Robinhood is a crypto broker!đ¶; PayPal wants to win the BNPL wars âïž; Revolut will give you your wage earlier đ¶
Good Morning FinTech. 27/30
Itâs about dogs today. Read on and you will get it!
Good morning Everyone,
And happy Friday! We are finally here đ„ł Hereâs a mix of 3 interesting FinTech stories to dive into today and star weekend off with a positive note:
Robinhood is a crypto broker⊠đ€·ââïž
The earnings đž The popular stock trading app Robinhood posted its first earnings as a publicly traded company. And the results are pretty impressive⊠đ
The company said that revenues in the second quarter were more than double â surging to $565 million, better than the $560 million expected.
In the quarter, total assets under custody came to $102 billion, up from $33 billion a year ago. Thatâs about x3 growth⊠đ€Ż
The crypto biz đ¶ What came as a slight surprise is Robinhoodâs dependence on cryptocurrency. The percentage of its total revenue derived from commissions on cryptocurrency trading jumped to 41% in the second quarter, up from 17% in the first quarter. Overall, it said that more than 60% of its customers traded cryptos in the quarter. Not too shabby!
Cryptocurrency-based revenue for the second quarter was $233 million, versus just $5 million in the year-ago quarter⊠đ
Doge, doge everywhere đđŒ Robinhood further specified that 62% of its cryptocurrency revenues in the second quarter came from the trading of memecoin Dogecoin, up from 34% in the first quarter⊠đŹ
âïž THE TAKEAWAY
It appears that Robinhood is a crypto broker⊠Started in the traditional markets, Robinhood has discovered crypto as its profit puppy đ¶ And its literally like that as doge is the key driver of their crypto revenues. On the other hand, itâs clear that such a heavy reliance is a risk, and Robinhood itself has warned investors that the future might not be that bright in the next quarters. Maybe itâs time to buy the $HOOD? đ€
PayPal wants to win the BNPL wars âïž
The battle đŁ PayPal wants to win the Buy Now, Pay Later wars. The payments giants is hence changing its Pay In 3 buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) product as it looks to compete in the growing battle around BNPL and take the market.
The change 𧚠The payments heavyweight has revealed to Reuters that it would no longer charge late payment fees when customers miss payments on BNPL purchases, starting from October.
The change will affect the US, UK and France, which will join Germany and Australia, where PayPal has already slashed its late payment fees.
The impact đ In the UK, shoppers are currently charged a ÂŁ6 fee for late payments with PayPalâs Pay In 3 product, which also impacts their credit score.
Rival BNPL providers like Klarna donât have late payment fees, which affectively puts them ahead of the competition.
âïž THE TAKEAWAY
PayPal is huge, and it can and wants to be even bigger. BNPL is one of the verticals where growth can be achieved. The payments giant itself has acknowledged that late fees were hindering the customer experience. More importantly, given thereâs so much competition in the space, customers can easily find a compelling proposition. Finally, thereâs a regulatory aspect too. The widespread agreement is that consumer protection rules around the credit product do need to be tightened. Removing late fees makes the BNPL more attractive, both in the eyes of the consumer and the regulators. We might be getting rid of the predatory lending, maybe? đ€
Revolut will give you your wage earlier đ¶
Payday đł FinTech giant Revolut is partnering with employers in the U.K. to offer early wage access to their employees with the FinTechâs latest financial services product dubbed Payday.
Payday enables employees to draw down a portion of their wages as they earn them and instantly transfer the funds into their accounts
Pay the bills on time â° The Payday tool enables people to see how much money they have accrued in earnings and withdraw it to their main account as a way to stay on top of bills and avoid debt, according to the release.
Itâs free đđŒ The new tool from Revolut doesnât cost anything for companies to integrate and their cash flow wonât be affected â employers will still pay their employees at the end of each month. The tool is also intended to help boost employee satisfaction, financial wellbeing and reduce turnover.
âïž THE TAKEAWAY
Itâs all about the customer, right? đ€ Itâs clear that with the recent move Revolut wants to grow customer engagement and make the Revolut account their primary bank account. Early wage access is a challenge for quite a bunch of people, hence, this offer might be a good play after all. On the other hand, will this help Revolut to lower their heavy dependence on the UK market? Because that seems to be their one of the biggest challenges right nowâŠ
đ What else Iâm watching
Buy Now, Pay After 10 months? đ€ Butter, a Buy Now, Pay Later platform, has unveiled a new 10-month interest-free instalment payment option. Most BNPL providers such Klarna, Afterpay and Paypal offer instalment options from 1-4 months. Butter, which started off at launch in 2017 as a travel agent, is offering the new extended options as part of the launch of its new service Butter X. Four the past four years it has offered the option to spread payments over two, three or four-month periods only. So maybe we should call it leasing then? đŹ
Mastercard in trouble? đ€ Mastercard is at the center of a class action lawsuit topping ÂŁ10B ($14B), the largest of its kind in the U.K., Reuters and other news outlets reported the news. If successful, 46M people would be entitled to about ÂŁ300 pounds each.
Klarna IPO đ Swedish short-term loan FinTech platform Klarna Bank AB isnât working on an initial public offering but might consider one in 2022 at the earliest, CEO and Co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg. Klarnaâs valuation reached $45.6 billionâmore than four times higher than the companyâs value last yearâafter its latest funding round. If not next year, then when? đ€
Coinbase in JapanđŻđ” U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is forming a partnership with one of Japanâs largest banks to launch Coinbase Japan as part of a larger effort to expand worldwide. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), a bank with more than 40M Japanese customers, will provide âMUFG Quick Depositâ for Coinbaseâs local users, according to a blog post.
Disappointing earnings⊠Nvidia Q2 revenue jumps 68% but crypto-related rarnings fall short of expectations. The California-based company generated $266 million in revenue from its crypto mining cards, more than $130 million below its forecast earlier this year.
Liquidâs liquidity⊠đŹ Japanâs Liquid Global exchange says it has been hacked, with expected losses of ~$90 million in bitcoin, ether, XRP and tron. In a tweet on Thursday, the exchange said its warm wallets were compromised and that it was consequently moving digital assets offline. It is now working with other exchanges to freeze the funds.
đž Following the Money
1confirmation backed new NFT startup built for music artists in a $2.2M round.
FinTech Collective, a venture capital firm investing across fintech and digital assets, has raised $250M in fresh capital.
Germany-based business banking company Penta has received EUR 15M from its existing investors.Â
The EUâs European Innovation Council Fund has invested 4.1M euros (approximately $4.8M) in Stockholm-based FinTech provider Invoier to help bolster the European small to medium-sized business (SMB) community.
PhonePe, an India-based online payments app, has raised $350M from new and existing investors as part of the $700M round it announced in December 2020.
Balance has raised $25M in Series A funding led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Avid Ventures as well as existing investors Lightspeed Ventures, Stripe, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, SciFi VC, and UpWest.
đ Thatâs it for today! Thank you for reading and have a productive Friday! And if you enjoyed this newsletter, invite your friends and colleagues to sign up:
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