Fintech

Almost exactly two years ago, we talked with Brendan Wallace, the co-founder of the property- and real estate tech-focused venture firm Fifth Wall, about a trip from which he'd just returned. His visit had been to Singapore, where he described scenes of masks and social distancing and explained

Things are getting worse at Better. More executives have resigned from Better.com nearly three months after the online mortgage lender laid off 900 employees via Zoom and as the company prepares for more layoffs, according to multiple sources familiar with the internal happenings at the company. Th

The UK’s cost of living crisis has been making grim headlines for months — with no respite in sight. Just this week, newspapers reported that inflation had hit 5.5%, a 30-year high, further pushing up prices for everyday essentials like food. Worse is yet to come as an energy price cap

A year ago, few knew the brand Bolt, a checkout technology company that was founded in 2014, nor its founder, Ryan Breslow, a seemingly archetypal Silicon Valley type: smart, strong-willed and a college dropout who left Stanford after only two years to start a company. Fast-forward to today and Bol

“Embedded commerce” started with things like PayPal and has evolved with products like Stripe, many years later. But “embedded finance” is appearing as a new wave in fintech, with the likes of Contis, Solaris, Swan and Stripe Treasury (not yet live in the EU). Indeed, you ma

Today after the bell, home rental giant Airbnb reported its Q4 2021 performance. Its numbers detail a company that endured an awful start to the COVID-19 era, survived, and has come out the other end of demand disruption in perhaps better health than it entered. The company’s profitability an

This morning Airbase, a startup in the corporate spend space, announced that it is working with Amex on a pilot that will see its service offered to certain customers of the credit giant. The deal also included a “strategic investment,” which technewss reads as a modestly sized check,

Open finance continues to be a significant theme in the world of fintech as businesses tap APIs to access customers' financial accounts and provide a gamut of integrated and embedded financial services. In the latest development, Stitch — one of the prominent players building and operating th

Utah-based proptech Homie has laid off one-third of its staff, according to reports. Hunter Richardson, former director of talent advisory and acquisition at Homie, posted on LinkedIn that he was among the one-third affected but declined to comment on his being let go. Homie was founded in 2015, an

Kenya's central bank has called on the public to share their views, before May 20th, on the possibility of adopting a digital currency, just one day after it emerged that Zambia is also testing its viability too. Nigeria became the first country in Africa to pilot its central bank digital curre

French startup Alma is trying to build a new “buy now, pay later” giant in Europe. The company has closed a $130 million Series C round (€115 million). It has also raised $109 million (€95 million) in debt financing. Tencent, GR Capital and Roosh Ventures are investing in the startup for th

Messenger is rolling out its “Split Payments” feature to all iOS and Android users in the United States, Meta announced on Wednesday. The company began testing the feature late last year as a way for users to share the cost of bills and expenses through the app. Meta sees the new featur

French startup Alan currently insures more than 270,000 people with its own health insurance contracts. The company is expanding its business in two different ways — it wants to offer more services to turn its insurance app into a health super app, and it is announcing today that it wants to sell

American Express has launched its first all-digital consumer checking account, the company announced on Tuesday. The new offering, American Express Rewards Checking, is currently available for eligible U.S. Consumer Card Members. The launch comes as the emergence of digital banking services is caus