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
The future of banking is being pushed by alternate financial startups, which operate outside of the typical banking infrastructure. Chime, which offers a debit, credit and savings account, aims to do this through a commitment to fee-free mobile banking. In the US, several technology companies are building financial platforms which do away with customer fees. Robinhood pioneered zero-commission stock trading and both Venmo and Square’s Cash App have made sending money to friends easy. Alongs...| Business of Apps
NuBank is the largest neobank in the world, with over 90 million customers in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. Built as an alternative bank without the extortionate fees Brazilian’s regularly faced, NuBank quickly drew a large community of unbanked customers. Co-founder David Vélez had worked as a partner at Sequoia Capital and co-founder Cristina Junqueira was previously employed by the largest bank in Brazil. In the first few years, NuBank struggled to meet the demand, with a waiting list of...| 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
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
Before Robinhood, anyone who wanted to invest in stocks would be charged between $5 to $10 a trade. They also needed to invest a minimum of $500 to open an account. Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt (co-founders) had previous experience building these systems and saw the extraneous costs as little more than gatekeeping people out of investing. “We are not setting any account minimums, which we think unlocks a market of investors who couldn’t do this before,” said Bhatt to CNBC at launch. ...| Business of Apps
In the late 90s, paying for things online still had a stigma attached to it. There wasn’t any assurance that goods would be delivered or that faulty payments would be recovered. It was wild west and PayPal was one of the first payment solutions to try and civilise it. PayPal was formed when two companies, Confinity and X.com, merged. Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, was CEO of this combined company for a time. As he would in the future, he zoned in on the vision of PayPal’s future and...| 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