#422
Le Dîner de Cons

Chime lines up Goldman Sachs for blockbuster IPO - The financial technology startup will likely be valued at a substantial premium to its valuation of $25b from an August funding round led by Sequoia Capital, the sources said, adding Chime could aim for a valuation of nearly $40b. Read more

Affirm launches SuperApp, browser extension to streamline consumer finances - SuperApp delivers Affirm's shopping, payments and financial services all in one place. The Google Chrome browser extension allows consumers to use Affirm's payment solutions at virtually any retailer's website, the company said. Read more

Apple to rival Square by turning iPhones into payment terminals - The company has been working on the new feature since around 2020, when it paid about $100m for a Canadian startup called Mobeewave that developed technology for smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card. The system will likely use the iPhone’s near field communications, or NFC, chip that is currently used for Apple Pay. Read more

SAP to buy U.S. fintech start-up Taulia; eyes metaverse opportunities - SAP will use the acquisition to expand its presence in supply-chain financing and working capital management. SAP, which makes software for managing business processes and gets much of its revenue in recurring form, said it was also looking at opportunities in the 'metaverse' - virtual online worlds where people can work, play and socialize. Read more

Why a bank for the super rich Is taking aim at the younger merely rich - Just the good old ultra rich won’t do anymore. UBS Group's deal to buy U.S. robo adviser Wealthfront for $1.4b signals how old-guard institutions that have traditionally catered to the world’s moneyed elite are recognizing the importance of attracting younger clients, whose vision of banking differs drastically from their elders. Read more

Walmart-backed fintech startup is acquiring two firms and a new name - The firm, where Walmart is the majority owner under a joint venture with Ribbit Capital, will buy Even Responsible Finance, which is used by employers to offer workers their paychecks early and counts Walmart as a large customer. It will also buy ONE Finance, a financial-services mobile app known as a neobank that allows users to manage money and apply for a debit card or other services that come with lower fees than traditional banks typically charge. Read more

Fidelity, once stodgy and adrift, bets on the Reddit crowd - Today, Ms. Johnson’s 75-year-old company has placed more bets than nearly any other big Wall Street firm on the future of cryptocurrencies and doubled down on other areas powered by individual investors—and the plan appears to be working. Read more

Which fintech sectors are attracting the most startup funding? - The WSJ canvases the market and finds that consumer-payments categories, which include startups like Square, continue to capture financial-technology funding. Another hot trend is known as fractionalization. All sorts of startups are allowing investors of all kinds to invest in asset classes that once would have been inaccessible. Read more

Fintech companies, facing competition from mainstream banks, step up their offerings - Fintech startups have established themselves as viable competitors in the financial-services business, but now they face a new challenge: Some mainstream banks have started to offer fintech-inspired services such as early paycheck access and no-fee overdrafts. Read more

Mark Zuckerberg’s stablecoin ambitions unravel with Diem sale talks - The Diem Association, a cryptocurrency initiative once known as Libra, is weighing a sale of its assets as a way to return capital to its investor members. Diem is in discussions with investment bankers about how best to sell its intellectual property and find a new home for the engineers who developed the technology, cashing out whatever value remains in its once-ambitious Diem coin venture. Read more

Citadel Securities: How the Wall Street outsider became ‘the Amazon of financial markets’ - The initial ideas that would evolve into Citadel Securities took life in the early 2000s on a separate floor of the hedge fund’s old Chicago headquarters. Since then it has grown into one of the largest trading houses in the world, involved in roughly one in four of all US stock trades and nearly 40% of all those involving individual retail investors. Read more

JPMorgan agrees to acquire 49% stake in Greek fintech company Viva Wallet - Founded in 2000, Viva Wallet offers a cloud-based payments platform for SMBs in 23 countries across Europe. It provides card acceptance services through its point-of-sale application, as well as business card services to small businesses. Terms were not disclosed, but the deal was reported to be valued at more than $2b. Read more

Insurers want to avoid covering war. Ukraine hacks put that to the test - Some insurance companies cited “act of war” exclusions to try to avoid covering the damage of a Russian cyberattack against Ukraine in 2017 that rippled outward internationally, causing billions of dollars in damage. Now, as U.S. officials warn of similar hacks, a New Jersey judge said such clauses covered “traditional” war—physical, not cyber, activity. Read more

China fintech startup PingPong weighing $1b Hong Kong IPO - The fintech firm is riding on a boom in cross-border commerce by Chinese sellers operating on foreign platforms. Founded in 2015, PingPong collects payments for Chinese exporters selling through services such as Amazon.com Inc., Shopify, and Shopee. Read more

Helios in talks with Africa mobile operators on fintech billions - Helios Investment Partners is in talks with Africa’s largest wireless carriers, including MTN Group and Airtel Africa about ways the private-equity firm can help them cash in on their mobile-money and digital-payments platforms. Read more

Argentine fintech 'unicorn' Uala launches in Colombia amid Latam push - Argentine digital banking startup Uala announced its launch in Colombia on Thursday, a new frontier for the firm as it expands in Latin America and looks to tap in to the region's millions of unbanked savers. Read more

Buy now, pay later firm Klarna launches physical card in the UK - The Klarna Card will initially only include Klarna’s “Pay in 30” feature, which lets shoppers pay down their debt within 30 days. Read more