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Why Toss Bank had a stellar Q3
Korean digital banks tend to be a cut above the industry standard, and Toss Bank is no exception. Leveraging the broader Toss super app’s 10 million monthly active users (MAU), the company has successfully integrated payments, stock trading, and lending, improving profitability and user engagement. While most tech companies outside China have struggled to build super apps,…
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Paytech deals drive Europe’s Q3 fintech funding
A recent Finch Capital report shows that paytech deals drove Europe’s fintech funding in the third quarter, which fell slightly from the April to June period. Overall, paytech startups raised €896 million the third quarter, up 117% from €413 million sequentially. A key third quarter paytech deal was XBO Ventures’ US$25 million strategic investment in Rapyd’s Series F round, which…
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Why is GXS Bank cutting 10% of its staff?
One of the brightest ideas (or not) of Southeast Asia’s early 2020s tech bubble was centralizing every digital service imaginable in a single smartphone app, a barely veiled attempt to replicate the success that China’s dominant platform companies enjoyed with this business model. Unsurprisingly, the results have been inconclusive because China is a unique market…
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Why The CBDC Fever Has Cooled In Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia has 11 countries with a combined population of 700 million people, including some of the world’s most dynamic markets for digital finance: Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. From mobile wallets to digital banks to cryptocurrency and CBDCs Southeast Asia is usually a few steps ahead of the rest of the world…
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Paytm’s remarkable comeback gains momentum
Paytm just might be that rare SoftBank bet that pays off big—even though the Japanese telecoms giant’s Vision Fund completed its exit from the Indian fintech sensation in Dec. 2024. While Paytm’s core financials continue to improve, its performance in capital markets (the stock is up 43% over the past year) is equally, if not…
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South Asia Fintech Heats Up Outside of India
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As one of Asia’s largest economies and a wellspring of digital financial innovation, India has long dominated the fintech industry in wider South Asia. Historically, neighboring countries have been slower to adopt digital financial technology. That is changing with the ascendancy of fintech in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and, to a lesser extent, Nepal. The payments segment…
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Klarna hops on the stablecoin bandwagon
If there was any doubt that the world is in the midst of a stablecoin craze – we hesitate to use that loaded term “bubble” – it should be dispelled by the recent launch of a stablecoin by buy now, pay later (BNPL) behemoth Klarna. In a news release, Klarna explains its rationale for the issuance of…
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Why the K Bank IPO is a crapshoot
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South Korean digital lender K Bank has been talking about an IPO for years, literally. Since 2022, the company has twice aborted plans to go public. In early November, it formally filed for a third time, aiming to go public in the first half of 2026 on the Korea Stock Exchange (KOSPI). Both the company and…
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Why A Grab GoTo Merger might be too little too late
The Southeast Asian super apps Grab and GoTo, long archrivals in some of the world’s most competitive digital services markets, are once again considering a Grab GoTo merger. In contrast to previous merger talks earlier in the decade, this time the discussions include a proposal to give the Indonesian sovereign wealth fund Danantara a minority…
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Why has Chime’s market cap fallen 50% since its IPO?
The June 2025 IPO of Chime, the biggest American digital bank, was a big deal. The San Francisco-based company priced its market debut at US$27 per share above the expected range, raising US$700 million at a valuation of US$11.6 billion. Chime’s arrival in public markets was long anticipated and helped thaw an erstwhile frozen fintech IPO pipeline. …
