Cross River Bank, the New Jersey-based bank behind fintechs like Affirm, Upgrade, and Upstart, announced that it created its own venture capital arm to invest in companies that “sit at the intersection of lending, payments, investing and fintech.”

Credit Sesame, a credit monitoring and personal finance management platform, announced that it acquired Zingo, a software firm whose toolset allows its customers to boost their credit scores by adding rent payments.

Pipe, a Miami-based company that lets companies sell their recurring revenue streams on its platform, raised $250M, bringing its valuation to $2B a year after its launch.

Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. V (IPOE), the Chamath Palihapitiya-linked special-purpose acquisition company, has outlined next steps for its merger with SoFi, a deal that will take the 10-year-old fintech public.

Argyle, a fintech startup that aspires to become the “Plaid for employment records” by offering consumers capabilities to grant permission to access their payroll data, is being scrutinized over its motives to collect payroll data and offering to pay consumers for access to login information.

Klarna, a Sweden-based ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) provider with global reach, is launching a program to help pandemic-affected U.S. businesses, which includes in-kind media services, and free BNPL offerings.

Walmart has tapped Citi executive Julia Unger as its vice president of financial services. Unger spent more than 18 years at Citi, most recently as head of global cards and unsecured lending.

In its second acquisition of this year, Fintech Acorns has acquired Pillar, a startup whose toolset functions like a robo-adviser that helps clients pay down their student loan debts. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Data aggregator Plaid, which earlier this year pulled away from a $5.3B deal to merge with Visa amid a Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust lawsuit, is in the process of securing further funding at a $13B valuation, a report citing unnamed sources claims.

Mint, one of the first personal finance aggregators, is updating its client experience and adding support for new offerings thanks to parent company Intuit’s Credit Karma acquisition and a new team.

This year’s SXSW Pitch finalists and alternates feature over 50 interactive technology companies from 8 different categories. These companies will virtually pitch and participate in a 5-minute Q&A with three judges as a part of SXSW Online.

This week, CCG Catalyst Consulting and the Arizona Bankers Association partnered to create the Arizona Fintech Council, an entity that will allow new opportunities for financial institutions and fintechs to work together and build proofs of concept as part of Arizona’s regulatory sandbox.

With 2021 starting off with prospects for the growth of embedded finance, or adding financial services into a range of new use cases (including non-financial ones), the fintech OG – personal finance tech companies – are growing, including Culver City, Calif.-based Albert.

This week, data aggregator Plaid launched FinRise, an incubator aimed at early-stage fintech founders from underrepresented (BIPOC) backgrounds.