Top 10 Fintech News Stories for the Week Ending May 22, 2021

This week was all about funding rounds and IPOs. Four of our top 10 articles are for funding rounds (could have easily added more here) and we have Marqeta’s upcoming IPO, SoFi will start trading soon and Robinhood will be giving its investors access to IPOs. Here are what I consider to be the top 10 most important fintech news stories of the past week.

Marqeta S1 Deep Dive from Fintech Today – Much was written this week about the coming Marqeta IPO but this in-depth piece in Fintech Today was my favorite read on the topic.

Goldman Sachs hires Uber tech executive to run consumer bank after string of defections from CNBC – After a flurry of departures from Marcus, Goldman has hired a new lead from Uber to take over from Omer Ismail who left in February.

Pipe, “NASDAQ for revenue,” reaches $2B valuation with $250M investment from FinLedger – One of the biggest funding rounds this week was this $250 million round from Pipe, a fintech company that launched less than a year ago.

Cagney’s Figure Valued at $3.2 Billion in Latest Funding Round from Bloomberg – Figure closed on a $200 million Series D that values the blockchain-based fintech company at $3.2 billion.

Payments Fintech DailyPay, which Provides On-Demand Pay Solutions to Firms, Secures $500M in Capital from Crowdfund Insider – The earned wage access space continues to heat up with DailyPay closing a $175 million equity round as well as $325 million in debt.

Amount raises a $99M Series D to help banks compete with fintech startups from FinLedger – Amount is now officially a unicorn after raising a $99 million Series D led by WestCap.

Bank regulators grilled on climate efforts, ILCs, ‘true lenders’ from American Banker – The heads of the OCC, FDIC, NCUA and Fed Vice Chairman Randal Quarles all appeared in a House Financial Services Committee hearing this week.

The Fed this summer will take another step in developing a digital currency from CNBC – This summer the Federal Reserve will release a research paper on digital currencies working in conjunction with the Bank for International Settlements.

Robinhood to allow users to buy into IPOs, ahead of its own market debut from Reuters – The company that democratized stock investing is launching a new product called IPO Access to allow their investors to participate in IPOs, including its own coming up soon.

SoFi Expected to Trade on Nasdaq on June 1st in SPAC Merger from Crowdfund Insider – The much anticipated SoFi SPAC merger should be completed on May 28 with the company starting to trade on Nasdaq under the symbol SOFI on June 1st.

  • Peter Renton

    Peter Renton is the chairman and co-founder of Fintech Nexus, the world’s largest digital media company focused on fintech. Peter has been writing about fintech since 2010 and he is the author and creator of the Fintech One-on-One Podcast, the first and longest-running fintech interview series.