swedish fintech giant Klarna is keen to ditch its association with its main product, buy now, pay later (BNPL). It instead wishes to move towards being known more for being a global retail bank and one-stop ecommerce shop, according to the company’s chief marketing officer. Link here.
OPEN BANKING
Finicity, a Mastercard company, and Fiserv, Inc., both leaders in open banking technology, are advancing the future of open finance through secure data sharing. Link here.
CRYPTO
Visa has launched an NFT creator program in an effort to bring small businesses into the digital economy. Link here.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global (COIN) will soon require its customers in Canada, Japan, and Singapore who send cryptocurrency to another financial institution or exchange to provide the name, address, and, in the case of Japan, the destination wallet of the recipient. Link here.
Savings and investing app Acorns is now offering users the option to invest a portion of their portfolio in bitcoin futures. The company's millions of users can choose to allocate up to five percent of their Acorns Invest portfolio to the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF. Link here.
US banking app Dave has announced a strategic partnership with West Realm Shires Services, owner of crypto exchange platform FTX US. FTX US will become Dave’s exclusive crypto partner, with a view to introducing digital asset payments on Dave’s platform. Link here.
INVESTMENT
DriveWealth and SproutFi (YC S21), a social-first investment platform that offers securities through its affiliate Northbound Securities LLC, announced a partnership to expand affordable access to investing in the U.S. markets to everyone in Latin America. Link here.
FRAUD PREVENTION
San Francisco-based fintech startup, Effectiv, has just announced a $4M seed funding round, led by Accel. The funding also saw participation from REV (funded by RELX) and other industry leaders. Effective will as well add to its team industry veterans Bob Stock (ex-Visa) and Mike Persichini (ex-HSBC and Blue Vine) as it closes on a $3B milestone in loan volumes processed. Link here.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Revolut, the financial superapp with over 18 million customers worldwide, has announced it’s expanding its US leadership with the appointment of Yuval Rechter as General Manager and Danil Ovechkin as Head of Growth. Link here.
PayPal has hired Intel's Archana Deskus as executive vice president and chief information officer. Deskus has been SVP and CIO at Intel since 202. She has also held CIO roles at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Baker Hughes, Ingersoll Rand, Timex, and United Technologies. Link here.
Greenlight® Financial Technology, Inc., the family fintech company on a mission to help parents raise financially-smart kids, announced the addition of two renowned financial and consumer business leaders to its Board of Directors and the hire of its first Chief Legal Officer as the company advances to its next stage of growth. Link here.
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