• Robinhood is launching in the U.K., marking the company’s first international launch.
• General availability for U.K. users will roll out in early 2024.
• Company CEO and Co-founder Vlad Tenev called the U.K. an ideal place to launch its first international brokerage product because the region is a hub for innovation, global finance, and top tech talent.

Stock brokerage app Robinhood is making its first geographical move– 10 years after first entering the market in 2013. The California-based company announced today it has launched its brokerage services in the U.K.

The move means that Robinhood’s U.K. customers will be able to use the platform to trade more than 6,000 U.S.-listed stocks and American Depositary Receipts, including TSLA, AMZN, and AAPL. Launching today, Robinhood’s U.K. platform will offer trading with no account minimums, no foreign exchange fees, and will allow customers to trade outside market hours via Robinhood 24 Hour Market. Additionally, investors who pay $5 per month for Robinhood Gold will earn 5% AER on uninvested cash that they hold on the platform.

Minister for Investment Lord Johnson said that he is “delighted” that Robinhood selected the U.K. as its first international brokerage market.

Robinhood’s expansion overseas is an important step forward for the company, which states that its mission is to democratize finance for all– including those in other geographies. “Since we launched Robinhood a decade ago, it’s always been our vision to expand internationally,” explained Robinhood CEO and Co-founder Vlad Tenev. “As a hub for innovation, global finance and top tech talent, the United Kingdom is an ideal place for us to launch our first international brokerage product.”

Starting today, U.K. residents can sign up on the waitlist for early access to Robinhood. The company plans to roll out general availability in early 2024.

With 23 million U.S. users, Robinhood offers stocks, ETFs, options trading, crypto trading, and a debit card that helps users invest as they spend. Earlier this year, the company acquired credit card company X1, stating that the purchase will one day help the company offer its customers access to credit. Offering credit will also help Robinhood compete with its closest U.S. competitor, Acorns, which currently does not offer any credit products.

Photo by Andrew Neel

• Raisin is launching in Poland today, a new geography for the Germany-based fintech.
• Raisin will offer Polish users access to savings products at its network of European banks.
• HoistSpar is the first bank to join Raisin’s Polish platform.

Germany-based savings and investment product marketplace Raisin announced today it is launching in Poland. The company will leverage its cross-border savings technology and online marketplace to help Polish savers benefit from its network of European banks.

“Raisin’s platform in Poland aims to enhance the competition within the savings sector of the economy by broadening choice and eliminating barriers to access good deals from across the European Economic Area, all in one place,” said Raisin CEO and Cofounder Tamaz Georgadze. “We aim to make deposits more accessible to regular people, leveraging the full value of the European deposit market and ultimately increasing their savings. We are excited to offer Polish consumers the opportunity to earn higher interest on their savings.”

Fueling today’s launch is an ongoing partnership between Raisin Bank of Frankfurt and the pan-European fintech Raisin. The partnership takes advantage of Raisin’s marketplace approach, which offers a range of deposit products to help customers save money by offering them more choices and the ability to move their money freely amongst savings products.

Poland is an ideal location for Raisin’s geographical expansion because it is plagued with inflation. Even though the total value of household savings in Poland exceeded $500 billion (2 trillion zloty) for the first time, the country’s high inflation has limited the actual value of those investments.

HoistSpar is the first bank to join Raisin’s Polish platform. Headquartered in Sweden, the bank offers deposit accounts in its home country, Germany, Poland, and the U.K. At launch, new customers can benefit from fixed-term deposit products that pay up to 5.80%.

Raisin was founded in 2012 and built Raisin DS, a group formed by a merger of fintechs companies, in 2019. Raisin Deposit Solutions was launched in 2021.

With $305 million, Raisin currently serves over one million customers with its savings, investment, and pension products. Earlier this fall, Raisin surpassed $55 billion (€50 billion) in assets under administration and announced it has generated over $1.01 billion (€1 billion) in interest for its customers worldwide.

• Bold Commerce will offer its merchant clients a pay by bank solution, thanks to a partnership with open banking innovator Link Money.
• When consumers pay using their bank account, merchants avoid credit card processing fees and experience reduced fraud.
• There has been an uptick in pay by bank activity in fintech in recent months, with J.P. Morgan and Adyen both announcing plans to offer the new payment method.

Ecommerce checkout innovator Bold Commerce announced recently it is offering its merchant clients a new way to pay. The Canada-based company has tapped open banking technology company Link Money to help its merchant clients offer more payment options in the checkout experience for their end customers.

Specifically, merchants using Bold Commerce’s checkout tools can take advantage of Link Money’s Pay by Bank solution, which offers consumers an alternative to credit card payments and helps businesses reduce payment processing fees, credit card fraud, and provides guaranteed funds at checkout.

“Every shopper has their preferred payment method among the wide range of options available to them—from Buy Now, Pay Later to digital wallets, credit cards, and account-to-account payments—and they won’t hesitate to leave a product behind if their preferred method isn’t available,” said Bold Commerce CEO Peter Karpas. “It’s why we’re hyperfocused on diversifying the payment options we offer to brands, so they can personalize checkout for individual shoppers down to payment. Adding Link Money’s Pay by Bank solution to our repertoire rounds out these offerings.”

To keep the user experience simple, Link Money’s Pay by Bank leverages open banking, connecting to 3,400 banks across the U.S. Once the shopper selects and signs into their bank, they choose the account they’d like to use for the purchase and initiate the payment.

Link Money, also known as Link Financial Technologies, was founded in 2021. In addition to offering Pay by Bank, the California-based company also offers AccountVerify a verification solution to help merchants ensure that their customers are connecting real bank accounts. The company has raised $30 million and recently named Eric Shoykhet CEO.

With its potential to negate the fees and fraud that come with credit card payments, pay by bank has seen an uptick in popularity lately. Last month, J.P. Morgan disclosed it was leveraging Mastercard to provide billers with the ability to allow their customers to pay bills directly from their bank account. Days after that announcement, Adyen unveiled that it is teaming up with Plaid to launch its pay by bank services in North America early next year.

Photo by fauxels

Acorns is expanding beyond automated savings and investing this week. The California-based company announced the launch of the Mighty Oak Debit Card in partnership with actor Dwayne Johnson.

The new metal payment card is issued by Lincoln Savings Bank or nbkc bank and offers cardholders a few unique features. Not surprisingly, the Mighty Oak Debit Card allows users to round up their purchases to the nearest dollar and invest the spare change with the Real-Time Round-Ups feature. The card also offers paycheck split, which automatically saves and invests a portion of every paycheck on payday.

The card, which doesn’t have any minimum deposit or balance requirements, pays users 3.00% APY on their checking accounts and 5.00% APY on their savings. Users will also have access to Acorns Later, the fintech’s IRA retirement savings tool, as well as investment rewards earned on everyday purchases and access to 55,000 fee-free ATMs.

Dwayne Johnson is not only a celebrity sponsor, but he is also an investor in Acorns Grow Incorporated and is a director of its affiliate Acorns Labs, LLC.

“I’m personally invested in helping and rooting for people to achieve financial stability and success,” said Johnson. “I’ve worked with Acorns to create a one of a kind card that makes it easy for people to prioritize saving and investing so they can build a solid foundation for their future. I’ve been there, and know what it’s like to count every dollar and save every cent possible to provide for my family and myself. I wish I had the Mighty Oak card back in the struggling and fun days when I had only $7 bucks in my pocket, which is why I helped create this card now to empower people to take control of their financial well-being.”

The Mighty Oak Debit Card is available starting today for users in the $5 per month and $9 per month subscription tiers. Acorns is promoting the card by giving away $50,000 to seven cardholders.

Photo by Yulia Ilina

• BMO has launched a Real Financial Progress Hub.
• The bank uses the hub to guide customers through financial topics and recommend products.
• The launch comes after two standalone PFM tools have recently shut down.

BMO revealed this week it has launched personal financial management tools for its clients. The digital resource, called the Real Financial Progress Hub, will offer personal finance advice, tools, and resources to help customers reach their financial goals.

“For the first time, our customers can explore any financial goal and even multiple goals at once – whether it’s budgeting, saving, homebuying, retiring, building credit and more – from one easy-to-navigate digital platform. We have brought all of our personal finance resources into one convenient spot to make financial progress easier,” said BMO Head of U.S. Customer Strategy Paul Dilda. “As we welcome new customers across the Western United States to BMO, we are proud to bring them our innovative products and services that were built with customers’ progress in mind.”

Among the tools available are expense management education, monthly expense tracking, advice for planning larger purchases, and tools to help users understand credit. The Real Financial Progress Hub offers BMO a channel to promote its own accounts, products, and services to less financially savvy customers while acting as a financial guide.

The launch comes at an interesting time. Two independent PFM sites have shut down so far this month, indicating a lack of consumer interest for standalone budgeting tools.

However, just because consumers don’t want to think about budgeting, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. Consumers are digging into their savings are leveraging credit at higher rates than before, and according to CNBC, Gen Z consumers are less into retiring early and more into what they call “soft saving.”

BMO’s free tool is currently live and available to its digital banking users.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

• OakNorth announced the Beta launch of its business banking tools to serve medium-sized businesses.
• The neobank is taking a high-touch approach by assigning an OakNorth team member to understand each client’s business and bring them the specific set of tools they need.
• OakNorth calls itself, “the neobank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.”

U.K.-based neobank OakNorth announced the Beta launch of its business banking offering this week. The tools are specifically aimed to serve mid-sized businesses in sectors that traditional lenders often overlook.

With its current offerings, OakNorth underwrites risk on these underserved businesses by leveraging commercial loan data that covers over 270 industries. This data-driven approach allows the company to serve a wider range of sectors and subsectors than traditional banks tend to serve.

OakNorth’s new business banking tools target the underserved group with a high-touch approach that will offer a simplified list of products and services suited to each business’ needs. To do this, the company will assign an OakNorth employee to engage with a business’ founders, CFOs, CEOs, and directors to understand their business and assess features that best suit the client. The aim of this approach is to eliminate noise caused by irrelevant products and features while offering the ability to scale as the business grows.

“OakNorth’s mission is to serve and empower businesses in the Missing Middle, ensuring each and every one of them has the right tools, insights, and support at every stage of their growth journey with us,” said OakNorth Co-founder and CEO Rishi Khosla. “We know from the last eight years of serving our customers that they don’t feel their banking needs are being met by incumbents or other neobanks. They continue to be overlooked and underserved, despite the significant contribution they make to the economy and local communities in terms of productivity, innovation, job creation, and GDP growth. Given ongoing economic challenges, it is essential that these businesses have the right banking partner to support them, and we are excited to step up to fill this need.”

OakNorth was launched in 2015 and calls itself, “the neobank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.” The U.K.-based company has raised $1 billion across nine rounds of funding. OakNorth’s most recent equity round took place in 2019 when it received $440 million in a round led by Softbank Vision Fund.

Photo by Pixabay