Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech (formerly The Interchange)! I'm filling in for Mary Ann, who's on a much-deserved vacation. This week, we're taking a look at Griffin Bank getting its license ahead of some big companies, looking at Stripe's annual letter, some funding rounds, and more!
The big story
One of the highlights of the week was Griffin Bank in the UK, where the banking-as-a-service company managed to do something that even the region's most valuable fintech, Revolut, has not yet been able to do – obtain a banking license. Sure, as Mike Butcher wrote, banking licenses are hard to come by (it took Griffin a year), but Revolut has been talking about getting a banking license for the past three years.
Now that it has a banking licence, Griffin provides an integrated platform for fintech companies to deliver banking, payments and wealth solutions through automated compliance and integrated ledger. Most likely, the company will offer bank accounts to businesses rather than consumers.
Analysis of the week
Alex Wilhelm and I read Stripe's annual letter. Here are some things we thought were worth talking about:
The company's growth is impressive. Total payment volume has reached $1 trillion in 2023, with payment volume seen rising by 25%. However, if the company did, in fact, process precisely $1 trillion last year, that would imply $800 billion processed in 2022 and a $200 billion TPV gain in one year. At the size of Stripe, it's a great result. Stripe saw record startup foundings in 2023 despite a decline in venture capital activity last year. Not only that, but the payments infrastructure company also reported that these companies were 60% more likely to start collecting revenue within their first year, while 57% were more likely to process $1 million within their first year compared to those founded in 2019.
Dollars and cents
We have a new unicorn. Perfios, an India-based company that provides financial institutions with real-time data aggregation and analysis tools to help them streamline their customer journeys and make more informed decisions, has raised an $80 million funding round that has increased its valuation to more than $1 billion. The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan led the round. The company said it plans to go public next year.
Manish Singh also wrote about Indian digital payments app Paytm, which received a vital license it needed to survive and keep many of the app's core features going. This came one day before the company's banking unit was scheduled to halt operations on March 15 due to regulatory restrictions.
OpenMeter, a startup that has developed an open source platform that helps businesses track usage-based invoices more easily, has raised $3 million from Y Combinator, Haystack, and Sunflower Capital.
What else do we write?
Reddit's IPO could become a potential meme stock however the company chooses to set it up. In a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Reddit's IPO includes about 22 million shares, priced between $31 and $34. However, this could quickly become interesting since Reddit will allow members of its community to sell their shares immediately, rather than being subject to the usual lock-up agreements that typically prevent investors from selling shares for six months after an IPO.
Most mobile apps that require a subscription don't make money, according to an analysis by RevenueCat. Of the 29,000 apps it looked at, the company found that only 17.2% of apps would even reach $1,000 in monthly revenue, but after they reach that point, their potential for growth increases even more.
TikTok has expanded its Effect Creator Rewards monetization program to more regions and lowered its payout threshold. It is now present in 33 regions across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. The program rewards creators for the effects they make through TikTok's augmented reality development platform, Effect House. TikTok is also updating the program's payment model, as creators will now only receive rewards for effects used in public videos.
High interest titles
HSBC is hiring nearly 50 bankers to lend to startups in the United States
Green Dot to enable cash transactions for three more fintech companies
With fintech funding down 70%, here's what fintech leaders are worth now
Maxwell launches POS feature that provides customized workflow for lenders
JPMorgan sees mixed results from Silicon Valley push
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