In this holiday-shortened week we had some of the biggest names in fintech in the news and some not in a good way. Across the pond Wise (I keep calling them TransferWise) had a successful IPO sans the investment banks and back here Stripe is dipping its toe in the IPO waters. Wells Fargo is closing all personal lines of credit and Blend have is going the traditional IPO route. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
A Banking App Has Been Suddenly Closing Accounts, Sometimes Not Returning Customers’ Money from ProPublica – Sometimes with stringent anti-fraud processes in place innocent people get locked out of their money, this is what happened to some Chime customers.
U.K. Fintech Wise Makes Strong Debut in London Direct Listing from The Wall Street Journal – Wise had a successful IPO, via a direct listing, on the London Stock Exchange closing the day with a valuation of £8.75 billion, much higher than expected.
Wells Fargo tells customers it’s shuttering all personal lines of credit from CNBC – Wells Fargo has given notice to their customers that have a personal line of credit with the bank that in 60 days those lines will be closed and any outstanding balances will shift to an installment loan.
Online payments firm Stripe takes first step toward blockbuster listing from Reuters – While this news is only about Stripe hiring a law firm to begin IPO preparations it is big news because, hey, it is Stripe, and this will likely be the biggest fintech IPO ever. Every move they make here will be news.
Robinhood: The $30 Billion Cockroach Of Fintech from Forbes – In his weekly column Ron Shevlin delves into Robinhood explaining, despite the fines and the complex business model, Robinhood remains popular. But what could cause its ultimate downfall?
Digital Lending Platform Blend Labs To Raise $360M In IPO from PYMNTS.com – Blend has launched the roadshow for their public offering where they expect to raise up to $360 million at a $4 billion valuation.
Fintech Circle to merge with Bob Diamond-backed SPAC in $4.5 bln deal from Reuters – The company behind the USDC stable coin is going public via a SPAC that will value the company at $4.5 billion.
As China leaps ahead on digital currency, a top central bank group is calling for global cooperation from CNBC – The Bank for International Settlements said in a report Friday that cooperation between central banks on their digital currency projects will help this fledgling technology take root.
Clearco gets the SoftBank stamp of approval in new $215M round from TechCrunch – The largest funding round of the week goes to Clearco (formerly Clearbanc) who announced a $215 million equity round led by SoftBank, less than three months after they announced their $100 million Series C.
Rescinding ‘true lender’ banking rule hurts those most in need of credit from The Hill – Op-ed by Thomas Vartanian explaining why rescinding the true lender rule was a bad idea and will only move people to pursue higher-cost credit.
