What Happened in Fintech This Month?

Here we go with the second edition of our monthly fintech recap. Hope you'll enjoy it! 

Let's start with crypto. With Facebook renaming to Meta, discussions about the metaverse intensified, generating increasing interest for all things related to crypto. But it was not just about that. Eight years after the first application for a Bitcoin ETF was filed, the first Bitcoin ETF in the United States started trading at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). And then also Mastercard, announcing that any bank or merchant on its network will soon be able to offer crypto services.

Moreover, in the last period, we saw the explosion of sports tokenization, with Socios.com making waves in the sector, along with new use cases for tokens in other verticals. In that sense, it was good to follow the launch of a new fantasy startup investment game promising to let users buy and trade NFTs as virtual shares in startups. They had to halt operations after 24 hours for legal complexities, but regardless of that, it opened up more discussions on the topic. Was that just gambling and speculation to ride the NFT wave or maybe the start of a new trend bringing further innovation in this field? 

All this while the Chinese government decided to take a different direction and go against the tide, declaring all cryptocurrencies illegal, a significant u-turn for a country that five years ago accounted for 90% of the world's bitcoin trade.

Though it was not all just about crypto and tokenization.

Google abandoned plans to offer Plex bank accounts to users, declaring that they will switch their focus "on delivering digital enablement for banks and other financial services providers rather than us serving as the provider of these services." But the interest in neobanks, from both consumers and investors, doesn't show signs of slowing down. Just considering the last few weeks, we saw N26 raising $900m at a $9 billion valuation and Brazil's NuBank filing for an IPO in the US. 

As detailed in the State Of Fintech Q3'21 Report by CB Insights, this was another strong quarter in a record-breaking year for the fintech industry.

On these pages, we also wrote about how much we hate chatbots and why we think they are not the solution to building a good relationship with our customers. At Six, we know very well that to provide a great customer experience, we need to provide excellent customer service to give our clients something they will love.

Moreover, we looked at an inspiring story featuring Wise, showing that financial services companies can stay unconventional, solve real problems and maintain special attention for their customers even when they scale. And at some less positive ones as well, with Holvi acquired by BBVA and then sold back to the founders and at PagoFx, killed by Banco Santander after just a year. Different stories, showing how complicated it could be for incumbents to manage innovation and keep up with fintech newcomers. 

It was then particularly engaging to observe what's happening with climate fintech - where a new wave of sustainability-focused fintech startups emerged to offer consumers new ways to track and reduce their carbon footprint. Climate fintech is the result of the realization that climate-conscious consumers are becoming mainstream consumers. Luckily enough, what's building up here is a situation where all the different parties win. So there's plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the period ahead!