The acquisition activity spooled up as young fintechs sucked up billions of dollars in venture capital, fueling their ambitions to grow and compete aggressively with incumbents. Digital new entrants were already roiling the industry before the COVID-19 pandemic showed up in 2020, but that deadly contagion further spurred an e-commerce evolution that contributed to the industry's expansion.
Payments companies saved up money in 2020 and plowed it into acquisitions last year, said Zach Spellman, who tracks deals for The Strawhecker Group. “There’s just a lot of build-up cash on hand that has led to many of these acquisitions,” Spellman said in a recent interview. And while it’s a sellers’ market at the moment, buyers generally haven’t been intimidated by higher prices, Spellman said.
Repay Holdings Corporation, a leading provider of vertically-integrated payment solutions, announced it has acquired Payix for up to $115 million. The acquisition was financed with cash on hand and available revolver capacity. REPAY also announced the upsizing of its revolver capacity by $60 million, increasing its existing $125 million Revolving Credit Facility to $185 million. Founded in 2016 and based in Fort Worth, Texas, Payix is a leading omni-channel payment technology platform providing solutions that facilitate payments, data exchange, and communication to support customer service and collection efforts in loan repayment verticals.
May require account to read. Financial services companies are looking to strengthen their technology plumbing in 2022 to improve current product offerings and launch new ones. This involves modernizing networks and tapping emerging technologies like edge computing and decentralized infrastructure, also known as Web3, technology leaders told the CIO Journal. Ally Financial Inc. said it is moving to route network traffic via software, allowing it to configure cloud and data center components remotely.
Los Angeles-based banking app Dave began trading on the Nasdaq on Thursday, becoming one of the first companies to close a SPAC merger and go public in 2022. At the opening price of $8.27, the fintech’s implied market cap was approximately $3.1 billion, according to SPAC Research data. Dave shares were lower by as much as 8% in early, light volume trading, with its market cap dipping below the $3 billion level. Dave ranked No. 26 on the 2020 CNBC Disruptor 50 list.
In 2021, fintech valuations became hard to fathom. The most striking illustration was the number of startups that saw huge valuation jumps in six months or less. Payroll startup Deel reached $1.3 billion in April, then $5.5 billion in October. Credit card company Ramp went from $1.6 billion to $3.9 billion over a similar time period. Online checkout startup Bolt raised money at $4 billion in July, announced a $6 billion valuation three months later, was seeking $11 billion just three weeks later (which it reportedly achieved) and then looking for $14 billion shortly after that.
May require account to read. Bitcoin could be worth $100,000 if investors accept the premise that it really is digital gold, according to a report by Goldman Sachs. At its current price around $46,800, Bitcoin has a market cap of $870 billion, compared with $2.6 trillion for gold held by the public for investment purposes, such as privately held bars and assets in exchange-traded funds. The publicly available float of Bitcoin is just under $700 billion, as a considerable amount of Bitcoin doesn’t trade, according to Goldman.
Norton 360, one of the most popular antivirus products on the market today, has installed a cryptocurrency mining program on its customers’ computers. Norton’s parent firm says the cloud-based service that activates the program and allows customers to profit from the scheme — in which the company keeps 15 percent of any currencies mined — is “opt-in,” meaning users have to agree to enable it. But many Norton users complain the mining program is difficult to remove, and reactions from longtime customers have ranged from unease and disbelief to, “Dude, where’s my crypto?”
China's central bank has launched its CBDC wallet app on the Android and Apple app stores as it gears up for the forthcoming Winter Olympics. In development since 2014, the Digital Yuan wallet has undergone extensive field testing across the country, with the pilot run handling transactions worth $5.34 billion as of June 2021. The central bank states that the CBDC had been used for over 70 million payments across more than 1.3 million scenario.
In recent years, there has been a growing number of startups trying to make credit more accessible to consumers. One such startup, Petal, announced today that it has raised a $140 million Series D round of funding. The company’s new valuation is $800 million — more than triple what Petal was valued at when it announced a $55 million Series C round in September of 2020, according to a source familiar with the transaction. Founded in 2016, New York-based Petal offers two Visa credit card products aimed at underserved consumers with little to no credit history.
Apple has reached yet another major milestone. The iPhone maker topped a market value of $3 trillion Monday — the first publicly traded company ever to be worth that much. Shares of Apple were briefly up about 3% to a new all-time high of $182.88, surpassing the $182.85 per share it needed to be worth $3 trillion. The stock later pulled back from that level. Apple's market value first crossed the $1 trillion threshold in August 2018 and passed $2 trillion in August 2020.
That’s according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), which recently predicted omicron will likely impact the economy and contribute to inflation. However, the association, which represents the retail industry, isn’t expecting the ongoing surge to cause shutdowns or slowdowns. “Even with the experience of the past two years, there is no model that can predict how the economy responds to a pandemic,” NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinheinz said. “What we have learned is that each successive variant has slowed down the economy, but that the degree of slowdown has been less.”
Restaurant operators' top 2022 investments will include mobile ordering and more drive-thru locations. That’s according to a study conducted by TD Bank, which found that the pandemic has permanently altered the consumer-restaurant relationship, with operators investing in technology and real estate to align with changing consumer preferences. Early in the pandemic, 72% of operators invested in delivery and mobile/online ordering to boost revenue during mandated stay-at-home orders, according to TD's 2021 Restaurant Franchise Pulse survey, and it appears the popularity of these offerings is here to stay.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ labor data from Nov. 2021 shows what the restaurant industry has long been experiencing: people are quitting foodservice in droves. According to the report released on Jan. 4, quit rates for the accommodation and foodservice industry has grown from 4.8% to 6.9% over the past year, a larger jump than any other sector listed. Despite the growing quit rate, hiring has largely remained stagnant over the past year, with restaurant industry hiring rates at 8.1% in both Nov. 2020 and Nov. 2021, while most other industries saw at least modest hiring growth.
Here’s a subscription to chow down on: Taco Bell’s new Taco Lover’s Pass is now available nationwide. For $10 a month, buy a pass on the fast-food chain’s mobile app to get 30 days of tacos at participating locations across the country. Pass prices vary by location and there's a choice of seven tacos each day. “There’s no better way to kick off 2022, especially Taco Bell’s 60th anniversary year, than by inviting our fans to enjoy our most iconic tacos every day for 30 days, all while underscoring our commitment to digital innovation and value,” Zipporah Allen, Taco Bell chief digital officer, said.
Scammers took home a record $14 billion in cryptocurrency in 2021, thanks in large part to the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms, according to new data from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. Losses from crypto-related crime rose 79% from a year earlier, driven by a spike in theft and scams. Scamming was the greatest form of cryptocurrency-based crime in 2021, followed by theft — most of which occurred through hacking of cryptocurrency businesses.
The Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance has shot down the proposed sale of Premier Bank in Omaha to an Iowa credit union. The agency formally denied the application submitted by the $395 million-asset Premier after the bank failed to provide evidence supporting the legality of the deal it had reached with the $8 billion-asset GreenState Credit Union in North Liberty, Iowa. “Premier has not carried its burden of proof in this proceeding to show that there is express power under federal law for a national bank to sell substantially all of its assets under the factual circumstances presented in this proceeding,” the agency said as part of the decision published Dec. 30.
The U.S. e-commerce website PulseTV recently disclosed a data security breach involving over 200,000 customer credit card details. In a notification letter shared with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, the company says that information provided during checkout - including customer's name, address, email address, payment card number, expiration date, and card security code, or CVV, has been compromised.
CVS, Citibank, Wal-Mart and other service-oriented companies that dominate the economy grew slower in December, a survey showed, just as omicron began to add fresh stress on a U.S. recovery still suffering from broad labor and supply shortages. The Institute for Supply Management’s services index dropped to 62% last month from a record 69.1% in November. Readings above 50% signal expansion and numbers above 60% are considered exceptional. “It’s still reflective of a very strong rate of growth,” said Anthony Nieves, chairman of the survey.
Minutes from the Federal Reserve’s December policy meeting underpin officials’ hawkish pivot and suggest earlier and faster rate increases in addition to a quicker start to normalizing the central bank’s massive balance sheet—itself a form of policy tightening. The meeting minutes, released Wednesday afternoon, follow the Dec. 15 meeting where policy makers signaled three rate increases this year and three the following year as inflation concerns deepened.
The U.S. economy saw another week with new jobless claims coming in below their pre-virus levels, as new claims averaged around 220,000 per week throughout 2019. And though claims came in slightly higher than expected, some economists had warned heading into the report that the timing of this week's data around the holidays might cause some additional distortions.
Corsair, a leading private equity firm targeting services, software, and payments investments in the financial services market, announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Aurora Payments (“Aurora” or “the Company”), a full-service payment solutions provider for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) across a variety of industries. Founded in 2005, Aurora offers a one-stop-shop solution for partners and merchants seeking to accept and receive electronic payments.
The acquisition of 80% of Axepta Italy, a significant bank acquirer in the country, and the set-up of a strategic partnership with BNL in Merchant Services in Italy are part of Worldline’s strategy to expand its presence across Europe through partnerships with leading financial institutions. It follows the acquisition of Handelsbanken’s card-acquiring activities in the Nordics, the acquisition of Cardlink and the agreement for the acquisition of Eurobank Merchant Acquiring activities in Greece.
Adyen, the global payments platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, announced the launch of mobile Android point of sale (POS) terminals in the EU, UK, and the United States. The devices represent a fundamental change in the role of the payment terminal, functioning as an all-in-one solution, eliminating the need for separate cash registers, barcode scanners, and customer-facing displays. Additionally, the terminals come with an app management system, allowing merchants to upload and manage the apps they use every day, for inventory management, loyalty programs, returns and more.
U.S. FinTech Stripe is getting ready for its launch in Israel with the opening of sales and support operations ahead of research and development, CTech reported Monday (Jan. 3). Former Salesforce regional vice president Arnon Barzilay was tapped to oversee the sales office in Israel, and is currently in the process of hiring local talent. “Excited to join Stripe, helping Israeli companies increase the GDP of the internet, while removing financial complexity,” Barzilay said in a LinkedIn post. “We work with financial institutions, regulators, payment networks, banks and consumer wallets so businesses who run on Stripe don’t have to.”
With the proliferation of immediate payments, one area resistant to change has been bill pay. But U.S. Bank is leading the industry, bringing the power of Real-Time Payments to the U.S. Bank consumer bill pay experience for the first time. U.S. Bank successfully completed a test of consumer bill payments using Request for Payment (RfP), an RTP® solution that is transforming how billers send and customers pay their bills. U.S. Bank will be one of the first financial institutions to bring this capability to the marketplace when it makes the service available to its millions of consumer bank customers in the first quarter of 2022.  
American Express Co. postponed its return to U.S. offices amid a surge in Covid-19 cases linked to the highly contagious omicron variant. The New York-based credit-card giant will give employees two weeks’ notice before it starts bringing a larger number of staffers back to its offices. The firm had previously said it intended to start bringing back employees beginning Jan. 24. “We have seen an exponential increase in the spread of the omicron variant across the world,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Squeri said in a memo Tuesday.
Nuvei Corporation the global payment technology partner of thriving brands, has announced its capability enhancement which enables international merchants to accept local payment methods in 10 Latin American countries in addition to international card schemes and alternative payment methods (APMs). The Company’s newly introduced solution will support local card schemes and alternative payment options, streamlining the setup needed to support local payment methods, while boosting acceptance rates.
Finexio, the fast-growing Accounts Payable (AP) Payments-as-a-Service company, announced the completion of its double over-subscribed $10 million funding in partnership with new investor Mendon Venture Partners that provided incremental growth capital to meet demand for digital AP business-to-business (B2B) payments services. Finexio is winning business from top financial institutions eager to provide modern, cloud-based B2B payments technology to meet customer demand for digital payments and lending as embedded finance becomes increasingly in demand.
BlueSnap announced the expansion of their Global Sales and Partnership team by welcoming Chris McNulty and Brent Godfrey. In his new Sales role, Chris McNulty will be responsible for overseeing the growth and development of the BlueSnap global sales team and Integrated Payments team. Chris brings 31 years of payments industry experience to BlueSnap and has held several key leadership positions. He has deep knowledge and experience in enterprise sales, as well as partner acquisition & development. Chris was most recently the Chief Revenue Officer of BillingTree, which sold to Repay for more than $500M.
SpotOn, a leading software and payments provider, announced the addition of three new executives in the roles of Chief Financial Officer, Chief People Officer and Chief Revenue Officer. The appointments come on the heels of more than 100% year-over-year growth in 2021, two major acquisitions, $425 Million in new funding at a valuation of $3.15 Billion, and the addition of hundreds of new employees to support customer demand.
iCheckGateway.com announced it has expanded its technology leadership team with several new hires: Jose Compton, Sanjeev Kuma, and Shashank Chauhan. “We are fortunate to have these experienced leaders join iCG, eager to continue to learn and grow with our rapidly expanding technology department,” said Jason Estes, CEO and President. “While we continue to strengthen our payment technology, we strive to hire the most qualified executive candidates to achieve our mission to edify businesses and empower consumers through payment education.”
