As the year winds down, reflecting on fintech news' highs and lows is appropriate. 

2022 began well. Mega funding rounds continued and venture funding was plentiful. However, the second quarter changed things. Alongside with other crises, FTX collapsed has left a visible footprint on crypto market. But first, let’s have a look at positive stories – best partnerships, job moves, M&A deals, large funding rounds of unique startups that are transforming the whole fintech market in a number of different industries, including paytech and rapidly developing web3.

Here are top 10 stories that influenced whole fintech market in 2022.

Brex Reaches $12.3B Valuation and Hires Former Meta Executive as Head of Product. Brex raised $300 million in a Series D-2 round in the latest fintech megaround, raising its valuation to $12.3 billion. Moreover, Brex hired Meta (formerly Facebook) executive Karandeep Anand alongside the funding announcement. After leading Meta's business products group, which served over 200 million organisations, Anand was named chief product officer. Anand oversaw the Azure cloud and developer platform product management strategy for 15 years at Microsoft.

SoFi Technologies acquired Technisys for $1.1B. This all-stock purchase represented 10% of SoFi's market capitalization in February. SoFi now owns Technisys' main banking platform, which powers mobile banking apps, opens accounts, and tracks consumer deposits. SoFi is offering offer personalised financial services to its banking customers using Technisys. It will also allow other banks and FinTech companies to use the Latin American bank-dominated platform.

Global Payments acquired fellow paytech EVO Payments for $4B in August. Global Payments pays $34 for each EVO share, a 24% and 40% premium on its closing price and 60-day average price, respectively, in the $4bn purchase. By purchasing EVO Payments, Global Payments wanted to extend its targeted markets, leadership, presence in new and existing geographies, and B2B software and payment solutions with accounts receivable software with broad third-party acceptance with the acquisition. 

UBS' $1.4bn all-cash acquisition of automated wealth management business Wealthfront was a notable acquisition this year. This acquisition helped UBS grow in the US, access rich investors, and increase distribution. Wealthfront provides financial advice, banking, and investment management to millennial and Gen Z clients. It manages $27bn for 470,000 US clients. Wealthfront, along with remote human guidance, will form UBS's digital solution for affluent investors.

Ramp raised $759M in funding and reached $8.1B valuation. Given that Ramp only became a unicorn a year ago with a $115 million round, the impending decacorn valuation is fascinating. It raised $300 million at $3.9 billion last August. Ramp's finance automation tool saves thousands of organisations 3.3% and closes books 86% faster. Ramp, founded in 2019, powers the fastest-growing corporate card in America and facilitates billions of dollars of sales annually.

Other megarounds of this year include Acorns, Toss, Novicap, Stax, MFS Africa, Interswitch, Covalto, FinAccel, Lendbuzz, Nelo, Mineplex, TripActions, Step, Pie Insurance, Power, Liberis, AtoB, Neon, Capital on Tap, Cross River, ClearBank, Clara, Checkout.com, SpotOn, DailyPay, Flutterwave, GoCardless, Xendit, PayFit, Deserve, Capchase and many more. 

Looking back at the negative events of the year, we can assume that most of them were caused by the global recession, which will be still active in the year 2023. But fintech is not the only sphere that suffered – all industries should be able to adapt.

Klarna’s valuation fell from $46B to $6.5B. In July, Swedish buy now, pay later behemoth Klarna was allegedly close to signing a new funding round that will lower its worth to $6.5 billion, about 1/7 of its June 2021 estimate. Klarna, competing with publicly traded Affirm, is expanding into the US. Klarna reported in early June that its “U.S. customer base has increased by over 65%, reaching over 25 million consumers” in the past year. Klarna's big valuation decline lends new meaning to "down round." The entire BNPL (buy now, pay later) industry has been battered recently.

Stripe’s valuation fell by 28% in July. Stripe is the latest high-profile fintech startup to see its valuation drop as the market downturn hits the sector hard. The payments processor's share value has fallen 28% from $95 billion. Over the past months, fintech businesses, which were an exception to the previous market collapse due to their robust 2021 fundraising activities, have seen their fortunes reverse. Consumer-facing fintechs like Stripe may suffer from rising interest rates and concerns about consumer discretionary spending in a recession.

FTX collapse made large tokens sink at an unprecedented rate. FTX’s troubles have had a profound effect on the U.S. crypto market. Bitcoin's price dropped below $16,000 twice in November due to FTX's issues. On Nov. 9, Ethereum fell below $1,100. On Nov. 9, CoinDesk reported that Alameda held a lot of Solana, sending it below $13. On Nov. 13, Solana fell below $13, losing approximately $700 million in assets. On Nov. 10, Tether devalued by 3%. Thus, investing in cryptocurrency became dangerous. Diversifying your cryptocurrency holdings reduces risk.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and 14 other largest financial institutions were charged $1.1B to US regulators. In September, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) fined 16 of Wall Street's major financial organisations $1.1 billion for failing to supervise employee correspondence. Barclays Capital, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America will pay SEC recordkeeping law penalties. These companies' investment banking executives, equity, and debt traders have violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 by using unmonitored personal devices to discuss business.

Fintech spere faced with a row of layoffs. To be precise, Chime fired 12% of employees (160 individuals), Opendoor let go 18% of the staff (500 employees), Chargebee laid off 10%, Stripe fired 14%, Pleo let go 15%. Additionally, Credit Karma and Notarize fired some of its staff, too. Most of the CEOs of the abovementioned companies complained about an ‘uncertain environment’ within the global economic arena, which was definitely caused by the COVID-19 crisis and war. 

It was more than the aforementioned. Like other sectors, fintech venture dollars stagnated. In 2021 and 2022, meaningful companies with clear visions and goals survived. Fintech innovation, particularly for inclusion and access, is crucial. Many startups perform great things, and we can't allow the bad apples to ruin them. There is still a long way ahead, so we are excited for 2023 to come and bring better opportunities for young fintechs.

Happy New Year!