JPMorgan's FinTech Strategy is pretty badass, or why it's winning innovation game in Finance 💸; Mastercard may have lost Africa. Africa’s growth story will be told by Visa 🤯; Crypto Summer in LatAm!

FinTech is Eating the World, 21 December

Hey Everyone,

Happy Wednesday! Today’s issue is undoubtedly the best one this week so far. We’re looking at JPMorgan's FinTech Strategy, which is pretty badass, or why it's winning the innovation game in Finance (a deeper dive & focus on a strategy you can’t ignore), Mastercard which may have lost Africa, and why Africa’s growth story will be told by Visa (+ a bonus read on why you can’t ignore Africa), and why it’s still Crypto Summer in LatAm (hint: institutions). Let’s jump straight into the incredible stuff:

JPMorgan's FinTech Strategy is pretty badass, or why the bank is winning the innovation game in financial services 💸

The deal 🤝 US banking giant J.P. Morgan JPM 0.00%↑ has acquired 48.5% of Greece-based FinTech startup Viva Wallet for $800+ million after a lengthy procedure that lasted months, as per Greek Reporter.

First announced in January, the official announcement about the Greek startup’s deal is expected later in December this year. It’s important to note that Greek regulatory authorities approved the sale in September 2022.

The USP 🥊 Founded in 2000, Viva Wallet is headquartered in Athens, Greece, and focuses on serving SMEs in 24 countries. The company operates a cloud-based payments platform that is able to offer a broad array of services to merchants including tap-to-device technology, merchant cash advance, bill pay, expense management, virtual debit card issuance, cash disbursement, gift cards, and loyalty.

In 2020, Viva Wallet had revenues of EUR 44M, which almost tripled in size to around EUR 130M in 2021, according to Greek Reporter.

Why is this important? 🤔 Given they received serious interest from one of the biggest banks in the world is definitely a testament that the Greek FinTech has been doing something right. But this isn’t about Viva Wallet.

This is about JPMorgan whose FinTech strategy has been pretty badass. In fact, we could argue that the banking giant is winning the innovation game in financial services. Let’s take a closer look and unpack this.