Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! I am filling in for Mary Ann, who is on a well-deserved vacation. This week, we cover how Griffin Bank got its license ahead of the big players, and we dive into Stripe's annual letter, several funding rounds, and more.
big story
This week's top news was the UK's Griffin Bank The banking-as-a-service company has succeeded in doing something even the region's most valuable fintech company, Revolut, has yet to do: obtain a banking licence. Granted, as Mike Butcher writes, obtaining a banking license is difficult (it took Griffin a year), but Revolut has been talking about getting a banking license for the past three years.
With its banking license, Griffin provides fintech companies with a full-stack platform to deliver banking, payments, and wealth solutions through automated compliance and an integrated ledger. Most likely, the company will offer bank accounts to businesses rather than consumers.
This week's analysis
Alex Wilhelm and I read Stripe's annual letter. Here are some things we thought were worth talking about.
The company's growth has been remarkable. By 2023, the total payment amount will reach $1 trillion, an increase of 25%. That said, if the company actually processed exactly $1 trillion last year, it would have processed $800 billion in 2022, giving it $200 billion worth of TPV in a single year. That's a pretty impressive result for Stripe's size. Stripe posted record startup formations in 2023 despite a decline in venture capital activity over the past year. Not only that, payment infrastructure companies found that compared to companies founded in 2019, these companies were 60% more likely to start collecting revenue within the first year, and 57% processed $1 million within the first year. It was reported that there is a high possibility that
dollars and cents
A new unicorn has been born. India-based company Perfios, which provides real-time data aggregation and analytics tools to help financial institutions streamline customer journeys and make more informed decisions, raises $80 million in funding , and its valuation rose to more than $1 billion. The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan led the round. The company said it plans to go public next year.
Manish Singh also wrote about Indian digital payments app Paytm. Paytm has secured critical licenses required for the survival and continuation of several core features of the app. This was announced a day before the company's banking division was scheduled to cease operations on March 15 due to regulatory restrictions.
OpenMeter, a startup that has developed an open source platform that allows businesses to more easily track usage-based billing, has raised $3 million from Y Combinator, Haystack, and Sunflower Capital.
what else are you writing?
Reddit's IPO could be a potential meme stock, depending on how the company chooses to launch it. Reddit's IPO will include about 22 million shares, priced between $31 and $34, according to a new SEC filing. But given that Reddit allows community members to sell their shares immediately, instead of being subject to the usual lock-up agreement that typically prevents investors from selling their shares for six months after an IPO, this is really It could be interesting.
According to RevenueCat analysis, most subscription mobile apps do not generate revenue. The company found that of the 29,000 apps it studied, only 17.2% reached even $1,000 in monthly revenue, but once they got there, the chances of further growth were even higher.
TikTok has expanded its Effect Creator Rewards monetization program to more regions and lowered the payment threshold. It currently operates in 33 regions across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The program rewards creators for the effects they create through TikTok's AR development platform, Effect House. TikTok is also updating the program's payment model, so creators will only get paid for effects used in public videos.
Interesting headlines
HSBC to hire about 50 bankers to finance startups and ventures in the US
Green Dot enables cash transactions for three more fintech companies
With fintech funding down 70%, here's how fintech high flyers are currently worth
Maxwell launches POS functionality offering customized workflows for lenders
JP Morgan sees mixed outcomes from Silicon Valley push
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