WORKWEEK

For the last few years, banking-as-a-service (BaaS) has been one of the more interesting, drama-laden corners of fintech (BTW, that Jaws-esque music you hear in the background right now is Jason Mikula’s theme song). Still, in that time, I don’t ever remember a week that was as bad for BaaS banks as last week was.…

3 Fintech News Stories #1: Klarna Plus  What happened? Klarna is introducing a subscription service: Swedish fintech firm Klarna is launching a monthly subscription plan in the U.S. to lock in its heaviest users ahead of an expected initial public offering this year, the company told CNBC. The product is set to be announced later…

Let’s start with this 2022 headline from The Verge, which caused my nervous system to temporarily fritz out when I first read it: If there’s a dark side to the trend, most memorably observed by Marc Andreessen, of software eating the world, it’s this.  In 2020, BMW introduced a new version of its operating system…

Here’s a bit of good news – according to the CFPB’s most recent biennial analysis of the consumer credit card market, the percentage of credit card customers who are fully paying off their monthly balances has been increasing steadily, up from 36% in 2015 to 44% in 2022. Conversely, the percentage of cardholders who are…

3 Fintech News Stories #1: Landlord Now Pay Later (LNPL) What happened? A proptech platform emerged from stealth and raised some equity and debt capital: Downpayments, a real estate fintech startup, is emerging from stealth today with the mission of helping investors purchase new properties with interest-free down payments. Downpayments has secured $31.8 million in…