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Welcome to another episode of our Daily Fintech Podcast.
THE NEWS HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY IS
J.P. Morgan shared a first look at the early success of its multi-million dollar bet on launching a challenger bank in the UK. Chase, which only launched in September 2021, has already reached half a million UK customers according to figures published as part of the US banking giant’s 2022 investor day.
JUST IN:
Klarna is set to fire 10% of its employees amid a valuation crunch at the buy now, pay later giant. Klarna chief Sebastian Siemiatkowski broke the news to employees in a pre-recorded video message seen by Swedish tech site Breakit.
ALSO:
CaixaBank has launched a Visa card with Braille reading and writing code embedded for visually impaired customers. The new card, developed in partnership with Once and Visa, will initially be applied to CaixaBank's 'MyCard' Visa cards, and will soon be available for all types of cards issued by the bank: credit, debit, and prepaid cards.
FURTHERMORE,
UK challenger Atom bank is considering a Spac merger on the New York Stock Exchange at a valuation of $700 million. The mobile-only bank has been looking at prospects for an IPO after achieving its first monthly operating profit in June last year.
WHAT ARE THE LATEST INSIGHTS?
Elon Musk hints at super app and payment ambitions for Twitter. Musk called Tencent-owned WeChat a "good model" for a super app, noting that nothing like it exists outside of China. He said it's important for content creators to have revenue streams and that integrating payments into such an app, whether they're cryptocurrency or fiat, would be beneficial. Musk's pitch to investors to fund the acquisition involves bringing in as much as $15 million from a Twitter payments business in 2023.
AS FOR PARTNERSHIPS
Oslo-based Two is embedding open banking data in its checkout with the help of Yapily. Two’s payment flow can now instantly verify a buyer’s ID, check account information, and can use transaction data to conduct fraud analysis.
Sokin has teamed up with Mastercard to connect consumers in 39 new markets to payments services that are more open and transparent, removing the barriers that have historically hindered access and financial inclusion.