FTX was one of the newer cryptocurrency platforms which have become wildly popular in 2021, with some pegging it as a key competitor to Coinbase in the retail investor market. Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang launched FTX in May 2019, two years after Bankman-Fried founded Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm which specialises in cryptocurrency. It offered derivatives, options, tokenised stocks, leveraged tokens and an NFT marketplace. It has also launched its own utility token, FTT, w...| Business of Apps
Starling Bank is one of the three main “challenger banks” in the U.K., which have made inroads into the banking ecosystem with fee-free services, no physical branches and alternative features. In comparison to Revolut and Monzo, Starling Bank has marketed itself as a proper banking institution, albeit without any physical branches. It has been named Britain’s Best Bank at the British Banking Awards four years in a row. Originally launched in 2014, Starling was the first of the three mai...| Business of Apps
N26 is one of a several neobanks that launched in the mid-2010s, which were aimed at breaking up the monotony of banking with well zero-fee services and well designed mobile apps. Founded in Munich as one of the many startups incubated by Rocket Internet, N26 originally operated as the frontend interface which was backed by Wirecard. In 2016, it received a banking license from the financial regulator in Germany to operate on its own. Since becoming a bank, N26 has added other services, such a...| Business of Apps
The financial sector has not been adverse to technology, however the monumental push by startups in the mid-2010s to disrupt financial sectors, spurred on by governments slackening regulations, forced established players to modernise its services to meet the demands of a new generation of customers. Everything from banking to investment to insurance has been modernised, utilising the power of the internet and mobile to improve speeds, reduce costs and improve customer service. In 2009, fintec...| Business of Apps
Like so many apps, Revolut was built with the intent purpose of fixing a personal issue. Nikolay Storonsky (co-founder and CEO) travelled a lot and was wasting hundreds of pounds on foreign transaction fees, which he understood as an employee at Credit Suisse to be ridiculously excessive. After failing to find a bank that would cover multiple currencies, Storonsky and Vladyslav Yatsenko (co-founder and CTO) left their jobs at Credit Suisse to solve this issue. They started working on Revolut ...| Business of Apps
Klarna is one of the leading fintech companies offering buy now, pay later services, which let consumers pay (BNPL) for things in a series of instalments instead of all upfront. Launched in Sweden in 2005, Klarna had intentions of being the Swedish PayPal, by making online payments simpler for the consumer and merchant. It was somewhat successful in this, but it wasn’t until it launched its BNPL feature in 2016 that Klarna gained international recognition and usage. BNPL is another form of ...| Business of Apps
Venmo started out in 2009 as a way for founders Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail to pay each other without having to exchange cash or write a cheque. The first prototype worked over SMS, Andrew and Iqram would send notes alongside the cash to keep track of payments. While SMS functionality died with the app launch in late 2010, the social element of Venmo remains one of the app’s core features. In early demos, Venmo founders proposed it as a way for musicians to sell songs and merchan...| Business of Apps
Challenger banks in the UK took flight in the mid-2010s, accelerated by legislation from the EU and UK government which welcomed new competition in the industry. In a two year period, Revolut, Starling and Monzo were launched, with an aim to win customers through better mobile experiences. At the time, mobile banking in the UK was a nightmare, some banks were still struggling with the web. Starling Bank was the first on the scene in the UK, launched in 2014. Tom Blomfield, the founder of Monz...| Business of Apps
The finance app industry is a multi-sector behemoth with thousands of businesses new and old trying to make financial processes easier on mobile. In the past decade, we have seen in the introduction of payments through near-field communication, commission-free stock trading, the birth of cryptocurrency and buy now, pay later apps. On top of that, many of the old financial institutions have integrated their systems onto mobile. Almost every bank has a mobile app nowadays, and has implemented n...| Business of Apps
Coinbase has led the way for cryptocurrency since its inception in 2012, as the largest exchange in the United States by volume. While known primarily as an exchange and storage service for Bitcoin, Coinbase also offers a wide range of other crypto and fiat currency exchanges. In a time before Bitcoin ballooned in value, Coinbase integrated its payment processing capabilities into Stripe, Braintree and PayPal, alongside merchant partnerships with Dell, Expedia and Time Inc. 2017 was seen as a...| Business of Apps
Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, responsible for several trillion dollar crypto volume every year. It was founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, who previously worked for Blockchain.info and as CTO of OKCoin. Launched in Hong Kong, it quickly became one of the leading exchanges, but from the get-go faced increasingly restrictive regulations which forced it to migrate servers and headquarters to Malta. Binance has one of the widest selections of alt-coins available on ...| Business of Apps
eBay is an e-commerce platform, at first only providing customer-to-customer auction services, expanding into business-to-consumer shortly afterwards. In the 2000’s, eBay went on a spending spree that saw it taking ownership of PayPal, Skype and Stubhub, although it has since relinquished ownership of all three businesses. It is one of the few success stories of the dot-com bubble, which eBay fought through after going public in September 1998. By 2001, it was considered the world’s larg...| Business of Apps
Among various Magento payment gateways, choosing the right one is essential to operate your online store smoothly. Let’s explore the top 7 candidates.| World’s #1 POS for Magento
Mobile payments apps are used by more than two billion people globally, with millions more coming online each year. In India, South-east Asia and South America, some of the younger generation skipped the usual process of owning a credit or debit card, in favour of using mobile apps. Adoption of mobile payments is weakest in developed nations, such as Germany and France, which are finding it hard to ditch cash and cards. Even in the United States, adoption rates trail developing nations by a c...| Business of Apps