We're back to the Interchange to take a look at the hottest fintech news of the past week. A dedicated fintech stage for the first time and dozens of Battlefield 200 companies in the fintech space were seen last week at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023. Christine even moderated a pitch session at Fintech! Mary Ann, however, was unable to make it because of a family issue - and after spending months leading the programming for the fintech stage, she was truly heartbroken. All was a resoning success, with the room so packed for the fireside chats and panels that people had to stand in the back to catch them. As of today, there were about 13,000 registered guests at the event, up from the previous year's 13,000.
One-on-one chats on the financial tech stage included Robinhood co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev, Plaid's founder Zach Perret, Checkout.com president and COO Céline Dufetel. The panel of bankers also looked at a post-Silicon Valley Bank world. In reality, SVB is still alive and kicking.
Here are the stories that summarize the highlights of those chats and panels.
Construction companies don't have to go through the process of calculating accounts payable data, thanks to MakersHub.
Bundl allows employees to choose their own company benefits.
This week I wrote about Truemed, a company that wants to put food in front of medicine.
Calley Means and Justin Mares started the payment integration firm last year to make it easy for consumers to pay for healthy food, exercise and supplements using their tax-free health savings accounts or flexible spending account dollars. And regulatory compliance.
Most patients need a written letter of medical necessity to use HSA or FSA dollars on items outside of procedures or medication. With telehealth laws, Truemed gathers certain data points and then seamlessly and asynchronously provides that letter without a doctor's visit.
About $140 billion is sitting in these accounts, mostly going unused, and the IRS increased the amount you can contribute to a health savings account to $4,150 for an individual and $8,300 for a family. This will enable people to more easily put these dollars to work.
The company launched this week with $3 billion of gross merchandise volume already gathered from businesses such as CrossFit, Magic Mind and Kos. It also received $3.5 million in SAFEs from investors, including functional medicine pioneer Mark Hyman and founders of Thrive Market, Eight Sleep and Levels.
I separately corresponded to Kevin Robertson, executive management director and chief revenue officer at HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank, about how HSA and FSA benefits are being used as a retention tool for tech companies.
A trend Robertson is seeing is that employers are increasingly matching pre-tax employee HSA and FSA contributions. There are also interest in doing more of what's called a lifestyle spending account, which is more popular in Canada currently.
LSAs aren't pre-tax dollars, but he notes that these accounts provide a more personalized benefit experience. An employer can designate these accounts to be utilized for pet care, spa treatments, and even fitness reimbursement.
In a tight labor market, more companies are enhancing their core benefit offerings to show themselves as an attractive place to work, Robertson said. Mercury said last week that it has transitioned from a seasonal, cohort-based program into an always-available platform, which features new tools, programs, and networks. Three years ago, Mercury Raise was launched as a program to help founders raise their seed or Series A rounds, according to TechCrunch. It added: read TechCrunch's latest coverage of Mercury here.
The CEO of Arc revealed a new account called Platinum, with its CEO telling TechCrunch over email: s the first and only operating account built on a bank partner. Over the last six months, we built this partnership in stealth, after receiving feedback from thousands of founders and boards that have been forced to choose between the security of the world's largest banks and the user experience & yield available exclusively via B2B Fintechs. Brex introduced what it described as a proactive assistant that gives every employee their own EA. Finance teams can expect increased productivity across the company, resulting in increased productivity. The stock market has been a tepid lately, as the company's stock has come in a sluggish direction. Does a management shake-up provide a needed jolt?
Solid faked revenue numbers, a special committee appointed to investigate, reveal the secrets of the faked revenue numbers.
Varo aims to replace Venmo, Cash App volume with new P2P feature.
As international expansion continues, Apple is launching Tap to Pay in Brazil.
Treasury Prime today announced the integration of Astra with Treasury Prime to bring real-time payment capabilities to customers.
As seen elsewhere, it's clear that they have not been able to improve on the already existing system on the market.
Flex secures $100M equity and $20M debt funding to build a one-stop-shop financial hub for SMBs.