Issue 329 · Sep 17, 2021 Weekly edition · 4 min read

Issue #329

Nearly 2 Billion people on people don't have access to the current financial system. How can these unbanked people get access to cash and payments? How can financial literacy be improved at scale? How can finance it be

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Goldman to Buy GreenSky for $2.24 Billion for Payment Plans

Goldman will pay roughly $12 a share in stock for GreenSky, which arranges loans for big one-time purchases like construction projects or cosmetic surgery. It works with thousands of merchants ranging from Home Depot Inc. to independent doctors and dentists, and pitches its loans as cheaper and more responsible alternatives to credit cards.

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In this issue · 9 items

It’s the fintech groundhog day Have we truly fulfilled the promise of fintech? How do you look beyond what is easy and serve communities who have long been ignored by traditional financial services, such as migrants? What is best for the greater good? How do we create change at scale? Perhaps the only way to unbake systemic racism within financial services is to change the ingredients and those that are preparing the meal, as well as for whom we are preparing the meal. Everyone deserves a seat at the table. In this week’s One Vision, Theo and Bradley welcome Nina Mohanty back on the show to talk about her new brainchild, Bloom Money, an app that is “built by migrants, for migrants”. Open story ↗ EY chooses Polygon for Ethereum scaling Forkast — According to a Monday announcement, EY’s flagship blockchain services (e.g. EY OpsChain and EY Blockchain Analyzer) will be integrated with Polygon. This will allow transactions to be committed to Etherum (on the mainnet), via the sidechain. Open story ↗ Israeli FinTech Sector Raises Record $2.3B In First Half of 2021 NoCamels — Investments in Israeli fintech (financial tech) firms soared to a record $2.3 billion in the first half of 2021, representing a record-breaking 260 percent increase over funding in the first half of 2020. It also surpassed 2020’s full-year total of $1.8 billion by 28 percent. These fintech investments made up 19 percent of the $12.2 billion invested in Israeli tech companies in the first half of 2021, according to a newly published report by Start-Up Nation Central (SNC.) Open story ↗ SpotOn raises $300M at a $3.15B valuation and acquires Appetize Techcrunch — oday, SpotOn said it has closed on $300 million in Series E financing that values the company at $3.15 billion — more than 5x of its valuation at the time of its Series C round, and significantly higher than its $1.875 billion valuation in May (yes, just three and a half months ago) when it raised $125 million in a Series D funding event. Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led both the Series D and E rounds for the company, which says it has seen 100% growth year over year and a tripling in revenue over the past 18 months. Open story ↗ Amazon Is Creating A POS System To Compete With Shopify And PayPal Forbes — It's called Project Santos and it's Amazon's play to take on Shopify, PayPal and other point-of-sale systems. According to a report that examined internal documents from the online giant the system will handle both online and in-store transactions, provide enhanced analytics and (of course) integrate with Prime and other Amazon technologies for check out, security and delivery. Open story ↗ ETFs are now a $7 trillion industry—and they’re growing faster than ever ETFs have inhaled more than $600 billion of assets this year, well in excess of the record $494 billion that accumulated in 2020, according Bloomberg data. The funds have also set global records, raking in $834 billion in 2021, bringing their total worldwide holdings to $9.7 trillion, according to ETFGI, a research and consulting firm. Open story ↗ US states clamp down on crypto yield products from Celsius Network | Financial Times Financial Times — .. Open story ↗ Intuit confirms $12B deal to buy Mailchimp TechCrunch — Intuit confirmed persistent rumors that it was in the process of buying Mailchimp, detailing a $12 billion transaction that will bring the well-known email infra company to its corporate remit. Intuit is not a well-known player in the email marketing space. The company is instead best known for its TurboTax software (and associated lobbying of the U.S. government to ensure its rent-seeking can continue), its recent purchase of Credit Karma and its more dated acquisition of Mint. Open story ↗ Contactless transactions surge in cash loving Germany, Austria and Switzerland Finextra — More than three quarters of cashless transactions in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are now contactless, a remarkable turnaround from pre-pandemic figures of just 40%. Open story ↗

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Goldman to Buy GreenSky for $2.24 Billion for Payment Plans

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