Hi Fintech Friends,
Welcome to part four of Signals. The point of Signals is to get you away from the headlines and to dig more deeply into the trendlines.
In this section of Signals, we track product launches by fintechs and financial services companies in Q4 of 2020.
Overall, there was an impressively furious rate of new product development over the last quarter of last year, with 112 total product launches. 66 of those came from fintechs and 46 from banks and financial services providers.
There were a range of product types launched at the end of last year, from which we can glean some interesting insights into where fintech is currently focused. Of the 66 fintech products launched in Q4, most generally fell into a few categories (making up about 50% of all launches):
1. Climate Products (3 launches)
TreeCard launched a wooden debit card with Ecosia, the search engine that plants trees.
Sugi launched a tool to let users check the carbon impact of their investments, released in the UK.
Stripe launched its Stripe Climate initiative. The first product from the group will let businesses automatically direct portions of their revenue to carbon-offset activities.
Treecard and Ecosia’s wooden debit card and affiliated mobile app with climate impact information.
2. Buy-Now-Pay-Later (5)
PayPal added a 3-month interest free loan to compete with Klarna in the UK.
Quadpay launched a BNPL Chrome extension for all online purchases.
QuickFee debuted BNPL for professional services appointments.
PrimaHealth Credit launched BNPL for elective health procedures.
Lunar added BNPL as a feature to its neobank.
QuadPay’s buy-now-pay-later Chrome extension plugs into any online checkout flow.
3. Crypto (4)
PayPal announced that cryptocurrency-based buy / sell / hold and pay features are coming to all its products.
Deel and Coinbase partnered to enable cryptocurrency payroll.
Blockfi and Coinbase each launched crypto rewards credit cards, with up to 4% back in a variety of currencies (both still at waitlist stage).
BlockFi’s bitcoin rewards credit card features.
4. Cards (10, including the three card launches mentioned above)
Monzo added a £50 metal card to its product offering.
DoorDash launched the Dasherdirect Visa card and banking app.
Yolt launched a spending account and card.
SoFi launched a credit-building credit card with financial health features.
ZenGo launched a non-custodial Visa debit card.
Cardless launched a new co-branded credit card platform with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Rocker launched a contactless fingerprint biometric debit card.
Rocker’s fingerprint contactless biometric card, launched with Idemia.
5. Employment Solutions (5)
Acorns and ZipRecruiter launched a job application site.
Clickswitch launched a verification of employment solution.
Deel launched a 30-day payroll advance and cryptocurrency payroll.
Revolut launched an early salary product in the UK.
Secure launched a platform for employers to provide employees with emergency savings accounts.
Secure’s employee emergency savings accounts.
6. Investing (3)
SoFi created an ETF that provides a weekly distribution every Friday.
Digit added roboadvisory and retirement features to its banking products.
Vestrata launched a wealth management platform.
Vestrata’s investor tools dashboard.
Banks and legacy financial services institutions did not lag far behind fintechs with new product launches in Q4 2020. As mentions of ‘fintech’ in bank earnings calls increased, there was a corresponding rise in the number of product launches from banks playing catch-up to startups. Overall, bank and financial services institutions launched 46 new products in Q4.
The most prolific were:
Banks
JP Morgan Chase (5 launches)
Chase First Banking, a feeless checking account for kids and teens that can be co-managed by parents.
QuickAccept, a combination mobile app and contactless card reader.
Onyx: JP Morgan’s crypto coin unit.
My Chase Plan, a buy-now-pay-later purchase option.
A commercial blockchain for intraday repo transactions.
Bank of America (3)
Life Plan, a PFM.
Micro-loans of up to $500 in increments of $100 for a flat $5 fee through its customer Balance Assist feature.
New APIs to support real-time data access in corporate treasury.
Santander’s PagoFX (2)
Low-cost transfers to India.
UK SMB transfer service; Belgium launch.
Icici Bank (2)
Mobile tap-to-pay installment payment plan.
Online company incorporation platform in India.
Citi (2)
‘True Name’ cards for transgender cardholders to reflect their genders via Mastercard.
Third-party fintech marketplace.
HSBC (2)
Global Money Account, a free mobile cross-border money transfer service to compete with platforms like Transferwise in 20 countries.
A financial literacy platform for kids, in partnership with Young Money.
Goldman (2)
Banking-as-a-service APIs.
A data management and governance platform with FINOS.
The UI for Chase First Banking, Chase’s new savings and financial management platform for kids.
Networks
Mastercard (2)
Account-to-account payments for Track Business.
A mobile wallet virtual card provisioning tool with TSYS.
Visa (2)
Tap to Phone to allow android phones to be used for accepting NFC payments.
A USDC merchant payment service with Circle (which went live this week).
American Express (2)
An Indian credit card with MobiKwik.
A Send & Split service to let its customers send money, split purchases and manage their expenses with PayPal and Venmo.
American Express’ joint venture with PayPal and Venmo to let users split purchases.
Central Banks
The Central Bank of Brazil (2)
An app to provide poor citizens free non-conditional cash transfers via instant payments.
The long-awaited PIX real-time payments platform.
The Central Bank of Iceland (1)
RTGS: a real-time payments and settlement platform.
A map of live real-time payment infrastructures globally, now including Iceland and Brazil.
