India's biggest IPO🇮🇳; Square goes DeFi 👀; Intuit QuickBooks goes against PayPal & Square 🥊
Good Morning FinTech. 3/30
Paytm right now 😎
Good morning Everyone,
Trust your weekend was hot and restful as it sure was hot here in FinTech…
India’s biggest IPO🇮🇳
The card was played🃏 Digital payments giant Paytm, one of India's🇮🇳 most valuable startups, has just filed for an IPO.
It’s BIG 🔥 It is set to be India's biggest public offering ever.
Stakes are high 📈 Backed by Alibaba Group (owns 36% of Paytm), Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (~18%), and SoftBank (~18%), Paytm will issue new shares worth $1.1 billion and offer sale worth $1.1 billion.
Initially launched as a simple digital payments gateway, it has evolved into an e-commerce marketplace, ticket booking platform, and also it sells insurance and digital gold.
A proper super app📲 Paytm is a brilliant example of a payments-led super-app. It's an Indian equivalent of what Alipay or WeChat Pay is in China🇨🇳
The scale 🤯 And their numbers are pretty massive: last valued at $16 billion, the platform has amassed >333 million users, 114.3 million of whom transact annually, and has onboarded >21 million merchants.
✈️ THE TAKEAWAY
The stakes are high. Although Paytm has reported a consolidated loss of $233.6M for the financial year that ended in March 2021 (down from $404M in 2020), it’s one of the most celebrated startups in India, hence, a lot is riding on a successful IPO. Despite increasing competition, Paytm is a leading player in a few verticals it operates, which indicates customer loyalty and market value. This is yet another illustration of how big the FinTech market is in India and how much innovation and entrepreneurial spirit is in the country.
Square goes DeFi 👀
Decentralize! Payments company Square is working on a new platform for decentralized finance (DeFi), according to Bloomberg.
CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted on Thursday that the company wants to make it easier to “create non-custodial, permissionless and decentralized financial services.”
No name yet 🤷♂️ He said in the tweet that Square’s new venture thus far doesn’t have a name, but that the primary focus would be on Bitcoin (how unexpected…).
As shared a couple of times, Dorsey is a big Bitcoin supporter over the years. His company Square recently confirmed it would build a new kind of hardware wallet geared for crypto.
✈️ THE TAKEAWAY
Square is trying to stay ahead. Being a long-time crypto (Bitcoin in particular) supporter, Jack Dorsey’s motivations are obvious here. Yet, if crypto is here to stay, it makes total sense for Square to aim to be at the forefront. It first started with crypto trading, then it added BTC to its balance sheet, then the Bitcoin hardware wallet, and now DeFi projects. Looks pretty natural to me 🤷♂️
QuickBooks goes against PayPal & Square 🥊
An appetite for payments 🍽 Intuit’s QuickBooks is aiming to take a bigger bite of the payments pie (in-store commerce in particular) with the launch of a new card-reader product.
Accounting software 👉 full experience. The company is best known for its accounting software. It already processes payments through invoices and some payments hardware. The new reader, which is the first that Intuit has designed exclusively, is a bet on SMEs and their in-store e-commerce demands.
The card reader will sell for $49, and QuickBook plans to introduce a $39 power stand for the device later this summer that will allow businesses to charge both the reader and a phone or tablet.
✈️ THE TAKEAWAY
End-to-end solutions win. Intuit already processes $65B of payments annually, primarily through its invoice product. The introduction of a POS device and coupling it with QuickBooks Cash, a business bank account feature allowing SME owners to manage finances and plan for the future with a 90-day cash flow prediction and payment timing estimates, is a compelling proposition. The more seamless UX you can offer for your users, the better. Square & PayPal are definitely watching this as this is a stone to their playground.
🔎 What else I’m watching
Security? Not found🔓: the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), UK’s financial regulator and one of the respected regulatory bodies globally, has misplaced a total of 323 electronic devices estimated to be worth >£310k over the last 3 years. Example to follow? Not found…
Japan to keep a bigger eye on crypto 👁: The Financial Services Agency has created a new division and the Ministry of Finance is considering boosting staff numbers.
Binance end games with stocks 🎲: the biggest crypto exchange in the world said that stock tokens are unavailable for purchase on its website effective immediately. It appears that regulations do matter in crypto… 🤷♂️
CBDC is getting real in China🇨🇳: The People's Bank of China (PBoC) has published a whitepaper for the country's central bank digital currency for the first time. It will come with smart contract programmability [The Whitepaper].
💸 Following the Money
Canada-based fintech TechX Technologies has announced completing the acquisition of fiat infrastructure provider Mobilum for circa EUR 11M.
Collective Benefits, a British InsurTech startup that provides insurance for the gig economy and independent workers has raised £6M in new funding.
YuLife, a London life insurance startup, has raised $70M, giving it a $346M valuation. It aims to offer a wellness-orientated approach to life insurance.
👋 That’s it for today! Thank you for reading and have a productive week ahead! And if you enjoyed this newsletter, invite your friends and colleagues to sign up:
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