In honor of Earth Day this week we start off with two stories focused on climate change. Of course, there is M&A news, financing news, news from big banks and a deep dive into the design philosophy of Robinhood. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.
Citi, Bank of America join global push to curb emissions from American Banker – The Net-Zero Banking Alliance is a group of 43 banks, including Citi, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, focused on aligning financing activities with the goals of the Paris climate accord.
From pink to green: Klarna unveils carbon footprint tracking for customers from AltFi – Klarna is partnering with Doconomy to raise awareness of the carbon footprint of the products available for payment via the Klarna app.
Mastercard purchases identity verification company Ekata from FinLedger – Mastercard has made another significant fintech acquisition, acquiring Ekata for $850 million, its sixth acquisition of more than $100 million.
Clearbanc rebrands its way into a unicorn from TechCrunch – Clearbanc has rebranded to Clearco, at the same time announcing a $100 million Series C at a $2 billion valuation, as it seeks to move beyond providing capital.
The Apple Card’s new feature tackles one of credit’s biggest problems from Fast Company – Apple announced Apple Card Family this week allowing users to share an Apple Card with a family member including children (for a contrarian take read Timothy Li’s piece in Crowdfund Insider).
Alphabet’s CapitalG leads $40 million round in fintech Mantl from TechCrunch – MANTL calls itself the “Shopify of account opening” promising to make it easy for community banks and credit unions to open accounts digitally and they have just raised a $40 million Series B.
Goldman Sachs replenishes top ranks of consumer bank division from Reuters – After several high profile departures from their consumer bank Goldman Sachs announces new additions to its senior executive ranks.
Revolut plans “multi-million-pound” Indian expansion under new CEO Paroma Chatterjee from AltFi – Leading UK-based digital bank Revolut has its sights set on the Indian market with a new local CEO and a commitment to hire 300 people there.
Wall Street banks brace for digital dollars as the next big disruptive force from CNBC – Large banks see central bank digital currencies as the next big financial disruptor despite the Federal Reserve’s cautious approach.
How Robinhood Made Trading Easy—and Maybe Even Too Hard to Resist from Bloomberg – Really interesting read on the design principles behind Robinhood and why it became so popular.
