Shopify FinTech play is paying huge dividends 💸; Binance needs a new CEO 👨💼👩💼; Mastercard’s crypto ambitions 🤔
Good Morning FinTech. 11/30
Good morning Everyone,
It’s Thursday already! Hope you had some time to reflect on the ending week as well as the month of July counting the last days. If not, here are 3 FinTech stories to reflect on today:
Shopify FinTech play is paying huge dividends 💸
ROI 📈 The use of Shopify’s Shop Pay Installments feature is seeing explosive growth just one month after it opened up to all US. merchants, with purchases made using the buy now, pay later (BNPL) product tripling in the second quarter versus just 3 months prior.
Shopify & Affirm 🤝 Last month, Shopify expanded its partnership with Affirm to allow all eligible merchants selling on the Shopify platform to use Shop Pay Installments. According to Affirm CEO Max Levchin, 25% of merchants using Shop Pay Installments during its early access period saw 50% more orders compared to other payment types.
Shop Pay Installments is now automatically enabled for new merchants signing up for Shopify payments, and Shopify has self-serve onboarding available for existing merchants.
✈️ THE TAKEAWAY
Shopify is a FinTech. I’ve said that multiple times, but it’s worth repeating. Their BNPL play is a perfect illustration of a consumer-centric approach and unified experience. As an effect, total revenue for the Canadian eCommerce platform was $1.1B in the second quarter this year - up 57% year over year, marking the first time Shopify quarterly revenue has surpassed $1B. At the end of June, Shopify said its Shop platform had 118M registered users, including buyers that have opted into Shop Pay and 23M monthly active users of the app. And that’s definitely not the end.
Binance needs a new CEO 👨💼👩💼
Search 🔎 Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is looking for someone with a strong regulatory background to become its new chief executive, replacing its charismatic leader Changpeng Zhao, also known as “CZ.”
“There is always a pool of candidates who could succeed me. We are looking for someone with a strong regulatory background to step in and be CEO,” Zhao said at a press conference Tuesday.
No timeline 🤷♂️ Zhao said there was no timeline for his succession and that he would not be stepping down right away.
It’s all about regulations 🏦 Binance has been lashed by a series of regulatory actions across a number of jurisdictions including the U.K. and Japan. On Tuesday, the company reduced its customer withdrawal limit from 2 bitcoins to 0.06 bitcoins.
✈️ THE TAKEAWAY
Regulations matter. If you want to play with the Big Boys, you have to follow the same rules. Looks like Binance has decided to become a regulated financial institution (think like Coinbase), which is a strong move by itself. Pivoting from a tech startup to a financial institution will involve opening headquarters (which they don’t have at the moment), creating a structure regulators can easily recognize as well as making regulations one of the top priorities. Looks like a new CEO will have some serious job to do… 👀
Mastercard’s crypto ambitions 🤔
Crypto track 🔎 Payments giant Mastercard is adding a cryptocurrency and blockchain track to its Start Path incubator program for later-stage startups.
Mastercard offers up experts and technology partnerships with other financial services firms in the program in exchange for adding more innovative companies to its client roster.
Following Visa 👀 Mastercard rival Visa has a similar program called Fast Track that has catered to a number of crypto startups looking to work with Visa and issue debit or credit cards.
Members 👥 As part of Mastercard’s new track, seven digital asset startups have joined: crypto custody platform GK8, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Mintable, crypto investing firm Domain Money, blockchain oracle company SupraOracles, digital assets firm Taurus, blockchain infrastructure company STACS and digital finance platform Uphold.
✈️ THE TAKEAWAY
Follow the money 💰. If you want to stay relevant, you have to follow the money. Right now, a lot of money and innovation flows to and stems from blockchain and cryptocurrency space. Therefore, being one of the payments giants, Mastercard is obviously keen to tap into this space. Not only it’s a revenue diversification - rather it’s an opportunity to shape the industry for the years to come. And that’s crucial for companies like Mastercard.
🔎 What else I’m watching
Robinhood & Crypto 👀 Robinhood is reportedly testing a feature to protect crypto investors from volatility. The feature was discovered in the code for a beta test version of Robinhood’s iPhone app. Would be really interesting to see what it is…
The impact 📈 CMSPI, an independent, global payments consultancy, has released the SCA Economic Impact Assessment June 2021 analysis, featuring data that shows the potential sales at risk and overall readiness of the industry.
💸 Following the Money
Genesis Digital Assets has raised $125M in equity funding to fuel its expansion plans in the U.S. and the Nordic region.
Crypto cashback app StormX has secured $9M in funding to develop a debit card.
Lolli closed a $10M Series A.
Biconomy raised $9M to make building on Web 3.0 easier.
a16z backs $20M round for Valora, a digital wallet built on Celo.
👋 That’s it for today! Thank you for reading and have a productive Thursday! And if you enjoyed this newsletter, invite your friends and colleagues to sign up:
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