Banking Technology September 2021 issue out now
Cover story: expansion plans – how to achieve global growth efficiently.
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Do you love animals and wish there was a bank account for people like you? Or perhaps you are a musician and feel your banking needs are not met by the mainstream banks? Well, you are in luck! New fintechs keep popping up targeting niche audiences.
Sincere Financial, a Californian start-up, is offering debit cards for “pet parents”. The card is wrapped in pet-related rewards, covering things like pet food, vet bills, and rescue shelters. Sincere’s co-founder Robert Chi Yau had previously launched a dating website for pet owners.
Texas-based neobank Nerve, created specifically for English and Spanish-speaking musicians in the US, is gearing up for launch in mid-September. “The music business deserves music banking,” its founders state. Nerve’s mobile app “merges user experience and financial technologies to help artists build stronger communities and sustainable careers”.
In New York, there’s Maroo, a start-up on a missing to stop couples going into debt through trying to pay for their weddings. Users are offered a closed-end instalment loan product, provided by a Maroo banking partner, while wedding contractors are promised payment within a single business day.
Los Angeles-based Ensemble helps divorced parents co-manage their kids’ finances. An expense tracking app as its bare bones, it secured $3 million in seed funding this spring. Ensemble estimates there are 50 million divorced parents in the US, all relying mainly on text messages and spreadsheets to track shared expenses for their children.
Will these fly or flop? Time will tell. London-based StorkCard went into liquidation in June this year “due to difficulties in the seed fundraising landscape”. StorkCard launched in late 2019 with a debit card product to help parents “baby-proof” their savings. It offered a joint account called “StorkCard Village” for parents to coordinate child-related spending between them and child carers.
As always, there is lots more from the world of fintech on the pages of the magazine. And, as always, we hope you find this edition of Banking Technology interesting, informative and useful
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