Fintech Highlights - 8/25/2021

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Pinned to the Top

Mastercard is saying goodbye to the magnetic stripe that's donned the back of debit and credit cards for decades.

With it goes the ability to swipe a card at checkout.

Why it matters: The industry is moving "towards more secure or convenient alternatives like chips and contactless payments," The Verge reports.

Mastercard will phase out the magnetic stripe starting for regions like Europe in 2024.

In the U.S., it'll be 2027, when banks are no longer required to issue cards with stripes.

The BFD

DriveWealth, a Chatham, N.J.-based brokerage infrastructure startup, raised $450 million in Series D funding co-led by Accel and Insight Partners at a $2.85 billion valuation.

Why it's the BFD: This is a sideways challenge to Robinhood, as DriveWealth enables companies to embed investing services like fractional trading within their own products.

The bottom line: "Fractional shares allow investors to buy a portion of a stock with as little as $1, instead of having to buy a full share of stocks. That’s particularly helpful to those seeking to invest in companies such as Amazon.com Inc., whose shares closed at almost $3,318 on Thursday."

Fintechs

Pngme, a financial data infrastructure startup, raised $15 million. Unbundling financial data through APIs and driving data-driven insights with value-add products in Africa keeps getting more exciting as major players continue to raise more money for scale. More here ->

Canada Drives, a Vancouver-based online car shopping and financing platform, raised C$100 million. Canada Drives is going to use its recent funding to keep enhancing the product, grow its inventory in existing and new markets and hire around 200 people over the next year, particularly in product development. More here ->

Chargeback Gurus, a McKinney, Texas -based chargeback prevention and recovery platform, was acquired by Falfurrias Capital Partners, for an undisclosed amount. More here ->

Zepz (fka WorldRemit), a London-based digital cross-border payments platform, raised $292 million in new funding. Zepz is a digital cross-border payments platform with more than 11m users across its two brands, WorldRemit and Sendwave. The holding company is being rebranded to Zepz after it expanded beyond its core WorldRemit business and acquired Africa-focused remittance app Sendwave in August of last year. More here ->

Insuretechs

Lifepal, a Jakarta-based D2C insurance marketplace, raised $9 million in Series A funding. Lifepal wants to simplify the process for Indonesians with a marketplace that lets users compare policies from more than 50 providers, get help from licensed agents and file claims. More here ->

From the Stash

4 Reasons Why Digital Banking Teams Struggle to Innovate — thefinancialbrand.com Having innovation as a priority is the first step, but it rarely goes further without first overcoming common roadblocks.

Charlie Finance is joining Chime — www.linkedin.com I'm excited to welcome Ilian Georgiev, Ivo Parashkevov, Robert Luedeman and the rest of the Charlie Finance Co. team to the Chime family! We've long shared...

Is Austin Emerging as the New American Technology Hub? — www.cmswire.com Continuing our series of the state of U.S. tech hubs, we look at the growing city of Austin and why so many techies are pouring into the state of Texas.

To See What Normal Looks Like, Watch Main Street — www.pymnts.com As the world navigates a surge in COVID cases, Karen Webster says “When will we get back to normal?” is the wrong question, and Main Street SMBs show us why.

Briefing: AWS Sales Exec Rosecrans Departs for Job at Stripe — www.theinformation.com Scott Rosecrans, a five-year Amazon Web Services veteran and one of the cloud unit’s top dealmakers, has left to take a position at online payments company Stripe, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Rosecrans, who was a rising star at AWS, led an internal group known as “global strategic pursuits” which negotiates complex deals with some of AWS’s largest customers. In that

Podcasts

The Leadership In Insurance Podcast With Taylor Perkins — preview.mailerlite.com In this episode, we speak to Taylor Perkins, co-founder and CTO of Slope Software, who offer an actuarial modelling platform that helps insurance companies understand and quantify their risk so that they can make better decisions about their business.

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