Robinhood - a new meme stock? 🤔; Coinbase now live in Germany🇩🇪; Citi tests BNPL in Australia🇦🇺

Good Morning FinTech. 16/30

Robinhood watching their own stock…

Good morning Everyone,

And happy Thursday! Hope your week has been going great. Here’s a mix of 3 great stories for today:

Robinhood - a new meme stock? 🤔

The rally 🎢 Robinhood, the popular stock brokerage, soared again in the public markets, extending a wild rally for the newly minted public stock. Trading was halted for volatility. Several times 😬

Meme returns 👀 The $HOOD closed up 50.4% at $70.39 per share, bringing its weekly gain to more than 100%. Shares of Robinhood touched $85 at one point, an 81% gain from Tuesday’s close alone. Not too shabby…

One can remember that Robinhood’s IPO wasn’t a big thing. It went public at $38 per share, the low end of its range (of $42), and sank in its early trading sessions to below its IPO price.

✈️ THE TAKEAWAY

The $HOOD might be a stonk. It appears that the Robinhood stock is going up because… it’s going up. There was no news, no updates, no announcements - nothing. And yet the stock is going up. The most interesting question now is whether we will see a short squeeze? 🤔

Coinbase now live in Germany🇩🇪

The launch 🚀 One of the biggest crypto platforms Coinbase has announced launching the subsidiary Coinbase Germany to serve the German market. 

Local services 🇩🇪 Coinbase Germany will offer institutional and end-customers secure and regulated access to cryptocurrencies. What’s a bit different here is that the exchange is expanding its product range with a staking offer and German earn rates, meaning German customers can generate passive income with their cryptocurrencies.

Obviously, German-speaking customer support and options for institutional customers will be expanded over the long term.

Regulation first 🏦 It must be noted that all services offered by Coinbase Germany are subject to the supervision of the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin). This is the approach Coinbase has taken from day 1, and it quite differs from some other big names in the market. It might be one of the reasons it became the first crypto exchange to ever go public.

✈️ THE TAKEAWAY

Bumpy road 📉 Although it had some big expectations, Coinbase’s IPO wasn’t a blast. In fact, the stock is going down quite steadily and has lost close to 30% since the public debut. On the other hand, many analysts believe it’s still a buy based on the potential growth and maturing market. Having that in mind, it will be very interesting to see whether Coinbase will manage to get strong in the German market, especially having the regulation-first approach in mind. Germany is a huge market with growing crypto interest. But what matters here is the execution.

Citi tests BNPL in Australia🇦🇺

Another one… 🤷‍♂️ Citi Australia is getting into the buy now, pay later (BNPL) market with its new product called Spot, which is being issued by company subsidiary Diners and will officially launch in October. Much wow 😑

The card can be used online or in-store anywhere Mastercard is accepted worldwide and allows users to split payments for merchandise into 4 interest-free installments. Nothing special…

This is a test 👀 Citi Australia has confirmed that jumping into the BNPL pool is its first attempt and that the success in the Australian market could lead to a worldwide rollout of the new payment method.

Makes sense, but why Aussies? 🤔 Citi research conducted late last year showed that although 98% of Australians with credit cards know about BNPL, just 25% of respondents have ever used the service.

✈️ THE TAKEAWAY

BNPL is now like teenage sex. Everyone is doing it, more people want to do it. It might soon boom on steroids given Afterpay’s massive acquisition… But hey, you gotta follow the money, right? 💸

🔎 What else I’m watching

• What card? 😬 💳 Uphold and GlobaliD have announced the launch of the XRP Card – a Mastercard debit card providing up to 5% cashback in XRP. Yes, the crypto… 🤷‍♂️ The card supports spending in USD or virtually any other digital asset/currency of the user's choice while providing up to 5% cashback in XRP. Why? Seriously? 🤔

• Apple to test BNPL with Affirm 💸 Apple intends to roll out a Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) service in Canada with Affirm’s PayBright, according to Bloomberg. The program will be for sales of Apple devices in Canada. It will allow for iPhone, Mac, and iPad buyers in that country to pay for their purchases over a period of one to two years. Test now, launch later 😎

• More authority, please 👨‍⚖️ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler is pressing Congress to give the agency additional policing authority over cryptocurrencies, according to multiple media outlets. So is this the first step towards broader crypto regulation in the US? 🤔

• Debt…🔔 Household debt increased by $313B (2.1%) in the second quarter of 2021, hitting a total of $14.96T, according to information from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data.

• Stablecoins. Again 👀 Kitco, a Canada-based provider of news and data on gold and other precious metals, is getting into the stablecoin game. Kitco Gold (KGLD) will be fully backed by physical gold held in Kitco’s DirectReserve vaults and will track the real-time market value of the yellow metal, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk.

• Google gives green light for crypto ads 🟢 Yet, companies pitching crypto products and services to U.S. customers on Google must be registered with the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) or with a federally or state-chartered banking regulator.

💸 Following the Money

• NFT marketplace MakersPlace has secured $30M in a Series A round led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Pantera Capital.

• DeFi platform Krystal has raised $6.6M in a seed funding round led by Hashed.

• Crypto investing platform Onramp Invest banked $6M in seed funding from Coinbase Ventures, Gemini Frontier Fund, and others. 

• Italy-based payments company Nexi and Greece's Alpha Services have signed a memorandum of understanding to expand Nexi’s services in the Greek payments market. As part of the deal, Nexi has bought a majority stake of Alpha Bank.

• BNPL platform Tabby has raised $50M in a Series B equity round at a valuation of $300M (post-money). This latest funding round makes Tabby one of the highest valued startups in the Middle East & North Africa. 

• Rothschild-founded RIT Capital leads an $8.8M funding round into Aspen Digital. Aspen aims to offer digital asset management to institutional and sophisticated investors.

👋 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:

P.S. This is a free issue 16/30. You can subscribe now for $7/month or $70/year, or join later. I must note though that after the first 30 issues, the price will be $17,90/month or $179/year  (the price for current subscribers won’t change). It’s still a bargain as you will save at least 180 minutes. Every week.