As the year 2023 draws to a close, we look back at the top fintech stories of the year. Silicon Valley Bank’s demise seemed like a fintech narrative in that a slew of companies (including Brex, Arc, and Mercury) rushed to fill the void created by its demise. But it was a narrative that impacted various sectors, as well as entrepreneurs and investors. And one that is still going on.
Apple introduces savings accounts for Apple Card holders.
Ironically, one of 2023’s most notable stories concerned a tech behemoth rather than a startup. According to Romain Dillet, Apple announced in April that Apple Card members in the United States may start a savings account and receive income via an Apple savings account. Apple was providing a competitive APY of 4.15% at the time. The firm collaborated with Goldman Sachs to deliver the service, but by the end of the year, that arrangement had gone apart (as we predicted), and it was unclear who would take Goldman Sachs’ position.
According to the CFO of Mastercard, India’s UPI is a’very terrible experience’ for ecosystem members.
Another of the year’s most popular stories concerned a financial services behemoth rather than a startup. Manish Singh wrote about Mastercard’s CFO declaring that India’s UPI was “fantastic on many levels” but remained an “incredibly painful experience” for ecosystem participants who lost money as a consequence. The article highlighted concerns around the mobile payments rail, which handles over 10 billion transactions each month in a country with minimal card usage. 
Foreign WeChat Pay and Alipay users may shop cashless at Chinese shops.
Rita Liao reported in July that WeChat and Alipay, China’s two major mobile payment systems, had announced that overseas customers may now purchase at Chinese businesses by attaching their foreign credit cards, including Visa, Mastercard, and Discover. This was significant since it had previously been impossible for visitors to become cashless like natives. Using WeChat Pay and Alipay in China formerly required a local bank account, making it difficult for short-term tourists to utilize such payment options.
Visa pays $1 billion for the Brazilian financial company Pismo.
In late June, I reported that credit card giant Visa would acquire Brazilian payments infrastructure firm Pismo for $1 billion in cash in what was believed to be one of the year’s biggest fintech M&A transactions. The transaction was completed later in the year. According to reports, Visa was merely one of numerous corporations competing for the company, which was not looking to be purchased or even raise funds. Pismo’s acquisition by Visa was a type of triumph for the whole Latin American area, which witnessed a boom of global investors pouring funds into the region in 2021 and then a bit of a retreat the following year.
Slope has completed a $30 million venture round, with major involvement’ from Sam Altman.
People pay attention when Sam Altman is engaged in a project. Slope, a business-to-business payments network for enterprise organizations, concluded a $30 million investment round in late September, according to Christine Hall. It “included major participation from OpenAI’s Sam Altman.” Slope’s technology is built on order-to-cash workflow automation, which includes tools for checkout, customer and vendor risk assessment, payment reconciliation, and cash management.
Carta’s CEO contacts clients about negative news, informing them of the situation.
People like reading about other people’s blunders. In an effort to mitigate damage, Henry Ward, CEO of equity management startup Carta, wrote clients in October, informing them that if they were worried about “negative press” associated with the company, they could read a Medium post of his. As I and Eltrys Editor in Chief Connie Loizos observed, the move seemed to draw even more attention to the 11-year-old company’s many documented difficulties. An investor in Carta, which was recently awarded a post-money value of $7.4 billion in 2021 when it last secured institutional investment, even described Ward’s move as “weird.”
Robinhood has paid $95 million to purchase the credit card company X1.
In late June, Robinhood announced that it was purchasing X1, a no-fee credit card company, for $95 million in cash. X1, which provides an income-based credit card with benefits, has secured $62 million in venture capital investment. Why choose X1 above the numerous alternative credit card startups available? We think it was due to X1’s intentions to create a new trading platform that would allow its cardholders to purchase equities using earned reward points. Its CEO even mentioned Robinhood as a startup he hoped to compete with.
Vesey Ventures has raised $78 million in its first fund.
Three former managing directors of Amex Ventures’ new venture company, Vesey Ventures, announced the closing of a $78 million debut fund in early April. The firm’s three founding partners worked on investments in businesses such as Plaid, Stripe, Melio, and Trulioo while at Amex. The information that there was more funding available for early-stage fintech companies intrigued our readers. Bonus: We also performed a deeper dig into Apple’s fintech ambitions (described above) here.
Better.com goes public in a long-awaited SPAC.
We never imagined the day would come. Better.com, a digital mortgage lender, went public in August via a long-delayed SPAC. Nobody anticipated it to do well on its first public appearance. And it didn’t work. For a number of reasons that Alex Wilhelm and I explained here, the company’s management staff likely anticipated it wouldn’t do well, yet they went ahead regardless. The stock was trading at 63 cents as of December 20.
ZestMoney has been shut down.
Manish reported in mid-May that the founders of ZestMoney had resigned from the company. Many high-profile investors, including Goldman Sachs, formerly supported the Indian fintech’s capacity to underwrite small-ticket loans to first-time internet clients. Manish reported in December that ZestMoney was closing down after fruitless attempts to find a buyer. The Bengaluru-based business, which counts PayU, Quona, Zip, Omidyar Network, and Ribbit Capital among its investors, employs over 150 people and has raised more than $130 million in its eight-year history.
