Klarna is going public

A follow-up on American Express's growth aspirations

Can Capital One challenge American Express?

Fintech rivalries to watch in 2025

Card payments in Europe are booming

On the European merchant acquiring landscape

On Adyen suiting up

The acquisitions that PayPal management doesn't talk about: PayPal spent $5.3 billion to acquire Zettle, Hyperwallet, and Paidy businesses, and now hardly mentions them on the earnings calls

What is going on at Square?: Square is lagging badly behind the competition in growth. Jack Dorsey’s return to the company might have something to do with it.

What Visa earnings really tell us: Can we draw any conclusions about the payments industry from Visa's financial results?

Why Discover is no American Express: American Express stock trades at much higher multiples than Discover. Here is my attempt to understand why.

Is Mr. Market wrong about Shift4?: Through their short history of being public companies, Shift4 has always been more profitable, but Toast has always enjoyed a higher valuation. What is the reason for that?

Coinbase’s quest to stay profitable throughout cycles: When Coinbase went public, Brian Armstrong floated an idea that in 5-10 years half of the company's revenue would come from non-trading fees. The goal was to stay profitable in the next crypto winter.

The opportunity behind Square Banking: Why did Square pick a fight with Chase and American Express?

A few reasons to be bullish on PayPal: If PayPal returns to double-digit growth, the stock will take off. This level of growth might come sooner than the market expects.

Are partnerships with big banks worth the effort?: Bill (NYSE: BILL) spent over a decade building partnerships with large banks, but has very little to show for it.

JPMorgan's leadership is not concerned with rising charge-off rates: JPMorgan’s credit card loan charge-offs surge to pre-pandemic highs, Visa finds growth in Europe, and Square lags competition

Why Cash App Pay is a big deal for Block: It's Cash App Pay, not lending, that will drive the next phase of Cash App's growth

On the moat of vertically integrated software businesses: Shopify might be making most of its revenue from payments, but it's the software component of its business, the Shopify commerce platform that gives it the right to win. Does Toast have the same moat?

On PayPal's strategic priorities and getting back to growth: PayPal might not have shocked anyone with their Innovation Day, but everything they launched was aligned with their strategic priorities. These priorities lay out the path to growth.

This is not the U.S. consumer who is helping Visa grow: Visa and Mastercard might be seeing the end of the secular growth trend in the U.S. But it is not the end of the world.

On American Express's growth aspiration: American Express might need to grow Card Member loans at unprecedented rates to deliver on the 10%+ revenue growth target they promised at 2022 Investor Day

On costly, but mostly hypothetical, settlement risk: Visa and Mastercard require card issuers to post billions in collateral to protect themselves from settlement risk. However, that settlement risk rarely materializes into losses for the schemes

Coinbase pursued FTX Europe acquisition: Coinbase pursued FTX Europe acquisition, Meta plans to expand WhatsApp payments to India, and Charles Schwab lowers its fixed-income ETF fees

S&P Global Assigns ‘BB-’ Rating to Nubank: S&P Global assigns a ‘BB-’ rating to Nubank, Apple launches Tap to Pay in Brazil, and Shift4 partners with Give Lively